Growing up in Florida we usually had warm weather for the Christmas holidays. We still sang ‘Frosty the Snowman’ and ‘White Christmas,’ but we didn’t relate to the lyrics of those songs as much as our friends up North did.

Being raised in an extremely rural area on a cattle ranch, our family made up some of our own Christmas traditions that we dutifully repeated every year. Our mom and a couple of our aunts congregated in the kitchen each Christmas Eve to fry up cornbread to make stuffing for the Christmas turkey, along with delicious pies, cakes and cookies for the big day.