Swing Low Sweet Sweet

Every year on the 1st of Dec our Christmas novena would begin. An appendage after the daily rosary invoking God's blessings on us thru the soon to be born Christ child. We were'nt happy about the extra prayers time but it let us know that Christmas time was 'a coming.
The marzipan and milkcream forms, the kul kul rollers, the cookie cutters, the tartlet cases, the baby Belling oven, the rolling pins and boards, the kitchen weighing scales, would all be taken down from the topmost cupboard shelves where they rested for most of the year. Mummy's hand written recipe book which held the only perfect recipe for gram sweet in the world would be dusted out. Once again we'd be told about how in the days before kul kul rollers combs would be used to roll the kul kul's out on. New ones we hoped. The purchase department [ Mum ] would have done the necessary invoicing with the treasury [ Dad] and the stores would have enough cashews, almonds, dates, food colors, flours [ yes all kinds gram flour, maida etc. etc. etc. ] Baking trays and butter paper , tissues with Santa or Christmas tree images , paper plates and paper boxes in green and red would be piled high onto the top of Godrej so that nobody sat on them by mistake.
Production would begin. Marzipan had to be stirred clock wise only. From the inside out, like a Well of Death rider . When it did'nt stick to the spoon it was ready. So we frequently checked for readiness holding the spoon just outside the hundi. When it dripped onto the side of the stove our fingers would transport it into our mouths and us to Christmas sweet heaven. There was a special spoon and a special hundi for the marzipan. How else could you keep it whiter than white? In fact there were special hundis for almost every sweet. Lumps of kul kul dough were allocated for rolling. Dates and plums for deseeding. There was the MIA factor . Kul kul dough in the process of being transformed from dough to tightly rolled kulkuls would decrease in mass. Out of 100 dates to be deseeded 20 would be missing in action. If you were caught with the date in your pretending to be empty mouth you got a whack with the belan . Ok rolling pin. When the cake batter had to be transfered from mixing bowl to baking tray it was amazing how much would stick to the sides of the bowl . You have no idea about how tasty raw cake dough is. All of these raw materials would soon make their magical transformation from dried fruits and raw mixes to date rolls, marzipans, coconut tartlets, neoris, milk cream , gram sweet , jujubes, marshmellows, and cakes both fruity and nutty.
They'd go straight to the top of the Godrej ' which was getting crowded. But you needed a chair to reach it and dragging a chair out even if you and brother and sister carried it as delicately as Our Lady of Fatima's statue your Mother heard the air around the Godrej move. So you were doomed to wait until Christmas day before marzipan became sucrose for your growing body.