Growing up, when December rolled around my mom would decorate our mantle with a woodland scene. She would forage for greens with the four of us in tow, and then at home as she trimmed the branches and laid them out on the mantle, the smell of pine would fill the air. She would tuck her animal figurines in and on one end of the mantle she would place a Santa Claus candy jar. She filled this jar with sour balls, and we were allowed one each day in December which was a big deal. Around this time on the weekends, we would head around the corner to my grandparents’ house. They had purchased a color TV in one of those huge consoles. We would go over on Sunday nights to watch The Wonderful World of Disney in color. But most of the appeal in December was the bowl of ribbon candy that my grandparents had out on their side table. The ribbon candy, in every color of the rainbow, was so visually appealing in its perpetually coiled state. Those coils were accompanied by a whole array of candy pillows of various shapes and sizes begging to be eaten. And we did just that, like a swarm of locusts descending on our unsuspecting grandparents. Our hands were sticky as we returned home in time for bed.
Stay on the trail when hiking to avoid stepping on this native evergreen.
The holidays also meant that my mom would unearth her collection of Santa mugs and make huge batches of hot cocoa by heating milk on the stove top and adding Nestle’s Quick powder. There would always be lumps of undissolved chocolate floating on top resembling some archipelago. We would cover these with marshmallows, drink it up, and we had chocolate milk moustaches for the entire month. We liked it that way. But sooner or later our energy level would reach a crescendo, and my mom would load us into the station wagon and take us to the bird sanctuary to burn off some steam.
At the sanctuary, we would run down the hill and around the trails and end up deep within the property in a peaceful spot near two vernal pools. This spot was home to a large stand of princess pine. The diminutive plants looked like a tiny grove of pine trees peeking out from a new snowfall, and it was pretty idyllic. The plants are flowerless with branch-like leaves. They have spore cases arranged in a cone giving them a mini tree appearance. The princess pine or lycopodium is a primitive plant dating back to a couple of million years before the dinosaurs roamed the earth.
One year, I talked my mom into letting us dig up a clump and bring it back home for our mantle. It did not thrive at home, and I have felt bad about that since realizing it is a slow grower and on the list of endangered species in many states. Fortunately, all these decades later, I do see princess pine when I am in the sanctuary but it is the darndest thing. Every time I see it, I get a big hankering for a mug of cocoa and a bunch of ribbon candy. So, I guess Pavlov’s dog experiments are alive and well and an example that classical conditioning still exists, even in this geriatric body.