Welcome, everyone, to that weird in-between holiday period of time when Christmas is over but New Year's is approaching. It's a time when I never seem to know what day it is. It's an especially confusing time when your business is always writing like you're at least one or sometimes two or three days in the future as we have to do for the newspaper. Christmas and New Year's is great fun, but they throw schedules into turmoil and make me feel even less like I know what I'm doing than usual. 

In these times, it's nice to have some life-long traditions to help anchor you. One of those traditions for me is syrup candy. As a tiny tyke, I was always known as the picky eater of the family. I wouldn't partake of many of the delicious dishes my grandma ("Ma" to me), would prepare. But one thing Ma made that I would put a serious dent in was syrup candy. 

Being no cook myself, I have a hard time explaining exactly what it is. It's not quite taffy, although depending on the weather when it's made it can be quite chewy. Normally, however, it is a hard chunk of candy which ends up looking a little like a piece of Superman's Fortress of Solitude. Ma would pull the candy and then smash it into chunks, which meant the pieces were quite varied. You'd have some large chunks resembling a piece of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic that would barely fit in your mouth and then there'd be some whisper-thin pieces you could pick your teeth with. You could mix any flavor and color into the candy but Ma usually offered up pink and white. That is what Christmas tastes like to me. 

Ma had an old metal hook on the wall in her storage room where she would stretch the candy. She'd have to get it so hot to be able to stretch it that Christmas time often meant Ma had burnt hands and sore shoulders from pulling on it, but it was a sacrifice she happily made and which was greatly appreciated by family and neighbors. 

Ma has been gone for several years now but the tradition continues. My cousin, Kim Ray, inherited Ma's hook and recipe and she and her parents, my uncle and aunt, Delbert and Linda Ray, get together every year a few days before Christmas to keep Ma's tradition alive. They bring out a bag to my mom's house which I am always happy to help her eat. It tastes like Christmas and I appreciate them keeping that part of my childhood Christmas tradition alive even as so many other things change with the passage of time.

So, as we carry on through the hectic, schedule-confounding period that is the end of 2023, I hope you can find something to keep you grounded as well. The excitement of the holidays will be over all-too-soon and the normal grind will commence. I hope you all have a very happy New Year and we at the newspaper look forward to continuing to serve our readers in 2024.

Standard Managing Editor Seth Wright can be reached at editor@southernstandard.com