Be prepared for the holiday music blaring from televisions and radios even earlier this year. Will we rise to the call to ”buy and buy” in this atmosphere of economic depression felt by most every family in this country? Our minister has already offered a workshop on how to overcome the holiday hype and have a more peaceful season.

I pondered this as I decided to prepare for the holidays. Even though I can’t stir up huge batches of cookies and fruitcake anymore I decided to use my husband’s fruit cake recipe one more time. As all you cooks know, it takes a month for a fruitcake to steep in brandy before it is ready for tasting. Now I am in a real quandary about this because I am a teetotaler.

I have a miniature Women’s Christian Temperance Union pin that I got as a child if I promised never to touch evil drink. Would eating fruit cake, which had been wrapped in cloth soaked in brandy, disqualify me from keeping my temperance pledge?

Not knowing exactly how to respond to my thoughts about this, I decided to put my anxiety on the back burner and go for it. I got out the Norman Kunkel Family Recipe pamphlet which contains the Norman Kunkel fruit cake recipe. What an exotic list of ingredients.

Dried fruit of all kinds-- currants, raisins, dates, citron, mixed fruit, red and green cherries, and pineapple. Then there were spices that I rarely use such as allspice and mace. (Mace sounds menacing doesn’t it if you remember what a medieval mace could do to the skull.)

Can you believe that I actually located most all of the ingredients missing from my cupboard and spice rack at a local supermarket? All except the brandy. I looked all around the wine section and could only find cooking sherry and then of course realized that brandy could only be purchased at the liquor store. Darn.

I didn’t want to be seen in a liquor store with my miniature WCTU pin still in my collection so I crept in and whispered, “Where is the brandy?” Luckily I met no one that I knew as I reached down to pick out apricot brandy and slip it onto the counter. I couldn’t believe that this small bottle cost almost $8. And as I am a hyper, speaking my thoughts out loud, I grumbled about the high cost of liquor as I picked up my purchase in its brown bag. At that moment a fellow who looked as if he might be needing a morning-after drink plunked down his bottle of cheap wine just as I picked up my bag of brandy. I slunk out of the store and drove off as quickly as I could get my car into gear.

My family and friends, some of whom believed the bad press that fruit cakes got some years ago, would probably think I was paying too much for fruit cake ingredients. It mounted up to over $20 for each cake. Wow.

Now to decide who would have the honor of receiving one thin slice of this special delicacy after it had steeped for its month in a cool, dark place. Don’t worry. I remember who has told me that they relish home-made fruitcake. They will be offered a precious taste of it after I take the cake out of its brandy wrapping and wield my sharp knife capable of cutting a very thin slice. I might even duplicate the Norman Kunkel Family Recipes and send them to grandchildren who didn’t get a copy some years ago.

Someone might even make a fruitcake next year and send me a slice.

Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer who can be reached at gnkunkel@comcast.net or 206-935-8663.