Mormon ChristmasThe house; the table; the memories.
A holiday leaves a record in more than a photograph: the recipe written in the margin, the music remembered, the objects brought out, and the people who made a home of it.
There is room in the study of history for the household: how a table was set, what was cooked, what was read aloud, and which objects a family chose to keep.
This publication joins that interest in ordinary evidence to the pleasures of hospitality, collecting, gardening, and the home.
Open the household notebook.
At the table
A useful record of a holiday meal preserves the menu and the recipe as well as the occasion. Date a handwritten recipe, identify its author when known, and retain the changes made by later cooks. A family’s revisions can be as revealing as the first version.
Menus, table photographs, china, silver, linens, and serving pieces describe the material setting. They also remind us that hospitality depended on somebody’s labor: planning, preparation, cooking, serving, and clearing the table.
The things brought out each year
Record who made or acquired an ornament, when it entered the household, and the story attached to it. An inherited object, a recent purchase, and a reproduction can all have a place in family memory; their histories should remain distinguishable.
A photograph of an object is more useful when accompanied by its dimensions, materials, condition, and the words of the person who remembers it.
Music, books, and recollection
Keep the title and edition of a book beside the memory of reading it. Identify a musical recording or printed arrangement rather than preserving only the name of a familiar song. Written recollections should retain the speaker’s name and the date of the account.
These details allow a later reader to distinguish the tradition itself from the way a particular household observed it.
The historian as host
John Hajicek’s professional life began in hospitality. His experience included the Playboy Resort at Lake Geneva, the Marc Plaza, and Hyatt Regency hotels in Milwaukee, Tampa, and Kansas City. He managed Tampa’s Tobacco Company from 1985 to 1988, became director of restaurants at the Harbour Island Hotel in 1988, and also worked as a sommelier.
That practical education remains present in his interests in food, furniture, gardening, and a well-appointed home. He brings a collector’s attention to the objects around a table and a historian’s curiosity to the recollections that accompany them. His house combines modern art and furniture with original books and artifacts; the garden is part of its everyday life.