A Christmas Memory

The fruitcakes are densely symbolic. For Buddy, they symbolize Christmas itself, as his friend’s annual pronouncement that “it’s fruitcake weather!” is what “inaugurat[es] the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart” (5). Rich, decadent, full of “oh, so much flour, butter, so many eggs, spices, flavorings” (7), the fruitcakes are an extravagant celebration of the Christmas season.

However, the fruitcakes also physically represent his friend’s enduring determination, generosity, and desire for community. The story gradually reveals that Buddy’s friend leads a very circumscribed life, with her choices and actions limited both by her status as an older unmarried woman and by her family’s scapegoating and stinginess; she has little money, no means of transportation, few possessions, and receives no encouragement from her relatives. Yet through determination and “imagination,” she conjures 31 fruitcakes to celebrate Christmas; the fruitcakes symbolize her ability to transcend and perhaps even rebel against these familial and social limitations.

For Buddy and his friend, the fruitcakes further symbolize their desire for a more supportive network of “friends” outside of the control of their relatives. Buddy and his friend create an alternative community for themselves by gifting these fruitcakes to whomever they like, including “merest acquaintances.