In times past it seems Christmas was a lot simpler, while at the same time a little more beautiful. I guess at a certain age you think that about most things. During my childhood, in a small southern town not far from here, Christmas was celebrated at our small churches with Christmas cantatas, Sunday School parties, and the fact that little old ladies would travel over a town or two in order to not be seen by anyone they knew at the liquor store while they bought brandy or other such spirits to make fruit cakes and rum cake.

I still find great joy in how many of us in the South will hide the liquor purchases in brown bags or even liquor boxes — like we don’t know where that came from Margaret!

One memory of Christmas past is twofold. In some way shape or form I ended up in the choir when I was in the very early stages of young adulthood. Well, we had a particularly wonderful Christmas Eve service that year at Social Circle United Methodist, no doubt due to my voice (yes, I grew up Methodist and my lovely bride of more than 25 years was raised Southern Baptist). Afterward we always had dinner at my parents’ house. Back then, and God bless her, my mother would cook dinner for more than 25 to even 30 people on Christmas Eve because we would have both families and many friends over. My mother used to love to entertain, and in so doing she had found these massive white China plates used by fancy buffets I bet across the width and breadth of the Southland. Now the family knew this, and we planned accordingly. However, our youth minister at the time, the now Rev. ohn Moeller, did not. He proceeded to pile beef tenderloin, turkey, company potatoes, green beans, rolls, all sorts of congealed salads and such on that massive plate. Afterward we found him sitting on the stairs in the hall moaning and saying he didn’t realize those plates were so much bigger than his mom’s!

I’m proud to say John is still a friend of mine and someone with whom I still hold many great memories with.

Now, if you read all that you might wonder what company potatoes are. Well, I am here to tell you it is a creation so wonderful and so rich and delicious as to not really be of this earth. In my family we hoard recipes and stories like some people do toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Company potatoes are the side dish that my very best friend Virgil Brown’s wife, Dianne, brought to their first holiday celebration at our house. I have no idea what her family called or calls it, but ever since, in the Pressley household it has been known as company potatoes. The recipe calls for either real mashed potatoes or the preboiled ones in the grocery store, salt and pepper, sour cream, butter, cream cheese, and cheddar cheese spread across the top to melt into the very soul of a southern man. All this happiness is placed in a casserole dish and baked in the oven.

Virgil was the man who taught me to love coon hounds, Irish coffee, and the quiet cold nights of winter spent listening to a good dog trail. Sometimes the best memories are intertwined with the most missing you can do. I still wish I could talk to him about my kids, my struggles with work, or my writing for you people. But cancer took him from us more than 20 years ago. However, very few holidays pass in our family without company potatoes being on the table.

Merry Christmas, y’all!

—Outdoors columnist James Pressley can be reached at jameskpressley@gmail.com .