Season's Greetings Friends,

It's almost Christmas. Can you smell the memories? I remember as a child our kitchen filling with the scent of fresh baked Christmas cookies and candies.

Around these parts, any memory of holiday kitchen magic is likely to feature Mother May Ellis. A matriarch of the family, she's the inspiration behind our famous pecan pie recipe. But to hear Mother May tell it, there's something better than pecan pies:

"During the war, sugar was rationed. People saved their sugar to make divinity. It was that important," she said.

"Divinity is a wonderful Christmas tradition. I've been making divinity and fudge since I was a little girl. There is nothing more special than sharing these with family and friends."

If you're fortunate to have a cook like Mother May in your home, order our pecan pieces or whole nuts by the pound. If not, there's always Priester's:

• Pecan divinity
• Pecan fudge