Tradition Keeps Family on Track for the Holiday

Almost every family has its holiday traditions.

Some gather around the hearth and sing carols. Others assemble in the kitchen and make sweet tamales or Japanese rice cakes.

A few just dig into their closets for that heirloom fruitcake or bottle of almond-marsala wine and mail it to the next deserving relative.

For nearly 20 years, the Graham family of Thousand Oaks has opened its Campbell Avenue home to scores of visitors who spend a morning each December crafting foot-long trains from candy and powdered sugar.

“I got one as a gift and then I started making them and giving them away,” said Pat Graham, a hairdresser who organizes the annual family ritual.

“A lot of people are doing it on their own now,” added her husband, Chuck. “They’ve taken this tradition to their families, friends and communities.” It takes about $150 in candy and other supplies to make a dozen of the trains, which ride on frosting and licorice-whip tracks atop a foundation of cardboard and aluminum foil.

Each finished train is a gift to her visitors, and she’s never asked for a dime.

Graham and her family spend weeks dividing the candy into small portions that can be readily assembled into the trains, and crafting miniature Christmas trees, wheels and other details from sugar that make each finished project unique.

On Saturday, 35 children ages 3 and older furrowed their brows and licked their fingers in the Graham’s backyard while attempting to master the piping bag. The plastic bag, with a metal nozzle on one end, is used to squeeze the powdered sugar frosting that forms the tracks and bonds together the candy bars, gumdrops, kisses and other confections that make up the engine and each railroad car.

Most of the adults were Amgen employees invited by the Graham’s 26-year-old daughter, Bonnie Morgan, of Camarillo. Morgan has been assembling the trains since she was 12.

“My mom did it for me and my friends from soccer teams and other activities,” Morgan said. “All those kids are grown up now.”

Nine-year-old Peter O’Beirne of Thousand Oaks, who was carefully laying down the candy drops that serve as railroad ties, is also a seasoned train-maker.

“I’m an engineer. I know how to do it,” Peter said. “This is my fourth time.”

The children and their parents may spend hours making sure that everything about their trains is perfect, but the process of destruction is swift.

“Usually I’ll find a wheel or two missing, or part of the caboose,” said the Graham’s niece, Julie DeCoste, of Hawthorne, whose two daughters, Justine and Katelyn, look forward to the event every year.

“They beg me to eat it every day.”