Carvel Ice Cream presents Santa Claus and Christmas Cookie Puss Cakes
It doesn’t make sense that a gravely voiced man talking about cakes should be so comforting, but if you grew up within the selling range of Carvel Ice Cream and its peculiarly voiced founder Tom Carvel (born Athanasios Karvelas), it just does. His commercials often ran in the markets you could buy his Ice Cream and not a holiday would go by where Mr. Carvel wasn’t selling an ice cream cake to celebrate a major holiday.
Not familiar? Well what was truly amazing about all of these cakes is that they apparently all used one of three molds, but with the right decoration, they could be turned into anything. All year-long, Fudgie the Whale was a sweet treat fixture, but when Xmas rolls around you turn that whale on his nose, paint it red and you got Santa Claus. Brilliant!
Nothing of course was as brilliant as Carvels most original creation, Cookie Puss. Created in the 1970s, Cookie Puss is a space alien (originally a “Celestial Person” who was born on planet Birthday). The great thing about ol’ CP is that he could be themed for any occasion, and he was, most famously for Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day (Cookie O’Puss).
Every Christmas season, we always made a trip to my Grandmother’s home. Usually the weekend before Christmas Eve, we would have a large meal and watch TV and have a grand time. Sometimes, but not all the time, my Grandmother would pick up a special dessert, and more often than not it was a Carvel Ice Cream cake. I cannot explain the excitement I would feel knowing that lurking in the way too small freezer of her galley kitchen was an ice cream feast.
To add to the excitement, I was often allowed a HUGE piece of ice cream cake. Which was her way of indulging me. Her only stipulation was that I finish the entire piece. I do not want to sound like I am boasting, but in all the years that an immense slab of delicious cake was laid out in front of me, I never failed to finish it. In fact, I often violated my rule of not eating off other people’s plates if my sisters happened to leave any uneaten ice cream cake.
So this holiday season, if you happen to be in the selling range of Carvel Ice Cream, which may be easier than you think with their large supermarket presence, pick up a delicious ice cream cake in the shape of Santa or a crazy ice cream nosed alien and do yourself a favor and don’t skimp on yourself. Christmas comes but once a year and Tom Carvel and Ice Cream Cake Santa know you have been good and deserve a big piece.
