Christmas in July and a neat giveaway

It's been a long time since I've posted and I really need to get going on this again, especially since I'll be guest blogging at Kaye Barley's blog in a little over a week! It's "Christmas in July" at some of the other blogs I frequent (Ernie (Not Bert) for example) and while looking at a few of them I came upon one that's new to me, Joanna Wilson's Christmas TV History. Since our cable company just did away with our "limited cable" option and we now get a lot more channels, I expect I'll have a lot more chances to watch Christmas TV old and new when the time comes, so I'll definitely be following this blog. This month (and there are only a couple of days left), she and her publishers are having a giveaway of her books and a lot of other swag. I'm entering by posting this and, even though it would reduce my chances, you are encouraged to do so as well. Go to her July 1 post to see the procedure. Happy Christmas in July! (Sisterfilms points out, it is now less than 5 months to her birthday!)

From Atlantic to Pacific, Gee, the Traffic is Terrific

(I’m concentrating this post, which deals with Holiday Travel, the writing prompt for December 13, on one particular Christmas. I can’t warrant that everything took place in the order stated or even that it took place on that particular Christmas, but it’s all true one way or another.)

Holiday travel for my family in 1957 covered a lot of ground, sea and air and started early. By Thanksgiving, our apartment on Mississippistrasse in the Hainerberg housing area of Wiesbaden, Germany was denuded of all but the most necessary items and the furniture provided by the Army. We even ate Thanksgiving dinner in the mess hall of my father’s unit. (This was the infamous raw-shrimp-cocktail Thanksgiving, about which I think I’ve written previously.) We had all had our shots updated and been tested to make sure we hadn’t contracted tuberculosis from injudiciously eating ice cream on the street. For a few days, after moving out of our quarters, we stayed in a once-magnificent spa hotel downtown, where I think there was a fountain of dreadful-smelling mineral water in the lobby. At last our port call came, and we made our way to nearby Frankfurt and Rhein-Main Airport. We were fortunate to be flying, as my mother and brother were prone to seasickness.

The flight home was not without incident. I’m not sure why, but we had a layover in Montreal that I’m pretty sure was unscheduled. We were put up in a motel, and when we tried to get something to eat in the restaurant, we were met with “So sorry m’sieu, the kitchen, she is in the fire!” I think that night ended with our first experience of take-out fried chicken.

We did eventually reach McGuire AFB and neighboring Fort Dix, and after the usual Army “processing,” we were ready for the next leg of our journey. We children were excited to learn that this would be in a new (to us) car. And not just any car – it was a two-tone, blue and cream, 1956 Ford Fairlane Victoria in the hardtop convertible style. It wasn’t really convertible, but it looked as cool as one. V-8 engine, just enough chrome, and take a look at those cool headlights! I couldn’t limit myself to just one picture. Here’s an old advertisement I got from Uncle Phil; ours, however, was a two-door model, we think. I seem to remember the car as having a lighter blue in the blue parts, like one of the photos below; but I may be confusing it with the Edsel that replaced it.

This one could use a little restoration. You may think this a small car for a family of seven, but none of us were very big at that time, ranging in age from 7 to 3 1/2.

Take a look at those cool headlights! Thanks to Uncles Phil and Carl for helping me figure out the make and model of this car.

Since I don’t remember the exact dates of any of this, I’m not sure exactly what happened next. I think we drove to Bridgeport or New Haven where my father would be working as a National Guard Advisor, and he reported in. Then we looked for a house to rent. They found a dark green duplex, two-story, with one very large bedroom in the front that could be divided into a boys’ side and a girls’ side, a couple of blocks from the beach and our school could be seen from the back door. I think they probably went to a used furniture store for beds and such. AND, because Brother #1 was sick (not seriously, but he was pretty miserable, poor little fella) Daddy brought home a color television! Since we had basically had no television for two years (very little was broadcast in Germany then and of course, it was all in German) this was a very exciting development for all of us. I think we stayed in Milford, our new home, long enough to get a bit settled and for my parents to enroll four of us in school (the twins had turned 5 in October so they hadn’t started kindergarten in Germany, but the principal of Point Beach School decided they could begin in January). Then we headed for Maine and Christmas.

There was no I-95 then as far as I know; we started out on the Wilbur Cross Parkway and continued on various turnpikes, parkways, and US and state routes. Some of the more outstanding advertising structures (a giant Indian, a giant steer, and so on) would become familiar landmarks over the next seven years, but they were all new to us then and to be pointed out and exclaimed over. At last, we paid our dime and crossed over the Piscataqua River, and we were in Maine.

There’s one family story I must tell that we think took place on this trip. We were only about 30 miles from Bowdoinham, near Exit 9 on the Maine Turnpike at Falmouth, when we saw a lone airman in uniform hitchhiking north. My parents briefly considered picking him up, but decided our car was really too crowded with kids, luggage, and Christmas presents. Not long after we arrived at my grandparents’ house, there was another homecoming – my uncle Carl, who was then an airman stationed at Pease AFB in Portsmouth, NH. Ayuh. He was the hitchhiker we had passed by. My mother always said, “If we had known it was you, we would have made room!” But he hasn’t held it against us.

Ah, Christmas in Maine at Grammie and Grampie’s house! My memory is that we actually stayed there, though we had our own little house up the road. In addition to Carl, my aunt Kate was still at home since she was still in high school, and my bachelor (at the time) Uncle Dick lived there as well. There were still two large bedrooms free upstairs, and since the house boasted no central heating, crowding in together could help keep you warm. The kitchen stove, living room stove, and a small one in my grandparents’ room were the only woodstoves in the house as far as I know. Bricks and old flatirons were heated on the stove in the evening, wrapped in newspaper, and used to warm the beds and our chilly feet; we huddled under mounds of Grammie’s homemade quilts until we got warm enough to sleep. Aunt Kate had a pair of ski pajamas, or that’s how I remembered them; she assures me that they were really red flannel with white snowflakes, made by my grandmother, in place of the kind you could buy in stores which cost $3.77 in the Sears catalog.

But what of cold? It was Christmas! I don’t remember any of the presents I got that year, though I’m sure I enjoyed them at the time. I recall a few we gave – the cuckoo clock brought from Germany that played “The Last Rose of Summer” on the hour in Grammie’s living room for many years; and the smoked dried German sausage my parents had smuggled in. I think perhaps we had Christmas dinner at my aunt Celia’s farmhouse on the Ridge. I know it was great to be there, to hear the grownups talking and telling stories, to see the cousins (all older or younger than I was), and most of all for me, to have such a wide choice of reading material! I had been sadly deprived during those weeks of moving and travel, and now it was all here – the children’s books from my mother’s childhood, (this may have been when I first read Little Women), the green-bound set of Dickens in the hall bookcase (I never got beyond the first few scary pages of Great Expectations until I was in my 20s!), Grampie’s Life magazine and Westerns, Uncle Dick’s Argosy, True, and Field and Stream. I dipped into them all.

We didn’t talk a lot about homesickness in my family. Our parents took the line that wherever we were together was home, and avoided complaining about any place we lived, at least where we could hear them. But I know it was a special Christmas for all of us, to be at home in Maine again with all our loved ones nearby.

Nu har vi jul igen!

(I’m pretty sure I’ve covered most of the traditions from my family of origin in the other posts, so this is going to be all about one tradition I married into.)

Nu har vi jul igen,
og nu har vi jul igen,
og julen varer ved til påske.
Nu har vi jul igen,
og nu har vi jul igen,
og julen varer ved til påske.

Now it is Christmas time, and now it is Christmas time, and Christmas lasts till Easter.

It’s Christmas Eve and the pork roast and ris à l’amande have been eaten, leftovers put away and at least the dishwasher is loaded. Now it’s time! We move the tree from its normal spot (currently in front of the picture window) into the middle of the room, being careful that the angel doesn’t get knocked off by the ceiling fan. Of course the presents must be moved too, some under the tree and some moved into another room for the time being. A braided rug made by my great-aunt Lida covers the cord from the tree lights to forestall accidents. After some explanation for anyone who is new to this ritual, we all hold hands and circle the tree. The bravest among us starts a Christmas carol and we walk around the tree; after one verse another song is begun and we reverse direction. We sing a mixture of religious and secular Christmas songs (“Up on the Housetop” seems to make an appearance every year) until somehow an unspoken consensus is reached – it’s really time now! We begin singing “Nu har vi jul igen”, going faster and faster, until we can’t go any faster and are all out of breath. Then, and only then, can we sit down and begin opening presents.

You may have seen this Scandinavian custom in Ingmar Bergman’s film Fanny and Alexander. If memory serves, the Swedes in their palatial home did a sort of conga line all through the house or at least the ground floor. We call it “dancing around the Christmas tree” even though it is more like walking and jogging. A few years ago my niece’s husband videotaped the event:

A couple of years ago, after we had introduced this custom to our Maine relatives, we went to City of Lakes for Christmas. We heard afterwards that our nephew and his girlfriend had made up their own version, the words to which went something like “I love you again and you love me again and you and I eat lots of pasta.” This custom came with Onkel Hankie Pants’ grandparents and great-grandparents from Denmark in the 1870s and 1880s when they came to America. I’m sure it will continue in our family for a long time.

The Only Thing I Want for Christmas (Is Just to Keep the Things That I’ve Got)

Eddie Cantor sang this during the Depression, and this is one of the years I feel the same way. Oh, I like getting presents and I’m sure my loved ones will find some things to delight me. But what I’m most looking forward to this Christmas is to be celebrating with family, in our own warm home, thinking of our daughter at her first Christmas Eve services as an ordained minister (she’s got three of them!); and the cards and calls from relatives and friends far away.

My brother and his son, I think, 20+ years ago.

My parents “yust went nuts” at Christmas. They always seemed to figure out which of the things we asked for were really what we most wanted, and then they always came up with something we didn’t know we wanted. The year I was 10 I got a clock radio for Christmas. This meant not only that I was old enough to get myself up in the morning, but also allowed me to listen to the DJs and radio programs I wanted – Murray the K on WINS, Oscar Brand and Make-Believe Ballroom on WCBS. (We were only about 70 miles from NYC so we had a wide choice of media.)

One year we all got US Army mess kits.

I’m sure my siblings each have at least one special present they can remember.

When we became parents, we fell into all the usual traps, such as having to put things together at the last minute and buying too many advertised toys that were soon forgotten. But there were many happy moments on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Observe:

Cordeliaknits and SonShineIn with some of their presents; the hats came from South America, brought by their aunt.

Our best Christmas present ever, Sisterfilms, Christmas Day 1984.

The play food was a big hit!

You Can Put Some Rømmegrøt * and Rosettes on Your List

(This rather obscure line was the only one I could think of about Christmas cookies. It’s from “I’ll Be Home for Lefse” by Leroy Larson and the Minnesota Scandinavian Ensemble – get it from the UffDa Shop, where else?)

Fancy cookies like rosettes (pictured above, about which more later) were not a part of my childhood, although I do recall my mother making pinwheel cookies, which always seemed like a lot of work to me. I mostly remember the sugar cookies which were slightly different from the year-round variety and were cut in shapes and iced or sprinkled with colored sugar.

Mama also made year-round a filled cookie with a soft sugar cookie dough; at Christmas time she was apt to fill these with mincemeat. I remember also my grandmother’s soft molasses cookies (and though not a cookie, the popcorn balls she made for the grandchildren each year – she had 27 of them, and since my eldest cousin is, I think, 12 years older than I, several great-grandchildren too. Those popcorn balls were the tastiest I’ve ever had.) One of my aunts used to make and distribute around the family some of the no-bake cookies that featured cereal, coconut or maybe chow mein noodles I bought some at a cookie walk a few weeks ago and was instantly transported back to childhood.

Rosettes are a deep-fried cookie requiring special equipment and made by nearly everyone in Minnesota. I well remember my first sight of them, at a Christmas concert at one of the Lutheran churches in the small town where Onkel Hankie Pants and I lived when I first came to Minnesota. I had seen klejner (the Norwegians call them fattigmand or “beggarmen”)

and brune kager (these don’t look quite right, my mother-in-law’s were larger and diamond-shaped) the previous Christmas, when my new mother-in-law had sent them to Berlin for our first Christmas. But rosettes don’t travel well. So I was amazed and delighted to see them on the cookie plate at the after-concert reception. Even though it’s been many years, and I’ve even made some myself, these fragile beauties still amaze and delight me.

I love to eat cookies, but I’m not so fond of making them. It seems that once one has prepared the dough, that should be enough – but then there’s the rolling, shaping, dropping, and the multiple cookie sheets, the short baking time…it’s a good thing that Sisterfilms loves baking cookies and will be here soon to take charge. It’s much more fun baking with her than alone. Before then, I might make some cookies to take to my niece’s caroling and cookies birthday party; probably these, which I’ve been making ever since early in our marriage when I had a chilly kitchen and no electric mixer, because they use melted butter and can be stirred by hand.

Cardamom Cookies (Kardemomme Kager)

1 egg

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup melted butter

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon crushed cardamom seeds or ground cardamom

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup flour

Mix ingredients in order given. Refrigerate dough one hour or more. Roll into balls and flatten down to the size of a fifty-cent piece.

Bake on a greased and floured cookie sheet in a preheated 350 degree oven until lightly browned on the edges. (Not very long! Try six minutes and see how it goes depending on your oven. However, I have overbaked these and as long as they aren’t burnt they will still taste good.) To me, the taste of cardamom is especially Christmasy. The recipe came from a book called Wonderful, Wonderful Danish Cooking by Ingeborg Dahl Jensen.

*Rømmegrøt: is a Norwegian dish which contains no rum. For that you want Rombudding, which I’ve had once. I’ve never tasted Rømmegrøt, which is basically cream – sour or sweet – cooked a long time with a bit of flour. You can find one recipe here, or Google to take your choice. Not for the lactose-intolerant!

Voices Singing “Let’s Be Jolly”

I’m just not a party person; I’m like my mother and grandmother in that. That’s why I don’t find many photos of parties in my files.

When we were young children, I think our parents must have gone to some parties at the NCO Club, as least I do remember an occasional babysitter. When my father was a First Sergeant on our first tour in Germany, he would sometimes invite some of the men in his unit to our home, but I think those were more like family dinners than parties.

There must have been several holiday parties at school during my elementary years, but the only one I remember was in my fifth-grade year, when it happened that my teacher was Jewish – although that has nothing to do with the story. This was during the era familiar to many baby-boomers, when overcrowded schools had some children going to school in the morning and others in the afternoon. That happened for me in sixth grade, but in fifth grade I got lucky and was assigned to an all-day class made up of both fifth- and sixth-graders.

This story does not reflect well on my ten-year-old self, but it taught me several lessons. I’ll just tell the story and let you find the lessons in it yourself.

One of the features of our holiday party was that we drew names for a Secret Santa gift exchange. Now there was one girl in our class who, while she wasn’t bullied in school, was not well-liked. Brenda was not an unpleasant person, rather self-effacing, but she had greasy hair, unfashionable clothes, and a bad complexion – and sadly, these things meant that no one wanted to be her friend. So I wasn’t pleased when I drew her name in the gift exchange. Rather mean-spiritedly, I chose a bottle of iridescent lavender nail polish, which I thought was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen. (It was like this, but not as high-quality.)

Brenda loved it. She was really pleased with her gift and wore it frequently for the rest of the school year. I don’t remember her being in school after that year, and I suspect now that her family was poor and somewhat transient.

And what did I get? There was a small group of sixth-grade boys (they probably went on to play football) who were the Alpha Males of the classroom, and one of them drew my name, as I could tell from their covert glances as I opened my gift. Unwrapping several layers of aluminum foil, I came at last to a handful of shelled peanuts. And what’s more – some of the peanuts were real, but some were rubber.

I’ll continue the discussion of Christmas parties in the December 9th “Grab Bag” post.

Merry Christmas Power Company

(The post title is from Neal and Leandra’s song, Boswell’s Lights, which appears on their album Angels and Fools. Highly recommended.)

Putting up outdoor Christmas decorations was not something we did much of in my childhood. Most of the time we were living in rented or military housing, and that may have had something to do with it. When we lived in Connecticut, my parents admired the colonial houses with one simple candle in each window – as do I. Here’s a picture of one from our neighborhood:

Unfortunately, although I would like to do this, I suspect our dog Rusty would make short work of them as soon as he saw a squirrel outside.

We did enjoy an occasional eveing drive to see decorations others had put up, and this continued once Onkel Hankie Pants and I formed our own family. For the many years we celebrated Christmas Eve at my in-laws’ home, the short drive home with sleepy children still awake enough to exclaim at the lighted houses on dark streets were a magical part of Christmas.

One year, after a few months of empty-nesting as our son was in his own apartment and both girls were in college on the East Coast, we got one of those inflatable snowmen and installed it on the front lawn with a sign reading “Welcome Home Sister Aimee and Little Nell.” (The “Sister Aimee” was a nod to Cordeliaknits’ newly-discovered, and now fulfilled, call to the ministry). They were both suitably embarrassed!

In our “new” house in Maine, we have sometimes decorated the three concrete lions in front with greenery or Santa hats. And since our house was built in 1951, it has a picture window through which our lighted tree can be seen all the way down the block.

O Christmas Tree! (December 1 Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories)

Onkel Hankie Pants, SonShineIn, Cordeliaknits and Sisterfilms bringing in the tree, Bowdoinham, 1987.

GeneaBloggers, an association of genealogical bloggers, has posted an online Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories, with writing prompts for each day. I don’t have a genealogy blog yet, but decided to do the posts anyway. I’m starting a day late so here is the memory for December 1.

(I like to admire the tree in its undecorated state for a little while after its installation.)

By the time I was born, post-WWII, the home Christmas tree was a firmly established custom in America, and I think this was the case for my mother as well. In great-great-grandfather Smith’s diaries, however, I find no mention of a tree in the home; at least in Downeast Maine, in the late 19th century, it seems to have been more of a community event that may have taken place at church or a village hall. We find further evidence of this in the Laura Ingalls Wilder “Little House” books and in the hilarious adventures of the Peterkins, in one of which they decide to have a tree and have a hard time with this new-fangled activity.

Here’s our Christmas tree from 1951 at Fort Hancock, New Jersey.

Our childhood trees came from various places, depending on where our military family happened to be spending Christmas. If we were at home in Maine, we could go out to the woods behind our house and cut one of our own. The Southern Christmases, in Savannah, Georgia and El Paso, Texas, are lost in the mists of time for me and I don’t remember what kind of tree we might have been able to find there. Most of the time we were far enough north to get our preferred balsam fir. (Tannenbaum, after all, means fir tree.) The tree then, normally came from one of the local tree lots wherever we were. We would put it up a couple of weeks before Christmas, and my mother insisted on taking it down December 26th.

Here are my cousins David and Janice with their Christmas tree, in 1947.

Colored glass balls and some of the special German ornaments in various shapes like houses, birds, etc. were the chief decorations on our childhood trees, and there was also tinsel. At the top of the tree was a large tin star with a hole in the middle in which was inserted one of the big colored Christmas lights. These were also strung around the tree – those large, multicolored, 1950s lights, and also bubble lights. I remember that some people had a decoration, known as “angel hair,” which I believe was made of fiberglass and which was not approved of in our home as being too dangerous.

Gifts from our parents and other family and those we children gave were wrapped and put under the tree early, to tantalize us and tempt us into shaking and wondering (and my father was the worst of the lot at this!) My mother recalled that in her childhood, gifts that arrived in the mail from grandparents and such had to be left in their postal wrapping under the tree, so that there was a dual unwrapping on Christmas morning.

Me and my brother on Christmas morning, probably 1952 when my father was in Japan and soon to be in Korea. The twins are only two months old so not in the picture.

A lot of things changed when I married into a Danish-American family and we also changed with the times and formed our own traditions. Our first Christmas tree as a couple was a small pine tree that I bought in a Christmas tree lot in Berlin and conveyed by taxi to the Apartments-Hotel on Clayallee where I had rented a little apartment for Onkel Hankie Pants’ Christmas visit. I’ve never cared for those long-needled pines as Christmas trees, as they don’t suit my eclectic decorating style, but it was what I could get. Even the hotel receptionist made a face at that tree! I decorated it with German ornaments I’d bought at the drugstore in Dahlem that I passed on my way home from work each morning, and with some Danish ornaments my new mother-in-law had sent, including a string of Danish flags – a new custom to me.

I don’t have a photo of the Danish flags, but here’s a nisse made of yarn.

Onkel Hankie Pants’ first Christmas, with a little bit of the tree and his Bedstefar’s feet.

Dancing around the tree – a custom I’ll write about later on this season. If you enlarge the picture you can see the Danish flags.

There were no lights on our tree for the first few years – initially, because it seemed wasteful to buy German lights that wouldn’t work in the States, and then because our first American Christmas together coincided with the beginning of the first “Energy Crisis” – remember that? Eventually we relented and now will probably begin replacing our old lights with LEDs. We also have never had tinsel, because of fears for the safety of the cats and children (I wouldn’t put it past Rusty to eat some, either.) Instead we had old strings of colored glass beads that had come to us from Onkel Hankie Pants’ aunts in Chicago. Each year we have acquired more and more decorations so that now they must be rotated or we occasionally have more than one tree.

Our tree in City of Lakes, 1988, and one of the cousins who celebrated with us.

We now get our tree from our own woods in Bowdoinham, but most of the years we lived in City of Lakes we bought one – from the Y’s Men for a long time, later from the dear departed Lyndale Garden Center’s “swamp trees” section, one extravagant year at Bachman’s for $65, and a few times from a cut-your-own farm in the Taylor’s Falls area. No matter where it comes from, I’d have to agree with folksinger Jim Henry -- “It’s just not Christmas till we’ve got that tree.” And, since I love children’s choirs singing Christmas songs in German, here’s one from Bavaria singing “O Tannenbaum.”

Triflin’, Part 2

The trifle was a success, but I would do it a little differently next time. If you get a chance to look at the recipe, you will see that it calls for a 9x13 pan of gingerbread and a mousse made with one can of pumpkin and a cup of whipped cream. I wound up with extra gingerbread, but a very skimpy amount of the pumpkin mousse. I would double the mousse next time. I'm also thinking that I could double the pumpkin, brown sugar and spices and use the same amount of whipped cream -- the pumpkin flavor would be stronger that way. Also, the recipe called for a two-quart bowl; I felt it would overfill either of the bowls I had so I divided it into two.

Here’s a photo of the trifle, but it’s not a very good one because I neglected to tell the photographer to scooch down and photograph the bowl from the side. There is candied ginger scattered on top of the whipped cream.

Other guests brought whoopie pies (homemade!), bars, and pumpkin and apple pies; and I also made the lime bars from the Betty Crocker Christmas Cookbook, which are always delicious but never look the way they are supposed to (and specifically, they are messy!) They are one of those bars where you mix butter, flour and sugar and press it into a pan, then bake that for 20 minutes before adding the filling and baking some more. It’s the first part I have trouble with; I suspect today it was because I softened the butter in the microwave. Also, I knew the clementines would be a hit, but I put the candy canes out more as decoration -- and many of them were eaten as well!

Can you tell that I really like the Betty Crocker Christmas Cookbook? It has lots of good recipes, somewhat on the Midwestern/Scandinavian side but not exclusively so, and many of which are good for any time of year. I highly recommend it. This is the one I have:

and I think it’s from the early to mid-1980s. There have been several new editions since then, so I hope that it’s still got most of the same recipes.

Tomorrow I’ll be busy recording some more stories, and preparing for my Advent Calendar of Songs and Stories on the blog, which will begin December 1 – Tuesday! This year I’ll be highlighting the stories I recorded for Sisterfilms back in 2007, which included some that were more suitable for adults as well as some old children’s favorites.

Triflin’

Well, my best intentions didn’t quite work out and I’ve missed a couple of days. I’m currently in the midst of preparing a Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle from the very last issue of Gourmet magazine. (November) It’s not available online yet; they say their website will remain up for a little while, perhaps long enough to put up the November issue. If you perform a G**gle search for this, the first one that comes up is Paula Deen’s, which relies heavily on packaged things. Not for me. The recipe I’m using has homemade gingerbread, a simple pumpkin mousse, and real whipped cream.

I did have to amend it a bit since some of the eaters are vegetarians and would not appreciate being served something including gelatin from animal parts. So, I went to the natural food store at the end of the block for some vegan gelatin substitute. (No vegans coming, but the gel is OK for them.) The directions were so alarming that I almost decided to wing it and just whip the cream in the mousse really stiffly, because I was afraid of winding up with a mousse that had lumps of flavorless gel scattered through it. However, I was brave and followed directions and it seems to have worked. This is a really good thing because it also means I can make the Ris a l’Amande for Christmas Eve the way I’ve always done it (from the Betty Crocker Christmas Cookbook) – a couple of years ago I used a different, gelatinless method and wasn’t as pleased with the results.

The trifle will not be complete until tomorrow, and at that point I’ll take a picture and post it.

Since Thanksgiving is over, I can now play Christmas music. I am easing into it with a playlist of all instrumental – everything from Celtic to big band to Windham Hill to solo piano to bluegrass to classical pieces. With the shuffle feature, it’s a nice variety of sounds, familiar and unfamiliar. I put together a playlist for Advent but it’s sure going to be heavy on Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen and Veni, Veni Emmanuel! Now I need to retrieve the Christmas linens (especially tablecloths, guest towels and kitchen things) from the upstairs closet.

Prioritizing

is one of my problem areas, and another is not getting distracted from one task by another. So I'm going to blog today about some of my upcoming tasks and maybe by writing them down so publicly I can prioritize or at least check them off. I used to visit a website called www.organizedhome.com. There were people, and probably still are, who would post daily to-do lists that started with "Get up. Shower. Brush teeth. Get dressed..." I'm not making fun of them. I have been, if not quite there, pretty darn close at times in the past. But there is something a little funny about stopping to post the list on the Internet....As there is with what I'm doing. But I have an ulterior motive, as I realized I hadn't blogged today and it's after 11.

So, before December 1st (and in some cases quite a bit before) here's what I want to accomplish:

Write, compile, and send out a Thanksgiving issue of Speedwell Stories, my (mother's side) family history newsletter. (I do it by email.)

Complete acquisition, wrapping and mailing of Advent presents for Cordeliaknits and Sisterfilms.

Choose and record Christmas stories on disc for SF and mail them.

Mail the 2006 stories on disc to my niece for her daughters.

Prepare December blogposts (about the stories from 2007) in advance.

Have a potluck dessert party for family on Advent 1.

Finish getting ready for the church Christmas fair this Saturday -- I'm co-chairing the book room.

Seriously begin Christmas shopping; organize namedraw for Christmas Eve festivities with the extended family.

Clean my office. Do laundry. Organize guest room so that it will be hospitable for Sisterfilms and The Traveller when they come for Christmas.

Finish the library books I have out, then go on a library fast for a few weeks and read books I already own, including more of the Guardian 1000 Novels.

Catch up with my movie reviewing on Queuing Up.

Keep a few other promises I've made to various people.

I guess I'd better get some rest so I can get busy tomorrow!

Shrinking Circle

We've had a very nice Christmas here in City of Lakes, but now Sisterfilms and I are beginning to feel the after-Christmas letdown, since our family circle is shrinking again. Onkel Hankie Pants returned to Maine this morning (he should be landing in City by the Sea any minute now) and Cordeliaknits went back to California on Sunday afternoon, after a triumphal return to the pulpit of the church where she was baptized and confirmed. Sisterfilms and the Traveller helped with the service by singing and playing, respectively, In the Bleak Midwinter. This afternoon SF and I have errands to do, and then we'll meet The traveller to see The (can't remember full title ) Benjamin Button movie. We are looking forward to a couple more parties before I return to Maine next Tuesday. At that point I will post photos of some of my Christmas presents, especially the handmade ones. I'm enjoying reading Book 2 of the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik -- it's sort of Patrick O'Brian with dragons. I will also report later on some of the concerts and theatre I saw here.

Friday Five: Countdown to Christmas Eve edition

Songbird at RevGalBlogPals reminds us that Christmas Eve is less than a week away, and asks: what five things do you need to accomplish before then?

1. I need to finish reading a book that I'm planning to re-gift. 

2. I need to buy wrapping paper, ribbon and tags at the Dollar store so I can wrap presents, having left my stash of such items back in Maine (and you can't bring wrapped presents any more).

3. I need to get a few more presents, and also some new mittens or gloves because I seem to have lost one yesterday and it's cold here!

4. I need to work with Sisterfilms on planning our Christmas Eve festivities (the meal, especially).

5. And I "need" to have fun, which will happen tonight when I see SonShineIn play Santa Claus at the Bedlam Theatre; enjoy their dinner theatre production "Turducken"; tomorrow when Cordeliaknits arrives, and we go to see the Rose Ensemble in the evening; Sunday when I go to church and the caroling party; Monday when we see Onkel Carpenter and Tante Rosemaler before they and The Traveller head to Tacoma; Tuesday when Onkel Hankie Pants finally arrives; and at odd and unexpected moments throughout the time. It's good to be back in City of Lakes even though it's cold and snowy and things look different here.

You are invited to share your pre-Christmas planning in comments or on your own blog.

Off to glory...

In my childhood, when we set out on a trip, my father (a salty old cuss) would often remark, "Off to glory in a shower of s__t!"  (And if we asked, "When are we going to be there, Daddy?" he would reply "When we drive into the G.D. driveway!")

So, in the wee hours this morning, my nephew the economist and founder of a nonprofit organization will be picking me up for the drive to the bus terminal in City by the Sea. The terminal is open for half an hour in the middle of the night so that people with early flights out of Logan can catch the bus and arrive around 5:00 am. By half past ten (their time) or half past eleven (my time) I'll be in City of Lakes, where Sisterfilms will pick me up. Her plans for my afternoon include a nap and switching laundry from washer to dryer at The Traveller's house, since the cold weather is forestalling the re-installation of the dryer chez Comrade Landlords. 

I'm all packed, with just a few things to think about before I leave, so will probably watch a movie tonight.  I hope I can get Rusty into his garage sequestration without incident. He already suspects something is up that he won't like.

I hope I can remember how to get email while I'm away, and that I can get onto Blogger occasionally. I've already done and scheduled the remainder of the December Stories and Songs posts.  One of my DorothyL mystery list colleagues recommended them on DorothyL! And she's a real writer!  

But, if neither of these things come to pass, be assured that I wish all of you a Merry Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate at this time of year, and a happy and, if not prosperous, at least not destitute New Year!

I'm kvelling....

So, in the weekly email genealogy newsletter there was an article about documenting one's Christmas ornaments. Since I needed to take down the tree anyway, I decided to do it or at least make a start with the ornaments we used this year. Well, I got to about 110 photos before the batteries gave out on my camera and I had to stop to recharge; then my sister came to take me to the hospital to visit Brother #1; then it was dark and it's really a daylight job. (Ended up seeing #1 twice today in 2 different hospitals, as he's now in Big Medical Center where they have better technology, having another MRI. He is feeling better, though.)
Needless to say the 110 photos are a drop in the bucket.
But here is one of them; a word chain that Cordeliaknits made in kindergarten.
The construction paper is a little faded but we still put it up every year anyway. And today, I read on her blog that she got all As in seminary last semester! So I'm kvelling!
And, lest Sisterknits be forgotten, I'm kvelling for her too! Not only was she accepted to the filmmaking program she wanted to get into, but she was on the news! I will link to it here even though I'm not sure how long this will be available -- if it's no longer active, she was interviewed briefly about a proposed Light Rail line between Minneapolis and St. Paul which would drastically shorten her work-school commute. (I have to say, I almost never watch television news, and looking at the whole story, which you pretty much have to do to get to Sisterknits, I can see why. There is also a weird bit of editing that makes her first utterance a non sequitur.)

Tuneful Tuesday: Epiphany Mix

With one hour and 5 minutes to go before it's Wednesday, here are my Epiphany season choices (really more of Epiphany itself, for the most part). Many of the songs are available as digital downloads from amazon.com.

1. Breakin' Up Christmas -- Mike Seeger, Penny Seeger, and other family members -- American Folk Songs for Christmas.
Maybe tomorrow I'll start breaking up Christmas -- i.e. taking down the tree. "Breakin' up Christmas" actually refers to the Appalachian mountain custom of having two weeks of house dance parties after Christmas. You can read a bit about it here and if you don't have the album cited above, you can watch this:


2. Beautiful Star of Bethlehem -- The Judds, or Emmylou Harris -- Christmas Time with the Judds, or Light of the Stable.
Emmylou Harris's version of this is available as a digital download, but really I like the Judds' version best, because of their harmonies. I think Cordeliaknits, Sisterknits and I have probably bought 4 or 5 copies of that Judds CD because it is a car favorite and keeps getting lost, and we just can't do without it at Christmas. Beautiful Star of Bethlehem is a bluegrass/gospel song, but almost no one seems to agree on who wrote it -- I have credits on various albums for Adger Pace, A. L. Phipps, R. Fisher Boyce, and James D. Vaughn. It has an interesting conceit of equating Jesus with the Star: "Jesus is now the star divine, Brighter and brighter he will shine."

3. Brightest and Best -- Jean Ritchie -- Carols for All Seasons.
The words, for the most part, were written by Reginald Heber, and the tune Morning Star by James Harding; the words have also been set to several other tunes, according to the Cyberhymnal. Jean Ritchie, and most folksingers, sing this to the Southern Harmony tune Star in the East, and add a first verse (Hail the blest morn, See the great mediator...) which doesn't appear to be by Heber. Both tunes are beautiful in their own way, but in fact I only have recordings of Star in the East.

4. The Magi (The Heart of Man's a Palace) -- Peter, Paul and Mary -- A Holiday Celebration.
A slightly more modern take on the magi and what they have to teach us. Available as digital download from Amazon.com for about 99 cents. According to one website, it was written by Peter Yarrow and Joe Henry.

5. We Three Kings -- The Roches -- We Three Kings.
This is not my favorite Christmas carol to sing in church if there is a lessons and carols-type Christmas Eve service. It's a great temptation to use it with the Matthew reading about the magi. But it's just too long and draggy at that point. However, I do like the version by The Roches and especially the instrumental parts. We Three Kings was written by Rev. John Henry Hopkins, Jr. for a Christmas pageant at the General Theological Seminary in New York. Although not printed until 1863, it is said to have been written in 1857, thus this past Christmas was its 150th anniversary. I have to wonder whether those high-achieving Episcopal divinity students at GTS still put on a Christmas pageant? I can just see each of the magi coming in, wearing the finest dressing gowns they could muster, each carrying his "gift" as the song reaches the proper verse.

6. 'Twas on a Night Like This (also known as The Star Carol) -- Cathy Barton, Dave Para, The Paton Family et al. -- 'Twas on a Night Like This.
The tune is the carol of the Italian bagpipers, a traditional tune played by shepherds from the Abruzzi Mountains who came to some of the villages and cities of Italy in December to play their pipes and get a few coins. There are several versions with words in Italian or English, but I like this one by Pete Seeger. He called it The Star Carol, but as there are also two other well-known Star Carols (one by the ubiquitous John Rutter and the other by Alfred Burt and Wihla Hutton), this recording uses its first line. You can download Pete Seeger's own version (for the usual 99c) by going here. There are many other musical treasures to be found on that site as well.

7. Marche des Rois -- The Taverner Consort -- The Carol Album.
This tune and song have quite a different view of the Three Kings, much more majestic. The song is said to be from 13th century Provence, and the tune was used by Bizet in his L'Arlesienne suite. Here's a very nice rendition:

8. Peace Round -- Cathy Barton, Dave Para et al. -- 'Twas on a Night Like This.
The tune is an old English canon, and the words are by Jean Ritchie, who must surely have been thinking of Psalm 133 when she wrote them. Another version is the Israeli folkdance Hineh Mah Tov, which is a more direct quotation from the psalm, and which I used to dance to rather clumsily in my folkdance class (it was part of my gym requirement) at A Host at Last University. You can hear Hineh Mah Tov here -- and I'm excited to have discovered this site!

9. Quaker Benediction -- Gordon Bok -- 'Twas on a Night Like This.
This isn't a song, although I have seen a hymn based on this quotation. It's from the work of Howard Thurman, an African-American theologian and activist who died in 1981. Thurman was an ecumenical kind of guy -- he was ordained a Baptist minister, studied with Quakers and I believe is claimed as a Quaker, and was Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University, a fine old Methodist institution. May we all carry on the work of Christmas through the short season of Epiphany, and throughout the year.

Post-Boxing Day Report

My personal pendulum has been swinging wildly between manic and exhausted for the past few days. Sisterknits and I did last minute shopping on Sunday afternoon and some wrapping and pre-preparation of food items. Christmas Eve is our big family celebration since my marriage to a Dane 35 years ago. So that day is always pretty hectic. I was not expecting a large group for Christmas Eve dinner (roast pork with apples and prunes, gravy, mashed potatoes, green jello salad with pineapple and cottage cheese, peas and carrots, rolls, sparkling grape juice) and then mid-afternoon it got smaller. Brother #2 was to have joined OHP, Sisterknits and his twin sister for dinner, but sadly, he found his landlady dead on her sofa about 1 pm. She was of the age where this was not a tremendous surprise, but of course an unattended death has to be investigated. However, the bigger problem for him immediately was that she was a dogsitter by trade, with a clientele that has included the rich and famous who summer or live in Maine, and there were 6 dogs (besides his dog and her dog) in residence that he is now caring for until he can track down their owners.

So, we had probably the fewest people at our Christmas Eve table since 1973 when a snowstorm prevented us from joining the family in Minneapolis. Then we went to church -- we only missed the first two of the handbell choir's selections, but the church was already full enough that we had to sit in a very odd location -- I can't really even describe it but getting there was a trip! Beautiful music as usual and a good sermon on the Incarnation, but I still miss the experience of going to church and being surrounded by people I know. I recognized one or two of the ushers but no one else in our vicinity.

We returned to prepare for the arrival of the rest of the family (they are vegetarians so we don't inflict our roast pork on them). This year we did something different -- we saved our ris a l'amande until they arrived so the suspense over who got the nut would be greater. I had made the "old school" version (minus gelatin -- see earlier post for recipes) so I wouldn't have to search for veg. gelatin, and it was good though different. Brother #1 got the nut, and a pen in the shape of a moose was the prize. Then we danced around the tree and sang carols and "Nu har vi Jul igen" and then opened presents. Cookies made by my niece, Danish kringle from Racine, WI provided by Temple Truck Woman, and apricot balls were consumed. I think a good time was had by all.

In the morning there were stockings. A sad accident befell my stocking, a beautiful pale green cable-knit one that Cordeliaknits made for me last year. (It is not a permanent injury.) Santa #1, the less-experienced Santa, had put a jar of jelly in the toe, before Santa #2 (yours truly) had a chance to put the tangerine in. When Santa #2 began her work, nearly all the stockings overbalanced and crashed to the hearth along with their (iron) stocking holders. No problem except for mine. I didn't notice at first and hung it on the flue knob, putting the others' stockings on chairs. While I was waiting for Sisterknits to get up, I noticed Rusty licking the hearth tiles. Uh-oh! Sisterknits and OHP cleaned up the mess and we expect the stocking to make a full recovery. After stockings we opened the rest of our gifts. The original plan had involved aebleskiver and the construction of a buche de noel for SK's birthday. But she went back to sleep and awoke too late for all that! We heated leftovers and had supper, and then two of her friends came up from Portland and we played 25 Words or Less. We made the Buche de Noel yesterday, and we'll have aebleskiver today. When one is entertaining a 20-something who has two jobs and a full-time college schedule, one needs to factor in time for extra sleep.

Accomplishments on a Snow Day Part 1

We are pretty well snowed in today, although Onkel Hankie Pants bravely walked to church and stopped at the supermarket on the way back for Sloppy Joe makings. Here is his other big accomplishment for the weekend. Yesterday, he and my nephew and nephew's girlfriend went up to our woods in Bowdoinham and cut Christmas trees. Our two stayed outside overnight and one is still out there, but the living room tree is up! We may put lights on it later in the week, but will wait for Sisterknits to help decorate it on Saturday.
Although I suppose, given the property taxes, this tree is really more expensive than the ones we used to get at Bachman's or the Lyndale Garden Center in Minneapolis, there is something very satisfying about a tree that grew on one's own family land. And it's a very nice balsam fir, which was in a good location so it is nicely full without looking groomed.

Friday Five: Preparation

The RevGalBlogPals (which I plan to join as soon as I have extra money after Christmas) Friday Five this week deals with preparation.

1. You have a busy week, pushing out all time for preparing worship/ Sunday School lessons/ being ready for an important meeting ( or whatever equivalent your profession demands)- how do you cope?
Procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate. Then scurry around doing what's absolutely necessary. At least, sadly, that is my usual method. Once in a while I get sensible.

2. You have unexpected visitors, and need to provide them with a meal- what do you do?
This hardly ever happens to us. But, since we can easily walk to the supermarket, the natural food store, and several nice restaurants, and I usually have some sort of food in the freezer/pantry and a microwave for defrosting, we would probably just decide something based on how far visitors had come, how tired they were, how hungry, etc.

Three discussion topics:

3. Thinking along the lines of this weeks advent theme; repentance is an important but often neglected aspect of advent preparations.....
Well, this year I'm repenting not having done more shopping/preparation earlier in the year. Then I wouldn't be doing a voice-recording project while getting over a cold; and so on. I don't know if it qualifies as repentance as such, but I am glad that this year I successfully (to cries of delight, actually) broached the idea of drawing names for presents to the extended family. It will help our celebration be a bit more people-focussed and less stuff-focussed.

4. Some of the best experiences in life occur when you simply go with the flow.....
Yes, I would agree. But then, I'm an INFP like a surprising number of the other RGBPs. (Do you know we're like, 1% of the population or something?) That said, the "I" part of me does sometimes need a lot of positive self-talk to engage in social activities, so for those things I do need a bit more preparation.

5. Details are everything, attention to the small things enables a plan to roll forward smoothly...
Although this is not my first instinct, I have found that it helps me with activities that are not second nature to me -- such as entertaining -- it works better if I have lists, lists, lists even down to which dish and spoon to use for serving the mashed potatoes. If I have to make decisions at the last minute I get a little freaky.

Bonus if you dare- how well prepared are you for Christmas this year?
Not very. Tree not cut yet, don't know when it will be as OHP has rehearsals for two plays. Christmas letter not written yet, never mind mailed. Presents are getting under control, invitations are out for Christmas Eve but not yet for another party later in the week. BUT, Sisterknits has her plane ticket here and that's the most important thing this year!

Candy Cane Monday Meme on Thursday

Cathy tagged me for this, which she got from Presbyterian Gal. From a Presbyterian to an Episcopalian to UCC -- we are ecumenical! I did actually write this on Thursday, but I was looking for a photo to post with it. Unfortunately, my Christmas photo album is lost somewhere in this house! I haven't looked in enough places yet, but didn't want to put this off any longer.

Now that the dreaded Black Friday has come and gone, here is a short little Meme to properly kick off the holiday season.

Name five of your favorite all time gifts. Either given or gotten.

1. Sisterknits! Our third child, by the time she was on the way there were more diagnostic tools in use, and the doctors told me she would be born on Christmas Day. Yeah, right, I said. Well, Christmas morning I was the first one up, as usual, and I realized we needed to hurry through the stockings and drop SonShineIn and Cordeliaknits off at their grandparents' house on the way to the hospital! I remember watching the repeat of the St. Olaf Christmas Festival in the labor room and bringing her home in a Christmas stocking. She is still the best Christmas present ever and will be again when she comes to visit us on the 21st. (The other two were born on Danish Day (a moveable feast) and International Children's Book Day, respectively, and they are wonderful gifts too.)

2. I'm not sure if it was my summer birthday or Christmas, but when I was 10 I received a clock radio from my parents. I felt so grown up! I could set the alarm if I needed to, and I could listen to all kinds of stations, although it was mostly WNEW for Make-Believe Ballroom Time, WNYC for Oscar Brand's folk music show and WINS (Murray the K kept me up-to-date on all the latest rock-and-roll hits). It was one of those gifts I hadn't asked for or even knew I wanted but became one of my most-used possessions.

3. Maybe 25 years ago or so, I was living in Minnesota and my winter jacket was a rather lightweight parka more suitable for, say, Connecticut. My sister-in-law The Traveler was into sewing down items from kits at the time (she made a comforter and a sleeping bag, for example) and she sewed me a down parka. Still better, she gave it to me at Thanksgiving -- and we had an extremely cold and early winter that year. I probably would have frozen to death doing my (on the bus) Christmas shopping, had she not given me the coat early! It was so warm, and lasted several years before the stuffing began to come out.

4. Onkel Hankie Pants has given me many fine presents over the years; I'm wearing one now, my deliciously warm L. L. Bean fleece bathrobe. The very best gifts, though,have been gifts of his own creation -- poems along the way and, for a Significant Birthday, even a hymn (lyrics, set to Brother James' Air).

5. I am not really sure which of the tangible gifts I have given over the years have been most appreciated by their recipients. I am proud of (and I think they appreciate) the gift that Onkel Hankie Pants and I gave our children. If you've read about the recent study on declining literacy, you will know why I am happy that our children (one is in the 18-24 bracket, the others in the 25-35) do in fact read for pleasure and information as well as the books they "have to" read. (One is in college and one in graduate school so they do have a lot of required reading as well). We both read to them from infancy on, and I'm afraid the best way for them to get our undivided attention was to ask for a story -- they also saw that we enjoyed reading and talking about books. I know there are people who've done the same and yet their children don't care to read -- I guess it's just another proof that the good giver also needs a good receiver.

I tag Cordeliaknits, Celeste, and Onkel Hankie Pants. But anyone is welcome to play!