St. Olaf Christmas Festival broadcast Sunday

In an earlier post I talked about the St. Olaf Christmas Festival, and Sisterknits commented that it will be simulcast in theaters across the country this year. I've just learned that it will also be broadcast over the radio on many public radio stations -- check your local one for time. Or, you can tune in over the Internet to Minnesota Public Radio at 3:30 Central Time on Sunday, December 2 and listen then. (Minnesota Public Radio has 3 different streams of broadcasting -- you'll want to choose the Classical.) This year's festival has the theme "Where Peace and Love Abide."

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!

Tuneful Tuesday: Songs for Not Quite Advent

For anyone who owns as much Christmas and Advent and Chanukah music as I do, it's hard to keep from playing it all year round. But, then it wouldn't be special, so we have a rule that we can't start playing it until the day after Thanksgiving. Most years this is only a couple of days before the First Sunday of Advent, but this year is different. So this week's Tuneful Tuesday is going to be Songs for Not Quite Advent.

What is Tuneful Tuesday? That's the name I made up for what I'll be doing on Tuesdays for a while. Some people liked my Tunes for November posts (and those who didn't were nice enough to keep quiet). Tuneful Tuesdays will be much shorter; I'll limit myself to fewer than a baker's dozen of annotated songs.

The Christmas songs I've chosen deal primarily with two activities that many people are doing right now: shopping, and looking forward to traveling home for Christmas. Comments are welcomed.

1. Christmas Is Coming -- Traditional.
I have only 5 renditions of this well-known tune. Of the instrumentals, I have to give the prize to Dakota Dave Hull and Judy Larson for their unusual rendition on their album The Goose Is Getting Fat. (Onkel Hankie Pants says this is the world's best background album for a Christmas gathering.) My favorite vocal rendition is by Anne Hills and Shinobu Sato on the disc On This Day Earth Shall Ring. This is a very short song, which is probably why relatively few people record it. But it addresses the important topic of charity as well as the anticipation of Christmas dinner, and, since it's included in a lot of Mother Goose books, is one of the first Christmas songs we learn.

2. It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas --Meredith Willson.
Oddly enough, I have only three renditions of this song by the composer of The Music Man. And two of them are by Bing Crosby! There are lots and lots of Crosby Christmas compilation albums out there; the one this is on in my collection is Merry Christmas. This song is like a time capsule of an idealized '50s Christmas, with the town Christmas tree, shopping at the Five and Ten, and while both "Bonnie and Ben" can wish for Western gear, only "Janice and Jen" want dolls -- although I'm a little surprised at the "dolls that can talk and can go for a walk," as Betsy Wetsy was about the limit of my ambitions (the song was written in 1951). It's beginning to look a little like Christmas here -- some people have lights on their outdoor trees and candles in the windows. (What can I say, I live in a place where 90% of the houses are white clapboard, even though there's no ordinance requiring it, and that's what people do.) For a little more information you can go here. You can also look at this photo of a 1950s Christmas -- my brother and me in the house my parents were building, I think this was taken while my Dad was in Korea.

3. A Christmas Carol -- Tom Lehrer.
There may be someone other than the author who has recorded this, but I haven't found it. So here's my little twice-removed brush with fame: one of my oldest friends, The Left-Handed Decorator, happens to have a fair number of well-known relatives in her past. But something that impressed the rest of us in our early adolescence was that Tom Lehrer had been her father's math instructor at Harvard! Snarky little would-be intellectuals that we were, we played the Tom Lehrer albums quite a bit and could sing along with most of his satirical songs. If you are totally disgusted with the commercialization of Christmas, this song is for you:

"Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things;
God rest ye merry merchants,
May ye make the Yuletide pay"

always runs through my head at this time of year when I read articles on how it's our civic duty to spend, spend, spend. (Note to the young: the Herald Tribune was once the major New York competitor of the New York Times.) I believe there's a CD boxed set of all Tom Lehrer's work, but I own this one on Bah, Humbug! The Alternative Christmas Album.

4. I'll Be Home for Christmas -- Walter Kent, Kim Gannon, and (maybe) Buck Ram.
My father, who had his own way of remembering songs, used to sing this

"I'll be home for Christmas
In 1943."

Although the song was recorded and became a hit in that year, I've not found any evidence that this was other than his own idiosyncrasy. It's a very popular song all right -- I have 22 renditions! I won't list all of them. My favorites all share one characteristic: they include the introductory lines

"I'm dreaming tonight of a place I love
Even more than I usually do
And although I know it's a long road back,
I promise you..."

I like me some intros! The top choice is by Neal and Leandra (really, just Leandra on this one), a Minnesota couple who have put out two really good Christmas albums, mostly original, and are favorites in my family. This song is from Listen to the Angels. They are especially favorites of Sisterknits, the only one of our children who will be home with us this year.

5. Christmas Time's A-Comin' -- Tex Logan.

Something sweet and cheerful now -- it's hard to listen to this without wanting to sing along or at least tap your foot. Oddly enough, the writer of this song has something in common with the writer of #3 -- a high level of education in a field other than music. In fact, Logan surpassed Lehrer in this respect as Tom Lehrer never completed his Ph.D. Tex Logan was an electrical engineer for Bell Labs who had a Ph.D. from either Columbia or MIT, depending on which website you believe. He was also a fine bluegrass fiddler who played with such groups as the Greenbriar Boys and the New Lost City Ramblers as well as older bluegrass musicians like Bill Monroe. This is an interesting song musically as it seems to have two choruses; the simple

Christmas time's a-comin; (3x)
And I know I'm goin' home

and the more complex

Can't you hear them bells, ringin', bringin'
Joy to all, hear them singin'
When it's snowin'
I'll be goin'
Back to my country home.

I have four recordings of this one, sadly, none by Bill Monroe, but my favorite is that by Emmylou Harris on Light from the Stable. In fact, if any song has been recorded by Emmylou Harris, it is likely to be my favorite rendition.

6. Christmas Songs -- Ann Reed.
I don't think anyone else could do this piece as well as the writer, and I don't think anyone has. It's a very funny musical rant about the omnipresent Christmas music in shopping malls and stores (and it's nearly all so generic or at least trendy-pop!) Having never worked retail, I have no standing to complain. Sisterknits, however, works at the Great Big Mall and she knows whereof Ann Reed speaks, or sings. The old style, where every store had the same Muzak, was pretty bad. But the new style is even worse for the employees -- each store seems compelled to have its own CD of Christmas music which cycles through several times per work shift. Not even shuffled! Ann Reed, like Neal and Leandra and Dakota Dave Hull and Judy Larson, is a Minnesota treasure. The album is called Not Your Average Holiday CD and is well worth getting for her fine guitar playing and inventive ways with standard songs as well as this funny one.

7. We Need a Little Christmas -- Jerry Herman.
Here's a Christmas song you're likely to hear any time of the year that the musical Mame is playing, for indeed it's from that show. If I remember rightly, things have not been going well for Auntie Mame and her nephew, and she decides they need to have Christmas early. (It doesn't appear to be that early, maybe a few days.) And every once in a while, Sisterknits and I need a little Christmas and break our rule for maybe a couple of hours or even a day. So sue us. I don't have the original Angela Lansbury recording (but you can hear and see her sing it in concert on YouTube here) so I choose Dinah Shore's version, from an EMI set called Happy Holidays.

8. Please Come Home for Christmas -- Charles Brown and Gene Redd.

A song for anyone who has the blues at Christmas, or remembers what it was like to feel that way. You can find the original version by Charles Brown on Billboard's Greatest Christmas Hits 1955-Present, and there are several other great versions out there, but my favorite is in Cajun French. It's the one by Belton Richard that's included on Alligator Stomp: Cajun Christmas. That's a great disk overall, unfortunately it appears to be out of print but you may be able to find a used or remaindered copy at a slight premium.

9. Santa Baby -- Joan Javits.

From my observations, you either love this song or hate it. I fall on the love side. But not sung by just anybody; it's almost got to be Eartha Kitt's original version. (It's available on the earlier Billboard Greatest Christmas Hits 1935-1954.) Until recently I wouldn't have added "almost," but then I found the London Gay Men's Chorus version on their Make the Yuletide Gay. Even though we know we shouldn't, we all fall prey at times to sheer greed, and might as well acknowledge it. As I'm making my Christmas list, I'm not asking for things like platinum mine deeds, cars or Tiffany baubles, but wanting more books, more music, more kitchen gadgets, magazine subscriptions, fine slippers...I'm no better than the singer, who's no better than she should be! And that's why we need Christmas.

10. The Compleat Nutcracker Sweet -- Petr Ilich Tchaikovskii, arranged by Philip Aaberg.

It wouldn't be Christmas without those artistic performances that everyone goes to, and that often pay the bills for the rest of the year. The Nutcracker is the only ballet most people ever see, I would guess. In case you're not seeing it this year, you can get quite a bit of the music condensed into 5 minutes and 34 seconds with this recording, found on A Windham Hill Christmas: I'll Be Home for Christmas. So far this year, I'm scheduled to attend the local ecumenical Lessons and Carols service next Sunday, if my cold doesn't get worse; and a jazz concert next week in which my ex-sister-in-law is appearing, and I don't know if that will include any holiday tunes at all. But the MPBN magazine came today with lots of good things to watch and listen to during December.

11. I'll Be Home for Lefse -- Leroy Larson and the Minnesota Scandinavian Ensemble.

Last year, this was the song that made me cry. Not that I'm not happy to be back in Maine, but after 32 years immersed in Scandinavian-American culture, well, you yust get used to it, you betcha. Although Onkel Hankie Pants' family is pure Danish, and don't make lefse, we had a friend of Norwegian extraction who used to bring lefse (rolled up around butter and sugar) for coffee hour after church during this season. I haven't learned to make them yet, but last year I did make rosettes and fattigmand for the first time (although the Danes call fattigmand, klejner.) I believe this song is original to the group, another Minnesota musical treasure. It appears the principal place to buy the album is in Iowa, though, at the Vesterheim museum in Decorah.

So, that's all for today and all the tunes for this week. By the way, I just checked. I have 4,220 items in my Christmas-Advent-Chanukah-Winter Solstice collection (though, to be fair, this includes classical music where each movement or aria is a separate track.) Is this excessive, do you think?

Advent, or not?

So, is it Advent, or isn't it? Most years in my memory, the Sunday after Thanksgiving has been the first Sunday of Advent. This is one of those years when that is not the case; it was Reign of Christ Sunday instead, and Advent starts next Sunday. So we church folks are in a bit of an odd position vis-à-vis the commercial culture: concerned about marking Advent before we celebrate Christmas, and this year, also in a sort of limbo where the commercial side of Christmas has begun but Advent hasn't even started.

Or has it? I did have this discussion several years ago when I worked in a Lutheran church where the pastor was very knowledgeable about liturgy, the Christian year, etc. I think we decided that since Reign of Christ Sunday ends the church year, the next day really begins Advent although nothing is done in church to mark it until the following Sunday. [Note to Sisterknits and Cordeliaknits: Advent calendars still don't begin until December 1.]

This appears to be the tack my denomination has taken, or even a bit more so. The UCC's online Advent devotional began on November 23 (Black Friday or Buy Nothing Day, take your pick) and will last until Epiphany. It must have been some unreconstructed old Congregational Christian who came up with this; the Evangelical and Reformed part of our 50-year-old merger knew their church calendars a bit better than that. Nevertheless, there are some good thoughts in this devotional so far.

Tomorrow, I'll be inaugurating Tuneful Tuesday with a short list of music for this inbetween time.

Mug Meme

St. Casserole posted this meme and it sounded like a good one:
Describe seven mugs that are in your kitchen cabinet. So here goes:

1. Green glass labyrinth mug from Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, bought off the Internet. Alas, when I actually got to their classy gift shop last spring, the design had changed completely. This is my favorite, I only use it when I have a new pot of fresh coffee!

2. A black "God Is Still Speaking" mug that I got from a UCC event kicking off that campaign.
3. A very bulbous, handthrown, greyish-blue pottery mug (with a matching dessert plate) that Cordeliaknits' friend Biz gave me. I wish we could see Biz this Christmas.

4. A big heavy white mug with my nickname on it in blue calligraphy (you've probably seen the popcorn bowls? that kind) that my boss at #5 gave me one Christmas -- the other two supervisees also had fairly unusual names so we each got one. Although it's nice to have an unusual name, sometimes you just want to find your name on something...so it was a good present.
5. Dark red mug that says "Hamline University School of Law" where I worked in the library for 9 years. A souvenir of the year that Am. Assoc. of Law Librarians had their convention in the Twin Cities and I helped with the opening reception.
6. Maine-made pottery mug with pink and purple tulips painted on it, a birthday present several years ago from my brother Uncle Markie Pants.
7. And one I don't use often because I don't want to break it -- a mug with a loon on it that belonged to my mother.

I tag Cordeliaknits, Celeste, and Sisterknits (if she ever blogs again!!!)

A brief rant about turkey liver

So, if you are dealing with a turkey and want to make giblet gravy or turkey stock, every recipe you will find tells you not to add the turkey liver until very late in the process, as it will make the product of your labors taste bitter. BUT! Does ANYONE tell you how to recognize which of the three (in the case of my recent turkey) small items in the paper bag IS the turkey liver? They do not. I performed a Google(TM) search* for images of turkey liver and was sadly disappointed. One site from Dorling-Kindersley had a lovely photo of various kinds of turkey "offal" (the wonderful old term for such things) but at least on the website, they were not identified. Other sites had photos so murky and taken from so far away as to be quite useless.
Now, I know what a human liver looks like (more or less, shapewise), or a beef liver. One might assume that a turkey liver looks similarly shaped but smaller, but of my three items, one looked like a heart (2 chambers) and the other two both looked as if they COULD be livers. So, this time, I used chicken broth for moistening the stuffing, etc. and put the turkey neck and giblets into a bag in the freezer. But tomorrow I plan to make turkey soup with the carcass and it will be Use It or Lose It time for the innards. Can anyone help?
*A friend of Cordeliaknits works in the legal department at said search place and she says this is the proper terminology. She also says the amenities are all they're cracked up to be.

RevGalBlogPals Friday Five:

Courtesy of the RevGalBlogPals, here is the Friday Five, oddly enough, pretty much what I was going to blog about anyway!

1. Did you go elsewhere for the day, or did you have visitors at your place instead? How was it?
We were at our house and had visitors. My sister and cousin came for turkey and then my brother, his wife, daughter and her husband and son, my nephew's girlfriend (nephew is in Congo with his NGO), my aunt and uncle and their daughter and her two sons came for dessert.
So here's what we ate:
mixed nuts, little pickles and olives, (no shrimp cocktail as all shrimp available were farm-raised "drenched in petroleum" -- Maine shrimp season starts Dec. 1 so hope to have it at Christmas), roast Maine turkey with standard sage and onion dressing, gravy made by my cousin, mashed Maine potatoes, homemade Maine cranberry sauce, sweet potato/peach/cashew bake, carrots glazed with an orange-ginger sauce, classic green bean casserole, a mixture of buttercup squash and another kind I don't know the name of, dark orange with deep orange flesh -- with a little Maine maple syrup stirred in -- and the traditional brown-n-serve rolls. To drink we had sparkling apple-cranberry juice from the Pajaro Valley in California, not far from Monterey where Onkel Hankie Pants and I first met.
Then we cleared up and washed dishes.
When the others arrived we had: pumpkin pie (two kinds, one I made with eggs and one my niece made with no eggs); apple pie (niece); chocolate spice cake (niece); pecan pie (I made); cranberry chocolate cheesecake (Onkel H made); and for me, the piéce de resistance, butterscotch meringue pie made from scratch by my cousin. Coffee, tea, and cider. Looking at photo albums, talking, playing Set, younger people playing hide and seek. The dog behaved reasonably well (he did have to be sequestered during the actual eating of dinner).
Nobody got shot, my definition of a great family gathering!


2. Main course: If it was the turkey, the whole turkey, and nothing but the turkey, was it prepared in an unusual way? Or did you throw tradition to the winds and do something different?
It seems everybody has a different idea about the best way to cook turkey. We got a local turkey through our meat market, didn't brine it, cooked it according to directions in the book Thanksgiving 101. Unfortunately I forgot to remove the tinfoil from the breast so it was not photogenic, but delicious nonetheless. I also used my trussing needle and kitchen string with great skill.


3. Other than the meal, do you have any Thanksgiving customs that you observe every year?
Our new custom is to sing the grace I posted a couple of posts ago, which we did.



4. The day after Thanksgiving is considered a major Christmas shopping day by most US retailers. Do you go out bargain hunting and shop ‘till you drop, or do you stay indoors with the blinds closed? Or something in between?
We definitely opened the blinds as it was a beautiful sunny (read: free heat) day. But didn't go anywhere other than as necessary to walk the dog. I celebrate Buy Nothing Day and it is very relaxing.


5. Let the HOLIDAY SEASON commence! When will your Christmas decorations go up?
Sometime before December 21 when Sisterknits arrives! I noticed a few folks in the neighborhood had very tasteful, subtle decorations up -- minilights on evergreens, candles in the window kind of thing. It's such an early Thanksgiving this year that it doesn't seem like time yet. However, I did spend a few minutes on the computer making a pre-Advent music playlist -- it's mostly secular winter-type music, with a few numbers such as "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" and then some Ave Marias and "A Winter's Solstice" music themed to snow, etc.

I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving too! Leave me a comment if you don't already participate in the Friday Five.