Favorites Things - Christmas Version

A little later than I planned...my five favorite things of the Christmas season (in no particular order)...

Christmas cards - I love both receiving and sending Christmas cards. And yes, I am one of those people who write the proverbial yearly Christmas letter. I enjoy being creative (some years more so than others) catching people up on my family's activities from the past year. I appreciate the notes, letters and pictures my friends and relatives take the time to write and send. Most importantly, I love the opportunity cards, letters, and pictures give me to catch up with all those I don’t get to see very often. It gives me a feeling of connection – which is why I continue to send cards and letters – even when I don’t always get one in return.

Christmas cookies – There is nothing better than discovering a new cookie recipe that really clicks. I love almost everything about baking cookies...gathering up the unique ingredients I don't usually stock in my pantry, the lovely smells of cookies wafting throughout the house, the warmth of having the oven going all day, the taste-testing of dough and broken cookies (oops, how did that happen?), all accompanied by holiday music or an old Christmas movie. Baking crazy amounts of Christmas cookies brings back fond memories of my mother and her holiday spirit. I find I actually enjoy baking and giving cookies away more that I do eating them (weird, huh?). It brings me immeasurable joy to see an empty cookie platter that was earlier filled to the brim, knowing my baked goods were savored by all.

Christmas songs - Yes, I am one of those people who listen to continuous Christmas music on the local radio station from Thanksgiving through Christmas day. I don't really have a particular genre I have to listen to - it all makes me smile. You will find me singing or humming along to "Baby It's Cold Outside", Bing Crosby & David Bowies' "Little Drummer Boy", "Mary Did you Know", "Santa Baby", "It Came upon a Midnight Clear", "Sleigh Bells" and pretty much any Christmas song you can think of. It doesn't matter if it is on the radio, the muzak playing in a department store, or in a holiday commercial - I'll be joining along. My office mates kindly put up with my obsession (although last year they did limit me to one day a week of Christmas music on the radio). When I was all alone in my office this week my boss would occasionally pop in his head to see if I was lonely. Nope, I was just jamming to my Christmas tunes...

Christmas movies – I love watching old Christmas movies. You just can’t go wrong with “White Christmas”, "Miracle on 34th Street" or "It's a Wonderful Life". I am not all old school, I enjoyed "Elf", "The Santa Clause", "A Christmas Story", and find myself getting sucked in by the sappy Hallmark Channel shows. But, I have a special fondness for the old movies. They bring back a simpler time when all life's problems could be solved with a song and dance. Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye had such chemistry - they truly looked like they were having fun singing "Sisters" (and if you don't know what I am talking about - you HAVE to rent "White Christmas").  

Christmas morning traditions - It all begins with our extended family slowly waking up, drinking a leisurely cup of coffee, nibbling on a cookie, and then settling in around the Christmas tree.  After picking a Santa (usually Kaitlyn although this year Lance volunteered), we begin a marathon gift opening session, broken up by our traditional Christmas morning brunch featuring egg bake, fruit salad, some sort of bread and mimosas (a recent tasty addition to the festivities).  Gift opening is a grand affair, as each individual takes turns opening one present at a time while we share laughter and love over the stories behind the gifts.  Even our dog Ellie gets in on the fun - she has gotten very good at untying bows and tearing off the wrapping paper!  I have found it is not the quantity of gifts we receive, but rather the quality of the company we keep that makes the morning so special. 

So, as they say in the song, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"!

Christmas cookies...

I will always associate homemade cookies and candies with Christmas...and my mother.

My mom used to make at least six different kinds of cookies and six different kinds of candies every Christmas. And that didn’t include the fruit cake she started in September – it had to marinate in rum soaked cheesecloth for months and months, stored in a tin carefully placed on a high shelf in the cool back stairwell, before it was pronounced good enough to eat.

We lived just one town north of most of my relatives, so Christmas was a time for “visiting”. And if you visit – you have to snack on holiday treats. My mom never disappointed!

It began with Christmas cookies…

My favorites were the pecan fingers. If you have never had these – you are missing out on a delicious memory. Ground pecans mixed with powdered sugar, butter, flour and a few other ingredients mixed and shaped into logs, baked and rolled in more powdered sugar. I still make these almost every year for my own family.

Of course, she also made the holiday staple – frosted cutout cookies. Hers were a little different from the traditional sugar cookie as they had anise spice in the dough and frosting made with whipped egg whites and powdered sugar. I remember decorating what felt like hundreds of cutouts with colored sugars – carefully designing each cookie in the beginning, then just putting one color on each cookie as it passed my way and finally tossing a mixture of all the leftover colors on them as the night progressed and we started to tire of our task. Poor Mom – while we decorated she had to keep up with frosting them all! We had quite an efficient assembly line going – good thing there were a lot of us to help.

My dad’s favorites – fry pan cookies and trilbies. The common denominator for these two cookies were dates. Dad loved dates. Trilbies are a sandwich cookie made of oatmeal dough with a date filling spread in between the two cookies halves. Fry pan cookies are made on the stove top with dates, nuts, and Rice Crispies – cooked then rolled into balls and covered with coconut.

We also feasted on peanut butter cookies with the chocolate stars, thumbprints, and cream cheese spritz cookies in red, green and white with sprinkles.  Somehow I ended up with my mom's original spritz cookie press and the secret recipe.  Maybe I will have to give them a try this year - for old times sake!

And then there were the bars – after all, these counted as cookies, too.  Seven layer bars made with coconut, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, walnuts and more; and pecan bars with melt in your mouth butter frosting were my personal favorites. 

Every year she would experiment with a new cookie – some to return regularly – some never to be seen again.

And of course we had more than our share of homemade candies...

I am not talking about perfect little chocolate molds.  I'm remembering divinity, heavenly fudge made with whipped cream, and white almond bark.  There were mint chocolate haystacks, English toffee (the year it was undercooked and soft was the best!), and white chocolate dipped pretzels.  And don't forget the chocolate covered cherries, my favorite angel food sponge candy that melted in your mouth, and chocolate-coconut drops.

It occurs to me that people just don't make homemade candies any more - but my mom was an expert.

When we were first married, I tried so hard to recreate the Christmas of my childhood.  I baked dozens of cookies and created all kinds of homemade candies - more than the two of us could possibly need.  So, I sent out care packages filled with cookies, candies, and love to everyone we knew. Now, I just bake whatever sweet treat I am in the mood for - no minimum requirements! Since I can't not bake something, I believe my mom may have passed on a baking gene to me...

My sister Linda and brother Gary got that baking gene, too, as their homes were always filled with lots of goodies to satisfy any sweet-tooth at Christmastime. And, lucky for my brother Ross, his wife Lil loves baking as much as the rest of us so the tradition carries on in their house, too.

I sometimes worry holiday baking has become a lost art. That is why I encouraged my daughter Kaitlyn to bake with me at a very young age. I used to sit her on the counter top and she would help stir, sample, and form the shapes of all the goodies. Something must have clicked, as she can make her way around a kitchen with the best of us!

Memories of Christmas will always include the treats my mom expertly prepared.  If food is love, then we were loved in abundance.

This Christmas, I think I may need to dig out some old recipes...

Tis the Season...

Thanksgiving is now just a pleasant memory. The turkey leftovers have been consumed in every form imaginable.  The pies have disappeared from sight.

And now we contemplate how to tackle all the activities of this Christmas season.

We do have a choice. 

Try to pack as many things as possible in the few short weeks we have left as we spread ourselves thinner and thinner - or step back and realize we are human and have our limits.  We don't have to do it all to make the season wonderful.

Easier said than done.

I know -- the "to do" list can be endless this time of year. Put up and decorate the Christmas tree; skillfully stage holiday decorations throughout the house; hang lights outside on the trees, railing, and roof line; shop for Christmas gifts; bake cookies and candies; attend seasonal events and concerts; get together with friends and relatives; write the Christmas letter; take family photos; address and mail the Christmas cards -- WHEW!

While we may want to do it all - I think we need to step back, prioritize - and make some concessions to our original plans...

I had written the Christmas letter weeks before - a family picture was taken on Thanksgiving day - photo cards were designed and ordered all by Saturday night.  The envelopes were out the door mid-week.  Task number one -- check off the list.  (Don't laugh, I really do make lists...and check things off.)  

As a family we put up our tree the day after Thanksgiving.  I adorned the house that weekend with most of our Christmas decorations and the thought that I would put up the rest of the holiday items the next week.  Well, this weekend, as Lance put up lights on the evergreen in our front yard, I realized that maybe I can be finished - the house looks festive and no one but me will know I could probably have put out more boxes of decorations.

So, instead of putting the pressure on myself to produce the "perfect" Christmas I think I will put the activities I enjoy most at the top of my To Do list and forget about the rest.

It is so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the season that we sometimes forget what we are truly celebrating.  Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ - our Lord and Savior.  Not about how well we decorate the house, how many activities we attend, or how many cookies we bake.

As I've already taken care of the "must do's" on my list, I have decided the rest of this season I will just relax and enjoy. 

So, over the next few weeks, if I feel the urge to bake cookies, I will.  If I want to take Ellie for a long walk under the moonlit sky, I will.  If I want to enjoy a cup of coffee while I do nothing but listen to Christmas songs, I will.  If I want to watch a sappy holiday movie, I will.

Accompanied by Lance I'll enjoy some Christmas concerts, appreciate the lovely lights of the holiday season, eat some favorite foods, drink some wintertime beverages, and spend time with family and friends.

On Christmas Eve, I will be with my family, reliving the story of Jesus birth and happily singing carols as we attend the candlelight service at our church.  On Christmas morning we will open gifts, eat our traditional brunch, and spend time catching up with each other.

And that is my wish for us all this year...a Christmas season that brings us absolute peace and joy.