When I was in high school and college, I sang at a few madrigal dinners. If you’re unfamiliar with madrigal dinners, here’s a sampling. (and no, I’m not in this video).
One thing was a constant in every madrigal dinner – wassail. It’s a kind of warm cider drink my choral director would make every year. I’ve made it on Christmas Eve for years. It’s a family favorite and a longstanding tradition. And it only takes about 5 minutes to prepare!!!
Wassail
Needed:
1/2 gallon apple juice
2 cups pinapple juice
2 cups orange juice
2 cinnamon sticks
2 teaspoons whole cloves
Instructions:
Pour all juices in a pot or crockpot.
Float Cinnamon sticks. Place cloves in a coffee filter and tie with a twist tie.CLICK HERE for an UPDATE to this recipe.
Simmer for AT LEAST 30 minutes or more
(when it the smell starts to waft, you know it’s gonna be GOOD)
Enjoy!
I know some would cover an entire orange with cloves and float it in the wassail. My hat is off to you, but I can’t find my thimble. Actually, I haven’t looked. But you go ahead. More power to ya.
The bonus is the way the house smells while it’s simmering.
My favorite Christmas movie was on the other night, and I had an epiphany.
It’s the department store window. That’s it. It marks the beginning of the materialistic Christmas. Evidenced first by all the little faces pressed “before a golden, tinkling display of mechanized, electronic . . . joy” and then in little Ralphie’s face at four and a half minutes into this clip.
Here’s the original trailer:
And I know, it’s mean to like this part, but . . . but . . . they didn’t really stick that kid’s tongue to the pole . . . it was done with suction . . . so it’s not really mean . . .
This week’s quote comes from a classic fictional account of the Christmas story. I know! Fiction! I’m quoting Fiction! With the shower repair and the subsequent unexpected “spring” cleaning to recover, I’m a little late into the Christmas season. Rather than lament that fact, I’ve decided to “reset my watch.” Or in this case, my calendar. I got the idea from a story I heard (or more probably, read).
An American sports coach got a job coaching a team in Italy. Their observance of time was not exactly similar to an American’s observance of time. The coach had a daily schedule, which begain at 8:00 a.m. The Italian players didn’t show up in time to begin every day at 8:00 a.m. They arrived . . . when they arrived. After a few frustrating days, the coach devised a plan. He waited until everyone showed up. And then he set his watch back to 8:00 a.m.
That’s what I’m doing. I’ve consciously decided to keep my tree and decorations up into January. I’m not going to allow a disruption to shorten my Christmas season. I’ve decided to observe “Three Kings Day” on January 6th. Feliz Navidad!
On Christmas Eve, I’m singing “Mary Did You Know” and Nicole Sponberg’s version of “Breath of Heaven.” So, I’m a little focused on Mary’s perspective right now. These fragmented quotes from Two From Galilee: The Story Of Mary And Joseph by Marjorie Holmes only heighten that perspective.
“But it was not the priest, it was Joseph who bent near in love and reverence, telling her, ‘ I can see its little head. You must strive harder, beloved. Bear down, bear down.’
She obeyed, gratefully. There was a great ripping and flooding and burning, and he came forth out of her, out of Mary, his mother. Thus in blood and pain he came into the world, this son of God who was also man and the son of man.
And Joseph lifted him up for her to see. And they looked upon him together and marveled at him, his wholeness, infinitely small and red and perfectly formed. And when he squirmed in Joseph’s arms and uttered his first cry, the thrill of all mankind ran through both of them, for this was life, human life, and they knew that a miracle had been achieved . . .
. . . She smiled in her half-sleep and pressed the hot little bundle closer. Yet what bliss, to direct the nipple to the lips, to be the source of its sustenance. Ecstasy flooded her, the ecstasy of a new mother, who finds herself with the child safely cradled in her arms after the long ordeal. The only reality is this wonder, this sense of harmony and love so intense it is scarcely to be endured, and the tears escape the eyelids and roll foolishly down the cheeks.
And so Mary rested on this night that her child was born. And Joseph kept watch, near exhaustion himself, but too excited to sleep.”
I’ll continue quotes from this book through the holiday season.
“. . . therefore I quote” Thursday: If you have a quote to share from something you’ve read recently, feel free to comment and/or include a link to your own “quote” post.
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FirstHusband is the head chef in this house on Christmas Day. He genuinely enjoys it! And he has a plan. It’s a serious plan. We all follow it. Wanna see last year’s plan? Click the link.
Did I mention he’s an engineer? We all just follow directions and the meal is always WONDERFUL and NOTHING is cold when it’s supposed to be warm or warm when it’s supposed to be cold. HE says the spreadsheet was necessitated after the year everything needed to be “plated” at the exact same time and we couldn’t pull it off. (I know he just wanted to build a spreadsheet.)
He literally FILLS the smoker with meat on Wednesday and gets up every 4 hours to tend to it Wednesday night. He comes back to bed smelling like mesquite and I could care less. It is SO worth it. He always smokes a turkey, but in past years he has also smoked pork loin, ribs, beef, lobster, prawns and brisket. This year, there’s a ham and a lamb shank in the freezer waiting their turn. It is going to be very, very good. He refers to it as “A Feast.” And he is correct.
We went to Disney’s Hollywood Studios to see the Osborne Family Light show Saturday night. These 2007 videos are good, and they give you some idea of the number of lights and the work that goes into the light “choreography” alone, but there’s just NOTHING like standing in the middle of all those lights, surrounded by the music. It always gives me goose bumps.
Some find it too loud, but to them I say, plug your ears and complain somewhere else.
This is a video from this year, but the camera man tends to move around a little too much, so if you get motion sickness, be forewarned.
“At first, some people have a hard time explaining exactly what’s wrong with Christmas because on the surface everything looks fine. But when they take a closer look, many of them realize that their celebrations lack depth and meaning. It’s not enough that Christmas be a family birthday party or the biggest social even of the year. They want to be moved by the celebration.
When they decorate, they want the result to be more than a beautiful house. They want to look around them and be filled with an air of expectancy . . .
. . . At Christmas, people want to reach down inside themselves and come up with feelings that are better, bigger, more joyful, more loving and more lasting than their everyday ones . . .
. . . But for most people, the real problem with Christmas isn’t that they’re spiritually bankrupt or that Christmas is devoid of meaning. It’s simply that they haven’t taken the time to define for themselves what’s most important about Christmas . . .
. . . While they have planned the details of their celebrations right down to the kind of cranberry sauce to serve at Christmas dinner, they haven’t stopped to ask themselves the all-important question: Why am I celebrating Christmas? They rely on habit, other people’s priorities, commercial pressures, or random events to determine the quality of their celebrations. But this is rarely successful. People need to make conscious choices, because Christmas offers them so many possibilities. It’s a time to celebrate the birth of Christ, the pleasures of family life, the importance of friendship, the delight of creating a beautiful home environment, the need for world peace, the desire to be charitable, and a host of other important values. When people don’t sort out which of these ideas are most important to them, the celebration can seem fractured and superficial . . .
. . . When people haven’t resolved these larger issues, they find it hard to make the dozens of small decisions that confront them every day of the holiday season . . .
. . . we’ve been encouraged by how quickly and easily people can decide what’s most important to them. All they need to do is to become more aware of the need to make choices, have some sense of what those choices are, and set aside a little time to reflect on them. With just a few minutes of prayer, meditation or conscious decision-making, most people gain a much better sense of how Christmas should be.”
The authors included an exercise at the end of this chapter to help readers take a look at all the values competing for our attention at Christmas. For a print friendly version of this exercise in PDF, CLICK HERE.
“To complete the exercise, read through the following ten value statements . . . cross off those that have no importance to you and add any equally important ones that we have not included. Then decide which of the remaining values is most important to you. Put a 1 beside that sentence. Then find the one that is next important to you and put a 2 beside it. Continue in this manner until each statement has been assigned a different number. Even a value that has a low priority to you can still be important. Remember: 1 is the highest and 10 is the lowest.
Christmas is a time to be a peacemaker, within my family and the world at large.
Christmas is a time to enjoy being with my immediate family.
Christmas is a time to create a beautiful home environment.
Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of Christ.
Christmas is a time to exchange gifts with my family and friends.
Christmas is a time for parties, entertaining and visits with friends.
Christmas is a time to help those who are less fortunate.
Christmas is a time to strengthen bonds with my relatives.
Christmas is a time to strengthen my church community.
Christmas is a time to take a few days off from work and have a good time. “
I’m going to get FirstHusband to work this exercise with me. I’m also going to ask FavoriteSon and PinkGirl to do it too. I think it will be an interesting and helpful process. Hope it helps you too!
“. . . therefore I quote” Thursday: If you have a quote to share from something you’ve read recently, feel free to comment and/or include a link to your own “quote” post.
Need help making your link look pretty in the comment? Copy and use this code.
Although we used “real” pumpkin for our jack-o-bread recipe, we use canned pumpkin for this. It’s much smoother – not so . . . grainy, if you know what I mean.
FavoriteSon has been begging/nagging for days and Sunday night, FirstHusband finally made the long awaited jack-o-bread. It’s pumpkin bread made from our jack-o-lanterns.
First, PinkGirl scooped pumpkin guts on Halloween. (If you carve your jack-o-lanterns too early, you may want to use canned pumpkin.)
Then, the pumpkin gut fairy cleaned up.
FirstHusband/BestDaddy cut up the jack-o-lanterns the next day. (You’ve got to move fast on this, the inside of the second pumpkin started to rot the next day.)
Poor “Jack” was boiled like potatoes. [UPDATE: We now bake him at 350° until he’s tender.]
My copy of “The Tightwad Gazette” was opened to the wrinkliest page – the one with the highlighted pumpkin bread recipe.
FirstHusband did the honors.
And it appears I’m too slow with the camera.
A number of years ago, I insanely – and I do mean INSANELY – made four batches of pumpkin bread – from FOUR different recipes. It took me ALL day and I forgot to wear shoes, so my back and legs and feet were KILLING me when the last oven timer went off. But at the end of the day, the taste tests revealed the winner was a recipe from “The Tightwad Gazette” by Amy Dacyczyn (pronounced “decision”). The recipe is in the original book, page 127. There’s a The Tightwad Gazette II and a The Tightwad Gazette III. Now there’s even The Complete Tightwad Gazette
3 eggs
4 cups sugar (we use half brown sugar/half white sugar)*
1 cup oil
1 16oz can pumpkin (we use 16 oz of “Jack”)
5 cups flour (we use half wheat/half white flour)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1/2 Tbsp cloves or nutmeg
1 cup applesauce (we use sugar-free)
You can add:
1/2 to 1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup dates or raisins
by Marjorie Holmes only heighten that perspective.
(I’m quoting the 1982 edition.)
” by Amy Dacyczyn (pronounced “decision”). The recipe is in the original book, page 127. There’s a 
and a 
. Now there’s even 
. They make 
too!