In Hamlet, Marcellus, referring to the royal ghost, says: “It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say that ever gainst that season comes wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, this bird of dawning singeth all night long, and then, they say, no spirit dare walk abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, so hallowed and so gracious is that time.”
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Christmas is the most widely celebrated festival in the world but in few countries is it valued as deeply as in Germany. The country has given the world a number of important elements of the season, including the Christmas tree, the Advent calendar and wreath, gingerbread cookies, and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, “Es ist ein Ros` entsprungen,” […]
The post Christmas in Nazi Germany appeared first on OUPblog.
Now that our family is complete and our little guy is not a teeny 4lb newborn fresh out of the NICU, as he was last Christmas, it's time to start making new traditions and mixing them in with some of our old ones.
Santa:
We've had a lot of discussion in the past couple of months as to whether or not we want to incorporate Santa into our yearly Christmas celebration. We have close family members that sit on both sides of that fence, so how Elliott will grow up, I'm not sure. All Santa gifts? No Santa at all? If we do "Santa," will his cousins ruin it for him early on? I'd like to avoid trauma!
I'm still not 100% sure on how we'll do it in future years, but for now, Santa will be bringing one gift and filling up stockings. When Elliott is a bit older, we'll do the letter to Santa and cookies for him, along with a birthday cake (or cupcake) for Jesus. I think we can easily mix the two and teach Elliott all about the true meaning of the holiday.
Christmas Eve:
We'll be doing a somewhat traditional "new pajamas on Christmas Eve" thing, along with a new ornament, and a new book about Christmas story. This year, we're spending Christmas Eve having a huge dinner with friends, so we'll be opening up these in the morning.
Spending time with friends is definitely taking a step away from the tradition of going out for a nice dinner -- something Aaron and I have done since we were married. With Elliott being of toddler age (and hitting the sack at 6 p.m.), dinner out isn't feasible at this point, so dinner at a friend's is the next best thing.
We'll also be doing Christmas Eve church services, of course, but our church has them on both Sunday and Monday. I'd much rather do the Monday time, but again, with dinner at someone else's home, we have to be flexible. We're just going to attend at our normal time on Sunday morning and dress up for Jesus!
Aaron and I take turns reading aloud the story of the birth of Christ from Luke.
Gifts:
Last year, I heard about this neat method of limiting the amount of gifts children receive to a few categories. I thought it was a brilliant idea and from the looks of Pinterest and a lot of other blogs I've read recently, a lot of you are picking it up too!
I found the image via the blog: a random sampling. She doesn't credit where she found it, though does mention Pinterest.
Ashley over at
Writing Chapter Three also used a 5th category of "
1 Thing to Create" and we'll be using that too. I love that idea! 5 gifts from us, 1 from Santa, and stockings is still a whole lot of stuff, so we may even limit it more in later years when the items are more pricey and Elliott is doing the asking.
I'll be sharing the gifts we've decided to give Elliott this year in my next post, so stay tuned!
Christmas Morning:
For as long as I can remember, my mom always made a pan of cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas morning. Just the super fancy ones that come in the blue tube ;). Aaron and I incorporated that into our own set of traditions, but now that I'm trying very hard to stay away from processed food, I'm thinking of making my own this year. I know
The Pioneer Woman's recipe is a popular one, but do any of you have others you're fond of?
Angel Tree:
This is the first year we've done an
Angel Tree child as a family and I know we'll be continuing it. We had a 7-year-old girl to buy gifts for and after some careful saving throughout the fall months, were able to buy everything on her list, including a bike! What 7-year-old kid shouldn't have a bike?
Future Traditions:
Elliott is barely a year old and is still pretty young to enjoy the holiday. I'm hoping that next year we can start to incorporate these traditions:
Reading of the Christmas story on Christmas Eve (including E in the reading).
Nativity. We already have a beautiful nativity (
this one), but I'd like to do one like
this one for Elliott.
(A small side note... I find it funny that our nativity set is listed at almost $400. We bought pieces over three years, but probably didn't pay more than $150 for it total. Don't buy a $400 nativity set, that's lunacy!)
An advent calendar filled with fun activities.
Driving around on Christmas Eve to see houses all decorated with lights.
Hand-making gifts as a family.
Wrapping up 1 book for each day leading up to Christmas. Finishing with our Christmas Eve book!
What are some of your favorite traditions?
Two projects today - both tasty, and both for making those red mushrooms seen so often at Christmas. The how-to for both in a second, but first a few words about why mushrooms at Christmas?
I love these mushrooms, don't get me wrong. I have a number of mushroom ornaments for our Christmas tree as well as other cute little mushroom decorations, some of which I leave out year round. But I've always been curious about their relationship to the holiday (just not curious enough to research it until today).
And it turns out, no one really knows for sure. But Sheila Brown in
this interesting article on the Christmas mushroom details some of the theories. First, the
amanita Muscaria or "fly agaric" mushroom (aren't those both unappealing names? especially the common one?) is considered a sign of luck, which is why it's often included on Christmas cards. Second, it's associated with the evergreens used to decorate at Christmas. Basically, the fungi grow around evergreens and have an interdependent relationship with them, so they've become associated with each other. Some people think, probably wrongly, that Santa dresses in red and white because of these guys. Oh, and one more interesting bit of trivia: this type of mushroom is called the "fly" agaric because flies are attracted to it. (Not sure what the agaric part means except maybe it's the gagging sound people make because of all those gross flies.) Folks used to put bits of the mushrooms in bowls of milk; the flies would drink the milk and mushroom mixture, get drunk, and fly into things and die. Doesn't that sound nice and Christmas-y?
One last crucial piece of information. Mushrooms in the amanita family are poisonous - ranging from moderately bad news like these ones to extremely/fatally toxic - so better to avoid nibbling on them, especially because they all look pretty much alike. Unless they're these sugary amanitas that I'll tell you how to make.
First, because they're so simple, the gumdrop ones. Basically all you need is a red gumdrop, a white gumdrop, a knife, and a high tolerance for sticky fingers. First, carve a stem shape out of the white gumdrop, making sure to cut the sugary part off the bottom (so the mushroom will stick to whatever surface you put it on and remain more or less upright) and the top (so the red part will stick to it). Save the extra white parts because you need them to make the little white dots. Next, cut the bottom off the red gumdrop. Then chop and mush little bits of the leftover white gumdrop to make tiny dots. Carefully peel the dots off your fingers (easier said than done) and stick them to the red gumdrop in a pleasing, mushroom-y pattern. (On real mushrooms, those white dots are little bits of the stem still sticking to the cap from before the cap emerged.)
Then stick the red top on the white bottom, squish it around a bit until it sits nicely, and you're done. You can eat it right away, but if you let it sit out in the air for a few days, it gets hard and looks pleasantly translucent and decorative sitting on a shelf or hanging from the Christmas tree (just be sure to stick the hook in before it gets totally hard if you're going to hang it).
Next up: the no-bake mint mushrooms. I found this recipe, which my daughter and I used many years ago to make little snowmen, on a scrap of paper tucked in a cookbook. I think but was unable to confirm, that we originally got it from American Girl magazine. At any rate, it works equally well for snowmen or mushrooms, as you please.
You need:
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon mint extract
1/8 teaspoon salt1 cup confectioner's sugar
A few drops red food coloring
White nonpareil candies (if you can find a jar of just the white ones you're lucky. Otherwise you'll have to pick the white ones out of the mix of a zillion colors. Or you could go buy a box of the tasty Sno-Cap candies, brush the white balls off into a bowl and eat the chocolate so it doesn't go to waste.)
Directions: In a small bowl, combine the butter, corn syrup, extract and salt. Gradually stir in confectioners' sugar. Knead by hand for 1-2 minutes or until mixture becomes pliable. Depending on the weather conditions, you may need to add more confectioner's sugar. The dough should be pretty stiff (or the mushrooms will tend to "melt" and collapse in a most disturbing way) - but you don't want it to get crumbly.
Divide the dough in half and place in separate bowls. Leave one half white, and add a few generous glops of the red food coloring to the other, stirring and kneading to combine well. You may need to add a little extra sugar at this point to keep it firm enough.
After accidentally smushing a few of my early attempts, I hit on this method for forming the mushrooms. (I made teeny tiny ones, which appeal to my love of all things miniature, as well as to my limited tolerance for candy that doesn't involve chocolate - why waste the calories? - but you could always make bigger ones; the process would be the same.) Tear off a piece of waxed paper for a work surface. Pinch off some white dough and roll a log to whatever width you desire. Cut off the length you want. Shape the stem some more, so that it's wide at the base and tapers toward the top. Tap both ends against the waxed paper to flatten and leave to air dry a bit. Make a whole bunch more stems. (You may want to cover the bowls of dough with a damp paper towel while you're working so the dough doesn't dry out too much.)
Next, form the caps by roll a small ball and flattening a bit. Experiment with different shapes. (I like variety in my mushrooms, but you could always strive for uniformity if you prefer). Pour a small quantity of nonpareils in a shallow bowl. Then press your fingertip against a damp paper towel and use it to chase around and pick up individual white nonpareils. It's a bit painstaking at first, but you'll get better. Gently press them over the cap. After you've made a bunch of caps like this, dampen the top of the stem with a wet fingertip, and carefully pick the caps up and place them on the stems, pushing them down slightly so they'll adhere well. Allow to air dry for a few hours, and then they're good to eat!
These make a very pretty gift in a small tin - just make sure the get-ee realizes they're food. We had someone preserve her little snowmen for several years thinking they were decorations (and wondering why they had that odd minty freshness).
I always told the children that >I< did not believe in Santa, but they could believe in anything they wanted. They got one Santa gift eventually delivered by drunken elves (long story, but their favorite part now), but I always denied all involvement. I didn't feel as much like I was lying to them.
Aw, I love these! We've always gone for a walk on the beach on Christmas, and we do PJs on christmas eve and 1 gift from under the tree.