Another Year, another Christmas

Merry Christmas! Jolene Navarro here. As I write this it is deep into the night, the house is quiet and the Christmas tree lights the dark room.

I love Christmas decorations, each one comes with a special story.  Over the years the memories get deeper and richer with  little sparkles of sadness coating  them.  Most of my angels that hang around my tree came from my mother and a few came from students. Of course with four children I have all the handmade ornaments glued and dated by little hands that are now all grown up.

Each year marks a loss of some sort: people, youth, and phases of life your children outgrew. You can let it take the joy or you can  find joy in remembering the legacy of the one you have lost. Of where your children have grown. When they come home they actually decorate the tree.

In my Christmas story, A Texas Christmas Wish, my hero has a hard time coming home because all he see is the loss of his mother and sister. Seeing his nieces getting older reminds him of the thing his mother and sister will never do again. He lives in the pain a grief instead of finding ways to heal and honor them.

His father is grieving too but both men are a bit on the stubborn side and ignore instead of embracing. The heroine’s faith and optimism in spite of her own rough life brings the men around to seeing the beauty in their memories and celebrating the legacy of the women they love.

 My own mother loved Santa figures. As she bought me a new angel for my tree each year I bought her a new Santa for her collection. When I see a unique Santa my first impulse is to buy it and it makes me a bit sad, but that’s okay. We take our sadness and turn it into blessings. Through me and my children she lives on in our lives.

The naivety scene pictured below, belonged to my mother. She made it when I was about eight years old. She poured the molds and glazed the set. A few of the pieces have been bumped and dinged but they are the first thing I set up in my house and the last thing I put away.

They remind me of one of my favorite line from a story: The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams

“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”

So maybe another year has made us a  a bit shabbier, but the Lord has designed us for relationships the most important on is with him. So this Christmas whether you are surrounded by tons of family or quietly alone, light a candle and remember the greatest gift is eternal life we are given because of faith in the unseen.

The Christmas Ornament by Patty Smith Hall

     The Saturday after Thanksgiving, our family always puts out stacks of storage boxes and decorate our home for Christmas. It’s not much to speak of, certainly nothing compared to some of the beautiful layouts in those home and garden magazines you see at the grocery store.
     But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Each ornament no matter how large or small holds a memory, a special place in our family history. The tiny wooden elf with his faded cotton hat, the teardrop glass ornament with the year of our marriage engraved on it and so many others that tell the stories of Danny and my life together. But none tell the story of those early years of our marriage as much as the simple ceramic Nativity we bought our first year together.
     I was in my last year of nursing school and Danny had just started his first job out of college. We were as poor as church mice with barely two pennies to rub together but that didn’t dull our Christmas spirit. Somehow, we managed to save a few dollars out of our meager grocery allowance. With few decorations to call our own, we went to the local discount store to see what we could get to fix up our home for the holidays.
     And we were terribly disappointed.
     Everything pretty and festive was out of our price range. We would only be able to buy a few cheap things. Then we saw it, a small ceramic Nativity set. Having met in Sunday school, it seemed right that the first Christmas decoration we bought for our home would be a representation of Christ’s birth. Though it wasn’t expensive, it was still out of our tiny budget. Reluctantly, we moved on, trying to find something else but our attention always shifted back to that Nativity. In the end, we decided it was worth eating spaghetti for an entire week so we bought it.
     Over the last thirty-two years, that ceramic Nativity has traveled thousands of miles, made it through six moves and survived two active toddlers. It will always hold a special place in our home. . .and our hearts.   
    

Home from the war, army nurse Thea Miller is determined to adopt her late sister's baby and begin a new life. But someone else has the same intentions—the town sheriff and Thea's old friend, Mack Worthington. Now, in order to keep her niece in the family, Thea must reach an agreement with him.

Mack isn't sure Thea—whose actions once hurt him badly—is committed to baby Sarah. And a judge may never approve a single-parent adoption for either of them. But what if they got married? It would be a marriage in name only. Yet the more time Mack spends with Thea, the more he begins to believe their pretend family can become the real one they've both been longing for.

Christmas Traditions

Ready or not, the holidays are here, filled with the scents, sounds and traditions that make this special season like no other.

Here at the Obenhaus' home, the tree is up and decorated...

And the stockings have been hung with the greatest of care...

(I must remember to pick up another candle.)

Oh, but that's just the beginning. Soon, cherished events will take place, like our town's annual Christmas parade, my friend, Drenda's cookie/ornament swap, and so many other things, culminating in a blessed Christmas Eve church service.

Recipes that only appear this time of year are being dusted off and ingredients bought.

Andy Williams, Perry Como and Bing Crosby echo from my radio.

One of our favorite traditions is to give each child an ornament that will often reflect something that's happened in their lives that year. It's a tradition that my mom started when our oldest daughter was born and one I've carried on not only with my kids, but with my grandkids. 

In recent years, I've started purchasing an ornament whenever we go on a vacation, so every Christmas, as I hang them on the tree, I'm filled with memories of where we were and what we did.

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without those amazing aromas. 

At our house, I always have Christmas Scent simmering on the stove.

The kids walk in and say, "It smells like Christmas."

It's also a great gift idea, so if you're interested, you can find the recipe in my journal at  mindyobenhaus.com. 

Now it's your turn. What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?

Grandma's Cookbook

Hello all! Christine Johnson here today on the eve of the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. I love this holiday because it's all about food and family (and American football). What's not to love?

Holiday food is especially poignant because it brings back taste memories. My mom's sweet potatoes and mincemeat (actually mince-fruit) pie instantly transport me to Thanksgivings past. Christmas comes with a load of food memories. One I can still taste today is my grandma's plum pudding.

Educational Point #1 - Traditional pudding does not come in a box. For those of us who grew up in the Jello generation, this kind of pudding is a rich and moist cake. 

When I began writing this November's book, Legacy of Love, I wanted the heroine to attempt to make my grandma's plum pudding. To portray this accurately, I needed the recipe. So I asked my mom if she had it. She didn't, but she remembered my grandma saying it included suet. Suet? I instantly thought of the blocks of greasy birdseed that we put out for the birds in the winter. That wonderful moist cake included birdseed?

Educational Point #2 - Suet doesn't have to have birdseed in it. Apparently it's fat rendered from beef, as opposed to fat from pork, which is called lard.

Though I figured that out, I was no closer to the actual recipe. After extending the search, one of my aunts not only had the recipe, she had the whole cook book! 

 

 

Here is the very page with the recipe, from the Modern Priscilla Cook Book from 1924. As you can see, it's very well-used. It's also called plum duff, though Grandma always called it plum pudding. She served the pudding with hard sauce, so called because of its texture. The firm butter and sugar sauce would melt on the warm pudding. Oh yum, I'm getting hungry! Maybe I should make it. Then I read the recipe.

 

Educational Point #3 - Older recipes can be less than precise.

 

First, the cook needs to mix a lot of dried fruits and nuts into the suet and let "ripen" for a week. Okay. How does one "ripen" fruit and nuts in fat? I suspect it does not involve a refrigerator. Cooking also involves steaming in molds for four hours at an unknown temperature. How? Alas my grandma didn't leave any notes in the margin for future generations, but she did tuck into the cook book a modern photocopy of an English Plum Pudding recipe with more detailed directions. Though I can understand this recipe more easily, it lacks the charm and simplicity of the 1924 version. My heroine, a novice cook, might have produced a perfect plum pudding instead of the catastrophe that summoned the hero to make a food rescue.

 

For me, Christmas will always recall the taste of my grandma's plum pudding. What special taste memories do you have for the holidays?



History of the Candy Cane

Kim Watters here. According to legend there was a candy maker who wanted to invent a candy that was a witness to Christ.

First of all, he used a hard candy because Christ is the rock of ages. This hard candy was shaped so that it would resemble a "J" for Jesus or, turned upside down, a shepherd's staff. He made it white to represent the purity of Christ.

Finally a red stripe was added to represent the blood Christ shed for the sins of the world, and thinner red stripes for the stripes He received on our behalf when the Roman soldiers whipped Him. Sometimes a green stripe is added as a reminder that Jesus is a gift from God.

The flavor of the cane is peppermint, which is similar to hyssop. Hyssop is in the mint family and was used in the Old Testament for purification and sacrifice. Jesus is the pure Lamb of God, come to be a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

I don't know if this is true, but it sure makes a great story; one that I tell my kids as I hand them their candy canes, because He is the reason for the season.