Emily plays the French horn with the Mid America Freedom Band, and they are having a virtual concert streamed live on SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, at 4pm central time. (Emily joined when she still lived in Kansas City - but since everything is virtual now, she can continue to play from her new location!)
Tune in here to view the concert: https://www.twitch.tv/freedombandkc
The band has released one holiday song each day for the past eleven days, and the concert today is the twelfth day of Christmas, with the release of the final song and the culminating livestream event.
Since we know and love Emily and want to see and hear her play, I thought I would share the videos of the four songs in which she performs:
Jolly Old St. Nicholas
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Florence Price: Adoration (1951)
Into the Unknown
If you want to view all the songs released, you can find the whole playlist on YouTube:
It is often chilly up here in the Northwoods, and we make lots of warm drinks. You have seen my hot chocolate recipe already, but there are plenty of warm (or warming) beverages that feel appropriate for winter.
Although we discovered it in the spring via social media, it is perhaps more appropriate in the winter: Dalgona coffee has been a defining drink of the pandemic. We made some yesterday afternoon!
Instant coffee, sugar, and hot water in equal parts are whipped together to create the foam, and it is spooned over hot milk. It is quite the afternoon pick-me-up, and it's such a pretty drink!
There's a cold (but warming!) drink my family always had on special occasions around the holidays: the Grasshopper! My dad makes better grasshoppers than any I have had anywhere else. He mixes equal parts Creme de Menthe and Creme de Cacao and blends them with vanilla ice cream (which, according to the Wikipedia article, is the Wisconsin variation). It's always fun to have these!
One of our holiday traditions when we lived in San Jose was a yearly trip to the Weihnachtsmarkt, a German-style Christmas market held in downtown Mountain View, CA, hosted by the German International School of Silicon Valley. We attended for the first time because friends of friends have children who attend the school and were in one of the singing groups - and we have returned every year since. (The market is being held virtually this year, with a live stream scheduled for the evening of Saturday, Dec. 12, starting at 7pm pacific time/9pm central time.)
We relished wandering through the craft booths to look for Christmas gifts, listening to the German Christmas music, eating some of our favorite German foods, and getting our annual mug of Glühwein, a spiced hot mulled wine, or the non-alcoholic (but still hot and spiced) Kinderpunsch. Fortuitously, we actually remembered to take a photo last year!
One hot drink we have not tried, but that Emily and Bryan were scheming to make one winter, was the Hot Flip. This drink is a colonial New England classic drink. I think the reason we never made it is because is requires a hot poker heated in a fire, and a vessel in which one can safely whip the drink with the hot poker!
Another in the warming-but-not-necessarily-warm category is eggnog. Our friend Amber made Alton Brown's Aged Eggnog last winter, and it was delicious. This year, Bryan has started his own batch, and it has been in the fridge developing its flavor since shortly after we moved into our house. (We used the last of the Ledgerock Bourbon we bought when we were in Fond du Lac last Christmas!) We will give it a try soon, but the recipe says it can be aged for months, or even a year. We'll see if it lasts that long!
When I was in high school, the Christmas after my summer in Germany (1998?), I remember Grandpa, Jeff, and Joe meeting in the kitchen at Gramma & Grandpa's house during our holiday celebrations for a shot of Jägermeister. I had tasted it in Germany the previous summer - and I thought it was disgusting! Maybe I should try it now that I have a more experienced palate.
On a few occasions, we have had dinner on Christmas Eve with friends who are Swedish. There is always a delicious buffet of traditional foods, and the drink at the end of the meal is schnapps. It is important to sing songs while you drink it! We do not (yet?) speak Swedish, so we don't understand the songs, but it is clear when it is time to throw back the schnapps!
For actual warmth on a cold day, nothing beats a cup of tea. Lately we have been enjoying these two blends from Poesie:
On our hike yesterday morning, there was finally ICE on Clear Lake. Although it was warmer today and yesterday (in the forties), before that we had a string of cold days that left the water's surface frozen.
The movie Frozen came out in 2013, but I didn't see it until well after its release - maybe the following year at Thanksgiving or Christmas? Bryan's sister Jennifer had it ready for me to watch when we visited for the holidays, and I think the first few minutes are my favorite part of the movie.
I love the multi-layered choral music, followed immediately by the great song about ice. These two songs are why I bought the soundtrack! The rest of the movie is good, and I will belt out "Let It Go" whenever it plays, but this opening scene is the best.
Ice makes noise! This Swedish man is skating on very thin, black ice:
For another kind of ice entirely, we have "Vanilla". This video is terrible in hindsight - maybe it was terrible when the song was released in 1989. Regardless, it fits the day's theme!
Glaciers have always been fascinating to me. I saw some from a distance when my mom and I went to Iceland in 2001, but the first time I saw glaciers up close was on our cruise to Alaska in 2017.
Later in the cruise, we spent an entire day in Glacier Bay National Park. It was mesmerizing, and I think I could happily have spent the entire cruise right there, watching the glaciers and the wildlife in the bay.
We loved it so much, we even bought one of the ridiculous pictures taken by the cruise photographer!
We've spent a lot of time in the woods this fall and winter. Our house is in the woods, and we go hiking a couple times a week. It has been fun to watch the change of seasons on the paths we walk.
We call this the Mushroom Tree. It's on the central path at the Raven Trail, so we pass it nearly every time we hike there.
In grade school, we always had two songs to sing for the annual Christmas concert. One was always a funny, goofy song (like that Wookie song), and the other was always a traditional carol. This is a carol my class sang in fifth grade or so, and I have always loved it - makes me think of being in the woods in the winter:
This stone path runs right along the edge of Clear Lake. Red Pine is over on the other side!
We can see much farther in the winter when the leaves are off the trees.
Although we usually only see one or two other hikers when we are out, it's clear that lots of people are using the trails!
We decorated our own little piece of the woods yesterday. We have a perfect Christmas tree in the yard, right next to the house, and we have been thinking since we moved in that it would need some lights.
Meanwhile, back on the left coast, Judy has decorated the palm tree in their yard (with an impressive handmade light sculpture she made herself)!
Wherever you are, I hope you're enjoying a little piece of the woods, whether it's in person, in pictures, or through a song or poem.
I know this is the post you've all been waiting for! For many years, Bryan and I have met my parents, Aunt Mary, and often Andrew and Jill for a long weekend of cookie-baking (and candy-making) in late November or early December. In a typical year, we make a dozen or more varieties, actual thousands of cookies, and we divide them up to take home and share with our friends and family at our various holiday gatherings. (In the picture above, note the phone, open to the calculator, and the notepad for tabulating our totals!)
Due to COVID-19, cookie-baking weekend is not happening in 2020. However, I am officially declaring dibs on hosting in 2021 - I have never before lived within driving distance of everyone, nor had space to host a gathering, so I think it's my turn!
This baking extravaganza started as a way to spend time together remembering Grandma Z. - she was a great baker, and my dad and Mary have vivid memories of her holiday baking. The first few years we gathered, we used only Grandma's recipes, but over time, we've made some tweaks, tried some new recipes, found some new "standards", and discarded ones we didn't like as well. We've also changed our routines to spend our short time together more productively - we have some cookies we now make on our own and bring, already baked, to exchange with the others. When we're together, we can focus on the recipes that really benefit from many hands to shape, cut out, and decorate.
The chocolate snowflakes are a favorite because they're pretty and tasty, with just the right amount of frosting. My mom often makes extra batches of these to take to Cookie Walk events (cancelled for 2020).
The recipes that were our workhorses for years, for white and chocolate cutout cookies, were some of the ones that we have replaced! One year, Mary got some holiday cookie decals made of edible wafer paper from Fancy Flours, and they came with recipes for cookies that would work well with the decals. These recipes were so good that we have never gone back!
These are the best recipes we have found for white and chocolate cutout cookies:
Sweetapolita's Perfect Dark Chocolate Sugar Cookie (We have only rarely been able to find the dark chocolate cocoa powder called for in the recipe, and when we've used it, the cookies have been TOO dark - so we use regular cocoa powder, and they are great!)
The chocolate crinkle recipe is another one that we have replaced - Mary found a new recipe that uses both cocoa and melted chocolate, and it's delicious. The secret seems to be rolling them in granulated sugar before rolling in powdered sugar.
Divinity is one recipe where we are divided. Grandma's recipe turns out beautifully if one is patient and the weather is right. Betty Crocker's recipe is what I make if I'm making it on my own. My mom has started making a no-fail Jello divinity that is fruit-flavored and always turns out; Bryan's mom and sister have made it now too. However, it's pretty different from what Grandma made!
The recipe for these Italian cookies came from Mary's friend. They are rolled in sesame seeds - but we ran out of sesame seeds that year, so we rolled some in poppy seeds instead. My friend Amber loves poppy seeds, so I took those ones home to share.
Fudge is one recipe we have rarely gotten right. My dad and I started making marshmallow cream fudge years ago, and that one is tasty and always turns out well. However, we all agree that Grandma Z. made the best fudge - we try her recipe nearly every time we're together, but we almost never get it to turn out the way hers did - the flavor is good, but the texture is all wrong! After several years, I have a theory: Mary and I both use cast iron pots and pans almost exclusively, and they are great for so many reasons...but I wonder if maybe they don't work as well for a fudge recipe that comes from just-post-WWII cookbook that was probably developed when people using lighter-weight pots? My mom and I made it once, and it turned out well - but my mom has lightweight pots! Maybe the quicker cooling pot gives us the better texture in the fudge? Clearly, more research is needed!
I baked Chocolate Crinkles last week for Bryan's birthday, and I'm planning on a few more batches of our favorites before the holidays, but I haven't yet decided which ones I'll make. Christmas cookies freeze beautifully, so we don't have to eat them all at once!
I will leave you with a video. Bryan watches a lot of YouTube videos of people making stuff, mostly woodworkers. He found a series of really well done videos in German, “Wie Man Macht…” (How someone makes…) This is a 45 minute video of a chocolatier making half a dozen types of “Pralinen”, or fancy chocolates, and it is mesmerizing. Although all the audio is in German, I think it will still be clear what’s going on.
Maybe it will inspire a flurry of baking or candy-making in your kitchen - or maybe it will leave you heaving a sigh of relief that you don't have to bake or make candy if you don't want to!
We love a good jigsaw puzzle. My parents used to get Andrew and me a puzzle for Christmas - and sometimes we would stay up all night working on it! Since we can’t all do a jigsaw puzzle together, I submit for you a virtual Christmas Jigsaw Puzzle.
In the Worm family, the game of choice is often Sheepshead. It has a long and proud Wisconsin history.
For those of us who are not so into card games, there is Christmas Trivia!
This Christmas tree dispatch comes to us all the way from Colorado! Emily recounts the adventure she and Arman had cutting down their Christmas tree:
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Arman and I headed to Arapaho National Forest to cut down our Christmas tree. I didn't know that many National Forests will allow you to cut down a tree with a $20 permit. (I saw a choice to buy a permit for Northern Wisconsin.)
We parked off a fire road just north of Winter Park, CO. The road was full of cars; there was barely a place to park! But the forest is big, so it was easy to safely stay away from others. Since we had to be at least 75 feet from a trail or road, we just started hiking up the mountain. After hiking up about 45 minutes, we found the perfect tree. It has split at the bottom so it was fuller than a lot of other options!
I cut it down myself!
We decided to take the trail back down to the road, which was much easier than traipsing through the snow. We passed many families with young children who were not happy to be looking for a tree. And I get it - it was a lot of work! We were both tired and sore after we got home!
We got the tree tied to the top of the car and I nervously watched it through the sunroof most of the drive home. Once we got it home, we weren't sure it would fit, but I think it's perfect.
For size comparison!
Arman and I were both sore after the experience, but it was worth it!
Emily and Arman, your tree and its provenance is VERY impressive! Well done! Maybe we will be inspired to check out that National Forest permit in northern Wisconsin next year!
Last year when Bryan and I were driving from San Jose to Carlsbad at Christmas, I was feeling nostalgic and purchased a digital copy of a Christmas album I had on eight-track as a child, "Merry Christmas from Sesame Street", initially released in 1975. One of my favorite tracks is a Sesame Street Christmas pageant hosted by Prairie Dawn, and I hope you will enjoy it too:
From these Saint Nicholas stories evolved a feast day, a whole host of traditions around Europe (and some in North America), and a wide variety of (mostly) related holiday gift-bringers. Learn more here.
Among them we have:
Father Christmas - Britain
Noel Baba - Turkey
Père Noël - France
Pai Natal - Portugal
Sinterklaas - the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg
It will be a few more weeks until the lakes are fully frozen - and even then, I'm not sure I'm ready to walk out onto them. However, I have always loved ICE SKATING. The folks at Minocqua Winter Park said that the the ice rink should be opening soon, so maybe we can enjoy skating there this winter. (Do our skates need sharpening? It's been a while since we used them!)
I have a poem for you, Ice-Skaters by Elder James Olson. Be sure to click through to the subsequent pages to read the whole thing - the poem spans four pages of the November 1960 issue of Poetry Magazine.
I have taken several adult ballet classes over the years, and when we were living in Lexington, I was the stage manager for several of the ballet school's annual performances. That was where I first learned about Les Patineurs, a short ballet that depicts a Victorian skating party on a frozen pond on a winter's evening. The whole thing is only about 25 minutes, and fortunately there is a version available on YouTube so we can all see it:
Or, perhaps your ice-skating preferences lend themselves more toward Peanuts:
After skating, or just on any day when you want to feel cozy, I highly recommend a cup of hot chocolate. Once I learned how simple it was to make from scratch, I stopped buying hot chocolate mix. Here's how I make it:
Hot Chocolate
Ingredients, per serving:
¼ cup water
1 T sugar
1 T cocoa powder
8 oz milk (use part half-and-half or cream for extra richness)
½ t vanilla
Optional dash of salt, sprinkle of cinnamon and/or cardamom
Method: In a small pot, whisk water, sugar, and cocoa powder and heat just to boiling. Lower heat and add milk, vanilla, and spices. Whisk to combine; heat to a comfortable drinking temperature. Serve hot.
Tasty additions:
Marshmallows
Candy canes
Grated chocolate
More cinnamon, nutmeg, or cardamom
1 oz liqueur (Grand Marnier, Kahlua, spiced rum, brandy - lots of things taste good with hot chocolate!)
If you dislike Christmas music, you should stop reading here and ignore this blog post, because today, we're having a SINGALONG!
According to this study, it is definitely time to start playing Christmas music, so that's what we're going to do!
Hold onto your hats, because the Christmas songs I have for you today are the weird ones!
In every place I've lived, there's been a radio station that starts playing Christmas songs the day after Thanksgiving (or sometimes the day after Halloween). They always play the classic carols and the pop star or country star covers - but there are also some novelty Christmas songs that have a more regional appeal, and I have heard them in one part of the country, but they're virtually unknown in other parts.
In Wisconsin, the Christmas song that gets stuck in one's head is this one:
However, in the Boston area (populated by many people of Italian descent), we heard this one all the time:
There are some songs that never show up on the Christmas radio stations, for good reason! In 1986, when I was in kindergarten, the second graders sang a Christmas song from Christmas in the Stars: a Star Wars Christmas Album in our annual Christmas concert, and it has been stuck in my head ever since:
(The Star Wars Holiday Special is generally regarded as having been terrible. You can go find it on YouTube if you want to see how bad it is, or if you watched when it aired and have since blocked it out.)
If that was too awful, you can remove that song from your brain by playing another one that is guaranteed to stick:
We've had four novelty Christmas songs so far, but no Muppets yet! This one is for my little friend in California who loves Sesame Street AND cookies:
And this one is for Gramma - because I know she loves a good chicken - and this song has six chickens!
Okay, that's enough of that! I'll leave you with one final Christmas song that's more of a classic, and one of my favorites:
Do you have a favorite Christmas song, novelty or otherwise? Share it in the comments!
