This Week on the Wet Noodle Posse
We finish out the month's holiday theme with the following blogs:
Monday, December 22nd: Diane Gaston When Snoopy Knocked Down the Christmas Tree
Tuesday, December 23rd: Delle Jacobs Lucifer Saves Christmas
Wednesday, December 24th: Trish Milburn Christmas Memories
Thursday, December 25th: Holiday Card from the WNP
Friday, December 26th: WNP Is On Vacation
Labels: Christmas memories, Delle Jacobs, Diane Gaston, pets and Christmas, Trish Milburn
Have Cookies--Will Travel
Christmas Eve dawned much like many others I’d shared with my husband and daughter. We had a breakfast of French toast, I finished what little wrapping I had left, then took a leisurely shower. I’d checked the frosted sugar cookies off my list the day before. All I had to do was arrange the tree, stocking, star and candy cane shaped cookies artfully on a couple of holiday platters for their transport to my husband’s Aunt Bonnie’s house, with whom we spend our Christmas Eves. I covered the glass and painted tin platters with several layers of plastic wrap. Perhaps that was a little overkill for a ten minute journey, but I’ve always been protective of my Christmas cookies. My husband announced it was time to leave. He gathered everything we were bringing from the brightly wrapped presents to my cookie platters and placed them safely and securely in the back of our station wagon (my mom-mobile at the time that my husband claimed was sporty because it had a metal rack on the roof). The picture is me with my daughter who was four years old at the time--about ten years ago.
I don’t recall why I shirked my responsibility to the cookies I’d spent a day baking and another whole day icing and decorating in festive sugars. Maybe I was making sure our daughter was bringing some toys to play with or that she was wearing some form of leg covering for warmth. She went through a phase where she refused to wear socks or tights because the seams bothered her.
As my husband took a right onto the road in our subdivision leading to the entrance, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something red flying close to the car. I commented that I’d never seen a cardinal get that close to a moving vehicle. Before the station wagon made it to the next cross street, a burst of yellow flashed by the window in much the same way the cardinal had only seconds before. I asked my husband what sort of yellow birds nest in Georgia in the winter. The car slowed. Wes’s eyes widened. His lips parted like he was going to answer my question, but no words emerged from his throat.
That’s when a third “bird”—this time a green one moving much more slowly than the previous two—slid past my window. Yes, the birds were in fact my sugar cookies. I voiced what my husband could not-- and perhaps in a more shrill than festive manner—something about whether or not he’d put the cookies on the roof of the car. That’s about the time he slammed on the brakes. A gentle stop might have been a better choice. The platters and what was left of the cookies kept going, proving some law of motion I don’t recall from high school science class.
The glass platter? Shattered into many tiny pieces. My old-fashioned painted tin plate, empty of cookies, rolled down the dip in the road like a penny on its side. The cookies I’d spent so many hours baking and decorating? A few found a soft landing on some neighbor’s brown Bermuda lawn. Most others were in various states of decomposition in a sad little trail that meandered along the asphalt road behind the station wagon.
My daughter sniffled loudly that the only dessert at Aunt Bonnie’s would be cake and pie. Yes, shocking but true, when my daughter was little she didn’t like cake or pie. My husband sent a sheepish expression my way, the one that usually vaporizes my anger. He apologized, too. I said nothing. I got out of the car and walked down the hill, past crumbs of buttery sweetness that the birds would hopefully enjoy and picked up my scratched and dented tin platter from the spot where it stop careening. What little sun was left in the sky dwindled. Neighbors, oblivious to the disaster beyond their doors, turned on their Christmas lights, and I decided I wouldn’t be angry. It was Christmas, a time of joy. I walked back to the station wagon, got in, clicked my seatbelt into position and said something cheesy like “I guess that’s how the cookie crumbles.”
Every Christmas since, Wes, Cynthia and I check to make sure the cookies are in the van rather than on top of it preparing to take a ride to certain crumbdom.
Have any holiday disasters you'd like to share? Oh, and the secret to my wonderful sugar cookies is Pillsbury dough!
Although Maureen Hardegree will spend the majority of this day baking Christmas cookies for the various parties her husband and daughter will attend this week, she’ll sneak in writing time, too. Her southern short stories have been published in BelleBooks’ Sweet Tea collections, and she contributes to the Mossy Creek collective novel series. Click on this link to read A Very Mossy Christmas, a free holiday story she wrote for BelleBooks.
Labels: Christmas memories, holiday cookies
A Family Heirloom
by Lee McKenzie
How is it even possible that a gift I received as a child has already become a family heirloom? After all, I’m not
that old! But I think some things have all the hallmarks of an heirloom, even when they’re brand new, and the rocking horse I received for Christmas in the mid 1950s is one of those things.
It was going to be a lean holiday that year. My father had been laid off from his job so to make enough money to buy my Christmas present—a rocking horse—he chopped firewood for a neighbor.
Yes, that's me in the photo!
I still love this horse. His name is Old Paint, after Tonto’s horse, Paint, from
The Lone Ranger. Anyone remember that show? The Lone Ranger himself was very heroic, but I adored Tonto. I’m not sure why I added Old to my horse’s name. Maybe Tonto sometimes called his horse old Paint?
I had plenty of adventures on Old Paint as we galloped through my imagination. As you can see, I’m not the only child who had fun with him. This photograph of him being ridden by my daughter was taken about thirty years later.
I can still make out the name of the manufacturer and model on the back of the rocker. It’s called a Foxhunter, made by Tri-Ang, a British toy company. The body and rocker are painted metal, the reins and stirrup straps are leather, and the mane and saddle are rubber and still in great shape, although the tail is now gone.
While Old Paint waits for another generation of riders, he enjoys a place of honor in our holiday decor.
Doesn’t he make you think of an old-fashioned Christmas?
Guests of all ages fall in love with him!
Speaking of guests, I like to have lots of snacks on hand when people drop by, and I like things to be simple so I’m not tied to the kitchen and missing out on all the fun. Here are a couple of recipes easy-to-make tasty holiday treats that can be made a day or two before a party and set out just before guests arrive.
Spicy Almonds and Pecans
1 cups whole almonds
1 cup pecans
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss all the ingredients in a bowl and mix until the nuts are coated with seasonings. Spread the mixture in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the baking sheet, let the nuts cool, and store in a tightly sealed jar for up to a week.
Curried Cashews
3 cups roasted cashews, unsalted
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons coarse salt
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated lime zest
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Toss all the ingredients in a bowl and mix until the nuts are coated with seasonings. Spread the mixture in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the baking sheet, let the nuts cool, and store in a tightly sealed jar for up to a week.
The preparation instructions are pretty much the same, but please note the different roasting temperatures and times.
Thank you for joining me at this busy time of year.
Wishing you a happy holiday,
Lee
~ ~ ~
Lee McKenzie writes for Harlequin American Romance. WITH THIS RING (December ‘07), her Christmas-in-July story, is still available as an ebook from
eHarlequin.com and
Amazon.com (Kindle edition). For more holiday fun and good cheer, please visit Lee at
The Writer Side of Life.
Labels: Christmas memories, holiday food, Lee McKenzie, recipes
Christmas Tree Memories
This year I'm not putting up a Christmas tree. In fact, I'm barely decorating for Christmas. Everyone who knows me is astonished. After all, they know me as the woman who has a closet dedicated just to Christmas decoration. I have an attic full of Christmas decorations, and there are two other closets that have Christmas decorations on the shelves. So have I become a scrooge? No, I'm not putting up a tree or decorating because we're going to Chicago for Christmas to be with our daughter who is about to give birth to our first grandchild. I'm going to live this Christmas on memories of the Christmas trees we've had over the years. Here are a few highlight or maybe lowlights about Christmas trees I've known. I can just smell the scent of a fresh evergreen tree.
I don't remember too many trees from my childhood, except the shiny silver one with the multicolored light that made it change colors. Somehow that same kind of tree resurrected itself and wound up in my apartment when I was a poor single school teacher. That was about the only tree I could afford. The first Christmas after my husband and I got married, we bought a Scotch pine and decorated it. It was quite lovely until it was time to take off the decorations. That tree was really prickly, and I decided that Scotch pines might be pretty but not practical.
The first Christmas in our very own home in Ohio, we decided to cut our own tree. So we went in search of a tree farm. On the way we saw a guy selling trees for $5. So we bought one. Well, as you can imagine, it looked like a $5 tree, but we decorated it and gave a toast to Charlie Brown. We've had a few other Charlie Brown trees as well.
A few years later we lived in the Atlanta area. One of our neighbors had a brother who owned a tree farm in North Carolina. So every year in November we would put in our order for a tree, and our neighbors would bring them back after their trip to see family in North Carolina during Thanksgiving. After they got back, we would go over to their house and pick up our tree without ever cutting the plastic netting. We never had to check them for shape or size. They were always nine feet of Fraser fir perfection. We were spoiled during those years, as we never had to go to a lot to pick out a tree.
When we moved to the Boston area, we had to get used to the cold again and going to a lot to find a tree. The Massachusetts balsam firs we found came from a nearby tree farm, so they were always extremely fresh. The ceilings in our house were only 7 1/2 feet, so we always had to make sure we didn't get a tree that was too tall.
We only lived in Massachusetts for a little over two years before we moved to Dallas. We spent the first five months in an apartment and moved into our brand new home a week before Christmas--not a good time to move. Two days before Christmas, after we had unpacked the Christmas decorations, I insisted that we have a Christmas tree. So we trekked to a nearby lot and found the bargain of all bargains--a $150 tree for $35. It was a gorgeous ten foot Fraser fir. We put it in the corner of our living room which had a tall vaulted ceiling. The following year, I tried to duplicate that tree without spending a fortune and came away with a candidate for a Charlie Brown award. That was the year I decided that I needed a nine foot slim line artificial tree to go in that corner of my living room and that we would put a smaller live tree in our family room. Ever since then we have been a two-tree family. I decorate the live tree with all the ornaments that I've collected through the years--the ornaments that our kids made when they were little and the ornaments I've bought from places we've traveled. And every year I add an ornament with the year on it. I have ornaments from 1976-2008. Yes, even though I didn't put up a tree this year, I did buy a 2008 ornament. We finally replaced our artificial tree two years ago after ten years and two moves--Dallas to Chicago, then Chicago to Florida.
Here are a couple of pictures--one of the live tree I put out in our screened pool area and the artificial one I usually put in our living room. This year I'll just look at the pictures and maybe light a balsam scented candle while I listen to Christmas music.
Do you have any special memories of Christmas trees?
Labels: Christmas memories, Christmas tree, Holidays
This Week on the Wet Noodle Posse
The Posse is continuing this month's holiday theme with some fabulous recipes and heart-warming memories. Don't miss out on the opportunity to win a copy of Diane Gaston's holiday story A Twelvth Night Tale in the Regency Anthology MISTLETOE KISSES (Nov 2006)! The more you post, the better your chance of winning.
Monday, December 8th: Priscilla Kissinger “Candy Cane Bark Recipe”
Tuesday, December 9th: Delle Jacobs “Put These in Your Stocking: Great Gifts Any Writer Can Wish For”
Wednesday, December 10th: Merrillee Whren “Christmas Tree Memories”
Thursday, December 11th: Lee McKenzie “A Family Heirloom and Recipe for Spicy Nuts”
Friday, December 12th: Q&A Topic: Great Gift Suggestions for Under $50
Labels: Christmas memories, Delle Jacobs, gift-giving ideas, holiday recipes, Lee McKenzie, Merrillee Whren, Priscilla Kissinger
