4 posts tagged “christmas”
Each year we swear we're going to cut down on the presents and each year they're piled higher and higher. I got some very nice items, such as:
A Skype phone (both skype and non-skype phone calls) from my brother and sister-in-law
A small webcam from my parents
A 12 piece set of gold-rimmed dinnerware from my sister and brother-in-law
A rollicking good time with family and cats! That was the best gift of all.
What did you get for Christmas??
Merry Christmas to all of you, at least those of you who observe this holiday. I'm spending the week with my family in snowy Buffalo, New York. Poles celebrate Christmas Even, Wigilia, so we'll be going to my sister's house (one block down) in about 30 minutes. We'll have a traditional meal, then we'll open our presents.
I hope you have a wonderful holiday and feel free to leave some pictures on your blogs!
Best,
Margy
Of course, you all know I'm a writer and I certainly hope you've had the chance to check out some of my stories, particularly the ones I've worked on with Rosie. The most enduring of these little series, of course, are the Maggie-Della mysteries and I'm hard at work on the second novel.
I got a wonderful call from my sister-in-law, who ordered a copy of Family Secrets (the first novel) for herself and finally sat down to read it during our recent snow storm. She called to let me know how much she liked it and, in particular, how taken she was by Della. My sis-in-law is also disabled, due to earlier brain surgery that left her weak on one side of her body. She and I spent a long time talking about the relationship of Maggie to Della, and how well the first book was able to explain Della's world, in all its happy and sad moments, to sighted readers. She was really fascinated by it, and could very strongly relate to a lot of Della's frustrations, since so many of them were also her own.
At the same time my husband and I had begun our holiday shopping in Arlington, choosing to patronize local business here rather than send our money on its way out of state, or even out of country. We ended up in a charming little gift shop a stone's throw from my house and dropped a few bills there on Hanukkah and Christmas presents. The owner, also a fellow Arlington Chamber of Commerce member as am I - thanked me for my business and chatted a bit. Later I put in an email to the the Chamber, talking about my decision to patronize local business this year for a lot of our holiday shopping. My little scribe ended up in the Chamber newsletter, with my friend's business featured in bold-face, along with other places Aram and I had visited. A few days later I was checking my business email when in popped a thank you from the gift store business owner. I was really touched by it. It felt really sincere and personal.
So, where is this all leading? Well, I don't normally write Christmas stories but I had some time to kill on Sunday as it howled outside of my door. Somehow, my conversations with my sister-in-law and the small business owner in Arlington converged and I ended up spending the day writing a story and incorporating Della. I keep fictional blogs on the Maggie-Della website, so I put it up there for visitors to read. But, somehow, the themes that came out in the story seemed appropriate for this blog as well. What do we take for granted when it comes to our senses, what do we cherish, and why?
I really enjoyed writing this story and I hope you have as much fun reading it:
http://maggie-della.com/maggiesblog/
By the way, the blog and the site in general are as accessible as I can make them. You can hear the story, as well as read it.
Let me know what you think!
I'm Polish-American, so we celebrate Wigilia on December 24. Christmas Eve is far more important than Christmas day and we have a number of food traditions we still follow.
The meal is traditionally meat-less, although fish is permitted and served. The meal itself is a representation of the farm's winter bounty: food from field, preserving cellar and orchard. Traditional dishes include pierogi, sauerkraut with dried mushrooms, fish, soup and rye bread. There's lots of sour cream, too. We usually begin the feast with shrimp cocktail (God knows where that one came from, but every Pole I know does this!) with rye bread. Then we have a meatless barscht (Polish for borscht, or beet soup). Sometimes we'll have a dried mushroom soup, and on one occasion my sister (who puts on this feast every year) also made a sweet almond soup. The main dishes - pierogi, fish, sauerkraut, etc. - follow this.
Dessert is wonderful. We serve a traditional dried fruit compote that's spiced up with whole cloves and orange peel. It's served cold or at room temperature. Traditional breads include a poppy seed roll. No, that's not a little roll, but a dessert bread made like a jelly roll. The filling is made of sweetened, ground poppy seeds. We also serve a type of babka called placek (plot-tsek). This is more of an Easter bread, but we always serve it at Christmas, too.
We also have more American style desserts, at least if someone's baked cookies or other types of holiday breads. After dinner we open presents and spend time together as a family.
Christmas day is no big deal. We usually sit around and digest! I usually cook Christmas dinner and sometimes we'll have visitors that come to the house to say hello.
We've started a new tradition for Boxing Day, too. That's December 26. My sister-in-law is British/Canadian so we've started going up to southern Ontario (my family lives in Buffalo, right on the border) for another (groan!) meal there.
Overall, it's wonderful. Good thing I like to walk, though!
So, what are your holiday food traditions, whether they be for Christmas or Hanukkah? Let us all know, even if they're nothing special.
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