The WELL: inkwell.vue.398: Holiday Seasons Past - The Good, The Bad, The Hilarious

#45: Sharon Lynne Fisher (slf) Mon 13 Dec 10 12:59

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 12:59:00 PST

(I judged the K-4th grade Chamber of Commerce Christmas essays this year, and one kid I marked down for having his or her speech all neatly typed out, using words I don't expect kids of that level to use. Instead, the winner was the kid who wrote their own essay in big loopy printing.) [Read entire topic]

#44: Kathy (kathbran) Mon 13 Dec 10 12:50

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 12:50:00 PST

(Sorry I'm a bit late, but I have to tell you I must have had Cynthia's home ec teacher's doppelganger in 8th grade because I sewed a pair of fitted, topstitched western-style pants for my sewing project and got a low grade because she said I had had my mother make it.) [Read entire topic]

#43: the secret agenda of rabbits (cjp) Sun 12 Dec 10 12:08

Sun, 12 Dec 2010 12:08:00 PST

From what I understand, the tree isn't killed, just sawed off with enough branches at the base so that a new tree will grow. Some of our neighbors would buy potted trees and then of course plant them in the yard. Pretty impressive forests on a suburban lawn after a while! [Read entire topic]

#42: Paolo (pdeep) Fri 10 Dec 10 06:42

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 06:42:00 PST

Killing a young tree to celebrate the New Year. I've always thought it a very strange way to have fun. [Read entire topic]

#41: . (wickett) Tue 7 Dec 10 10:11

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 10:11:00 PST

The year before the firestorm, my mother and I spent hours decorating our tree, taking out each handmade ornament or gift from around the world, telling its story and placing it on the tree. All smoke and ash now, of course.

This year we're having a tree, only the second time is nineteen years. Acquisition and trimming party tomorrow evening. Ornaments may be sparse. That's okay as the previous collection developed slowly over the course of a century and we want only storied ornaments. We have little gl**g cup ornaments from Sweden and hand-blown glass balls my husband bought at an art fair in Michigan, and a small collection of handmade ornaments, including a gilded walnut painted by my friend when she was five-years old, given to me by a friend's mother right after the firestorm. She knew what my heart craved.

I remember making those baked flour and water ornaments, Cynthia, when I was a wee bairn. Fun! Did you and your husband make more? [Read entire topic]

#40: Sharon Lynne Fisher (slf) Tue 7 Dec 10 08:40

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 08:40:00 PST

aww.

In 1984, I was living with someone and we had a living room with a tall ceiling, so we got a massive tree. It was gorgeous. And then we thought about ornaments, and we each had the same feeling -- that we wanted the ornaments we had as kids, and nothing else would feel right. So we had just the tree, by itself.

Since I've moved to Idaho, I've encountered vintage ornaments a number of times in garage sales, most impressively at an estate sale where I got a big carton of them for like $4. I also, now, have the vintage ornaments I had as a child, as well as the ice ball lights; in addition, I picked up a whole lot of ice balls on eBay a few years back. So I have the tree I remember from the 1960s. [Read entire topic]

#39: Cynthia Dyer-Bennet (peoples) Tue 7 Dec 10 06:58

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 06:58:00 PST

That recipe reminds me of a similar one for sweet & sour cabbage rolls a friend once gave me. It seems too simple, yet it works really well.

> favorite part of each Christmas season is taking out the ornaments ...

Oh, I share that sentiment, Lisa. Our Christmas tree decorations have been collected over many years and I love unwrapping each one and recalling where we got them.

When I first moved in with my husband-to-be 27 years ago, I brought a big box of tree ornaments into the relationship. They were all hand-painted over baked molded dough made of salt and flour, which was a popular medium for Christmas tree ornaments back then, before extruded resin ornaments showed up on the market.

We stored them in a box in the garage. Which suffered water incursion after a particularly nasty storm. Which caused all the salt & flour ornaments in the cardboard box on the garage floor to soak up all the storm water and swell into weird, bloated and unrecognizable lumps of soggy salty dough flecked with bits of festive colored paint.

I was so sad to lose my ornament collection, but it gave us the opportunity build a new collection gathered together. So when we unwrap each ornament, we have a shared memory of its origin. [Read entire topic]

#38: Lisa Harris (lrph) Tue 7 Dec 10 04:08

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 04:08:00 PST

Grandma's recipe for sweet and sour tongue, via Mom:

In a little oil, saute a medium sized onion chopped up. Pour in canned tomato sauce (15 oz) and a handful of yellow raisins and a bit of lemon juice. (It's possible that extra water was added to this, we're really not sure). In it, simmer sliced tongue (already cooked from the deli, sliced 1/8 - 1/4 inch thick). Cook until it's heated all the way through.

Now, according to Mom, if you look up a real recipe it will have more sour than this sweet recipe. [Read entire topic]

#37: Lisa Harris (lrph) Mon 6 Dec 10 16:00

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:00:00 PST

I've put in a request for the recipe. I'm not sure it's still around, but we'll see.

Growing up the child of Jewish people, I never had a Christmas tree. Go figure. Anyway, the first year Ken and I were together we had a tree trimming party. According to Ken, this was the easiest way to get lots of new and interesting Christmas tree ornaments. And he was right! We had about a dozen and a half people come. We served chili and corn bread and egg nog. We had lights and tinsel and popcorn to string. Our guests brought us beautiful ornaments: some purchased, a few hand made, and one a hand-me-down from their own collection.

My favorite part of each Christmas season is taking out the ornaments and remembering that first one together as we hang the ornaments from that party. [Read entire topic]

#36: Gail Williams (gail) Mon 6 Dec 10 15:05

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:05:00 PST

Based on that sweet and sour tongue post and a conversation with a friend, I'm now also interested in something called Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage Soup as an Eastern European winter dish. I did find a recipe from a google search, and that looked like a very interesting old fashioned soup, with red cabbage, apples, raisins, brown sugar and vinegar and more. (What range of ingredients did people have in Eastern Europe in the winter a century ago, anyway?)

I'd love to hear more about how the tongue is sweetened and soured, too. [Read entire topic]