Haul out the @#$%&*#$ holly.

[mrissa]

So. We have already had Halloween, and we have already had the holiday which comes between Halloween and Thanksgiving, which is The Day markgritter Brings Home A Pomegranate And Then Ignores It For Weeks. (I hope yours was merry and bright.) I wrote something for Veteran's Day, and it was my first "private" post ever, because once I had written it I felt unready to share it.

Macy's--very specifically not Dayton's--is having a rerun this year on the Eighth Floor. A rerun. "Back by popular demand," says their website, and I say, "Bullshit." Last year's Eighth Floor was not even a story, just a series of Christmas-themed tableaux, and those were constructed from the remains of previous years' tableaux from actual stories--if you'd been to the Eighth Floor a lot you could spot the dwarves from Snow White as elves, and the plum pudding from Mary Poppins, and like that. So it was bad enough last year. And now this year, it's not even the cannibalized remnants of other stories. It's just...the same again. "Times are tough," said my mother, but times were tough in previous recessions. "They're trying to kill demand so they have an excuse not to do it any more," said my father, and I think he's right. I will still have the holiday of Taking The Godkids To the 8th Floor, because they want to go, and I will even enjoy it, but the other kids with whom I've been going are as disgusted as I am. So we will have something different this year. Not entirely sure when or what yet.

I am also--and I am sorry to tell you this--not going to observe that popular holiday, The Day I Call Otto. Otto is a delight. But we can get all the Otto's things at the Ukrainian deli up by porphyrin. If it was just a matter of paying the postage, I wouldn't mind, but I actually want there to be a local place that stocks the Hungarian food items we use. And there's only so much csabai I can justify buying.

Also several people I love are going through pretty tough stuff right now, ill health for themselves or loved ones, unemployment, appallingly bad behavior from people close to them. And it's the first holiday season without Grandpa. Grandpa would be the first person to want us to have a merry Christmas and a happy every other thing we do, and I will by God try. But I don't think even he would expect that it would be on my mind.

So. I have part of the work of a Christmas card done, by which I mean timprov has his part done and I have to do the rest except for some bits we will all three do. It should be a good Christmas card. I am pleased with it. And I have a particular surprise for one member of my family by choice, so there's that, and we have some charity stuff in mind, so there's that, too. I'm still trying to think, though. I want to do things that will be special for people I love, and I'm not sure what goes on that list at the moment.

There will still be Lucia Day, and we'll do the decorating when Matt is here, probably, because Mark will be gone a big chunk of time after that.

For some reason I am feeling uninspired on the baking front. I'm feeling very inspired about Cookie Day--I am positively excited about Cookie Day--and I'm hoping to get it scheduled with Mom and Grandma tonight. But I'm not thinking of a great many things I want to make. I'm sure once we get going we'll have ideas occur to us. But right now I'm not sure what to put on the grocery list for it, other than butter and flour.

What do you want in Christmas treats? Spice this and lemon that and caramel the other? Chocolate-dipped somethings? Or if you don't celebrate Christmas, what kind of treat don't you get enough of?

Comments

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

The Day markgritter Brings Home A Pomegranate And Then Ignores It For Weeks

We have that holiday too! Except in these parts it's The Day kniedzw Brings Home A Pomegranate And Then Ignores It For Weeks.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's not my favorite holiday, but it's certainly comforting in its familiarity.

[pmrabble.livejournal.com]

Chocolate and raspberry dipped krumkake. Maybe I can con my Mom into making some early and sending them up with my sister week after next; otherwise I have to wait until mid-January when the annual care package arrives.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

What do you mean raspberry dipped? I can parse chocolate-dipped very easily, but the raspberry is confusing me.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I am always excited for Cookie Day here because John bakes three to four kinds of cookies his mother always made. I am particularly excited if he opts to make Mandel Rohr (http://particleguy.livejournal.com/2365.html) (lots of ground almonds, cinnamon and cloves). I like spicy, crispy Christmas cookies. Myself, I tend to bake gingerbread at the holidays.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

This year I am making fleur de sel caramels and pepparkakor and an ungodly thing that is the only good recipe from my mother, which she calls Chocolate Candy Cookies and which I can best describe as what would happen if oatmeal cookies, fudge, and Rice Krispie Treats managed to reproduce and slightly mutate. (Upon Googling, I discover that what other people think are chocolate candy cookies are oatmeal cookies with candies in them, which is entirely incorrect.)

I may try your saffron buns again if I can get over the intimidation factor.

We have not yet had the annual Day We Sit Down And Fold All The Christmas Ornaments, which tends to be about the second week in December-- we have about half traditional Christmas ornaments, and about half all-new origami every year.

It cannot be Christmas without cinnamon rolls somewhere. I don't like them myself, but knowing that someone somewhere has them makes me feel better.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

This year I am making fleur de sel caramels

And then I will go to your house.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I love things with cinnamon and cloves and ginger. Especially cloves. Maybe I'll make clove cookies this year. Haven't done that for a while.

Caramel is yummy and when I saw one of your flist was making fleur de sel caramels I nearly invited myself to their house. Fleur de sel caramels dipped in dark chocolate with more gray sea salt sprinkled on top are my favorite candy in the world. Luckily, a local chocolatier makes them. Also luckily, they are quite expensive. Otherwise I'd be a worse fit for airline seats than I am already.

I always make plain recipe on the wrapper chocolate chip cookies too because it's the only baked good Jordin really likes. Though of course, he likes ice cream and has even, just this year, branched out from his usual vanilla to chocolate! I, on the other hand, have a serious addiction to Hagen Dazs Vanilla Bean ice cream. And I'm not joking about the addiction.

Um, where did that digression come from. Sorry.

MKK

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am an ice cream person myself. A serious ice cream person. There is a burnt caramel sauce markgritter gets for me, and I like it on vanilla bean ice cream with dark chocolate chips on top.

Lj is for digressions.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

I also celebrate Bring-home-a-pomegranate-and-ignore-it-for-weeks. Staring at it and thinking "I really should dismantle that before it dessicates into something I can spray-paint gold and use in a centerpiece" brightens several of those shortening days that lie between Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Baklava or gingerbread, and Serious Eggnog. My next-older sister is a Christmas cookie factory, and when she was around 17 or so, adapted the Better Homes and Gardens gingerbread man recipe to double size, which is officially A Hella Lot of Gingerbread Cookies*; there end up being gingerbread people, gingerbread Christmas trees**, gingerbread stars, gingerbread bells, gingerbread Santas, gingerbread [insert cookie cutter shape here]. She doesn't make many gingerbread reindeer, though, because the antlers tear up easily, which makes them a pain to move to the baking sheet. So she'll make a sheet or two of them, rolling out the dough on the sheet, so there are the canonical number. Rudolph gets a redhot on his nose, of course.

I think the first time I had baklava was when one of my father's students; a Egyptian Copt, made batches as presents for people one Christmas.

As for the eggnog, either you are for eggnog, or you are against it, in which case I'll be happy to drink your share.

*10 cups of flour, for those measuring American-style; the experienced home baker can work from there...

**These require those little silver and gold dragées, and if they're poisonous, too bad.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My gingerbread shapes include the state of Minnesota, rocket ships, shooting stars, and moose. Whose antlers also tear easily, I agree. I also agree that redhots are very traditional, but I do not like them, not one little bit, so I use dots of red icing where they would otherwise go.

I am against eggnog, but I have gotten myself a brother, and he has custody of my share.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Now I want to bring home a pomegranate.

As for what I want in Christmas treats, Sand Tarts. (Hrm. All of Google's Sand Tart images are not my sand tarts. I wonder what my sand tarts are, to other people.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

They're not sandbakkels, are they? Everybody likes sandbakkels. (Once again, "everybody" = me.)

[redbird]

I don't celebrate Christmas, but I am in favor of lemon that and chocolate-dipped somethings.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

Homemade chewy caramels. I swear I will learn to make them one year.
Toffee.
Shortbread. Also homemade.
Gingerbread: the cake type, not the crunchy.
Baked goods with reeking of alcohol.
Those little orange balls made out of orange juice concentrate and 'nilla wafers and accompanied by 'spice tea' which is a mix of Lipton Instant and Tang with a little cinnamon thrown in for good measure.
Mulled wine.
Nuts.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Caramels aren't hard, particularly if you don't mind getting a bit sticky. They're really not scary.

matastas will be grateful that you reminded me of baked goods reeking of alcohol, because I do need to make his rum balls.

[ellarien]

Christmas doesn't seem quite right to me without small mince pies (just mincemeat in a snack-sized piecrust shell), but it took me until last year to remember to snag a jar of mincemeat at Thanksgiving when it was available and figure out how to fabricate the pies from pie-crust in a mini-muffin tray. (I don't quite not-celebrate Christmas, though I and my family lean a long way towards the not-celebrating end of the spectrum; special foods weren't a huge part of what we did get up to, but I do miss the mince pies.)

I'm hardly qualified to offer you recipes, but you're welcome to adopt/adapt my pomegranate chicken casserole, if you have a pomegranate to dispose of. (It isn't quite a complete meal; it really needs a starchy side dish. Or flour tortillas, which have become my go-to emergency starch.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That sounds lovely, but timprov is not a pomegranate fan, so I think we will mostly just guilt-trip markgritter about it.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

The first Christmas without someone you love is really bittersweet--they are so very much not there, and yet you're all remembering together, and it keeps them with you, just a little.

My favorite Christmas treats are late-night eggnog with lots of whipping cream and eggs and bourbon, made by my father after midnight church, and tangerines in my stocking, when tangerines are rare things.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have been craving clementines, and soon they will be in season. This is cheering.

[ckd]

Next time I go to Trader Joe's I will get another package of Really Lazy Person Pomegranate, and eat it all as soon as I get home because I get the nom nom nom without all the pick pick pick....

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Around here we just have Bring Home a Pomegranate and Eat It day, how boring. (Four pomegranates so far, in fact. Two eaten fresh by me and two dismantled by Ted and added to the fruit mixtures he makes and freezes to take to work. It turns out pomegranate seeds freeze - and unfreeze - very well.) Anyway bringing home fruit and forgetting it would be a dangerous precedent in a place with as many kinds of fruit as they have here.

[careswen.livejournal.com]

Because I love my husband's Otto Voce so much, I am very sad to see its passing. But also hurrah for things that make life simpler.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

I'm really craving my mom's fruitcake this year. Between the outrageous cost of candied fruit and my dad's diabetes, she hasn't made it in about 5 years. I've gotten desperate enough that I've started looking at fruitcakes in grocery stores and seriously considering buying one. I won't do it, though, unless I can find one that looks like my mom's - according to my grandfather, hers is a "blonde fruitcake" and it's much more cakelike than the gelatinous-looking things sold under the name of fruitcake at most stores. There was one at Cub that looks likely, and I'm also thinking of seeing what they've got at Byerly's. If you can recommend any local bakeries that might have such a thing as a decent fruitcake, please let me know.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Finnish Bistro might, or Wuollet, or...not sure, really. I'm not sure where to get the blondeness, is the problem. Most of the successful fruitcakes I've had have been of the "we have solved the problem of molasses oversupply for the next five years" type.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I know my mother loves me because she saves some of the chocolate powdered sugar cookie dough for when I'm home to make a gigantic mess. My brother likes the Hershey's kiss cookies, I'm all about the chocolate powdered sugar cookies, especially if I get to do the powdered sugar part. I am less messy than when I was five, but not much less so than when I was fifteen or possibly ten.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Is it a chocolate dough that sort of crackles and gets the powdered sugar done weirdly in the crackling? We do those. We call them volcanoes. This is confusing, because markgritter's family calls peanut butter kiss cookies volcanoes, so he says he wants volcanoes. Yah. Stuff.

Christmas treats

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I wish for everyone to get what they want. But it's an odd (not at all bad) year here, and I don't think everyone's christmas treats really come from a store.

(We've seen the Grinch cartoon already. :-)

Re: Christmas treats

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's one of the Christmas Things ideas I forgot to put in the post: not just the Grinch but also Desk Set and "An Echolls Family Christmas" from Veronica Mars and like that.

[moiread]

I don't really have any Christmas traditions yet, since the only ones I could inherent from my bio family are ones like "Spend half an hour screaming at each other and have a good cry before it's time to open the presents and pretend everything's okay!". And those are, as you might imagine, not ones I plan to keep for myself.

But last year my family went away for Christmas without me, so I got to spend it with Rose, my best friend, and her family, which was lovely. I made scads and scads of peppermint bark for her while there, and if I make her some again this year (which I plan to do) then I can officially declare that the first Christmas tradition I have of my very own!

[caoilfhionn.livejournal.com]

For me it's really the full weekend of baking cookies with my mother, aunt, and grandmother. But once the work is done, then it's lebkuchen and springerle and spritz-with-brandy-in.

This year will be perhaps the third time in my life that I've missed cookie-baking weekend--for something good, but I will miss it nonetheless--and it will be doubly hard because it will be the first Christmas after my brother's death--no cookie package to ship, no arguing over what we have to bake or he'll complain. All the more reason to set the date for next year now. And to test out gluten-free versions for my best beloved, so that I can get at least a couple of batches baked by my own hand.

[rosefox]

I can never get enough of rainbow cookies.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I was half-prepared for that to be a queer pride fundraising link of some sort. "Support gay marriage and get cookies" sort of thing. Which is not, of itself, a terrible idea.

[rmnilsson.livejournal.com]

A couple years ago, Ben made eggnog from scratch at my family's Christmas. it was pretty awesome because originally only 2 people wanted a glass, everyone else just wanted a taste out of curiosity. I think he ended up making 3 batches because everyone who got a taste wanted a glass. I now crave it around the holiday.

[laurel]

I am v. disappointed in Macy's. Grr. I miss Daytons. Dammit.

I'm not much of a dessert person, except for ice cream; my Grandma Olson and I had that in common. (I usually didn't care to have birthday cake and would eat ice cream instead.) But I'm for Christmas cookies and other treats that involve lots of cinnamon. And for divinity like my great aunt Myrt made and rosettes because that's what you have. Almond flavored stuff is always good too.

I miss my grandparents like crazy at this time of year and throughout the holidays. I try to focus on the happy memories, but . . . sigh.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We don't make rosettes every year, but they are a Thing, to be sure.

And I prefer ice cream myself. But I like to bake, so I end up with baked goods anyway.

[prettymuchpeggy.livejournal.com]

Just about anything cookie (or bar) with caramel (soft, but not runny) or lemon causes my mouth to water at the mere thought... just saying. I also would not pass up most sweet which include dark chocolate.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Here in Boston, Jordan Marsh did the same exact "Christmas Village" every single year. How I missed Dayton's! and the wonderful windows all the stores had! We did take our kid to the "Christmas Village" once year, but it was pretty bad- old, very shabby, badly maintained, etc. Sigh.

I expect you're right about Macy's trying to phase it out; after they bought JM they decided not to do it at all, and so the sad remnants are knocking about, occasionally put up in a tent or something by the cite seeing as it's traditional and all. Macy's seems to contribute nothing to it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The remnants in tents is an even sadder prospect to me than not having the 8th floor at all. Sigh.