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.

[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]

Yup. gaudior has just brought home a second pomegranate, when in fact she has not eaten the first yet. Every two weeks, in season, I can set my watch by it. Then I think she eats them somewhere around February.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.)

[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.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

This year I am making fleur de sel caramels

And then I will go to your house.

[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.)

[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.

[ckd]

I'll race you there.

[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.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

This year, I celebrated that on my own, followed immediately by The Day I Discover I Like Messing With Pomegranates Better Than Eating Them.

[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.

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. :-)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

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

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I would be interested in hearing your recipe for the chocolate candy cookies if you were willing to post or e-mail it.

We don't do origami, or I would be tempted to do what you're describing. I have also stopped myself from doing popcorn strings on the grounds that I don't particularly like popcorn strings, but I like the idea of making the same decoration fresh every year.

The saffron buns will only try to eat you. They never succeed.

My grandma makes the cinnamon rolls, so there's that.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I already had caramels on my list, and I have sea salt. Who knew that the third step was "wild popularity."