A Wonderful Family Yule--2009
Well, Yule was celebrated here with style last Saturday and Sunday. One of the best I can remember, in fact.
On Yule Eve, with the darkened house twinkling with lighted votive candles, we greeted our daughter, Pasley, her husband Jeff, and their two sweet little daughters, Tallis, age two and Devon, age seven. Although in past years, before Tallis was born, we began our Solstice Celebration outside (going about the garden from point to point, with poems said above the graves of past family cats and homages said to the garden's flowers and tree), this year we started at the dining room table, so as to hasten dinner and avoid a cranky baby. Besides, the garden, once dark and mysterious apart from the glow of our carried lantern, is now lit by a bright street light, and therefore no longer suitable for our rites.
With Tallis in her high chair, we joined hands and invoked the elements of Air, Water, Fire and Earth, then lit the candles on the table. We sang Morning Has Broken. Then we ate a meal of convenience, all of it purchased and heated in a microwave rather than made from scratch, as it usually is: Summer Squash Soup, a choice of Chicken and Mushroom Pie or Quebecois Tortiere, followed by a chocolate Yule log. They all tasted delicious, and I was much less tired from not having to slave in the kitchen making dinner.
At the table, we were all entertained by Tallis, in a dark blue dress with red Xmas figures on it, who, with the others, sang Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer as follows: they would sing the beginning of a line of the song, and she would croak out the remaining words. It was very charming and quite amazing; she is, after all, only two years and one month, and two or three months ago could only say a few words. Now she speaks in sentences: I'm done; I want to get down; I don't want to eat that; I'd like some milk, please; I love you, Mama; I haven't got a plumber-bum, I've got a bum; I'm not a silly girl, I'm Tallis. (She says all this with a range of expressions that are priceless; special among them is her sly little smile, when she's being mischievous. Her apricot hair is now wisping around her neck, long enough to be put into pigtails if she would stand still long enough; her nose is always running and stuffy, yet she is beautiful, with the eyes of my sister Barbara, now dead, looking out at me each time I see her.)
She can also sing various songs from Disney's Winnie the Pooh, Jingle Bells, the alphabet song and so on. She sings snatches of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, along with Nature Boy and various other songs Pasley sings to her as well. These are all songs Devon once sang at her age, songs that are family songs now, it seems, since I once sang them to Pasley. Who knows: someday Devon and Tallis may sing them to their children.
Tallis then proceeded in losing it--but just for a few minutes. Just when we all thought that she and Jeff would have to go home, she rallied and joined us in the living room while John lit the Yule Log. It was a branch from the maple tree that leans over our yard from our neighbor's, and it fell during the ice storm of 2001, so it was very old and dry. We sang Fire's Burning, then lit the Xmas tree and sang O Evergreen, with Pasley looking at me askance for having changed the lyrics of O Christmas Tree. Finally, fire, we joined hands hands to circle around the dining room, winding up the sun, so to speak, while singing To Every Thing (Turn, Turn) there is a Season. Then they left us, all bundled up to face a cold night of -12C.
Now it was time for the rest of us to have our yearly Nativity Pagent. We have done it for years now, with Tallis as a one month old babe in Pasley's arms in the role of baby Jesus two years ago. The players change, but one thing is constant: Devon plays the Innkeeper's wife who tells the Mary and Joseph that they can stay in the stable that night. She later also plays the role of a little girl who comes to the stable after the wise men and shepherds and wonders what gift she can give the Christ Child. In a clear little voice, Devon sang the Christina Rossetti song:
"In the bleak midwinter, icy wind made moan
Earth was hard as iron, water like a stone
Snow was softly falling, snow on snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter long ago....
"O what shall I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would give a lamb.
If I were a wise man I would do my part.
What can I give him? I'll give my heart."
Devon is slim and agile and small, with long golden brown hair. She is healthy and sweet and well-loved, with mischievous expressions of her own, but she can make herself look very pathetic for this song--despite the fact that she is wearing her Xmas outfit, deep red crinoline skirt, blouse and vest. (She can also seem like a kindly innkeeper's wife in the earlier scene.) Her glasses make her look a bit owlish, a bit like Sarah Palin, since she also has bangs. But her hazel eyes are my dad's eyes: Pasley has them and so do Tallis and I, while John's eyes are blue and Jeff's are brown. And her mouth is the Preston mouth that Paze and John and now Tallis have. Her eyes sparkle with intelligence and wit; through her lips come some of the most amazingly mature or alternately, childlike statements.
After that, it was off to bed, me to the master bedroom, Devon in the back bedroom where Pasley used to sleep. Much later, Paze and John went to bed, after watching A Child's Christmas in Wales, Paze to sleep on the sofa in the tv. room.
I awoke early, and heard Paze and Devon opening their stockings in the back bedroom. This is their ritual together, a time when they are not interrupted by Tallis. When Paze was little, stocking opening kept her from awakening us too early; it kept her occupied, since we chose gifts---or rather, John did, being the Xmas Stocking Stuffer who scours the city for stuff of all sorts and specializes in windup toys--that she could play with, as well as candy to eat to keep her from being too hungry too early.
At about seven, they came into our room to show us their treasures and watch while we opened ours. Paze is now apprenticing John in the stuffer job, and found lots of interesting things to give us. At eight, we went downstairs to make breakfast, or rather, John made breakfast, with Paze scrambling eggs for us. Breakfast, as usual on Xmas, and now on Yule, is as follows: eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, and croissants, plus coffee and orange juice mimosas. Delicious!
Jeff and Tallis arrived in time to eat; then we began opening gifts. There were too many of them, of course, but it was wonderful. Best of all was the sight of the two children opening theirs. The look on their faces was priceless. I swear that watching children at Christmas is something that powers me through the season. Anticipation of it propels me through the buying stage to the wrapping; then I am rewarded by their Ooohs and Aaahs as the gifts are unwrapped. And in Tallis's case, as it used to be with Devon (and Pasley before her), each gift must be played with immediately, which meant Jeff and Paze trying to get it out of its unyielding plastic packaging, then undoing its twist ties, then assembling......
It took us almost all morning, but was a happy time, although I knew that John was suffering on the sofa, since he hates watching presents being opened, hating the cost and the overindulgince, fearful that someone will get something unwanted or detested and will have to pretend to love it. He is a wonderful man, but something in him would prefer a quieter, less commercial Xmas. He jokes all season that he is going off to Oka, to join the monks there for silence and meditation.He is not a miser: he has spent a lot this season, and has walked downtown and back to get gift certificates at the record and book stores as well as ferrying Devon and Pasley and me here and there as was needed, and taking Devon to see the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeekual.
Paze and Jeff packed up their caravan of gifts and toys and paraphenalia before lunch (since Devon had a friend's birthday party to go to that afternoon), and off they went, leaving John and I in our messy but cozy house, to muse over the difference between Christmas Day and Yule Day. The big difference, we decided, is that we don't have to cook a turkey dinner for the extended family----that comes on the 25, and this was the 20th. What's more, this year my brother and sister in law cook the meal, and we have only to make the Trifle and turn up with gifts.
And now it is Christmas day, and I have made the Trifle. This is a very old dish ( probably made of leftovers long ago in England, of 'trifles' in other words), that we have enjoyed for more than thirty Christmases. There are many different vesions, but the following recipe is the simplest one I know:
Beverly's Christmas Trifle
Ingredients:
--sponge cake, stale and cut into small pieces
--jam of any kind
--1/2 c. sherry or fruit juice or brandy
--sliced almonds
--2 tins clementines, drained; save the nectar for later
--2 cartons each of blueberries and raspberries, fresh or 2 tins of frozen
--Birds Custard or any other kind of vanilla custard or pudding
--milk, preferably whole milk, whatever is called for in the recipe for the pudding (usually about 5 cups.
--whipped cream, preferably Real Whipped Cream in an aerosol tin
Instructions:
1. Scatter half the cake crumbs in the bottom of a deep glass dish or other see-through container.
2. Dump jam on it (about 2 tbsp.)
3. Sprinkle half of the sherry over the cake
4. Scatter half the sliced almonds over this layer
5. Spread contents of one tin of clementines over cake layer
6. Sprinkle blueberries (on small carton) onto the pile
7. Pour warm custard on top (enough for 3)
8. Repeat stages 1-8
9. Top with whipped cream
10. Refrigerate for 24 hours if possible.
After tucking this away--with some difficulty--in the fridge, drink the nectar from the tinned clementines and stare out into the snowy back yard bird feeder to where birds and squirrels are feasting. Well, the squirrels will be feasting in a minute, when I appear like Santa, fat and clad in red, to throw them peanuts. Must go now to do that.
Merry Christmas. As Devon said last week in a line that will always echo in my head in a special way when I hear it in the future, God Bless Us, Everyone!
On Yule Eve, with the darkened house twinkling with lighted votive candles, we greeted our daughter, Pasley, her husband Jeff, and their two sweet little daughters, Tallis, age two and Devon, age seven. Although in past years, before Tallis was born, we began our Solstice Celebration outside (going about the garden from point to point, with poems said above the graves of past family cats and homages said to the garden's flowers and tree), this year we started at the dining room table, so as to hasten dinner and avoid a cranky baby. Besides, the garden, once dark and mysterious apart from the glow of our carried lantern, is now lit by a bright street light, and therefore no longer suitable for our rites.
With Tallis in her high chair, we joined hands and invoked the elements of Air, Water, Fire and Earth, then lit the candles on the table. We sang Morning Has Broken. Then we ate a meal of convenience, all of it purchased and heated in a microwave rather than made from scratch, as it usually is: Summer Squash Soup, a choice of Chicken and Mushroom Pie or Quebecois Tortiere, followed by a chocolate Yule log. They all tasted delicious, and I was much less tired from not having to slave in the kitchen making dinner.
At the table, we were all entertained by Tallis, in a dark blue dress with red Xmas figures on it, who, with the others, sang Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer as follows: they would sing the beginning of a line of the song, and she would croak out the remaining words. It was very charming and quite amazing; she is, after all, only two years and one month, and two or three months ago could only say a few words. Now she speaks in sentences: I'm done; I want to get down; I don't want to eat that; I'd like some milk, please; I love you, Mama; I haven't got a plumber-bum, I've got a bum; I'm not a silly girl, I'm Tallis. (She says all this with a range of expressions that are priceless; special among them is her sly little smile, when she's being mischievous. Her apricot hair is now wisping around her neck, long enough to be put into pigtails if she would stand still long enough; her nose is always running and stuffy, yet she is beautiful, with the eyes of my sister Barbara, now dead, looking out at me each time I see her.)
She can also sing various songs from Disney's Winnie the Pooh, Jingle Bells, the alphabet song and so on. She sings snatches of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, along with Nature Boy and various other songs Pasley sings to her as well. These are all songs Devon once sang at her age, songs that are family songs now, it seems, since I once sang them to Pasley. Who knows: someday Devon and Tallis may sing them to their children.
Tallis then proceeded in losing it--but just for a few minutes. Just when we all thought that she and Jeff would have to go home, she rallied and joined us in the living room while John lit the Yule Log. It was a branch from the maple tree that leans over our yard from our neighbor's, and it fell during the ice storm of 2001, so it was very old and dry. We sang Fire's Burning, then lit the Xmas tree and sang O Evergreen, with Pasley looking at me askance for having changed the lyrics of O Christmas Tree. Finally, fire, we joined hands hands to circle around the dining room, winding up the sun, so to speak, while singing To Every Thing (Turn, Turn) there is a Season. Then they left us, all bundled up to face a cold night of -12C.
Now it was time for the rest of us to have our yearly Nativity Pagent. We have done it for years now, with Tallis as a one month old babe in Pasley's arms in the role of baby Jesus two years ago. The players change, but one thing is constant: Devon plays the Innkeeper's wife who tells the Mary and Joseph that they can stay in the stable that night. She later also plays the role of a little girl who comes to the stable after the wise men and shepherds and wonders what gift she can give the Christ Child. In a clear little voice, Devon sang the Christina Rossetti song:
"In the bleak midwinter, icy wind made moan
Earth was hard as iron, water like a stone
Snow was softly falling, snow on snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter long ago....
"O what shall I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would give a lamb.
If I were a wise man I would do my part.
What can I give him? I'll give my heart."
Devon is slim and agile and small, with long golden brown hair. She is healthy and sweet and well-loved, with mischievous expressions of her own, but she can make herself look very pathetic for this song--despite the fact that she is wearing her Xmas outfit, deep red crinoline skirt, blouse and vest. (She can also seem like a kindly innkeeper's wife in the earlier scene.) Her glasses make her look a bit owlish, a bit like Sarah Palin, since she also has bangs. But her hazel eyes are my dad's eyes: Pasley has them and so do Tallis and I, while John's eyes are blue and Jeff's are brown. And her mouth is the Preston mouth that Paze and John and now Tallis have. Her eyes sparkle with intelligence and wit; through her lips come some of the most amazingly mature or alternately, childlike statements.
After that, it was off to bed, me to the master bedroom, Devon in the back bedroom where Pasley used to sleep. Much later, Paze and John went to bed, after watching A Child's Christmas in Wales, Paze to sleep on the sofa in the tv. room.
I awoke early, and heard Paze and Devon opening their stockings in the back bedroom. This is their ritual together, a time when they are not interrupted by Tallis. When Paze was little, stocking opening kept her from awakening us too early; it kept her occupied, since we chose gifts---or rather, John did, being the Xmas Stocking Stuffer who scours the city for stuff of all sorts and specializes in windup toys--that she could play with, as well as candy to eat to keep her from being too hungry too early.
At about seven, they came into our room to show us their treasures and watch while we opened ours. Paze is now apprenticing John in the stuffer job, and found lots of interesting things to give us. At eight, we went downstairs to make breakfast, or rather, John made breakfast, with Paze scrambling eggs for us. Breakfast, as usual on Xmas, and now on Yule, is as follows: eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, and croissants, plus coffee and orange juice mimosas. Delicious!
Jeff and Tallis arrived in time to eat; then we began opening gifts. There were too many of them, of course, but it was wonderful. Best of all was the sight of the two children opening theirs. The look on their faces was priceless. I swear that watching children at Christmas is something that powers me through the season. Anticipation of it propels me through the buying stage to the wrapping; then I am rewarded by their Ooohs and Aaahs as the gifts are unwrapped. And in Tallis's case, as it used to be with Devon (and Pasley before her), each gift must be played with immediately, which meant Jeff and Paze trying to get it out of its unyielding plastic packaging, then undoing its twist ties, then assembling......
It took us almost all morning, but was a happy time, although I knew that John was suffering on the sofa, since he hates watching presents being opened, hating the cost and the overindulgince, fearful that someone will get something unwanted or detested and will have to pretend to love it. He is a wonderful man, but something in him would prefer a quieter, less commercial Xmas. He jokes all season that he is going off to Oka, to join the monks there for silence and meditation.He is not a miser: he has spent a lot this season, and has walked downtown and back to get gift certificates at the record and book stores as well as ferrying Devon and Pasley and me here and there as was needed, and taking Devon to see the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeekual.
Paze and Jeff packed up their caravan of gifts and toys and paraphenalia before lunch (since Devon had a friend's birthday party to go to that afternoon), and off they went, leaving John and I in our messy but cozy house, to muse over the difference between Christmas Day and Yule Day. The big difference, we decided, is that we don't have to cook a turkey dinner for the extended family----that comes on the 25, and this was the 20th. What's more, this year my brother and sister in law cook the meal, and we have only to make the Trifle and turn up with gifts.
And now it is Christmas day, and I have made the Trifle. This is a very old dish ( probably made of leftovers long ago in England, of 'trifles' in other words), that we have enjoyed for more than thirty Christmases. There are many different vesions, but the following recipe is the simplest one I know:
Beverly's Christmas Trifle
Ingredients:
--sponge cake, stale and cut into small pieces
--jam of any kind
--1/2 c. sherry or fruit juice or brandy
--sliced almonds
--2 tins clementines, drained; save the nectar for later
--2 cartons each of blueberries and raspberries, fresh or 2 tins of frozen
--Birds Custard or any other kind of vanilla custard or pudding
--milk, preferably whole milk, whatever is called for in the recipe for the pudding (usually about 5 cups.
--whipped cream, preferably Real Whipped Cream in an aerosol tin
Instructions:
1. Scatter half the cake crumbs in the bottom of a deep glass dish or other see-through container.
2. Dump jam on it (about 2 tbsp.)
3. Sprinkle half of the sherry over the cake
4. Scatter half the sliced almonds over this layer
5. Spread contents of one tin of clementines over cake layer
6. Sprinkle blueberries (on small carton) onto the pile
7. Pour warm custard on top (enough for 3)
8. Repeat stages 1-8
9. Top with whipped cream
10. Refrigerate for 24 hours if possible.
After tucking this away--with some difficulty--in the fridge, drink the nectar from the tinned clementines and stare out into the snowy back yard bird feeder to where birds and squirrels are feasting. Well, the squirrels will be feasting in a minute, when I appear like Santa, fat and clad in red, to throw them peanuts. Must go now to do that.
Merry Christmas. As Devon said last week in a line that will always echo in my head in a special way when I hear it in the future, God Bless Us, Everyone!