Twelve Days of Music

I do listen to Christmas music, so decided that since most of my friends who post Christmas music do it in the run-up to the holiday, I would post for the Twelve Days of Christmas.

To start, on the First Day of Christmas I posted the video that started things for Straight, No Chaser.

On the Second Day of Christmas I posted two versions of the now-controversial "Baby it's Cold Outside".

On the Third Day of Christmas, I posted two light show videos, one of "Dueling Jingle Bells" and the other based upon "Star Wars".  I thought of posting a third, but worried that people would expect more and more music videos for each day, and I wasn't prepared to post a total of 36 videos!

On the Fourth Day of Christmas, a classic performed as a Gregorian chant, in Latin of course.

On the Fifth Day of Christmas, I went alliterative and did a Firehouse Video, plus linked an article about a number of other videos by fire departments around the country.

On the Sixth Day of Christmas, I decided that since Ukraine is in the news (AGAIN/still), I would focus on a song from there, with a couple of variations and one from the frontline of conflict.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas, it being New Year's Eve, a song I think encapsulates the feeling.  And of course the traditional one most people (pretend/attempt) to sing, and then a list of classical music for the occasion.

On the Eighth Day of Christmas, a favorite video of an unexpected holiday song, "Riu Chiu".

On the Ninth Day of Christmas, the commas nerd in me enjoyed this speculation about "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen".

On the Tenth Day of Christmas, Tom Lehrer's "A Christmas Carol".

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, two high schools' versions of The Silent Monks performing parts of Handel's "Hallelujah" chorus.

And on the Twelfth (and final) Day of Christmas, "Gaudete" a song I learned to sing (but mostly listened to others sing) while engaged in medieval recreation activities.  Plus a bonus about the National Parks from the U.S. Forest Service.

🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶

And I don't have a recording of this (just the first lines from the Monkees' Christmas show), but it's one my family sings every year:

A contented day.

Family celebration of Christmas today, part of it was happiness that none of us were "on call" for work, nor felt an obligation to sidle off to work for a bit.  We ate a reasonable (vegetarian and gluten-free) brunch, complete with snacky bits of cheese and multiple desserts.

Most of the gifts we exchange are donations to favourite charities.  I had token gifts for the family: dark chocolate covered apricots for my parents; socks with the Hot Wheels® logo for my brother, who owned and played with many as a boy; compost for my sister-in law, who directed it to a local farm; National Parks water bottles for my younger niece and her partner; and for the elder niece, a hat:

When I mentioned to my mother on Tuesday that I was struggling to find a token gift appropriate for my older niece, my mother suggested a warm hat because my niece's job includes working with students in a community garden, and it's been cold.  I sent a message to my niece asking for her three favourite colours, because I know she has a black coat and didn't want to make a black hat, especially on short notice.  She responded that evening.

Then I had to dig to find enough yarn in her choices of black, green, and pink.  I found a skein of handdyed yarn in pink with bits of black, and some leftover green.  I decided to use a pattern I've knit many times, doubling the pink/black to get the correct thickness.  I started on Wednesday morning, and spent the evening watching holiday videos and knitting.  I woke early and managed to finish with plenty of time to wrap the gifts and arrive at my parents' house with time to help set up.

The hat fit, it's soft enough to suit my niece, and she's happy to have it when the weather gets cooler again.  Today was unusually warm, especially for Christmas Day.

Happy Celebrating.

I should have posted this for the First Night of Channukah yesterday, but I was busy with family.

Twelve days of "The 12 Days".

I kept stumbling across versions of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and wondered whether I could find one for every day between Boxing Day and Twelfth Night, similar to how some people post a carol a day for the 24 days prior to Christmas, or my Hannukah series.

As I collected, I found more than twelve.  These are the versions I posted:

The First Day:  Pentatonix

The Second Day:  The Choir of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle

The Third Day:  The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge  (that is rehearsal; this is a performance)

The Fourth Day:  Little Action Kids (I love their turtledoves!)

The Fifth Day:  Exeter University Singers

The Sixth Day:  The King's Singers and The Tabernacle Choir

The Seventh Day:  Angel City Chorale

The Eighth Day:  A purely instrumental version by Rory Hoffman

The Ninth Day:  Tenebrae Choir

The Tenth Day:  Young People's Chorus of NYC

The Eleventh Day:  A doubleheader of fun ones from Straight No Chaser and these guys.

The Twelfth Day:  A short one.

Also, if you total up everything that arrives (some people dispute whether you send the previous day's items again, or just the ones for that day, but I like maths), your true love receives:

• 12 Drummers Drumming
• 22 Pipers Piping
• 30 Lords a-Leaping
• 36 Ladies Dancing
• 40 Maids a-Milking (plus presumably their cows or goats)
• 42 each of Swans a-Swimming and Geese a-Laying
• 40 Gold Rings
• 36 Calling Birds
• 30 French Hens
• 22 Turtledoves
• 12 Partridges in Pear Trees

No wonder so many people like Frederick Silver's "The 12 Days AFTER Christmas"!
And "12 Days of Christmas - A correspondence by John Julius Norwich".

This year, the cost of all those items would be $46,729.86, without shipping.

Alan Sherman updated the song in the 1950's or 1960's.

I chose an appropriate bar of soap to use during the Twelve Days of Christmas:

Christmakah

Today, Christmas and Channukah overlap.  I love these images:

My rabbi sent out this set of wishes, and I posted each one with a photo of my candles each night:

1.   May the candles brighten our hearts and souls and remind us of all the GOOD in our world.

2.   May they give us COURAGE to be ourselves and resist the latest trends around us.

3.  May the Shamos - the helper candle -remind us that we can HELP spread light in our darkened world, we must help others.

4.  May we TRUST that there will be enough. That what we have is enough. That what we are is enough. For that cruse of oil that shouldn't have sufficed, sufficed.

5.  May the give us HOPE - All too often we are told, there is no more oil left to burn when there is - “The proper response that Chanukah teaches is not to curse the darkness, but to light a candle.”

6.  May we have FAITH - as we light these candles. Remember we light the candles when it is darkest.

7.   May we SHARE our light with others. We are taught that we should place our menorah on our windowsills, so that the light invades the darkened streets and alleys.

8.  May we remember that our future has not been written yet. If our observance of this holiday strengthened our bonds to our past and to those around us, if we can focus on the light over the dark, if we can share the light with others and brighten our world, and if we can REDEDICATE ourselves to that which is holy, then our observance of Chanukah was meaningful and worthy. 

I hope that whichever holiday you celebrate, you have warmth and peace and light.

Ornament Swap 2018

I won't go into a long explanation of why I haven't updated the blog for nine months, but it has nothing to do with giving birth or anything interesting like that.  Inertia, not having a very interesting life, not wanting to sit in front of the computer any more when I work in front of one all day.......

This year, I participated in an ornament swap and we all are supposed to blog TODAY about what we received and what we sent.  Tricky for me because I've been out of town.  While supper simmers (braised radishes and such, based upon a japanese recipe for braised daikon, which is in there along with celeriac and purple radishes and.....I digressed) I am getting a post together.

When I received my swap partner, I was excited and nervous.  It's someone I have known for a loooong time, so I was glad to have a friend - but she is an exceptionally skilled bead artist and teacher, and artist in other areas, so I knew that what I made would be nowhere in her league.  And here it is:

It's a very simple knitted sock in a sparkly cotton yarn with a few beads added.  I had gift deadlines, and lots of travel, and then flat-out forgot.  So while I received something very lovely:

Which included a handmade box, and handmade card, AND luminaria (because it was supposed to arrive during Hannukah, but I was traveling and didn't pick up the package until after), and TWO beautiful beaded ornaments.  Here's a better photo of them:

Yep, exquisite.  And all she got was a sock.

A couple people asked about it.  The basic pattern is - a sock.  I found a cable in Donna Druchunas' Spiegel Socks pattern that looks something like a Christmas Tree, although it doesn't show up as well as I'd hoped on the sock I knit:

That shows it just after I finished the cable, before I went into the plain foot (due to lack of time, and my hands starting to hurt from doing fiddly things in stiff cotton yarn on US#0 needles), to which I added an afterthought heel (because I didn't want to have to do math or a gusset), and yes, I made a goof but luckily this sock is not to be worn by anybody:

One handy thing I learned, since I was doing this whilst traveling, is that airplane tray cupholders are very good for corralling beads while you string them:

To summarize the materials:  Aunt Lydia #10 crochet cotton, used double, in gold (because I had to run out to get more and the shop didn't have silver) with silver (left over from a weaving class I took from John Mullarkey at last year's DFW Fiber Fest) ribbing at the top, toe, and heel.  Shown with the beads is some metallic gold sewing thread I used for attaching beads.  The red and green were knitted into the toe and heel; the pearls and blue bugle beads were sewn onto the sock:

The beads are from my stash, and are old, and except for the pearls are appropriately sparkly.

Because I don't have cardmaking skills, I included a card from Hartford Prints! which I purchased last year or the one before.  They do really lovely letterpress work and it shows a stylized Hartford skyline:

Apparently my package has not yet arrived, although it was promised for yesterday.  You can see what Karen said about the items she made on her blog.

Penguins, Santas, and Black Bun for Hogmanay

I have been traveling madly (mostly on business) so my usual holiday cooking is well behind time.  In fact, when I go to a party this Wednesday, instead of my usual baked goodies I might be taking either Penguins or Santas.  I just learned about the latter from a friend's link on Facebook, and while they are easy enough to make I'd probably use currants instead of chocolate chips for the eyes.

The Penguins became a tradition in my family many years ago when I made them as a pre-dinner snack one Thanksgiving.  Since we now go to my grandmother's for Thanksgiving, and all is catered (the best thing my grandmother learned to make for supper was reservations), we now make these at Christmas.  The recipe was in a magazine a long time ago, but of course now you can find a lot of variations on the Interwebs.  In our family, they are just olives, carrot (fresh, not pickled, as some recipes have), and cream cheese.

(Picture added - very cute, very popular, VERY yummy!)

One thing that I should have prepared before now, so it would have a nice "cure," is my fruitcake.  This is not the weird, sugary, nuts-and-candied-fruit item so prevalent now, that're more candy than cake and tends to include something I've always called "that weird pickled green thing" and have learned is either angelica or coloured pineapple.  Neither of which is quite "fruit" in my mind, and I think the things are entirely too lacking in the "cake" element as well.

Many years ago when a beloved adopted uncle and aunt held Scottish First Footing parties, and I would travel up to Milwaukee for the night (and much of the next day), I decided to take something to add to the groaning board.  I can't remember how I decided to make Black Bun except that the recipe is in one of the cookbooks I bought when living in England, and it's Scottish and for New Year's!  But I wasn't confident in my pastry-making skills at the time, and dubious about baking a cake inside a pastry case.  So I skipped that part and just made the filling and told people it was Scottish Fruit Cake.

Some avoided it on principle, but I wheedled several into trying it with promises that it really included just FRUIT and CAKE and "no weird pickled green things."  All declared it quite yummy, and I get asked for the recipe.  So here it is, approximately, since I tend to adjust the fruit to what I have on hand or can find easily, and the liquid to what I think the recipients will enjoy.

If you want to do this really traditionally, you can look up a recipe for the details.  To make the pastry case, follow a basic two-crust piecrust recipe, and add about a half-teaspoon of baking powder, to make it a little flakier.  Roll out about 2/3 of it to line a deep casserole, a loaf pan, or some other deep baking tin, and keep the rest to make the lid later.

To make mine:
About six cups of chopped (see Step 1) dark dried fruit:  raisins, currants, prunes, figs, dates, etc. 
1.5 cups flour (if you want to go gluten-free, substitute GF baking mix)
1/3 cup soft brown sugar (light or dark doesn't matter)
Spices:  allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves.  Adjust to taste, about 2 tsp total, up to 1 T.
    NOTE:  It's better to go heavier on allspice or cloves and lighter on the cinnamon and nutmeg.
One-half teaspoon bakng powder.
One tablespoon brandy or orange juice or cider.  (If you are soaking the fruit, up to a 1/4 cup.)
One large egg.

1.  Chop the largest into pieces about the size of the smallest.  So the prunes and figs and dates get cut into pieces about as big as raisins and currants.  Do not use yellow raisins (sultanas) for this.  They are very good for snacking (especially mixed with toasted, salted pecans) and wasted in this recipe.  Be sure you take out any stones/pits and hard stem bits when you chop everything.  The finished amount should be six cups, be generous rather than scanty.

1a.  If the fruit is very dry, soak it in a bit of the liquid for a few hours or overnight.

2.  Start the oven at 325F/160C/Gas Mark 3.  If you are using the pastry case, make sure it is ready.  If you aren't, as I don't, just butter (or oil, or use spray-on stuff) the pan.  Flouring on top of the buttering is optional.  You can also line the pan with paper and butter the paper.  Some people just put paper (parchment or waxed) in the bottom of the pan.  My pans seem to release easily so I don't need to do the extra steps, but do them if you do, especially as this is a sticky cake.

3.  Stir the sugar into the fruit.  Mix the flour, spices, and baking powder together (stir or sift) and add to the fruit.  Mix the egg and liquid together and add to the bowl.  If you used the liquid to soak the fruit, REMEMBER THAT and don't add more, or the cake will be soggy.

4.  Now stir together until everything is well mixed.  The batter should be very dark and lumpy.

5.  Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, cover with a piece of foil, and put it into the preheated oven.  If you are using the pastry case, be sure to roll out the lid and fit it on top and seal the edges of the pastry before you put it into the oven.  You can use scraps to make additional decorations if you like, and if you want to be really fancy brush with a bit of egg wash (beaten egg thinned with water) if you like.  For really, really fancy, tint some bits of the egg wash with food colouring and paint the design, or paint a picture or message on the pastry top.

6.  BAKE for 2.5-3 hours.  Something like that.  Just go away and watch a holiday movie or something, then check.  At some point you might want to remove the foil so the cake (or pastry) can brown.  Alternatively, add the foil after about 45 minutes of baking.  Because of the sugar and fat content, the cake or pastry can burn before the cake cooks all the way through, thus you need to use the foil.  Test the cake to make sure it's cooked all the way through.  Ovens and the size and shape of the cake can affect how long it will take to bake.

When the cake is baked through, take it out of the oven and put the pan on a rack to cool.  If you did not use a pastry case, unmould the cake after about ten minutes and let it cool.  If you did use a case, leave it a bit longer before you take it out to cool.  When thoroughly cold, wrap the cake tightly and tuck it away until Hogmanay.  If you did not use the pastry case, you can brush it every so often with brandy or rum or bourbon or whatever you like to make it more alcoholic.  I don't do this.

When serving, cut thin slices.  You don't need to ice this, but you can do the traditional almond paste coat and royal icing on top if you want to get fancy.  I don't bother, as I like the taste "as-is".