A Fresh Pot of Tea

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I believe in enjoying Christmas gifts right away!  This amazing tea flower opens as a fresh pot of tea is brewed: fragrant, lovely, delicious!  I would never have known how beautiful this could be if I had not opened the present, looked inside the box,  removed the strange little ball of leaves, placed it in the tea pot, and added the boiling water.  Without taking the illustration too far, allow me to say this may be a lesson for our new year.  Let's open our gift, learn all we can, believe beyond first sight,  use what we have received,   and be astonished at unexpected beauty.  Here's to tasting  2011~

Vintage Postcard Cookies

Most of my Christmas baking is chosen from long time family favorites: German Butterballs, Candy Cane Cookies, Pumpkin Bread, Thumbprint Cookies - although I bake  less each year.  Last week, with the help of my daughter in law, I tried something I never even heard of, much less had done before.  I made large, card sized molasses cookies, frosted and decorated with wonderful vintage images that might have graced postcards in my grandmother's time.  These are printed on wafer paper and applied in a very simple way, completely edible, and a beautiful addition to our Christmas dinner.  The photo gleams back at you due to a pearlized finish applied as the last step.  If you are a baker, try www.fancyflours.com for these and other ways to add fun and fanciful finishes.  OK, I confess, I already ordered some for Valentine cookies.

Joy to the World!

"Come on, ring those bells, light the Christmas tree!  Jesus is the King, born for you and me...come on,ring those bells, everybody say:  Jesus, we remember this your birthday!"

Remembering a Gift

I don't remember most of the gifts I was given at Christmas when I was growing up.  I recall sweater sets, a doll, books, and I still have a stuffed Rudolph that may be one of the first sold when the song came out. But one present I could count on to be the same every year was a box of chocolate covered cherries from Daddy. For many years after his death, I would buy a box for myself and remember.  This year, chocolate covered cherries have returned!  Skye came over last night to help make Christmas mice, my old favorite in new form.  Don't tell the cats.

Making Bread, Making Memories

Maddie baked Cranberry Bread with me on Thanksgiving morning.  This is the way we do this:
1.  Read the book.  When her Daddy was just her age, he and his brothers loved a book called Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin, the story of a little girl and her grandmother and a famous cranberry bread recipe. We still have the book!  It has the recipe on the back cover. 2.  Assemble the ingredients (more fun than an Easter Egg hunt!)  3.  Find our bowl and measuring "things".  4.  Let the mixer do most of the work except the important things like cracking the eggs, adding everything, and licking the spoon...all Maddie's jobs.

 

Handwriting on the Wall

On a wall in a small shop I recently saw these words.  The shop owner is an artist.  She has great talent for creating, but she knows who makes her day.

Lord, create a Genesis week from my chaos.  Let me not get so busy with Christmas lists that I fail to fully attend to being aware and attentive and astonished at the gifts you give me every day.

My Room with a View

I confess, I tend to think of the kitchen as my room .  I do spend alot of time there, mostly by choice, doing what I love (cooking) and things I need to do (cleaning up).  But also because by standing at my kitchen sink I can look out this window.  Beyond the glass I look at the crepe myrtle in changing seasons with its backdrop of mossy weathered wood.  Looking down at the ground I can see  pepper bushes which have had a fruitful season.  But the most special part of the window is gathered there on the ledge, my small kitchen altar, full of reminders of faith and family, the here and now and the there and then.  The piece of stained glass joined the family when we were in Indonesia.  I love its rich glowing colors and the Trinitarian candles.  Now, at the beginning of Advent, I add a small nativity scene and a candle.