Our Celebration

The morning started with Swedish pancakes filled with strawberry jam and topped with whipped cream. My silly little boys licked off the whipped cream but wouldn't eat the pancakes. I had to eat them all. And they were stuck with wheat toast. What am I going to do with them?

During the day we read, baked bread (there is nothing more relaxing than kneeding bread, by the way...well, maybe a full body massage...), cleaned house, and made star boy hats.

Look who showed up at our door for an evening celebration!

The cousins. (Do you know how hard it is to get a decent picture of 6 children in low light?)

This was my first attempt ever at making a marzipan pig:
Not bad, if I do say so myself. He is tiny and adorable!

My Swedish family (minus the brothers-in-law) sat around eating goodies and Orange Cardamom Bread (with orange cardamom butter), drinking hot spiced cider, watching Rick Steves' European Christmas, and making Krumkake cookies. It was another success!

Saint Lucia Day

Kirsten's Surprise is an excellent choice for our St. Lucia Day reading this year. Kirsten is from a Swedish pioneer family in the 1850s. After reading A Pioneer Sampler and A Pioneer Christmas, this book fits in perfectly!

Annika's Secret Wish is a lovely Swedish Christmas picture book.

Lucia, Child of Light is a complete resource with history, traditions, recipes, and ideas for creating your own Saint Lucia Day celebration.




Our Sweden Coloring Book includes so much more than just Christmas in Sweden. This coloring book has crafts, recipes, songs, traditions, famous people, and Sweden's map and flag. What a fun way to learn about our heritage!


I'll be posting pictures from our celebration tomorrow, but here is a link for more information if you would like to create your own Saint Lucia Day today.

Hope, like the gleaming taper's light,

Adorns and cheers our way,

And still, as darker grows the night

Emits a brighter ray.

~Oliver Goldsmith

Christmas Cheer

I think it's happy hour.

Just wanted to spread a little Christmas cheer. Grin.

Sour Cream Pastries

Sour Cream Pastries ~ They are a family favorite!

Start with 2 cups of flour and 1 cup of butter (chilled, cut into pieces):

Using pastry cutter or 2 knives, cut butter into flour

until mixture resembles fine crumbs:

Add 1 cup of sour cream. Mix with a fork:

After mixing well, press dough together and chill for at least four hours:

(Preheat oven to 400 degrees.)
After chilling, divide dough into 2 parts. Take first half and roll into a 10 inch circle. (Tip: use a lot of flour on counter or board before rolling out dough.) Spread with cinnamon sugar and finely chopped nuts. Cut into 16 wedges:

Roll each wedge from outside in, creating a crescent shape. Place on baking sheet.

Repeat with remaining half of dough:
Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

Prepare Glaze:

Mix together 1 cup of powdered sugar, 1-2 Tablespoons of water (not too much!), and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla.

Place pastries on a cooling rack over waxed paper.

Drizzle glaze over warm pastries.

Enjoy!

On a More Serious Note

When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses. ~Joyce Brothers

The family is one of nature's masterpieces. ~George Santayana

To us, family means putting your arms around each other and being there. ~Barbara Bush
What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories. ~George Eliot
The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family. ~Thomas Jefferson
Merry Christmas from Our Family to Yours!

Taking the Family Picture

Sometimes there are no words.

Then and Now

2002:

2003:

(We actually didn't have an official family photo this year,

but this picture was taken at my sister's annual Christmas

party. The theme was 1940-50s diner, of course.)

2004:

2005:

2006:

And, 'now'? I suppose that means we actually have to get our pictures taken...

Saint Nicholas

Saint Nicholas Feast Day is now officially a tradition as we celebrated with our good friends for the third year in a row.

Our favorite activity is making marzipan fruits. (Please note that the finished product of our 5 and 3 year olds did not look like the pictures at the link, but they were priceless.)

We ate Bishop's hat mini pizzas,
and found gold coins in our shoes.

After eating, creating, and playing, it was time to settle down for St. Nicholas stories, coloring, and games. (Lots of fun stuff available at the St. Nicholas Center For Kids.)

We'll be continuing this tradition in the years to come!

St Nicholas, the patron saint of Russian merchants. Fresco by Dionisius from the Ferapontov Monastery.

Caspian

We interrupt the parade of Christmas posts for this exciting announcement. Prince Caspian is possibly my favorite book in the Narnia series. Be still, my beating heart. I don't think I can wait until May. Watch the trailer!

Morocco

Shannon and Ben hosted another smashing success. We were transported. And stuffed to the gills by the time we rolled out of there. Sit-down dinner for thirty. All the furniture removed in their dining and living room. Low tables with cushions. Candles burning. A stormy night. A two and a half hour power outage occurring the instant the main course was ready to be served. Games by lantern light.

The menu was incredible. Shannon had done a bit of research and found that Moroccan cuisine is often a blend of the best of French, Mediterranean, Spanish, and African food.

She started us off with appetizers of olives, hummus and pita chips, and stuffed dates. We drank pomegranate ginger punch and ate grape pecan salad and carrot orange salad. My grandmother cooked an authentic steaming dish of couscous served in her large Moroccan bowls. We finished off the evening with Greek Walnut Pie, Pumpkin Semolina Cake and Moroccan mint tea.

My mom's parents joined us for the first time. Fifty years ago they were living in Morocco as missionaries (with my mother and her two brothers). My grandfather created a wonderful slide show with pictures from their travels and time spent there, complete with Moroccan music. My grandmother helped Shannon with the couscous. We were delighted with all they added to our party!

Holly and Ivy. You just can't have a Christmas party without Holly and Ivy. Grin.

Three

Don't forget that voting begins today for the Homeschool Blog Awards! I've been nominated in the Best Artistic Content Blog category. Check out all the impressive blogs and be sure to vote.

O Tannenbaum

It is time to visit Germany and celebrate the tradition of the Christmas tree!

O Tannenbaum

O, Christmas Tree, O, Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us.
O, Christmas Tree, O, Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us.

They're green when summer days are bright;
They're green when winter snow is white.
O, Christmas Tree, O, Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us!

Don't miss The Fir Tree by Hans Christian Anderson. Read the short story here.

A concise version of the background story of the Christmas tree (complete with lesson plans) can be found here.

Read about German Christmas traditions here!

One of my favorite Christmas picture books is The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston and Barbara Cooney. (As a quick side note: I will purchase any book authored or illustrated by Barbara Cooney.) A beautiful story set in a little Appalachian town, this tale follows Ruthie the year her family is selected to provide the town's Christmas tree. Courage, determination, resourcefulness, and the importance of family are illuminated on the pages with heart-warming prose and charming illustrations. It takes a good deal of determination on my part to read this book without tearing up every single time.

Memory and Hope

Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church’s year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart’s memory so that it can discern the star of hope.…

It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope.

~Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Seek That Which Is Above

We are using Getting Ready for Christmas: A Daily Advent Prayer & Activity Book for the Family for our Advent guide again this year. Each page represents one day of the Advent, with a Bible verse, prayer, and an Advent activity suggestion. The book contains a small lift-the-flap Advent calendar, but we will be incorporating the guide with our own Advent calendar.

For each day's theme, I put a corresponding treasure in the little cupboard. For example, Day 3:

Verse: Praise Him, sun and moon! Praise Him, all you shining stars! God commanded, and there you are! Psalm 148:3, 5

Today's Prayer: Dear God, how You love light! There is no darkness in You at all. Thank You for the sun that lights the day, the moon and stars that light the night, and for Jesus, who lights up our hearts. Amen.

Advent Activity: Go outside tonight and enjoy the night sky.

Our Advent Calendar Treasure: Small glow-in-the-dark stars to mount on the bedroom ceiling.

Baby Jesus (from our nativity set) makes an appearance behind door 25.