Happy Holidays Everyone

This post finds me at the end of my Christmas baking marathon. Shortbread cookies, light fruit cake, Christmas puddings, butter tarts, butterscotch confetti all hide in various locations around the house waiting to be doled out over the holidays. The weather is awful mostly, blowing wind, sideways rain but for a few brief moments on the 20th/21st this month, the skies opened up so that I could see an eclipsed moon on my birthday. It is a good end to a difficult year.

Gerry has made a batch of hot buttered rum mix, and in the evening there is nothing so restorative than sitting in the half-light of the living room with the Christmas tree glowing and one of those rummy-elixirs in hand.

Friends this year have been so very important, even while they are plodding through their own life-altering changes and for this I am so very grateful. We can all only hope that 2011 will be kinder to our frayed nerves but at least we know that whatever happens, we are not alone.

To me, Christmas isn't just about a big dinner. It is about the preparation and delight in the process. This year, I found myself really engaged in the process and it was healing. Remembering the years when I merely watched these delights appear, it became clear that the stirring, cooking, baking and cooling were metaphors for our lives together. It is the work it takes to make things happen that is important. The treat is at the end but that isn't where life lies.

Making the most of what can only be called a crappy year is all that is open to us. We plod ahead, hopeful.

I know, I know. Pollyanna. But really what is left to us? We can decide to avoid life when it is awful, not learning the hard lessons. That is a half-life. Or we can gather our strength and decide to live. Christmas baking says "I am living"

I wish you all the best. I wish you the strength to bake, the strength to garden, the strength to have tea with friends, the strength to affirm life is worth the effort. And thank you for being there when I didn't have the strength.

The year without her....

I had a stunning revelation on Friday evening as I sat sipping a cup of tea and staring at the Christmas tree. I wanted a shortbread cookie.

Now this might not seem like a revelation of major proportions but it startled me. Those lovely little cookies would not appear this year like they had for the past 8 years...the time when Mom and I shared a house and all our holidays.

Before we shared this house, I had been the one tasked with preparing those things that Christmas tradition dictated. And I loved it. But I had definitely gotten out of the habit once Mom lived downstairs and she took great pride in sharing her Christmas delights with us.

When Gerry moved in and Mom discovered his love of bits and bites, those were added to our tradition and she made buckets of them. He sat contentedly eating whatever was available and I know how good his obvious enjoyment of them made her.

And now, in the beginning of the year without her, I realize that it is up to me to continue what she started.

This morning I made Christmas pudding (recipe from a long ago friend), that fantastic concoction of potatoes, carrots, candied fruits and peels, suet, spices that make your head reel, and of course those Christmas staples, butter, molasses and eggs.

I cried a bit as the smell of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves invaded the house and I mixed my biggest bowlful with my hands. Mom had always made Christmas cakes (two of which I have taken from the freezer and drenched in amaretto awaiting their debut) and my kitchen smelled just like she was there with me.n

I can see her hands, with their hereditary age spots and strong fingers, digging through the mixture making sure it all combined. In the middle of mixing the pudding, my hands are sticky and sweet, with the beginnings of those same age spots on them.

Once the bowls of fragrant pudding are in their steamers and the shortbreads are cooling on the kitchen table, I sit down and listen to Loreena McKennitt's winter album, "To Drive the Cold Winter Away". I feel my Mom next to me and am comforted by her.

I miss her terribly but know that by keeping her traditions alive, I am not without her. And I am grateful that I had the kind of mother who kept these traditions and passed them along to me. I only hope I can do the same for my children.


Recipe:

Marion Bates' Christmas Pudding:

4c flour
9tsp baking powder
3tsp salt
3 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ginger
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
9 eggs
6 tbsp molasses
3 3/4 c brown sugar
3 c shredded potato
3 c shredded carrot
3 c seedless raisins
3 c currants
1 1/2 c almonds (I used sliced)
3/4 lb red cherries (the glacee kind)
3/4 lb green cherries
3 c pineapple rings
3 c suet
2 c candied peel
3 c breadcrumbs

Sift and measure flour, add spices, sift again. Add salt,baking powder, sift again, Add brown sugar. Measure raisins, currants, cherries, pineapple, nuts, suet, breadcrumbs, raw potatoes and carrots and place in a separate bowl.

Beat eggs and molasses. Mix fruit mix and egg mix alternatively into flour (use a REALLY big bowl). Fill mold (I use nice heavy ceramic bowls so when the pudding is turned out it is a nice rounded hump on the plate) 3/4 full. I line the bowls with cheesecloth but you can simply just cover each with parchment paper (tied down) or aluminum foil.

Steam 4 hours. I use my big canning pot, invert a smaller stainless steel bowl inside it and fill half way up bowl with water. Then I set the mold on top of the bowl.

Uncover to cool. Wrap to store.

When serving, put the pudding out topside down and drench with brandy, or rum, or whatever you like. Light it on fire and serve. Spectacular dessert!

When serving, I include a hard sauce or caramel sauce just to push it over the top.!

Great with a glass of homemade Port while sitting in front of the fire.

Enjoy!