The Night Before Christmas

"Now Dasher! now Dancer!
Now Prancer! and Vixen!
On Comet! on Cupid!
On ______! and Blitzen!"



There was a letter to Dear Abby recently ranting about the use (or perhaps misuse) of the name that fills the above blank. The writer insisted it should be "Donder" instead of the more frequently heard "Donner".


My copy of The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore is a 1935 edition published by The Platt & Munk Co., Inc. of New York. It's the version I read over and over while growing up and, therefore, the version I like best. Neither Donner nor Donder.




How do you fill in the blank?

Favorite Five - Christmas Albums

I'm going to divide my Favorite Five Holiday Music choices into two entries. I'll come back later with individual songs, but tonight I want to focus on albums in general.

I try to treat myself to a new holiday album each year. This year it was David Archuleta. (and no, I voted for David Cook when they competed on American Idol) I enjoy the new ones, but there are a few that get pulled out every year. The first two listed are my absolute favorites.

1. Hallmark presents The Tradition of Christmas - A collection featuring Harry Belafonte, Jennifer Warnes, The American Boychoir, and The London Symphony Orchestra.

2. Majesty & Wonder, an instrumental Christmas by Phil Keaggy with the London Festival Orchestra.

3. Aaron Neville's Soulful Christmas

4. Classical Christmas - A CD which includes selections from Handel's Messiah as well as pieces from Mozart, Corelli, Bach, and Vejvanovsky.

5. The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky

Dijon Chicken Salad (& a rehash)

My church Circle group had their annual Christmas salad luncheon today. In addition to the marinated carrots* I always take, I tried a recipe for chicken salad that I found at Allrecipes.com. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, so it will be a keeper.

Dijon Chicken Salad

2 (10 ounce) cans chunk chicken

1 cup sliced celery

1 cup halved seedless green grapes

1 cup halved seedless red grapes

1/4 cup dried cranberries

2 teaspoons dried chives

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

3/4 cup mayonnaise

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

Mix together the chicken, celery, green grapes, red grapes, cranberries, and chives in a bowl. Whisk together the honey, mustard, mayonnaise, salt, and pepper in a separate bowl. Add the mustard mixture to the chicken mixture, stir to coat.

*I thought I'd already "rehashed" this recipe. I couldn't find it, so here it is again. This is for you, Barbara.

Marinated Carrots

1 cup sugar

1 cup vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 stick cinnamon

1 bay leaf

18 whole cloves

18 whole allspice

2 cans baby carrots, drained

Combine first seven ingredients, bring to a slow boil and simmer five minutes. Pour over carrots. When cool, cover and place in refrigerator for 24 hours before serving. Keep refrigerated.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

The message in church this morning was entitled "Seeking Peace on Earth" with Luke 2:10-14 as the scripture focus. Our pastor spoke of the time in his life when he first came to the realization that Christmas was not a magical happy time for everyone. It was while singing the hymn "I heard the Bells on Christmas Day", the second to last verse in particular. I did a little research on the hymn when I got home and found that the lyrics were taken from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow written during the American Civil War.

As we continue in this Advent season, may we keep all those who serve in the armed forces in our thoughts and prayers.

Christmas Bells

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent

The heart-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The household born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men!

A pot of soup

It got cold this week. Perfect weather for soup!

My mother made a wonderful vegetable soup when I was growing up. She's been gone for many years now, but my sister and I have carried on the tradition with our own takes on the original. Mine has evolved into more of a cabbage-tomato-barley soup. Here's how I make it:

Put a soupbone, an onion or two, and some seasonings in a soup pot half filled with water. Bring to a boil then simmer about 45 minutes to an hour to form the stock. After removing the soupbone add a chopped head of cabbage, some diced fresh carrots, a large can of crushed tomatoes, and a can of tomato paste. Top off with tomato juice until the soup pot is full. Simmer on medium low heat all day. An hour or so before serving add a can of green beans (drained) and about 3/4 cup of barley.

Mmm, mmm good!

Keep that mind alert!

I think it's pretty much agreed upon that as we age it's important to "exercise" our brains. There are many ways to do this: attempt another language, play bridge, learn to play a musical instrument, take a different route to the store or to work each day. I enjoy working jigsaw puzzles when time allows for it. Life's been too busy for that in recent months, but there are a few "brain exercises" that I always make time for. My local paper carries three daily puzzles that some folks would consider time-wasters, but I look at as ways to enhance my brain power.

I begin with the daily crossword puzzle, which is a simple one. Created by Thomas Joseph, it rarely takes me more than ten minutes to complete. If I'm really feeling daring, I work it using my left hand. (I'm right handed) There is one a little more difficult in the state-wide paper my husband reads, but I'd rather do the easy one and still have time for the other two puzzles. On rare occasions I will work the more challenging Los Angeles Times puzzle which appears in my Sunday paper. If my husband and I take a road trip on a Sunday, I'll take it to work in the car. (Yes, I'm one of those lucky people that can read while riding in a car.)

I next move to the cryptoquote. It's all about looking for patterns that appear in words and grammar. Sometimes the author of the quote is what gives it away. (look for anonymous, source obscure, source unknown, or some country's proverb) Also, if you do these enough, you'll start to recognize a lot of the folks who are quoted. I can't always work the cryptoquote. If nothing jumps out at me I move on to my last puzzle and come back to it later. Even that doesn't always work and it just goes unsolved.

The final puzzle I work is the sudoku. The version in my paper is called Conceptis Sudoku and starts the week easy, getting more difficult as the week progresses. I challenge myself on Mondays to work the puzzle without making any notations in the process. As the puzzles get harder, though, I have to makes notes. By the end of the week, I don't always complete them. If I find I've made an error or I just plain get stuck, I won't slave over it. I think one of my pet peeves is when folks claim they won't try sudoku because they "don't do math". It has nothing to do with math. The numbers could just as easily be substituted with the first nine letters of the alphabet. It's all about logic.

So..... that's how I try to spend about a half hour of my day. I find it relaxing. Hopefully it's doing my brain some good in the process!

Favorite Five - Holiday Specials

I figure I'd better get in a couple of Favorite Five posts pertaining to the holiday season. I'll begin with an easy one.

I'll admit, there are lots of Christmas movies I've never seen. They air all through the holidays, but I rarely sit down and watch any of them. I prefer the shorter Christmas TV specials... the ones geared towards kids.

Here's my top five list. Bet you won't have any trouble telling me yours, either!

1. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - Naturally this tops my list. After all, it made the cut for my "Favorite Five - Movies" entry. I noticed A&E had it on several times this past week. I saw bits and pieces, but will wait and watch it from start to finish closer to Christmas. I replaced my old VHS copy with a DVD this past year.

2. A Garfield Christmas - Jon, Odie and Garfield go home to the farm for Christmas with the parents, Doc Boy and Grandma. Silly in places, but leaves you with a warm feeling at the end.

3. Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas - This show first aired in 1987. I don't think I've missed it a single year since then. We originally taped it on VHS, then found it on DVD several years ago. Each "claymation" segment revolves around a different song. I think my favorites are "Joy to the World" and "O Christmas Tree".

4. A Charlie Brown Christmas - This one's a favorite from my childhood. (original air date: 1965) I miss it most years, but saw it scheduled for this past week and set up the DVR. I'm looking forward to watching it a little closer to Christmas. Also love the music in the show from the Vince Guaraldi Trio.

5. It's a Wonderful Life - A wonderful movie, a wonderful cast, and a wonderful message. Everyone should see it at least once in their life. It's been awhile for me. I need to remedy that.

Posting

Last month I questioned your blog reading habits. Today I'm curious about how you post.

In the past, I composed my entries in Word then pasted them over to Blogger. I liked keeping various "ideas" in my Word documents to work on at my convenience. It was easy to pick up recipes from other Word documents and to paste links from the Internet that I might want to include in an entry.

I have a new laptop. My old one was five years old and in laptop years that's pretty old. The new one is wonderful! I love Windows 7 (so far) and I have all the newest versions of the programs that come on a computer. That includes Word 7. Now when I try to copy and paste from Word to Blogger, it won't let me!! I can copy, but it won't let me paste. Instead, it wants me to use the new Windows blog publishing feature. It's compatible with Blogger, but when I set mine up, it didn't work correctly. *sigh*

I've had to go back to composing in Blogger. If I don't have time to finish a post, I have to leave it as a draft. No, it's not really a problem, but it's not what I was use to. And it will be a bit of a pain until I eventually "rehash" all the recipes from my old blog (which are in a Word document).

So.... how do you post? Do you do everything in Blogger? Do you compose in another program and paste to Blogger? Oh, and how many of you take advantage of that handy feature to "schedule" entries for posting at a future time?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Favorite Five - Breakfast Cereals

I've always been a fan of cold breakfast cereal. That's not to say I don't enjoy oatmeal, muffins, eggs, pancakes and other breakfast fare, but most mornings it's just cold cereal with soy milk. Actually, I don't limit cereal (or any other traditional breakfast food) to my morning meal. Any of the above make a great lunch or supper!

There aren't many cereals I don't like, however these are the varieties most often found in my pantry.

1. (Quaker Oats) Honey Graham Oh!s - I love these so much I devoted an entire entry to them on my old blog. They are my all-time favorite.

2. (Post) Honey Bunches of Oats with Pecan Clusters - This is their newest variety. I also like the original and the version with Real Peaches.

3. (Kellogg) Special K Red Berries - They have several more twists on the theme, but this strawberry version remains the best.

4. (Post) Grape-Nuts - My favorite way to eat this as a kid was with half & half rather than milk. My kids liked it warmed in the microwave with syrup and milk. As an adult I prefer it with light soy milk and a sprinkling of white sugar... and I like it cold and crunchy.

5. (General Mills) Honey Nut Cheerios - I think the company got in some trouble recently for making claims about the effectiveness of Cheerios as a "heart healthy" food. Regardless, they're certainly better for you than a lot of the options out there.

More decorations

While on the topic of decorations, here are the links (if they work right) to a couple of entries from my old 360 blog.

This entry about our mantel is from Christmas 2007.

I wrote this entry mentioning our creche in 2006.

How lazy is this.... recycling old blog entries!!