Merry Christmas to everyone from Marana, Arizona.
May your cacti be merry and bright!
Merry Christmas From Marana
Reply
Tag Archives: Christmas
Throwback Windows
Yesterday I was walking past the former downtown Lazarus building when I noticed that two of the original display windows had been decorated for the holidays, as would have been done back when the Lazarus department store actually occupied the space. The two windows definitely give off a throwback Christmas vibe, with the ankle-deep cotton ball snow, the gold ornaments and fixtures, and the carefully placed mannequins dramatically displaying the women’s dresses and coats.
I think these are now the only two of the display windows that remain, but in the old days there was a row of them, and people would actually make the trip downtown just to check out the new goods that were featured in the the windows. In all likelihood, they would then go inside the Lazarus to see Santa and do some shopping–just like what is shown in the scenes of A Christmas Story. The display windows were a great form of point-of-purchase advertising, and a good window designer could definitely increase sales. Equally important, no kid’s Christmas list was complete until they had taken a look at the department store display windows to see whether there was something cool there that should be added.
I’m glad to see that these two display windows survived, even though the Lazarus department store is long gone and the building itself has become a kind of multi-purpose office space. I’m sure the cotton ball manufacturers are grateful, too.
Cleveland Christmas
I came up to Cleveland yesterday and had a chance to walk around Public Square before dinner. It was brightly decorated for the holidays, and with the Terminal Tower in the background I got the full sense of a Cleveland Christmas.
My visit reminded me of Christmases long ago, when my grandparents would take us to Cleveland to visit the department stores—Higbee’s, Halle’s, and Polsky’s—look in the display windows, enjoy the bright lights, go to the toy department, have lunch, and of course visit Santa. Our annual trips to Cleveland made the holidays even more special.
Calling For Christmas Cookie Recipes–2022
Now that December is here, and the Thanksgiving holiday is well behind us, it’s time to start thinking about holiday baking. This year, I’m going to try some new recipes to with some of my traditional favorites. I’m interested in adding a bit of international flair to my baking efforts, and in doing some poking around the internet I stumbled across a recipe for sequilhos, which are a traditional Brazilian cookie made with cornstarch. So, the cookies not only have a South American lineage, they also will be gluten-free for our gluten-intolerant friends. Even better, this recipe only has four ingredients and sounds simple to make.
Sequilhos
Ingredients: 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened to room temperature; 1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk; 1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt; 2 1/4 cups of cornstarch
Combine the butter, sweetened condensed milk and salt in a large bowl and use a spatula to mix everything until the butter is incorporated into the condensed milk. Slowly add the cornstarch, mixing first with the spatula and then, as the process gets harder, using your hands until a smooth dough forms. (The website indicates that judgment should be used in this process, because you might not need every grain of cornstarch and don’t want to overdo it if the dough looks right.)
Roll the cookie dough (about 1 teaspoon per cookie) into balls and press each ball with your thumb. Place the balls on a two baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Using a fork, slightly flatten the cookies, then refrigerate the cookies for 30 minutes to avoid them spreading when baking.
Preheat oven to 350ºF with a rack in the middle. Bake the cookies for 15 minutes or until they begin to gain some color on the bottom but remain pale on top. Cool the cookies while still on the baking sheets for 15-20 minutes, then move them to a rack to finish cooling.
These cookies are supposed to be fairy light and addictive. Sounds like a good Christmas cookie to me! I’ll probably add some colored sugar to some, and perhaps some jam to others, just to put the cookies into the proper holiday spirit.
Calling For Christmas Cookie Recipes — 2019
Calling For Christmas Cookie Recipes — 2018
Calling For Christmas Cookie Recipes — 2017
Calling For Christmas Cookie Recipes — 2016
Calling For Christmas Cookie Recipes — 2015
Calling For Christmas Cookie Recipes — 2014
Calling For Christmas Cookie Recipes — 2013
Calling For Christmas Cookie Recipes — 2012
Calling For Christmas Cookie Recipes — 2011
Christmas Too Soon
In this era of lurching immediately from one holiday to another–where Halloween bursts onto the scene on the first day of October–I suppose I should not be surprised to learn that, as soon as Halloween passed, one Columbus radio station promptly went forward with all-Christmas-carol programming, commercials with Christmas shopping themes have hit the airwaves, and Great Lakes Christmas Ale is in all the stores already.
In our headlong rush to get to Christmas and holiday sales, we give short shrift to Thanksgiving, that great, truly American holiday. Can we at least fend off the Christmas stuff until after we’ve had our fill of turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie and have given a nod to the Mayflower and the Pilgrims?
Don’t get me wrong–I’m not an anti-Christmas Grinch. In fact, I bought the six-pack of Christmas ale pictured above and enjoyed quaffing some while watching college football yesterday. But I just feel like two months of Christmas songs, Christmas decorations, Christmas commercials, and Christmas TV shows and movies is about one month too much.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to everyone! May this special day bring you happiness, peace, serenity, time with family and friends, a moment or two for reflection, and a visit from Santa Paws carrying the present of your dreams on his back.
Back In The Bobby Era
When I was a kid, our standard Christmas decorations included Santa cups for every member of the family. Each of the kids had his or her own mini-cup, suited to small child hands and carefully labeled in festive red ink with our names, and Mom and Dad had cups that were larger, about the size of a coffee cup. The Santa cups went out in a line on the dining room credenza and then were put in front of our place settings at holiday meals. Mom loved to put out M&Ms for birthdays and holiday occasions, and I think she may have filled the cups with those little chocolate candies.
Amazingly, the cups survived years of excited Webner family Christmas celebrations without being broken, although my Santa cup has its paint rubbed off here and there. When Mom moved out of the family house years ago, she distributed the labeled cups to each of the kids, and now it is one of the Christmas decorations we put out in our house.
Of course, in those long-ago days I was called Bobby by everyone in our extended family. That was fine with me until I got to be 11 or 12, when I concluded that “Bobby” sounded childish and I asked everyone to start calling me “Bob” instead, which sounded a lot more grown up and adult. For some reason, it seemed very important to make that change at the time. Since then, I’ve gone by Bob, so there was a clear line of demarcation between the Bob and Bobby eras.
Now, looking at the Santa cup always makes me smile and reminds me of the long-lost Bobby days, when things were simpler and more innocent, and the appearance of a set of Santa cups on the dining room credenza was part of the build-up for the excitement and fun of a Christmas to come.
Cereal Advances (II)
The cereal makers keep pushing the envelope and blurring the lines between cereal and dessert—as well as messing with our holiday traditions. I’m not sure that Kellogg’s Peeps cereal can ever be topped, but I saw two new strong entrants in the cereal advances category on a recent trip to the grocery store: Kellogg’s Elf On The Shelf Sugar Cookie Cereal With Marshmallows (really, that’s what it says on the box) right next to Post’s Dunkin’ Mocha Latte Cereal made with Dunkin’ coffee that the box discloses is both naturally and artificially favored. (No kidding!)
I can’t figure out what’s weirder—Christmas-themed cereal in April, or wanting to buy a cereal that tastes just like the sugary flavored coffee that you are drinking with your cereal. I guess as between the two I would have to pick the Elf On A Shelf cereal, both because it threatens complete sugar overload and because kids deserve a break from thinking that creepy bug-eyed elves are spying on them and monitoring their behavior all year ‘round.
Yes, Virginia
The editorial pages of newspapers are often dull, uninspired affairs, but every once in a while genius strikes. So it was in the September 21, 1897 edition of the New York Sun, when a veteran newsman named Francis Pharcellus Church was asked to respond to a little girl’s innocent inquiry about whether Santa Claus really existed. He produced a classic that became one of the most reprinted editorials of all time — with a simple and timeless message that continues to resonate down through the years, and seems especially apt today, as we come to the end of a very difficult year:
DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays to all!
When Christmas Comes Early
Normally I hate the too-early anticipation of the Christmas season. When I walked past a Starbucks this week and saw that the outdoor sign was advertising all of the sugary Christmas concoctions, I groaned. When I walked past St. Mary Church and saw that they were setting up the Christmas tree holders for their annual Christmas tree sale, I groaned again. And when I saw that the Hausfrau Haven was selling egg nog, I groaned still more — and also felt a little sick to my stomach at the thought of the coating, cloying taste of egg nog, because I really don’t like egg nog.
In my book, Christmas shouldn’t be anticipated until Thanksgiving is over, period. I know that some people can’t resist jumping the gun, and have already started listening to Christmas music. wearing red sweaters with reindeer on them and watching the saccharine Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel, but I’m not one of them.
I do make one exception to my no Christmas before Thanksgiving rule, however. If I see that Great Lakes Christmas Ale is for sale, I’ll always pick up a six pack, whether Thanksgiving has passed or not. The Great Lakes Brewing Company can be depended on to brew a high-quality, spicy, holiday ale that Old Fezziwig would have loved. I picked up some of this year’s batch yesterday, and it’s excellent — packed with flavor and a little holiday dash, besides. After savoring a bottle, I felt more in the Christmas mood already. Hey — when is the first showing of It’s A Wonderful Life, anyway?
If you like a seasonal brew, I highly recommend this year’s edition of Great Lakes Christmas Ale. But be forewarned: consistent with the generous spirit of the holidays, it comes in at 7.5% alcohol by volume. Pace yourself, or you might not be able to finish trimming the tree.
Rainbow Over St. Thomas
A brief tropical shower delivered an early Christmas present this morning — one of the most distinct rainbows I’ve ever seen in person. It was a beautiful start to a special day, and only we early birds got to see it.
Merry Christmas Eve!
May you find some red and green in your day today!
A First-Class Surprise
If you’ve got to be traveling around Christmas, and dealing with the overall airport madness, a surprise upgrade to first class sure is a nice present. Who cares if the TV screen is mysteriously missing? It’s the additional leg room and wide seats that make all the difference, anyway.
Merry Christmas, indeed!
Tin Time
Last night I finished baking and icing the sugar cookies, and this morning I got up extra early to put all of the cookies into their holiday tins for delivery. Then — and this is especially important, because baking and frosting cookies is of necessity a highly messy, creative process (for me at least) — I cleaned the kitchen and returned it to its pristine, pre-cookie frenzy state.
There’s a certain glow of satisfaction in finishing up, and I will enjoy a cup of coffee and some orange juice while I fill out my address labels. I’m ready for Christmas!
Webner House 