Happy Holidays!
We have been having such a good time celebrating that time just slipped away.
Then suddenly it was Friday! Where did the time go?
Santa was good to all of us, even the one who pooped behind the Christmas tree.
(We had blamed it on Andy's dog, Jeremy but it now appears that Stewart is the real culprit.)
The Christmas cactus even bloomed - at Christmas!
There were just four flowers but that's four more than last year.
We were lucky to have lots of help with the decorating from Spenser.
Then there were the visitors, Burt was happy to see everybody.
This one did a lot of woofing.
He did quiet down eventually, after he got all dressed up. How cruel was that?
There's no celebrating without a lot of eating! Like many families, we have some recipes we always make at Christmas time. Most of them are cookies and desserts passed down from my Norwegian ancestors. There are traditionally supposed to be seven different varieties served at the holidays but I've only managed two. My Mom started making the Polish Tea Cakes after HM and I were married, I guess it was her way of including him in our family. I added the Turtle Brownies because I love chocolate and thought it needed some representation among the basic holiday dessert group.
Then there's the one we make just because we really, really like it.
I guess it's official, cheesecake has been adopted as one of our traditional holiday desserts.
Finally, there is lefse. It's one of those things we make because it's been a staple of Christmas Eve dinner for as long as I can remember. My grandmothers, aunts and mom would get together and make boatloads of it in early October. Half of what they made was for a traditional Scandinavian Dinner at our church that raised funds for world relief. The rest we ate! Here's Andy posing with the lefse he made. I tried to match the photo I took of him in kindergarten wearing his dinosaur costume and holding a plate of cookies. He's taller now, even though it wasn't that long ago, to me. Ha!
The process begins the night before. Three pounds of potatoes get boiled and then have to be skinned while they're still hot. Ouch! Most of Scandinavian Christmas baking involves burning your fingers. That's my great grandmother's fork on the right, it's perfect for testing the doneness of spuds and poking at things in general.
While they're still hot, they are run through a ricer then mixed with butter, cream and salt.
It's basically mashed potatoes at this point. Then it goes into the fridge overnight.
In the morning flour gets added to the potato mix and it's divided into seven equal portions. There's that number seven again. Then it's rolled out - with a special rolling pin that's just made for lefse - and baked on a 450 degree griddle - that's only used for lefse! It is tempting to just go out and buy some, it's available at local grocery stores but it wouldn't taste the same. On trains in Norway they sell it individually wrapped, like candy bars. Awhile ago I realised that if we were going to keep eating it, I'd have to learn to make it. Luckily, Andy and HM love to cook so between the three of us we muddle through. It's really not that hard and we are getting a little better at making it every year.
After all that exhausting work Andy needed a break so we all headed out to the Bare Bones Brewery (at Burt's suggestion) to sample a couple flights of their beer and recuperate from the holiday baking.
Season's greetings from Burt and Ivy, they will be seeing you soon.
Best wishes to all of you who are celebrating during the holiday season!
I'm joining Marfi at Incipient Wings for Merry Monday and I want to thank her so very much for bringing her wonderful enthusiasm and uniqueness to the blogging community.
She makes all of the holidays a lot merrier!
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