Happy Covid Christmas! Again.

 

I love the holiday season. Watching the twinkling lights. Bringing out all the handmade ornaments. Finding fun things for the people I love. 

There’s a lot to love. Except maybe covid. I spent all last year in fight or flight zone: masking up, hand sanitizing, vaccinating and boosting. Just when I thought it was safe to come out of my covid cave, here comes omicron. 

Family members are testing and, thank goodness, coming up negative. Ok, this is one time when a negative is a very positive thing, right? But I’m still worried and masking and distancing and wondering what can I do to feel better?

Baking a better holiday. 

I love baking. Sadly, my mother was not a baker. She tried but she just didn’t get it, maybe she didn’t want to, and really, that’s ok. I was lucky to have two very good grandmother bakers who passed down not just their recipes but their love of baking and their techniques. I learned even more in my college foods labs where the science of food was revealed to me. 

I loved foods lab, like chemistry, it involved knowing your elements and understanding procedures. Mix that with a grandmother who visited especially to teach me her celtic recipes and a New York Gram who loved to make authentic cheesecakes and Chocolate Kringles.

Shortbread from my Scottish Grandmother. 

It wouldn’t be a holiday in our house without Grandmother Gallacher’s shortbread. I’d share the recipe, but she made me swear I would NEVER allow anyone except blood family to have her recipe. Ok, she was a little scary and I still obey her to this day. I have passed down the recipe ONLY to my daughter. 

But…(you knew there would be a but, right?)…I have changed her recipe using my foods lab knowledge. Sorry Grandmother but, you really can double the recipe and not affect the quality. I do, as she stipulated, always use REAL, high quality butter. I always cream the butter and sugar to her specifications. Sorry Grandmother, I do use a mixer. Adding the flour is the real test of a good batch and that secret is safe with me. 

Cherry cake. 

Another bow to Grandmother Gallacher, this is an amazing cake. It’s really a traditional tea cake that would have been a staple at tea time, which Grandmother observed with serious attention. I was taught the proper way to warm the pot and steep the tea. And I do love tea. 

I also love this cake. Done right, it is moist, light, dense and rich. 

Yes, I have a few secrets here that I have developed myself over the years. Let’s just say, it’s worth the effort. She used candied cherries. I hate candied cherries. So I have developed, based on my foods lab training, a way to use real dried cherries that I modify, to give this cake a lovely natural cherry flavor and texture while preserving the traditional, luscious buttery tea cake. 

So set the kettle to boil. 

Warm the pot and get out your favorite tea.  

Then sit down. Sip tea. Take a bite of cherry cake. Enjoy the holiday anyway!

Light

Today, I sat like a cat in the sunlight and wallowed in it. I read and snoozed and put my feet up for a bit. Basking in the cozy warmth for a few hours, I forgot that it was cold outside. As soon as my neck felt that cool shiver of daylight dipping, I got up and made a cup of tea. And watched the light change outside and in. 

I see once again how important light is to the world and to me. We all need it and it feeds us all in so many ways. 

Warmth. 

Decorating, during the holiday or not, is more to me than creating a functional living space. It’s an emotional and creative process. It’s a way I make my house into a nest from which my husband, children, and now grandchildren can feel loved and supported and grow. Even when they need to fly the nest, it’s always here should they need a soft place to land for while. 

This last week, I redecorated many areas for the holidays. Books and toys and candles and twinkling lights and china all come down from shelves and cupboards and closets to bring back cozy childhood memories, beauty and soft warmth. 

A few pieces of my Spode Christmas Tree collection and gifted teapots mingle with my handmade porcelain teapot and teacups. Afternoon tea is becoming a daily ritual. 

Santas sit, pose and ring in several spots around the downstairs. 

The coffee table set up for play with the Brio train set that now two generations enjoy. 

The tree and stairway sparkle. 

Light is life.

I love twinkling lights year round. And the holidays just give me more chances to play with light.  And I know, especially this year, I need even more light and warmth in my life. 

We may not all be able to gather or celebrate this year in the ways we always do, but we can still celebrate the sun shining outside, the warmth in our own home and let that light warm our souls and lighten our hearts.