Tag Archives: Tradtions

Merry Christmas!

May your Christmas Eve and Christmas Day be filled with lots of love and joy and a little ho ho ho!

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This afternoon we’ll be at a Christmas Eve service and then come home and have some fresh hand made tamales for dinner.

Twinkle 003By midnight tonight or a little after all our kids except for Andrew will be under our roof. Hopefully they’ll beat Santa here. Dear and I will be fast asleep by the time they arrive but we’ll let Katie greet the late comers and welcome them here.

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IMGP1037Christmas morning we’ll open stockings first with a cup of coffee and then we’ll have our traditional Swedish pancake breakfast that Dear makes for us.

IMGP1039After breakfast we open up the gifts under the tree. This year after we read the Christmas story from Luke chapter 2 we are going to have Katie read a very interesting article on some of the Christmas story that has been ingrained into tradition that might be on the urban legend side of things and not really historically and culturally accurate. Don’t worry we don’t have our knickers in a knot. We still know the best truth of Christmas is that God came down and we can now be lifted up to Him through what Jesus did on the cross for us.

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Mystery Tree 2013 027After we open up our gifts I’ll start preparing for our Christmas dinner. We will have our traditional Prime Rib and Yorkshire Pudding with roasted root vegetables, creamed corn from scratch, and a salad. For dessert this year I’m planning on making an apple tart from apples off of Dan’s property in Eastern Washington.

IMGP1046Of course all through the day we’ll have our favorite Christmas Cd’s playing in the background. Knowing our kids while the roast is cooking there will probably be some games around the table.

Praying you know the real Joy of Christmas!

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Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

God bless us everyone…

Christmas!

Christmas inspiration came my way via Rosella at Rhubarb & Roses. Since the Mennonite Girls adopted me as their American cousin I decided to try a German Christmas tradition this year. Now if I truly was from German descent I’d stick strictly to the recipe but since I’m Russian instead of using Rum or Brandy I’m making Rumtopf using Vodka instead.

For 3 cups of strawberries hulled and halved I added 1-1/2 cups sugar, let it sit for an hour and then added it my 2 gallon mason jar crock and added enough Vodka to cover the fruit by 1 inch. Store the jar in a cool place like your basement if you have one.

Over the course of the summer, once a month or so, I’ll keep layering different fresh summer fruits with the same process. At the end Rosella adds pineapple and pomegranate seeds and you can add a few orange slices and cinnamon sticks if you want (I’ll probably stay away from the cinnamon). By Christmas I’ll have a topping for ice cream, pound cake, cheesecake, pudding, trifle, or whatever strikes my fancy.

I think my next summer fruit choices will be peaches and Nectarines and cherries. When our blueberries ripen I’ll use them and when our pears ripen I’ll add them. Do not stir the fruit layers. Just layer the sugared fruit on top of the last layer and add the alcohol to cover.

With my 2 gallon jar I’ll be able to give away my Rumptopf as gifts, too. I’ll need to keep my eye out for cute little airtight containers for my gifts…

Here’s another link that describes Rumptopf.

Tea Things Tuesday!

We started a little tradition last year during Thanksgiving Weekend. On Friday after Thanksgiving the girls head to Goodwill to shop the sales in hopes of finding some little treasure for real cheap and then we go out to eat. Last year we decided on tea at a favorite spot of Lana G.’s and mine but since that time our sweet tea shop changed hands and we’re not impressed with the new establishment. We were hoping to continue the tea tradition after Goodwill shopping. Well I’m so happy to say a new Tea Shop has opened in Downtown Bothell and we have reservations for 11:45 on Friday after Thanksgiving and Goodwill. Yippee! We hope all the usual suspects will be able to come!

 

 

My girls Katie and Laura. Aunt Letty and Katie. Aunt Lana G! and Katie. Lana G! and Ellen b. My DIL Laura and her mom Pat.

 

I’ll take lots of photos from the new spot Three Cups of Tea and show you all in December…

Happy Tea Things Tuesday to you all. Please visit Kim at Shabby, Pink and Pretty for more Tea Things…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.