anticipating XMAS
Merry, Happy if that's your tradition, Christmas, with prayers and all good wishes for the New Year.
Things happen, including to each of us personally, as we move along through life, and that includes "Firsts" that we'd just as soon not have come down on us. Our First Christmas without a loved one can be grievous beyond imagining, and the idea of going into the New Year without him/her. I have those Firsts to look back on, though as yet not so painful as for many people I know and care about who lost loved ones since Christmas dawned this time last year.
In our branch of Christianity we liturgically honor them and our love for them on All Saints Day, November 1 each year; but the holidays are the hardest, and each First holiday seems unbearable. My deacon friend, in saying grace, blessing before meal, always remembers before God, and jogging our memories and consciences, those loved by God who have nothing to eat as we sit down to feast. Just so, I extend it this morning to those who are waking up this Christmas Day, again or for the First time, without that loved one forever. Kyrie Eleison, Lord, have mercy.
My feast item is ready to slip into the oven. To be honest, I enjoy assembling it every bit as much as I enjoy the first bite of it (and every remaining bite of it seeing that no one but me will even look at it, the very thought of its gross grayness is so unappetizing to them), my very own oyster dressing. I put it together twice a year, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Having saved up oysters in the freezer for weeks, and maybe, as now, some fresh. In a wide, shallow and long casserole dish (because it's been made available to me instead of the loaf pan I used Thanksgiving), a thin layer of dressing with added mushrooms and pecans, a packed shoulder to shoulder layer of raw oysters, a sprinkled layer of the dressing mix; a layer of saltine crackers, a packed layer of pan-seared oysters, yet another layer of the dressing mix, still another layer of raw oysters, the little gray soldiers squeezed together, more dressing mix (the dressing mix is as much for absorbing oyster liquor as for its own goodness) and repeat this cycle until either I run out of oysters or the casserole dish is full and mounded over. As always, I'll have to keep an eye on to ensure there's no overflow into the oven.
Otherwise, the turkey is roasting in the new large roaster that, beware, is as 350° on the outside as for the turkey inside, and the leg of lamb in the old smaller roaster that otherwise is used mainly during Lent for making oyster stew to take to Wednesday night suppers at church.
Squash casserole will share oven space with my oyster dressing without absorbing any of its fragrance, and the large casserole of regular dressing that in my years as a boy my mother cooked as stuffing inside the giant bird. Even though it's sheer nonsensical rubbish, we no longer cook "stuffing" in the turkey's cavity because of health concerns.
What else? Christmas tree. Presents. Family arriving late this morning, gathering for the Holy Day and its feast. Chocolates. Cakes. Pies. Something about the Xpistos. Haven't had breakfast yet, but a seriously appetizing thought for Christmas Breakfast is anchovies on toast. Black coffee with, poured into it, some of what Joe brought from North Carolina: a bottle of untaxed liquor (read moonshine) infused with spices including cinnamon, that has all the richness of a fine cognac and twice its nostril-singeing power.
And kindly excuse the art that I appreciated from online. Today I'll be watching the old man's 1937 Oldsmobile Six in A Christmas Story
and remembering my own days lusting for a Daisy air rifle BB gun. I did in fact have a shoot your eye out BB event sometime between 70 and 75 years ago. Also, regrets that as a Southern boy growing up I never got round to it, but wish best hunting for those who do, and hope everyone who wanted to see a new rifle under the tree managed to make it happen even if it was necessary to resort to this
At our second service last evening I heard the most moving Christmas sermon ever, from one who had personally seen the shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem, and found them to be children, even a young girl tearful at one of her sheep escaping, but a tourbus stopping and American tourists swarming out to chase it down and return it to her. Taking that back some two thousand years into Luke's nativity story, Luke would have known they were children, awed children beholding angels in the heavens, and then going into town to see the baby, but I just last night found that out, it makes the old beloved story from henceforth and forever even more powerful and wonderful.
Keep Xpistos in Xmas.
TW
Things happen, including to each of us personally, as we move along through life, and that includes "Firsts" that we'd just as soon not have come down on us. Our First Christmas without a loved one can be grievous beyond imagining, and the idea of going into the New Year without him/her. I have those Firsts to look back on, though as yet not so painful as for many people I know and care about who lost loved ones since Christmas dawned this time last year.
In our branch of Christianity we liturgically honor them and our love for them on All Saints Day, November 1 each year; but the holidays are the hardest, and each First holiday seems unbearable. My deacon friend, in saying grace, blessing before meal, always remembers before God, and jogging our memories and consciences, those loved by God who have nothing to eat as we sit down to feast. Just so, I extend it this morning to those who are waking up this Christmas Day, again or for the First time, without that loved one forever. Kyrie Eleison, Lord, have mercy.
My feast item is ready to slip into the oven. To be honest, I enjoy assembling it every bit as much as I enjoy the first bite of it (and every remaining bite of it seeing that no one but me will even look at it, the very thought of its gross grayness is so unappetizing to them), my very own oyster dressing. I put it together twice a year, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Having saved up oysters in the freezer for weeks, and maybe, as now, some fresh. In a wide, shallow and long casserole dish (because it's been made available to me instead of the loaf pan I used Thanksgiving), a thin layer of dressing with added mushrooms and pecans, a packed shoulder to shoulder layer of raw oysters, a sprinkled layer of the dressing mix; a layer of saltine crackers, a packed layer of pan-seared oysters, yet another layer of the dressing mix, still another layer of raw oysters, the little gray soldiers squeezed together, more dressing mix (the dressing mix is as much for absorbing oyster liquor as for its own goodness) and repeat this cycle until either I run out of oysters or the casserole dish is full and mounded over. As always, I'll have to keep an eye on to ensure there's no overflow into the oven.
Otherwise, the turkey is roasting in the new large roaster that, beware, is as 350° on the outside as for the turkey inside, and the leg of lamb in the old smaller roaster that otherwise is used mainly during Lent for making oyster stew to take to Wednesday night suppers at church.
Squash casserole will share oven space with my oyster dressing without absorbing any of its fragrance, and the large casserole of regular dressing that in my years as a boy my mother cooked as stuffing inside the giant bird. Even though it's sheer nonsensical rubbish, we no longer cook "stuffing" in the turkey's cavity because of health concerns.
What else? Christmas tree. Presents. Family arriving late this morning, gathering for the Holy Day and its feast. Chocolates. Cakes. Pies. Something about the Xpistos. Haven't had breakfast yet, but a seriously appetizing thought for Christmas Breakfast is anchovies on toast. Black coffee with, poured into it, some of what Joe brought from North Carolina: a bottle of untaxed liquor (read moonshine) infused with spices including cinnamon, that has all the richness of a fine cognac and twice its nostril-singeing power.
And kindly excuse the art that I appreciated from online. Today I'll be watching the old man's 1937 Oldsmobile Six in A Christmas Story
and remembering my own days lusting for a Daisy air rifle BB gun. I did in fact have a shoot your eye out BB event sometime between 70 and 75 years ago. Also, regrets that as a Southern boy growing up I never got round to it, but wish best hunting for those who do, and hope everyone who wanted to see a new rifle under the tree managed to make it happen even if it was necessary to resort to this
At our second service last evening I heard the most moving Christmas sermon ever, from one who had personally seen the shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem, and found them to be children, even a young girl tearful at one of her sheep escaping, but a tourbus stopping and American tourists swarming out to chase it down and return it to her. Taking that back some two thousand years into Luke's nativity story, Luke would have known they were children, awed children beholding angels in the heavens, and then going into town to see the baby, but I just last night found that out, it makes the old beloved story from henceforth and forever even more powerful and wonderful.
Keep Xpistos in Xmas.
TW