Lift Up Your Hearts!

(Continued from Pre-Christmas Fun.)

You wouldn't think that with just the two of us it would still take all day to open presents, but it very nearly did.

We slept a little late, due to yesterday's exhaustion, but we can never sleep in much, even without the pleasure of being awakened to Christmas carols on the clarinet.  (Yes, that is a pleasure!  We missed that this year.)  I finished the few preparations that I'd negelected last night, and we sat down to open our stockings.

Mothers—sometimes fathers, but more commonly mothers—often develop the bad habit of filling their own stockings.  For one thing, and this is unavoidable, if you have a gift that everyone gets (in our house this includes Toblerone, Mentos, citrus fruit, a coin) it makes sense to drop one into each stocking.  It would look very strange for one person to be left out.  But beyond that, it's just a bad habit.  One parent takes on the role of chief stocking-filler, and the other is content to let that stand.  In our case, when we had guests, this was almost a necessity, as so many moms were contributing to stockings that they overflowed without the dads having a chance.  But this year, I resisted.  There were only two of us, and why should I deprive Porter of the joy of finally having a chance to be Santa Claus with more than his traditional dollar coin?  So when I picked up a set of combs for each of us, I wrapped Porter's but put mine in the drawer.  When I bought tape, I wrapped some for Porter's stocking, but did not put any in my own.  Etc.

What a good decision!  Porter is a great Santa Claus!  So here is a word to all moms caught in my trap:  Share the joy!  Even if it means prodding your man a bit to get him started.  Why should moms do all the work have all the fun?

On to breakfast!  As usual for Christmas day, the clementines from the toes of our stockings were the only part of breakfast we could consider healthful.  But mmmmm!  Raspberry kringle (thanks, NMKB!), Dutch banket (pastry filled with almond paste), almond raisin bread ... you get the picture.  When our children were young Christmas breakfast was primarily Lucky Charms, as Christmas and birthdays were the only occasions sugary cereals were allowed in the house.  We adults prefer our sugar in different forms, but Christmas morning at our house is traditionally overwhelmingly sweet.  Traditional for our family, that is.  Growing up in my own family, I don't remember any particular Christmas breakfast traditions besides a stocking tangerine, and an "eat faster so we can get to the Christmas tree!" attitude.  My parents graciously, but with a show of reluctance, conceded to drink their after-breakfast coffee in the living room.

Neither of us drinks coffee, but I would have brought my tea into the living room if we had had time.  But it was then time to get ready for church.

Having done yeoman's duty Christmas Eve, our choir had the day off.  So we eschewed the long drive to our usual church and attended the Christmas service at All Saints Episcopal in Winter Park.  I'd been there once, maybe twice before, but never for a regular service.  Not that you can tell much about a church by what you see on Christmas Day, either.  Their choir also had the day off, but the service was still glorious, and filled with music.  It's an old, beautiful church with a huge pipe organ.  And imagine:  the full, resplendent sound of a pipe organ—once the loudest man-made sound on earth—and we never once needed to seek recourse in our earplugs.  At our own church, and many churches we have visited, the services are physically painful (and, I'm convinced, ear-damaging) because of the volume of the electronic instruments, even in a more traditional service where the only instrument is an electronic keyboard.  I'd forgotten how lovely it is to be able to pay more attention to worshipping God than to the agony of my ears.  For the sake of our future hearing, we wear earplugs in church—and in many other places, such as movie theaters and skating rinks—but it's distracting, and makes me feel distant from the rest of the worshippers.  Not to mention that it makes singing well very difficult.

I'm not sure if it was a good or a bad thing to be so powerfully reminded of what worship can be.

Be that as it may, we had no regrets for leaving our present-opening to consider together the greatest gift of all.

Not that we weren't excited about coming home to the Christmas tree, where we opened gifts from each other and from distant family members.  There's never a lack of gifts when you emphasize the practical, though there was no underwear this year.  There were several un-practical, but particularly appropriate and delightful gifts to be opened as well.

Then reality hit:  It's 2:30 and I haven't begun to work on Christmas dinner!  Our guests weren't coming until 6:00, but beef roasts take time to cook, and bread takes time to rise.  Plus quite other items on the day's agenda.

So this is the Christmas I learned that I could let some plans go and still have a wonderful evening.  I reduced by three the number of dishes I had planned for dinner—and the dinner was probably better without them.  (I'd mention them, but one of our guests will eventually read this and know what he missed.)  It was certainly good enough, and we were still too stuffed for dessert.  I also (re)learned that letting other people help can be much better than doing everything yourself.  Our guests brought a gorgeous salad, much more beautiful than the one I would have made.  Porter set the table, and had both more time and more interest than I for making it look nice—and in lighting candles around the house.

I concentrated on the rest of the dinner:  beef rib roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, steamed broccoli, and homemade rolls.  The roast was tricky, because I cook them so rarely, and the directions from two cookbooks and numerous Internet sources were mutually contradictory.  I ended up gonig mostly with my brother's advice—he was cooking a beef roast for their dinner, too—which was pretty much, "I usually just put it in the oven and see what happens."  What happened this time turned out to be really good, so I guess it was great advice.

The potatoes weren't supposed to be mashed.  When I serve roast beef, I like to boil potato chuncks to the not-quite-done stage, then put them, with a little of their cooking water, alongside the roast near the end of its cooking time.  That way they take on a lovely brown color and absorb some of the delicious beef drippings.  But that, too, can be tricky, so I decided that mashing the potatoes would be good enough and a lot quicker.  Everyone seemed happy with the results.

I cheated a bit with the rolls, picking an easy bread machine recipe so the machine could take care of the kneading and rising for me.  I even used (mostly) the white bread flour called for in the recipe, not having time to take a chance on experimentation.  Well, okay, I did substitute whole wheat for about a third of it, in the name of flavor.  It worked well, but next time I'm going to roll the dough thinner than the recipe called for and make crescent rolls that are not so huge.  But if they weren't the prettiest, they sure tasted good.

The gravy I'm particularly proud of.  Because I did not cook the potatoes in the roasting pan, I had pure drippings to work with after Porter and his carving knife took away the roast.  It was lovely, dark, and deep, because I have learned The Secret:  the roast had rested on a layer of chopped onions, which happily caramelized while it cooked.  To the drippings I added sufficient flour to make a good roux, then about a cup of white wine, and then most of the leftover potato water.  This wasn't just any potato water:  I had added some beef bouillon to the boiling potatoes, so what was left was essentially beef stock.  With the addition of some more beef bouillon and a generous dose of pepper, it was awesome, if I do say so myself.  (Any cook will realize that I've left out a few important actions, notably "stirred and cooked for a while" between most of the steps.)

The best part of the whole meal, however, was being together with our neighbors.  They shared some of their Christmas traditions, we shared some of ours, and we all shared some great conversation.  Just as wonderful as the morning's reminder that it is possible to worship without high decibels, was the evening's confirmation that even in these polemic days it is possible to have—nay, to enjoy—a lively discussion among people whose views differ substantially, without anyone getting hot under the collar.  Isn't it amazing what respect, consideration, and good manners can accomplish?

For the second day in a row we went to bed too late, and exhausted.  But what a good kind of exhaustion it was!

On the Second Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ... Christmas Rest!  The busy-ness has been for the most part wonderful, but there's a reason "the Sabbath was made for man."  We need days of rest.  When we felt hungry (which, after Christmas dinner, wasn't often) we snacked on leftovers.  When we didn't, we concentrated on a new Sudoku puzzle book (Porter) and a new Miss Read book (Linda).

All the while being very grateful that we were not throwing up, an affliction besetting this day an appalling number of friends and family on both coasts of the United States (as well as the middle) and on both sides of the Atlantic (but not in the middle).

On the Third Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ... returning health to our loved ones, and a gentle return to work for us, along with continued rest.  (Finished the book.  Started another one.)

On the Fourth Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ... a determination to prepare a collection of Advent music to enjoy during most of December next year.  It's only the Fourth Day, and even I am tired of Christmas music.  We're still enjoying the tree, the lights, and all the other decorations, however.

A cold front came through last night, so we are enjoying a crisp, clear, cool (55 degrees) sunny day.  It's time to close this post and get on with life.