”There seems a magic in the very name of Christmas.”
Today is Christmas Eve Eve.
The sun is among the missing but could appear later. I see glimpses of blue. The high today will be 30° which is, I suppose, warm in comparison to the last few days. I have a concert, the last Christmas concert, this afternoon.
We have a little snow from the other day and from a dusting last night. It will never melt. I take baby steps anytime I go outside because the walk and deck are covered in ice, craggy ice which crunches underfoot.
When I was a kid, Christmas brought wonder and joy. It touched every sense. I remember walking down the stairs in the mornings and smelling the tree, the sweetness of the pine. The tree’s aroma filled all of downstairs and even gave upstairs the hint of pine.
Colored lights were everywhere breaking through the winter darkness. The more lights the greater the delight. Every car ride was a light ride. Our tree lit up the living room. The orange window lights shined on the snow when we had a white Christmas. Our living room with just the tree lights lit was awe filled.
The kitchen smelled of cookies baking. The traditional cookie was always the sugar cookie. We got to roll the dough, press in the cookie cutters and finally decorate the cookies. My mother would put a vinyl tablecloth on the table, the better to contain the mess. Bowls of white, green and red frosting were front and center on the table. Colored sprinkles were in bowls on the table. We were traditionalists. Santa wore red, the angel was white and the tree was green. I used a toothpick to dot the trees with colored lights of frosting. Every cookie was a masterpiece.
My mother had a hi-fi. Back then, some stores and companies sold Christmas records so my mother bought a few and played them on the hi-fi. One of the albums was from Grants and a couple were from Firestone. They were the soundtracks for our cookie making. I have those albums, and I have a turntable so I get to hear them again. In my car, I have been listening to Christmas carols since after Thanksgiving. Their season is so short I never tire of them.
I’d walk by the tree and run my hand up and down a branch. The needles got sharp and would sometimes prick my fingers. My hand would smell like pine. I remember Christmas cards with a felted Santa’s suit and sometimes a felted bag. I remember rubbing the cards. They often went on the tree.
I still love being surrounded by Christmas.
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
December 23, 2024 at 9:29 pm
Hi Kat,
Today was cloudy with a high of 68°. Rain is expected tomorrow.
I never heard of Christmas Eve, Eve. Like you I remember a waiting anxiously for Chanukah as a kid. My father made potato latkes nightly so the house was awash in the aroma of onions and frying potatoes. He would slather them with sour cream, which I disliked even back then. I slathered mine with apple sauce. I wish I had known about Sufganiyot, (Jelly Donuts). Because my grand parents emigrated from Eastern Europe, they had potatoes, onions, and therefore they made latkes for Chanukah. Sephardic Jews ate , Bimuelos, (Fried dough balls of flour and yeast), for Chanukah. North African Jews would eat Sfenj, (Fried Donuts), served with orange zest in the dough and served with honey.
Because Israel is in the Middle East, and was a part of the Turkish Empire before WWII, you know where the Sufganiyot came from. In the 1950s we were ignorant of jelly donuts. No one in Hebrew School ever mentioned them. I would have remembered that.
Each night we would light a candle with the helper candle called the Shemash. After lighting the candles we said the required blessings and opened gifts. Finally, on the eighth night all the candles would burn brightly. Our electric menorah was also turned on all nine lights in the front window. By the eighth night our presents were down to just pajamas and socks.
December 24, 2024 at 12:05 am
Hi Bob,
It’s cold now and has been cold all day. Tomorrow will be warmer at 38°. We’ll have rain.
As kids we called it Christmas Eve Eve. It is not at all official. It was the day before the big day so we figured it needed its own distinctive name. We all still call it that.
I’m with the North African Jews. Those fried donuts sound delish. I am also a fan of latkes. I used to make them for dinner occasionally. I also ate them with apple sauce. I’ve never heard of Bimuelos, but I used to eat something similar in Ghana, also a fried yeasted ball of dough. They are called Bofrot. They were a favorite of mine.
You ended with pajamas. We started with them. I like lighting a candle each night. Our candles were lit one each week to commemorate the weeks of Advent, 4 candles in total.