Merry Christmas

[Biggreenavalanche]

Its Christmas Eve day and I wanted to wish all forum members a merry Christmas and I hope the upcoming new year brings you good fortune...I'll hoist a small libation in honor of my fellow TBNrs on new years eve !

Thanks for the many good threads/conversations over the past year and I look forward to many more !

Cheers !

Rich

 

[NY_Yankees_Fan]

Rich,

Merry Christmas and a happy and safe New Year to you and your family.

 

[murphy1244]

Merry Christmas to all
Murph

 

[ultrarunner]

Same here... to you and those you love...

 

[ArtMech]

"... may God bless the memory of ... freedom fighters who did not live to see this moment".
We with my wife remembered them perished in the battles all around the world and prayed for them.
Pics of our today's Christmas Eve.

 

[Sutol]

Merry Christmas from good old England, 25 mins to go here, raising glasses already

 

[creekbend]

Merry Christmas to EVERYONE. Best wishes.

 

[dmccarty]

"... may God bless the memory of ... freedom fighters who did not live to see this moment".
We with my wife remembered them perished in the battles all around the world and prayed for them.
Pics of our today's Christmas Eve.

View attachment 294325View attachment 294326

Saracenas,

What is in the coffee mugs with the spoons? Apple slices? Is it tea?

Is that a bowl of dumpling soup in the brown bowl?

Merry Christmas!

Later,
Dan

 

[Steppenwolfe]

Happy holidays from the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains. Trusting we all have a great Christmas. My wife is cooking up a storm... Merry Christmas to me !!!

 

[ptexer]

Merry Christmas

 

[300UGUY]

Merry Christmas!!!

 

[Furu]

Wish a good xmas to all and hope that everyone's loved ones are well and with you.

 

[ArtMech]

Saracenas,

What is in the coffee mugs with the spoons? Apple slices? Is it tea?

Is that a bowl of dumpling soup in the brown bowl?

Merry Christmas!

Later,
Dan

Those mugs are not exactly for coffee. They just look from above like the coffee mugs. These are two times bigger. And we have a sauce in them - sweet and aromatic. It's made of dried apricots, and yes, desiccated slices of apples, including also dried berries (plums, raisins).

We have very specific Christmas Eve traditional course in that brown bowl. I couldn't find any description in English. I'll tray to describe it myself. There are baked peaces of leaven pastry with poppyseeds, so called Kuciukai: Vaizdas:Kuciukai.jpg. These are soaked into so called poppyseeds' milk. To do this you need to grind the poppyseeds (that's my job) so they are becoming a light grey slather. Than pour warm water on it add honey and mix with spoon until honey melts down and the poppyseeds' milk becomes sweet.
That course came from pre-Christian (pagan) times. Or some sources (especially in Western Europe) call that time of my country time of saracens.

Warm and Merry Christmas for you!

 

[ArtMech]

And wish YOU ALL on TBN as well as your families Merry Christmas!!!

 

[cqaigy2]

"... may God bless the memory of ... freedom fighters who did not live to see this moment".
We with my wife remembered them perished in the battles all around the world and prayed for them.
Pics of our today's Christmas Eve.

View attachment 294325View attachment 294326

Thanks for posting the pictures!
Food looks delicious. That's an interesting rug.

Merry Christmas everyone

 

[sodamo]

Mele Kalikimaka
Hau'oli Makahiki Hou
David & Sophie

David Sent from my iPad using TractorByNet

 

[ArtMech]

Thanks for posting the pictures!
Food looks delicious. That's an interesting rug.

Merry Christmas everyone

Thank you.
I would add some rules which we are traditionally following within the Christmas Eve supper in my country:
1. No alcohol.
2. The food must be prepared so that such products like meat, sour cream, milk, butter, animal fat, eggs, cheese should be avoided.
3. Number of courses has to be not less than 12.
All these products are allowed on the Christmas (next) day.

Do any Christmas Eve restrictions exist in N. America?

 

[dmccarty]

Those mugs are not exactly for coffee. They just look from above like the coffee mugs. These are two times bigger. And we have a sauce in them - sweet and aromatic. It's made of dried apricots, and yes, desiccated slices of apples, including also dried berries (plums, raisins).

We have very specific Christmas Eve traditional course in that brown bowl. I couldn't find any description in English. I'll tray to describe it myself. There are baked peaces of leaven pastry with poppyseeds, so called Kuciukai: Vaizdas:Kuciukai.jpg. These are soaked into so called poppyseeds' milk. To do this you need to grind the poppyseeds (that's my job) so they are becoming a light grey slather. Than pour warm water on it add honey and mix with spoon until honey melts down and the poppyseeds' milk becomes sweet.
That course came from pre-Christian (pagan) times. Or some sources (especially in Western Europe) call that time of my country time of saracens.

Warm and Merry Christmas for you!

Both sound very good! :licking::licking::licking:

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

Thank you.
I would add some rules which we are traditionally following within the Christmas Eve supper in my country:
1. No alcohol.
2. The food must be prepared so that such products like meat, sour cream, milk, butter, animal fat, eggs, cheese should be avoided.
3. Number of courses has to be not less than 12.
All these products are allowed on the Christmas (next) day.

Do any Christmas Eve restrictions exist in N. America?

I don't know of any restrictions, and while my family has some traditional dishes, none are as specific as what you mention. Last night we had a pretty light meal instead of the huge feast that is traditional. Ham and Turkey is the traditional meat though some will have venison if they hunt. Green beans with almonds and/or fried onions is a traditional veggie.

Stuffings are traditional but there are so many different styles. Some are bread based while some areas in the South use a corn bread base. What goes into the stuffing is also varied as well, and usually to family taste, but onions, carrots, celery are common. To that base one can add meat, mushrooms, oysters, and/or nuts. We have a family member who married into the family whose family tradition included a meat stuffing which I think is called a forcemeat. It is simply a dish full of a variety of finally ground meats. The first time I had this meat stuffing it splattered so much fat in to the oven that the house filled up with smoke. :shocked: It was good though. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Sweet potato or yam casserole is traditional at least in the southern parts of the US. Usually it is only the sweet potatoes or yams, maybe with cream/milk and/or eggs with a topping of nuts, sugar and/or marsh mellows. The better versions use whipped egg whites to make the casserole very fluffy.

Then there is plain old mashed potatoes.

Many families have other food traditions bedsides the traditional US holiday dinner with turkey, ham, stuffing, etc. These traditions seem to based on dishes from the country people emigrated from to the US. I know of Italian families who add Italian dishes to their holiday dinners. I think the forcemeat dish I mentioned is a French influence. My family is from the North and South east part of the US with a large mix of European countries but none of us had seen this forcemeat dish before.

Christmas seems to take forever to get here, then suddenly arrives, and even more quickly, it is over.

Later,
Dan

 

[ArtMech]

Dan, your response is very informative. Thank you very much for that.

So do folks here. You may choose either to follow the tradition which is much associated with Catholic creed, or to do as you wish. In my family case we just have some fun to apply the tradition. OTOH we have a special pleasure to use the products from our garden and from around us such as: onions, brown beans, pumpkins, potatos, apples, cucumbers, carrots, beetroots, celery, black radish, mushrooms from our forest, fish from the lake located nearby our property and many different spices.
This year we've got the first crop of grapes. They are small but very very sweet and deligious. We're thinking to make the raisins of their next crop (if they'll survive from being eaten :licking. It's a miracle, that they could mature in our geographical environment.



Most of the products and some dishes you have mentioned are also being used in my country. But my wife said, she'll carefully study ALL the dishes you have named.

Thanks again.