Of Ornamentation, Traditions and Finding Christmas

Some might say that I have an obsession about collecting Christmas ornaments. So be it. Mark realized several years ago that this is one of my passions, so he graciously supports me in my endeavors to pick up momentos from the places we visit on our travels. Bless him, he has also, over the years, warmed to the concept of actually celebrating the Christmas season, rather that just enduring it. That's one of the many reasons I love him, because I know - at least in part - that he goes along with my measured enthusiasm for the season.

This post features pictures of ornaments we have acquired this past year. The lead photo, above, centers on an ornament that is not really designed as an ornament. I purchased it on the Greek island of Samos this past fall when we were there. It had three things going for it: it is a broom (for some reason, I particularly like to collect "broom" ornaments); it is decorated with a lovely shade of blue (Mark's favorite color); and it features the easter Mediterranean "evil eye" (see picture below).

This is another ornament we purchased on Samos. It, too, features a tiny "evil eye, barely visible as the blue bead to the left of the bow knot.

Celebrating Christmas is different for me now than it used to be. My whole worldview and life situation has changed rather dramatically over the past five years. Christmas in my family as my children were growing up was full of traditions - ones that I largely instituted in order to make the whole Christmas season more fun for the kids. We celebrated St. Nicholas Day. Then added St. Lucia's Day. Then added Joseph Smith's birthday (on the 23rd). These activities became traditions, which the kids have told me they loved.

These three tapa angels with purchased at the gift shop at the Volcanoes National Park on the big island of Hawaii. The day we visited was an extremely stressful one due to a crisis at home, but finding these angels was a bright spot in that day. We had purchased one several years ago at a roadside stand on Maui (which I wrote about here), then never saw another one until that day at Volcanoes. These angels now join the "mother angel" (pictured below) on the tree.

All of that went away when my marriage came to an end. As with Mormon fatherhood (about which I have written extensively), there was a bit of a vacuum with respect to Christmas as I began my new life. The old meanings had washed out to sea, presenting me with an opportunity to reevaluate all of the old traditions and the very meaning of Christmas. 

Speaking of traditions, I realized when we were up at my daughter's in Canada for Thanksgiving a few weeks ago that traditions can be meaningful, but they can also be dysfunctional and even destructive. Sometimes - perhaps a *lot* of times - traditions are used as a means to provide structure to a social situation. Everyone focuses on the traditions as a means of avoiding real (i.e., authentic) communication, real interaction and real relationships. The traditions become the reason for celebrating, rather than the people involved in the celebration.

We acquired this ornament, as well as those in the next two photographs, at the Vancouver Christmas Market a few weeks ago.

I couldn't resist this ornament when I saw it.

I have learned over the past few years that attachment to traditions can ruin the Christmas season, or at least act as a huge drag on it. It is this attachment that, in my view, causes people to make comments about "feeling the Christmas spirit" - or rather lack of it; or that causes people to lament that it's "just doesn't seem like Christmas this year"; or causes people in certain areas of the country to complain that "it's just not Christmas if it doesn't snow"; or, the worst, comments imploring people to return to the "simplicity" and/or "true meaning of Christmas" (i.e., that they think it should mean).

This ornament was purchased in Castellane, France while on our bike tour this past summer. The one pictured below was also purchased in Castellane, but it was not designed as an ornament. It is a "santon," which is a handcrafted and painted figurine used in Provencale creches. I decided to turn this one into an ornament by super-gluing a golden cord to her wimple.

Over the last couple of years, particularly, I have weaned myself from attachment (in the Buddhist sense) to Christmas and its "traditions." There is much about the season that I enjoy, including the (tasteful) music of Christmas, the colors of Christmas, the tastes and smells of Christmas and the enchantment of lights in a darkened room. I also love turning the act of decorating the tree into a creative endeavor. It took me hours to decorate the tree, but I loved it.

This "ornament" was designed as a key chain, but I saw other possibilities. It was purchased this past September in Rome, in a little shop not far from the Pantheon. I had been looking in vain for an ornament from Rome, then saw this. It was perfect. Befana, the Italian "Santa Clause."

The next day, we were at a tacky newspaper/souvenir stand across the street from the Colosseum, awaiting  the start of a group tour. Suddenly, I saw this horribly tacky (and dirty) Vespa scooter, and I realized how perfect it was as a remembrance of Rome, complete with scooters and dirt.

But what I enjoy most about the season now is the people. My children. My husband. Our friends. There are no "this is the way we have always done it" moments.  There is no "this is the way it is 'supposed' to be." It just is. There are no expectations. I just let it happen (albeit with the usual preparations re gifts and meals). In that, I guess it's "simple." And I've grown to love it.

We purchased this in Durham, NC last spring while there attending my sister's doctoral hooding ceremony at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. It's really a "spirit ball" (see below), but it serves as an ornament, too.

My daughter Rachel bought this in London while there with her nanny family last summer

The cow bell pictured below was purchased on a rainy day in a small shop in Annecy, France on our bike tour last summer. The one above, I have to confess, was included in a box of Swiss chocolate.

A new "broom" ornament from the Granville Island Broom Company in Vancouver.

Purchased at the gift shop in the Accademia Gallery in Florence, home of Michelangelo's David.

New Hawaii ornaments, the one above from the big island, the one below from Maui, commemorating our marriage last April on Little Beach, Maui. The other side depicts a heterosexual couple. I just turn it so that faces into the tree.

This was one of my gifts to Mark on our very first Christmas together. It remains my favorite ornament.

Lebkuchens: The Taste and Smell of Christmas

One bite always took me back to my childhood. For me, nothing quite tastes and smells like Christmas as my mother's lebkuchens do.* Since before I was born, she made these every year, and nothing stands out in my memory of my childhood Christmas like lebkuchens (with the possible exception of attending midnight mass). Perhaps because I don't otherwise have any fabulous warm memories or any of the ornaments we had, lebkuchens are the one remaining string that I have to my Christmas childhood.

What are they? Well, the bars that my mom made have little resemblance to the traditional German cookies, but the base is the same: flour, spices and honey. To that - which is where her recipe diverged - is added candied fruit, dates, currants, pecans and a few maraschino cherries. Then, as the bars cool, an icing made from powdered sugar and blackberry brandy is drizzled over the bars.

Actually, the recipe was not originally my mother's. She acquired it from my Aunt Maryanne Essenpreiss Broom. She grew up in Champaign, Illinois (home of the University of Illinois) in a house that was right next door to my uncle's (and my dad's, and later my) fraternity house, Phi Sigma Kappa. The lebkuchen recipe was given to her by Ray Eliot, who was the head football coach at the University of Illinois from 1942 to 1959, leading the Fighting Illini to Rose Bowl victories in 1947 and 1952.


My uncle Ernie (my dad's next oldest brother) is pictured to the left with Aunt Maryanne in front of the Essenpreiss home about 1948.


I hadn't made lebkuchens in a number of years, but decided that, this year, I was going to attempt to make them. I say "attempt" because the recipe is fairly complicated - at least for me. I never know if I'm going to get everything mixed right, get the ingredients chopped enough, make the dough thick enough, etc.

Mixing the candied fruit, nuts and other ingredients into the dough is always a challenge

The mixed dough is covered and put into the fridge for three days to "mature"

The baked lebkuchens, ready to be cut in the pan then placed on drying racks where I drizzle them with the icing.

Getting the right mixture of blackberry brandy and icing sugar is a bit of a challenge, too.

Like other northern European Christmas cookies, these lebkuchens have to sit in tins in a cool place for at least a week before they're ready to eat. The dough softens and the brandy and candied fruit more or less "ferment" the cookies. One never really knows until this period passes whether one has achieved success with the cookies. That is the stage mine are currently in. If they turn out well, I'll probably write about it. If not, well, I probably won't write about it.

Of course, my mother's cookies were always perfect. And they kept for months. I can recall going to visit her brother once around Easter time. Aunt Beulah brought out the tin of lebkuchens my mother had sent her the previous Christmas. (Maybe they didn't like them?)

Anyway, even if the cookies don't turn out perfect (my skills in the kitchen being extremely rudimentary), just tasting the dough as it matured and smelling them as they baked was enough to bring that childhood Christmas place back into remembrance.

Extended Broom Family, Christmas 1957, which was also my older sister Karen's third birthday. (I hadn't arrived yet; I would be born the following September.) My mother is at right, holding my brother Danny. (She looks different in this picture from any other picture I have seen of her.) Standing are L-R my uncle Dale Broom, my grandmother Broom, my uncle Walt Broom, my aunt Maryanne, my aunt Elizabeth Broom and my aunt Shirley (Walt's wife) holding my cousin Gerald (Maryanne's son). Other cousins are pictured to the left and right: David, Veronica and James.

Throughout most of my life, I thought this lebkuchen recipe was a well-guarded secret family recipe. It was only upon talking to my aunt about it 15 years ago that I learned that it was not this, but another, recipe that was the true Essenpreiss secret family recipe. So, for what I am sure is the very first time, I am publishing the lebkuchen recipe to the world. If anyone out there ever tries to make these, I would appreciate hearing from you. (This is the full recipe. I always halve it.)

Eliot-Essenpreiss-Broom Lebkuchen

Ingredients:

1-1/3 cups honey (liquefied – 1 lb.)
2 cups sugar
2/3 cups         butter
2 eggs beaten
2/3 cup water and maraschino cherry liquid
8 cups flour
2 tsps baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp cloves
3 lbs candied fruit (pineapples and cherries)
1 lb         chopped pecans
1 lb         currants
18        maraschino cherries
1 lb        dates (halved lengthways)

Icing:

1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
Blackberry brandy

Method:

Slowly boil sugar and honey and shortening for five minutes, then let cool slightly.  Beat eggs and add water mixture to eggs, then stir into honey mixture.  Sift flour, soda, salt and spices, then stir into honey mixture.  Stir in fruit, currants and nuts.  Put dough into greased and floured bowl, cover and let ripen in refrigerator for three days.

Take dough out of fridge and let sit in order to bring to room temperature (in order to be able to work with the dough).  Grease cookie sheets, then drop dough by spoonful onto sheets, then flatten and spread dough over entire surface of cookie sheet, using either hands or spoon. Dough should be approx. ¼ inch thick on cookie sheet.

Bake at 375°F for 25 minutes. While baking, prepare icing by mixing sifted icing sugar and brandy until consistency of liquefied honey.

Test cookies after 20 minutes with a toothpick.  Take out of oven, cut into squares (approx. 1 ½” or 2” square) while still on cookie sheet.  Take out of cookie sheet and place on cooling racks. Using spoon or fork, drizzle icing over cookies. Let cool on cooling racks, then transfer to tins, putting waxed paper between each layer of cookies. These will keep for weeks in a cool place.

* I use the plural because that's how we referred to them, even though the noun is collective, I believe, in German.

Advent Memories: A German Christmas

When I first came out, I wrote a lot of posts on my first blog about re-discovering who I am and reconnecting with the person I was before I joined the Mormon Church and got married. In December 2010, I wrote a series of posts about Advent, anonymously reveling in the process of reconnecting with beautiful music and Christmas memories that had rested without stirring for the better part of life. What follows is an edited version of the first of those posts.

As I’ve previously mentioned, I was raised in the Catholic Church. December was a special time, growing up. Not only was it the month of Christmas, but it was also the month of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a time of Christmas pageants at the Catholic school I attended, and a time when my mother baked all sorts of stuff which reflected in part her German heritage, including the quintessential German Christmas cookie, the Lebkuchen (her recipe being unlike any other I have ever seen, and a small taste of which to this day will transport me back to my childhood).

December was also the month, when I was seven years old, that I received my first communion. (My sister Martha was born a couple of weeks later.) Here I am in all my boyish purity, standing (far left) in front of my teacher, Sister Mary Joseph, with hands dutifully folded.

I remember Sister Mary Joseph as being kind. That couldn’t be said for the principal of our parochial school, Sister Eulogia, whom we nicknamed “Sister Chicken Lips” due to her enormous protruding lips. This tall woman was such an officious person that, one winter day, she actually came over to our yard from the convent (adjacent to St. Theresa's school, which was right across the street from our house) to inform me, my brother and our friends (most of whom were good Protestants) that having snowball fights was a sin. I think my oldest brother told her where to go (and later paid for it).

When I was very young, the mass was still said in Latin, and to this day, whenever I hear Adeste Fidelis or Panis Angelicus (particularly, in either case, when sung by Bing Crosby) or other Latin Christmas hymns, I am transported in my mind to that small stone Catholic Church (which seemed so big to me as a boy) with the choir loft in the back, hearing the Latin music waft down through the candle-lit darkness to where my family sat in the front.

The Interior of St. Theresa's at Christmastime.

I can vaguely recall when my dad was the choir director. He loved to sing in Latin. But his singing voice stilled when I was yet a young boy.

There was a snugness to that corner of my childhood that to this day gives me comfort. Even after joining the LDS Church, for example, I always had a soft spot in my heart for The Bells of Saint Mary’s and watched it every December.

Perhaps in part because of this Catholic upbringing and also because of my German heritage, I have had a special place in my heart at Christmastime for all things German. I used to purchase Stollen with marzipan filling every year from Siegfried's German Deli in downtown Salt Lake, as well as some special German chocolates for the kids’ stockings. We also made various German Christmas cookies, including Lebkuchen, and observed traditions associated with Germany. 

Christmas in Germany

One of these traditions was every year watching a Christmas special called Christmas in Germany, hosted by Loretta Swit (of MASH fame), that we had first seen on TV (and recorded with our VCR) in December 1988, before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Swit arrives in Germany and stays with a family in Bavaria. She then proceeds to travel throughout Germany during the month of December. Particularly touching was her visit to the wall in Berlin, where at that time, people on either side placed lit candles in their windows as a form of greeting to those across the wall and an expression of hope that the day would come when the wall would no longer be there.

This tradition of watching Christmas in Germany and all of the German-related Christmas traditions came to mean a lot to some of my older children. My daughter, Rachel, who is currently working as a nanny in Philadelphia, recently wrote a blog post about the TV special and her experience of visiting a real Christmas market recently in Philadelphia. Among other things, she expressed that she "didn't know watching it every year meant so much to me until it came to December and I hadn't watched it yet." Well, guess what Rachel, Hannah and others: Christmas in Germany is on YouTube!

German Christmas Music

I also love German Christmas music, from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, to his lovely hymn O Jesulein Süss, to one of my favorite Christmas carols Es ist ein Ros Entsprungen, most commonly translated into English as Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming. The text, the author of whom is unknown, appeared in the late 16th century, and the tune with which we are familiar was written by German composer Michael Praetorius in 1609. (This melody is also used for the beautiful French carol, Dans une Etable Obscure.)

The text of Est is ein Ros is based on a scripture in Isaiah 11:1-2:  “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.”

The German word for “rod” or “twig” is reis.  Apparently, at some point, this word morphed into the word ros (“rose”), which was perhaps partly based on common symbolism of the wintertime feast. Long before there was a "Christmas" feast, Europeans used plants that thrive or flower in the winter as a symbol of hope and life in the spring to come. The Christmas rose was one such flower.  The point is that the “rose” in the hymn is Jesus Christ.

The following is the common English translation of the German text:

Lo, how a rose e'er blooming,

From tender stem hath sprung.

Of Jesse's lineage coming,

As men of old have sung;

It came, a flow'ret bright,

Amid the cold of winter,

When halfspent was the night.

Isaiah 'twas foretold it,

The Rose I have in mind,

With Mary we behold it,

The virgin mother kind;

To show God's love aright,

She bore to men a Savior,

When halfspent was the night.

O Flower, whose fragrance tender

With sweetness fills the air,

Dispel with glorious splendour

The darkness everywhere;

True man, yet very God,

From Sin and death now save us,

And share our every load.

Here is one rendition of this lovely hymn:

I am also including here a recording of a portion of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Part I, performed by the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner:

And, lastly, a recording of O Jesulein Suss:

Fröhliche Weihnachten!