Waiting for Downton

I am looking to the new year with great anticipation, not because I am planning great resolutions but because the new season of DOWNTON ABBEY begins in one week! I can hardly wait, can you?
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I had hoped to take a sneak peek before everyone else. I am already subcriber to my local PBS station but they offered DVDs of Season 3 as an incentive so I coughed up more money. Then they sent out a memo saying that the DVDs wouldn't be shipped before January 17th. That's no use, people. The series will be half over by then and I'm certainly not going to cheat and watch the last episode.

Of course I realize I could have seen the whole thing if I'd lived in Britain. I could have asked friends to tell me what happened. But I didn't. The anticipation is all the sweeter. And in one more week.....

So what do you think will happen? Will Mary and Matthew marry? Will Mr. Bates be proved innocent? Will they discover who killed Mrs. Bates? Who do you think did it? My guess is that Sir Richard had it done. I never liked him.

And will poor old Edith finally find herself a good bloke? We know that American granny arrives and sparks fly between her and the dowager countess. So that should be fun. But when is Thomas ever going to get what he deserves, or have something happen to him to turn him into a better person?

If you've already seen it in UK, please don't tell us anything.
 But next Monday morning, January 7th, let's get together and dish on Downton again. Okay?

Rhys's 12 Days of Christmas, Day 12

It's almost here. Last minute baking. Last minute stocking stuffers. Daughter arriving from LA.  Last minute quest to find gluten-free pie crust!!!
And tonight, someone will be visiting your house, leaving presents or coal, depending on whether you have been naughty or nice.
Who this person will be depends on what part of the world we live in.
In America it's Santa Claus, of course. He is actually a corruption of the name Saint Nicholas in Dutch. And in Europe St Nicholas does not come on Christmas Eve but on St Nicholas's day, December 6th. In the Netherlands children leave their shoes out for him and find small treats in them. In Germany he comes to the house, dressed as a bishop with Black Peter or Knecht Ruprect (his dastardly side-kick) beside him. The children are called into the living room and St Nicholas reads out a list of their good and bad deeds from the year. We hope they are good because his side kick sometiems carries a whip! Then the child has to recite a poem, sing a song and is given nuts, candies.

Then on Christmas Eve it is the Christ child who leaves presents under the tree at night. I like this idea better than a strange man in a red suit, don't you?

In England he's called Father Christmas and he used to leave our presents in a pillow case at the bottom of our beds. I remember the thrill of waking in the pre-dawn darkness, seeing a bulging shape by my bed, dragging into bed with me and feeling the wrapped gifts--bursting with anticipation.

So I'm wishing all of you a merry, merry Christmas and hope that whoever delivers the gifts tonight they are exactly what you want, and your Christmas is merry and bright!

Rhys's 12 Days of Christmas, Day 11

. Greetings from very soggy California. It's funny but when I look  back at the Christmasses of my childhood I never remember rain. It was always crisp and frosty and occasionally snowy as we walked down the hill to midnight mass. Our voices echoed in the still frigid air and our breath came out like dragon's fire. And the church was almost as cold as the outside, inspite of heaters--especially when I went to visit my grandmother and we went to midnight service at Bath Abbey. There was no way to heat that massive building and we huddled together, hands in gloves, stuck into pockets. But when the choirboys processed in, their angel voices soaring to the vaulted ceiling as they sang, "Yeah Lord, we greet thee, born this happy morning" and at the same moment we heard the bells above chiming midnight, which meant it really was Christmas day, then frozen fingers and toes were forgotten. I remember trying to stay awake, dozing off to hear distant voices really sounding like an angel choir, and then walking home to be greeted by ginger wine and hot mince pies before falling into bed.

Have you dragged home your yule log yet? It should be ready and drying out for Christmas Eve. I'm glad we don't have a fireplace big enough at my house because I don't think there is a stick of dry wood in California right now. But the tradition was to go out into the forest and drag home a huge log. It would be lit on Christmas Eve and would continue to burn throughout the holiday, thus ensuring prosperity for the coming year.

You need an awfully big fireplace, however . My sister-in-law at her 14th century manor house in Cornwall has a fireplace big enough to roast an ox and burn a yule log, but she's the only person I know. So that tradition has vanished for most of us.

The French, as always, do things sensibly and make their yule log, the buche de noel, into a delicious cake that they eat when they return home from midnight mass.

I've already made the first batch of mince pies. More to follow... and sausage rolls. How are your preparations going? What do you bake?

Rhys's Twelve Days of Christmas--Day 10

So the world didn't end yesterday? Rats. Now I'll have to clean the bathroom and do the laundry.

One aspect of Christmas that I remember fondly was the playing of family games. Charades was always a favorite. I'm not talking about the watered down version that we play here. We used to produce a wholw little play. We'd take a multi-syllable word and then act out complete scenes to explain. Then a scene that included the whole word. For example Dandylion. One scene with a person acting in dandyfied fashion, a scene in the zoo or jungle with a lion and then someone blowing the seeds away. We had a dress-up trunk full of costumes that we used.

Another great game if you had a big enough house was sardines. It's like hide and seek but with a twist. One person hides, everyone seeks. The first person to find him joins him. More and more people cram in until either the closet or space under the bed won't hold any more or one person is left.

We also played games like passing the parcel or hot potato or even musical chairs, and after meals more sedate word games like I Went to Market. One person starts I went to market and I bought an apple. Next I went to market and I bought an apple and a ball. Next an apple a ball and a cat etc through the alphabet. A person who forgets is out.

I've a good selection of these in the compendium at the back of my new book, The Twelve Clues of Christmas.
 Does your family play any special games?

Rhys's Twelve Days of Christmas, Day 9

Did I miss Day 8? I think I did. Could it have had something to do with the fact that I had 12 people coming to lunch and my dishwasher had died? And they didn't leave until 4 p.m. and we had to leave for the city by 5? Uhhh maybe...

Anyway today my fun Christmas trivia is going to be about Pantomime. This is a long-standing Christmas tradition in UK where the word doesn't mean the sort of walking against the wind that Marcel Marceau did. Instead it's a theatrical extravaganza for the whole family.... always a fairy tale: Cinderella, Babes in the Wood, Aladin, Dick Whittington etc. And with all kinds of strange conventions. The principal boy ( ie the hero) is always played by a gorgeous young woman in tights and a skimpy costume. There is always a dame played by a male comedian with lost of padding. There is always a villain whom the aidience boo and hiss. A fairy godmother is a lovely dress.

There is also a character with whom the audience interact, especially the children. He might ask the audience to to watch his gold while he takes a nap making the children go cracy as they try to wake him when someone comes to steal it. Of course there is always an aminal of some sort--the pantomime horse, or cow, with two people inside it. There are always lots of topical and even slightly naughty jokes for the adults and lots of songs and musical numbers. The form hasn't changed for at least a hundred years and pantomimes will be performed all over the country. Smaller versions might even be performed in homes--we've certainly done our share of them over the years with John as the fairy godmother (even when he sported a beard).

There is a family pantomime in my new book The Twelve Clues of Christmas and characters show surprising talents. They are always fun. Try one in your house this year.

Rhys's Twelve Days of Christmas, Day 8

If you were waiting for today's Christmas trivia, I apologize. Life intervened. After breakfast I went to run the dishwasher and nothing happened. My dishwasher had died before we had people to lunch today and 12 people to lunch tomorrow. Hasty trip to Sears to find new dishwasher, then had to rush to prepare lunch.
Now they've just left and I'm late with my Christmas fact of the days. And  I was going to talk about BOXING DAY.

In England and all commonwealth countries the day after Christmas is a holiday called Boxing Day.
Why the name, you might wonder. It goes back to the time when people had servants (I wish I had one right now to do all that washing up). Those servants were expected to minister to the family on Christmas Day. Then the day after Christmas they had the day off to go home to their own families, if they lived close enough. They'd each receive a Christmas Box from their employers. In the case of servants it might be food to take home, a present of some sort or money.

The tradition of giving a gift to those who perform a service is carried on. Mail carriers, garbage men, newspaper boys stop by to wish you "the compliments of the season." And they expect to get a tip.

Until recently no stores were open on Boxing Day. It was a time to relax and enjoy a quiet time with family (and eat leftovers). In my book The Twelve Clues of Christmas there is a traditional Boxing Day hunt.  Now, alas, commerce has triumphed. Stores and movie theaters are open and life goes on as usual.

Rhys's Twelve Days of Christmas--Day 7

Today I'm going to attempt to continue with my Christmas countdown, reminding ourselves that life must go on and we have to find joy in each other, in family and in small pleasures.

So today I'm going to talk about one of my favorite Christmas traditions--mince pies. My grandmother made them, my mother made them, I always make them and now my daughters do as well. They were always available to be served to people who stopped by, and we ate them warm on Christmas morning as we opened presents.

Mince pies are made in small muffin pans, with short crust pastry filled with mincemeat, sprinkled with sugar. Mmmm. Mince meat doesn't actually contain meat any longer, although it used to. Now it is a mixture of various dried fruits and some rum and sugar. But the origins of mince meat are quite different. In the middle ages small farmers couldn't afford to keep their livestock over the winter as there was nothing to feed them with. So many beasts were slaughtered. But there was no refrigeration to preserve the meat through the winter (the winters in England not being cold enough on the whole to make ice). So the meat was mixed with dried fruits and spices to preserve it. And afterward it was served in pies--mince pies.

I'm not sure exactly when it became a Christmas tradition, but poor peasants rarely ate meat in their diet so having a mince pie as part of the Christmas feast was a logical thing to do.

If you want to make it part of your tradition you no longer have to buy your own mince meat. Crosse and Blackwell make an excellent mincemeat with pippin apples and rum. Roll out the pastry dough nice and thin, cut circles and line muffin pans. Fill each about half full (more and it will bubble over). Cut out smaller circles for lids and press on with a fork to seal the edges. Make a small slit in the top to let steam escape. Bake in pre-heated oven 425 degrees for about ten minutes, until they start to turn golden brown. Let them cool as the mincemeat inside remains very hot.

Enjoy.