Is There A Pickle On Your Tree?

The tradition of the Christmas Pickle has got to be one of the strangest modern Christmas customs in that no one is quite sure why it exists at all!

In the 1880s Woolworth stores started selling glass ornaments imported from Germany and some were in the shape of various fruit and vegetables. It seems that pickles must have been among the selection!

Around the same time it was claimed that the Christmas Pickle was a very old German tradition and that the pickle was the last ornament hung on the Christmas tree and then the first child to find the pickle got an extra present.

However, the claim that it's an old German tradition seems to be a total myth! Not many people in Germany have even heard of the Christmas Pickle! (Similarly in Russia virtually no one knows the supposedly Russian story of Babushka!)

Some families now have the tradition of hanging the pickle on the tree, with the first person/child to find it getting a present. But it probably didn't start in Germany!

There are two other rather far-fetched stories linking the pickle to Christmas.

One features a fighter in the American Civil War who was born in Bavaria (an area of what is now Germany). He was a prisoner, and starving, he begged a guard for one last pickle before he died. The guard took pity on him and gave a pickle to him. The pickle gave him the mental and physical strength to live on!

The other story is linked to St. Nicholas. It's a medieval tale of two Spanish boys traveling home from a boarding school for the holidays. When they stopped at an inn for the night, the evil innkeeper, killed the boys and put them in a pickle barrel. That evening, St. Nicholas stopped at the same inn, and found the boys in the barrel and miraculously bought them back to life!

There is an old legend about St. Nicholas rescuing boys from a barrel but the barrel was originally holding meat for pies - not pickles!

So it's most likely that an ornament salesmen, with a lot of spare pickles to sell, invented the legend of the Christmas Pickle!

The American city of Berrien Springs, MI (also known as the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World) has an annual pickle festival held during the early part of December.

Progress on Advent Knitting

I love this time of year; especially when I can relax and knit on my advent pieces.  There is something peaceful about these knitting projects.

Once I figured out the way of Mosaic knitting,

I'm on a roll!  It's fast and easy to knit.

This could be a male scarf with the colors I chose.

I know it's comes across as brown against this white

but trust me...

It's really a burgundy color--I wish I had used different

colors, but it is what it is

and I live with it.  This pattern is designed by Mosaic Advent Scarf 2016

by Tricia Weatherston 

The other Advent scarf is coming along nicely--

I enjoy knitting lace and this one will 

make a nice warm scarf for someone special

I wish--why do I always second guess my choices?--

I'd used lace weight yarn instead I

chose ..................

Fingering weight yarn--it does make a difference!

Fingering vs lace

Pan de Jamon--Traditional Venezuelan Bread

After Thanksgiving we had lots of leftover ham!  I'm not a big fan of ham!  Ham sandwiches were made!  I baked a ham quiche!  There was ham for breakfast!  And there was still plenty of

ham leftover!  Gee whiz, was it multiplying in the refrigerator?

Then it hit me--there was a jar of green olives in refrigerator too and I remembered this delicious bread

that was made when we lived in Venezuela--Pan de Jamon!

I had to find that recipe and make that bread.

Here is the recipe I came up with:

Pan de jamón is a traditional Venezuelan Christmas bread, but you can enjoy it any time of the year. A sweet, soft dough is rolled up around savory ham, sweet raisins and pimento-stuffed olives. The result is like a gift from heaven.

1 loaf, enough for 4 to 6 people

INGREDIENTS

• Warm milk -- 3/4 cup
• Butter -- 4 tablespoons
• Sugar -- 2 tablespoons
• Salt -- 1 teaspoon
• Active dry yeast -- 1 (1/4-ounce) package
• Lukewarm (110°F) water -- 1/4 cup
• All purpose flour -- 3 1/2 cups
• Egg, beaten -- 1
• Butter, melted -- 2 tablespoons
• Ham, thinly sliced -- 1/2 pound
• Raisins -- 1/2 cup
• Pimento-stuffed olives -- 1/2 cup
• Egg yolks -- 2

METHOD

1. Add the milk, 4 tablespoons butter, sugar and salt to a saucepan and heat, stirring until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and set aside to cool to lukewarm.
2. Mix the warm water and yeast together in a small bowl and set aside for 5 to 10 minutes to activate the yeast.
3. Add 3 cups of the flour to large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center of the flour and add the yeast mixture, warm milk and beaten egg. Stir with a wooden spoon to mix the ingredients and bring the dough together.
4. Remove the dough to a floured work surface and knead, adding extra flour as needed, until the dough is no longer sticking to your hands and is silky and elastic. Remove the dough to a large, lightly oiled bowl. Cover with a clean towel or plastic wrap and set in a warm corner until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
5. Preheat oven to 375°F. Remove the dough to a lightly floured work surface and punch it down with your fists to deflate it. Roll the dough out into a rectangle about 12 inches wide and 15 inches long.
6. Brush the top surface of the dough with the 2 tablespoons of melted butter. Spread the the ham, raisins and olives evenly over the dough, leaving a margin of about 1 inch around the edges. Starting from the bottom, roll the dough up into a loaf. Pinch the seam and fold under the ends to seal.
7. Place the loaf seam-side down on a baking sheet and cover it lightly with a clean towel. Set aside to rise for another 30 to 45 minutes.
8. Beat the egg yolks with a tablespoon of water. Brush the top of the loaf all over with the egg yolk wash. Place the bread in the oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown on top and has a hollow sound when you tap on it. Remove and cool before serving.

Guess what?  There is still ham leftover!!

Fruitcake--Yes Or No?

The oldest reference that can be found regarding a fruitcake dates back to Roman times.  The recipe included pomegranate seeds.  Pine nuts, and raisins that were mixed into barley mash.  Honey, spices, and preserved fruits were added during the Middle Ages.  Crusaders and hunters were reported to have carried this type of cake to sustain themselves over long periods of time away from home.

 1400s – The British began their love affair with fruitcake when dried fruits from the Mediterranean first arrived.

 1700s – In Europe, a ceremonial type of fruitcake was baked at the end of the nut harvest and saved and eaten the next year to celebrate the beginning of the next harvest, hoping it will bring them another successful harvest.  After the harvest, nuts were mixed and made into a fruitcake that was saved until the following year.  At that time, previous year’s fruitcakes were consumed in the hope that its symbolism would bring the blessing of another successful harvest

In the early 18th century, fruitcake (called plum cakes) was outlawed entirely throughout Continental Europe.  These cakes were considered as “sinfully rich.”  By the end of the 18th century there were laws restricting the use of plum cake.

Between 1837 and 1901, fruitcake was extremely popular.  A Victorian “Tea” would not have been complete without the addition of the fruitcake to the sweet and savory spread.  Queen Victoria is said to have waited a year to eat a fruitcake she received for her birthday because she felt it showed restraint, moderation and good taste.

It was the custom in England for unmarried wedding guests to put a slice of the cake, traditionally a dark fruitcake, under their pillow at night so they will dream of the person they will marry.

 
Do you have a fruitcake on your Christmas table?

Why Poinsettias?

The Aztecs used the plant to produce red dye and as an antipyretic medication.^[10] In Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, the plant is called Cuetlaxochitl, meaning "flower that grows in residues."^[10] Today it is known in Mexico and Guatemala as Flor de Noche Buena, meaning Christmas Eve Flower.^[10] In Spain it is known as Flor de Pascua or Pascua, meaning Easter flower.^[10] In Chile and Peru, the plant became known as Crown of the Andes.^[10] In Turkey, it is called Atatürk's flower because Atatürk, the founder of the Republic, liked this flower and made a significant contribution to its cultivation in Turkey.^{[citation needed]}

The plant's association with Christmas began in 16th-century Mexico, where legend tells of a girl, commonly called Pepita or Maria, who was too poor to provide a gift for the celebration of Jesus' birthday and was inspired by an angel to gather weeds from the roadside and place them in front of the church altar.^[11] Crimson blossoms sprouted from the weeds and became beautiful poinsettias.^[12] From the 17th century, Franciscan friars in Mexico included the plants in their Christmas celebrations.^[13] The star-shaped leaf pattern is said to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem, and the red color represents the blood sacrifice through the crucifixion of Jesus.^[14]

What About That Kiss?

The history of mistletoe, which can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, is long, strange, and full of contradictions. Certain varieties are poisonous, for starters, and ingesting their toxic white berries has been known to cause a host of stomach problems (some poison control centers send out "holiday safety" fliers every year). Yet Hippocrates used other types of mistletoe to treat menstrual pains, and through the centuries it's been enlisted to fight leprosy, infertility, epilepsy, and even cancer. Then there's the plant's semi-parasitic nature. Mistletoe, a relative of sandalwood, attaches itself onto other trees to steal its host's water and nutrients. Unlike sandalwood, however, mistletoe seeds are dispersed by berry-eating birds, which allows the plant to grow on branches high above the shade, freeloading on other trees' sunlight. Mistletoe has been called a symbol of virility. According to Smithsonian Magazine, its seeds are coated in a semen-like substance that allows them to stick to tree branches once dispersed by birds — allowing a new mistletoe plant to dig into the host tree and begin to take shape.

Why, then, do we kiss each other under bunches of the devious, toxic plant every Christmas?

The common explanation says that early Christians integrated mistletoe into their celebrations as the religion spread across third-century Europe. The rationale predates the early Christians and goes back to the Norse god Baldur — second son of Odin, god of truth and light — who was so beloved by the other gods that they sought to protect him from all the dangers of the world. His mother, the goddess Frigg, "took an oath from fire and water, iron and all metals, stones and earth, from trees, sicknesses and poisons, and from all four-footed beasts, birds and creeping things, that they would not hurt Baldur." And thus the beautiful god was deemed invincible. What does this have to do with mistletoe? Bear with us...

At a large gathering soon after, stones, arrows, and flame were all flung at Baldur to test his might. Nothing worked, and he walked away unscathed. Jealous of Baldur's new powers, the mischievous Loki set out to find the one thing on Earth that might be able to hurt him. He found that the goddess Frigg forgot to ask mistletoe — tiny and forgotten — not to harm her beloved son. In the end, a dart fashioned from the little plant was used to murder Baldur in front of all the other gods who loved him so dearly.

Frigg, of course, was devastated. Steve Whysall at the Vancouver Sun explains that the tears of Baldur's mother became the berries of the plant, and it was decreed that "mistletoe would never again be used as a weapon and that she would place a kiss on anyone who passed under it."

And thus we hang mistletoe underneath our doorways come the holidays — so that we never overlook it again.  In my youth, we could buy mistletoe plants on the street corner during holiday season.  Also, friends who lived near woods would shoot down mistletoe from the trees--it was a way to practice their aim.

More fun facts about mistletoe:

Birds can eat mistletoe berries, but they're highly toxic to humans.

• Approximately 20 species of mistletoe can be found on the endangered species list.
• Celtic Druids believed that mistletoe contained the spirit of the tree in which it grew; this was the only part of the tree that stayed green all winter.

Candy Canes?

According to folklore, in 1670, in Cologne, Germany, the choirmaster at Cologne Cathedral, wishing to remedy the noise caused by children in his church during the Living Crèche tradition of Christmas Eve, asked a local candy maker for some sweet sticks for them.^[3][4][5][6] In order to justify the practice of giving candy to children during worship services, he asked the candy maker to add a crook to the top of each stick, which would help children remember the shepherds who visited the infant Jesus.^[3][4][5] In addition, he used the white colour of the converted sticks to teach children about the Christian belief in the sinless life of Jesus.^[3][4][5]From Germany, candy canes spread to other parts of Europe, where they were handed out during plays reenacting the Nativity.^[4][6] As such, according to this legend, the candy cane became associated with Christmastide.^[1]

A recipe for straight peppermint candy sticks, white with coloured stripes, was published in 1844.^[7] The candy cane has been mentioned in literature since 1866.^[8]It was first mentioned in association with Christmas in 1874,^[9] and only as recently as 1882 was hung on Christmas trees.^[10]

Things you didn't know about candy canes