Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
So here we are in Carmel. And it's Christmas. We're on our own, with Todd & Christopher on a cruise in South America, Carole (Todd's lovely sister who has been part of our Carmel Christmas expat group) at home in Orange County, and Shirley, Billy's mom, at her home in Phoenix. My mom is at her board and care in Los Angeles. She isn't really aware of the holidays the way she was in the past. She will do fine with us out of town. Only I will be remembering the holidays past.
I'm not complaining. It's lovely to be here in this beautiful place. The house is wonderful, and we are comfortable in it. We had a nice dinner last night at Montrio, where we have spent the past few Christmas Eves. We went together to Mass at the Mission today. The new pastor is fine, but I miss Father John immensely. Still, weather is good. We took a walk this afternoon. We will stay in tonight, and enjoy the clam chowder which we take out from Flaherty's restaurant in town.
As I've written about before, one of the things that I enjoy the most about being here in Carmel at Christmas is that you really feel the holiday spirit. You don't get that much at home. Here, everyone seems quite into the cheer of the holiday. People smile, people say Merry Christmas. It's much more It's A Wonderful Life, than The Ref (though, truth be told, The Ref has been my favorite Christmas movie for the past several years. Watch it, and you'll grasp my concept of the Christmas spirit...).
Brendan and Diana will arrive on Sunday to celebrate New Year's Eve with us. We're both looking forward to it. Carmel is a wonderful place to be on your own, which is one of my favorite ways to enjoy it. It's also good when we are here a doux, but more and more I find that I look forward to the time we spend here with my fristers and frothers. I think what is most special to us all is what we want to share with the people we love. How is that for Christmas spirit?
And so I close both this post and the year with the following. If you are lucky, you can hear Judy Garland singing this...
From now on we all will be together
If the fates allow
Hang a shiny star up on the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now...
Thank you for reading my blog. And merry Christmas!
Showing posts with label Judy Garland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judy Garland. Show all posts
December 25, 2013
December 15, 2010
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Los Angeles, California
Christmas songs and carols are like Christmas movies. Your favorite one often depends on what kind of a year you've had. I'm all for saying It's a Wonderful Life is the best film invoking the spirit of Christmas. Especially since I'm a heretic who really does not like Miracle on 34th Street. But, truthfully, there are years when The Ref is the film that really meets up with my holiday sense and sensibility. Take a crazy, dysfunctional family and put them in St. Lucia headgear with lit candles . . . well, you get the picture. A good year comes in somewhere in the middle.
As for Christmas music, a sad year always brings to mind the song, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, especially the way I hear it in my head, and on my iPod, sung by Judy Garland. I heard it within me all through the Christmas season after 9/11. And before that, my first Christmas without my dad. The story goes that when it was written for the film Meet Me In St. Louis (one of a few films guaranteed to make Billy leave the room, if not the house when he sees it's on), the lyric went: Have yourself a merry little Christmas. It may be your last. Louis B. Mayer was reputed to have said that it was the most depressing song he had ever heard, so he sent Ralph Blaine, the lyricist, back to the composing board to change it. Perhaps the rewritten lyrics helped, as I don't find it depressing. Just wistful, evocative . . . poignant. And, truly there are Christmases when you just feel that way.
Joining the traditions of Christmas songs, carols, and films, is Christmas food, which comes to us, more or less, from our families, the families of our spouses, and those special traditions that we establish ourselves. Case on point, Billy and I get drunk and wrap Christmas presents. OK, I'm kidding. But we do make a party of wrapping the gifts. Billy does the paper, and I do the ribbons and tags. And we do imbibe something special to grease the skids of this process. Usually not eggnog, because while I would be good to go with this, Billy doesn't like milky drinks. So, champagne tends to be the go-to bev, which is fine with both of us.
My mother's grandmother was born in Prague, which makes me one-quarter Czechoslovakian. That is the quarter that gets reinforced at Christmas. I have fragile, beaded ornaments that, reputedly, my great-grandmother brought to this country with her when she emigrated to America in the late 19th century. She also brought with her a tradition that for many years required that my family served fish on Christmas Eve. This probably dates back to the days when there was still Catholicism in the family. And, though the family had long ago left the Church, I grew up with this fish which is prepared in a Slavic style. The recipe's title is translated as Fish in Black Sauce. Real appealing, eh? It consists of a firm white fish (usually bass or halibut) cut into large chunks, poached then combined with a sauce that contains onion, celery root, lemon slices, whole blanched almonds, and prunes. The sauce is tarted up with vinegar, and then sweetened and thickened with gingerbread crumbs. I'm not kidding. And, trust me, this was a huge challenge for all of my boyfriends, and later, for Billy. They all seemed to do alright with the dumplings served under or alongside the fish. In a concession to my grandfather, whose antecedents came from Alsace-Lorraine, my grandmother served spaetzle dumplings, instead of larger Czech-style dumplings. Most of the guys got the dumpling thing. Guys do stodge well, as do I, come to that. We always had the leftover spaetzle browned up in butter the following morning along with eggs, sausage, etc. Lovely. Really.
I haven't had this, which we called Christmas Fish, in a few years. It became daunting for my mom to prepare it. Plus, we were down to so few family members, and most of them the ones who didn't really care for it. So, ham or a pork roast, and even French-Canadian Meat Pies one iconoclastic year, replaced the fish. I do miss it, but what I miss much more is the braided, yeast bread that my grandmother, then my mother made for all holidays. It is called Vanoca (and pronounced by our non-Czech tongues as Vonitchka). It is a firm bread, not like the challah that my friends often buy for their Shabbat dinners. This is a rich bread, more like panettone. It has almonds and golden raisins in it. At Christmastime, my grandmother would add cut up glaceed cherries in red and green. It looked so pretty. But my sister didn't like this. She called the cherries "phony fruit." So they went by the wayside. That was ok. I think I liked the flavor better without them, though the color was festive. When my grandmother could no longer make the bread, my mother took up the mantle. This was slightly diffy, as she never bothered to get a written recipe from my grandmother, whose verbal recipes never had exact measurements. She would say things like, add enough flour to make a stiff dough, but not as stiff as noodle dough. HUH? So, my mom found a recipe in a Czech cookbook and began making the bread, tweaking the recipe as the years passed so that it was more like my grandmother's.
Now, remember the adjective "braided?" Well, therein lies the rub. A decade or two back, in my early married life, I asked my mom to teach me how to make the bread. I wrote down the recipe as she demonstrated it. I have that copy before me now, written in pencil! At the time that we did this, Mom had me try to braid one of the loaves. Quel mess! I could braid my hair, but dough is a different animal altogether. Back at that time, my mom would make about six loaves at a time in this huge, manual bread mixer with a crank handle on top. Mom would proof the yeast, then measure out the ingredients, and then my dad would mix the dough. With that large of a batch, cranking required a lot of elbow grease. After the dough rested and had risen, my mom would shape and braid the loaves. Today, the bread mixer is long gone. In recent years, my mom made only a few loaves for our holiday celebrations at Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, using her Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough hook. And this year, I will do the same as I attempt to make the bread myself, for the very first time. Please wish me luck!
And so with the wistfulness of passing on the baking baton, the song Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas will be much played here at Casa Healy. For when Judy sings, Through the years, we all will be together, if the fates allow, we understand that the fates are not always that kind. And that within the joyousness of the Christmas season exists the poignancy of holidays past, and the memories of those who once shared the celebration with us.
So, this year, enjoy the season with all those you love, young and old. Rejoice, drink eggnog, drink champagne, break bread, and have yourself a merry little Christmas. Thank you all, once again, for reading my blog.
Christmas songs and carols are like Christmas movies. Your favorite one often depends on what kind of a year you've had. I'm all for saying It's a Wonderful Life is the best film invoking the spirit of Christmas. Especially since I'm a heretic who really does not like Miracle on 34th Street. But, truthfully, there are years when The Ref is the film that really meets up with my holiday sense and sensibility. Take a crazy, dysfunctional family and put them in St. Lucia headgear with lit candles . . . well, you get the picture. A good year comes in somewhere in the middle.
As for Christmas music, a sad year always brings to mind the song, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, especially the way I hear it in my head, and on my iPod, sung by Judy Garland. I heard it within me all through the Christmas season after 9/11. And before that, my first Christmas without my dad. The story goes that when it was written for the film Meet Me In St. Louis (one of a few films guaranteed to make Billy leave the room, if not the house when he sees it's on), the lyric went: Have yourself a merry little Christmas. It may be your last. Louis B. Mayer was reputed to have said that it was the most depressing song he had ever heard, so he sent Ralph Blaine, the lyricist, back to the composing board to change it. Perhaps the rewritten lyrics helped, as I don't find it depressing. Just wistful, evocative . . . poignant. And, truly there are Christmases when you just feel that way.
Joining the traditions of Christmas songs, carols, and films, is Christmas food, which comes to us, more or less, from our families, the families of our spouses, and those special traditions that we establish ourselves. Case on point, Billy and I get drunk and wrap Christmas presents. OK, I'm kidding. But we do make a party of wrapping the gifts. Billy does the paper, and I do the ribbons and tags. And we do imbibe something special to grease the skids of this process. Usually not eggnog, because while I would be good to go with this, Billy doesn't like milky drinks. So, champagne tends to be the go-to bev, which is fine with both of us.
My mother's grandmother was born in Prague, which makes me one-quarter Czechoslovakian. That is the quarter that gets reinforced at Christmas. I have fragile, beaded ornaments that, reputedly, my great-grandmother brought to this country with her when she emigrated to America in the late 19th century. She also brought with her a tradition that for many years required that my family served fish on Christmas Eve. This probably dates back to the days when there was still Catholicism in the family. And, though the family had long ago left the Church, I grew up with this fish which is prepared in a Slavic style. The recipe's title is translated as Fish in Black Sauce. Real appealing, eh? It consists of a firm white fish (usually bass or halibut) cut into large chunks, poached then combined with a sauce that contains onion, celery root, lemon slices, whole blanched almonds, and prunes. The sauce is tarted up with vinegar, and then sweetened and thickened with gingerbread crumbs. I'm not kidding. And, trust me, this was a huge challenge for all of my boyfriends, and later, for Billy. They all seemed to do alright with the dumplings served under or alongside the fish. In a concession to my grandfather, whose antecedents came from Alsace-Lorraine, my grandmother served spaetzle dumplings, instead of larger Czech-style dumplings. Most of the guys got the dumpling thing. Guys do stodge well, as do I, come to that. We always had the leftover spaetzle browned up in butter the following morning along with eggs, sausage, etc. Lovely. Really.
I haven't had this, which we called Christmas Fish, in a few years. It became daunting for my mom to prepare it. Plus, we were down to so few family members, and most of them the ones who didn't really care for it. So, ham or a pork roast, and even French-Canadian Meat Pies one iconoclastic year, replaced the fish. I do miss it, but what I miss much more is the braided, yeast bread that my grandmother, then my mother made for all holidays. It is called Vanoca (and pronounced by our non-Czech tongues as Vonitchka). It is a firm bread, not like the challah that my friends often buy for their Shabbat dinners. This is a rich bread, more like panettone. It has almonds and golden raisins in it. At Christmastime, my grandmother would add cut up glaceed cherries in red and green. It looked so pretty. But my sister didn't like this. She called the cherries "phony fruit." So they went by the wayside. That was ok. I think I liked the flavor better without them, though the color was festive. When my grandmother could no longer make the bread, my mother took up the mantle. This was slightly diffy, as she never bothered to get a written recipe from my grandmother, whose verbal recipes never had exact measurements. She would say things like, add enough flour to make a stiff dough, but not as stiff as noodle dough. HUH? So, my mom found a recipe in a Czech cookbook and began making the bread, tweaking the recipe as the years passed so that it was more like my grandmother's.
Now, remember the adjective "braided?" Well, therein lies the rub. A decade or two back, in my early married life, I asked my mom to teach me how to make the bread. I wrote down the recipe as she demonstrated it. I have that copy before me now, written in pencil! At the time that we did this, Mom had me try to braid one of the loaves. Quel mess! I could braid my hair, but dough is a different animal altogether. Back at that time, my mom would make about six loaves at a time in this huge, manual bread mixer with a crank handle on top. Mom would proof the yeast, then measure out the ingredients, and then my dad would mix the dough. With that large of a batch, cranking required a lot of elbow grease. After the dough rested and had risen, my mom would shape and braid the loaves. Today, the bread mixer is long gone. In recent years, my mom made only a few loaves for our holiday celebrations at Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, using her Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough hook. And this year, I will do the same as I attempt to make the bread myself, for the very first time. Please wish me luck!
And so with the wistfulness of passing on the baking baton, the song Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas will be much played here at Casa Healy. For when Judy sings, Through the years, we all will be together, if the fates allow, we understand that the fates are not always that kind. And that within the joyousness of the Christmas season exists the poignancy of holidays past, and the memories of those who once shared the celebration with us.
So, this year, enjoy the season with all those you love, young and old. Rejoice, drink eggnog, drink champagne, break bread, and have yourself a merry little Christmas. Thank you all, once again, for reading my blog.
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About Me
- Bronte Healy
- California, United States
- Once, I came up with this brilliant idea (well, I thought so, anyway) that the key to happiness was to concentrate on three things -- to choose three interests, then focus and funnel your energy into that trio. I was an English major in college and have always written in some shape or form. So, my first choice was writing. I've always kept journals, and have also written plays, novels, poetry, and shopping lists. I do have a day job. It deals with numbers (assets and finances). Go figure. I went to college at a California University. I live in California, Los Angeles, but not downtown. No children, and sadly, between dogs at the moment (dog person, not a cat person). Enough info? I was going for just enough to not be a cypher, yet not enough to entice a stalker. And, I started my blog after being dragged, kicking and screaming, to do so. Blogs! Read about ME here, right? But I have been advised that this is a way to write regularly, and to put your writing OUT THERE. So, here goes. My name is Bronte Healy. Thanks for reading my blog.