Virtual Advent Tour: Christmas goodies

Some years I make dozens upon dozens of Christmas goodies. I leave out plates of cranberry and vanilla chip cookies, ginger snaps, Rolo cookies, white Christmas fudge, chocolate dipped pretzel rods, Figaro bars, toffee squares, brown sugar cookies, lemon bars, cinnamon spice cookies, and whatever other cookie has caught my attention that particular Christmas season. Some years I don’t have the time or the inclination to bake or assemble any of these and our house has a noticeable lack of baked goods for Christmas. But even in those years I just can’t add these delectable treats into my holiday preparations, there are two things I always still find the time for: Buckeyes and Tuscan Cheese Straws. The latter is a family tradition that probably predates me and the former was a serendipitous discovery close to a decade ago. And it’s just not Christmas without these.

For those unfamiliar with the ambrosia that are buckeyes, they are peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate, like a Reese’s peanut butter cup on steroid and for many years my mother made them every Christmas. She had stopped making the labor intensive goodies well before I left home though, perhaps thinking we’d never miss them. But some of my oldest holiday memories include the making of buckeyes. (Oddly enough I don’t remember eating them.) I remember sitting and watching my mother dip her already rolled buckeyes into chocolate and then carefully stick their toothpicks into a large block of Styrofoam so that the upside down buckeyes solidified into perfectly smooth balls. Once they had a chance to set in the refrigerator, she’d remove them from the Styrofoam and the toothpicks, carefully smoothing over the small hole where the toothpick has been. Her buckeyes were flawless. Mine are not. When I make them, I don’t worry about perfectly round balls. Once mine are dipped in their chocolate coating (for a real chef, this would be enrobing them, for me, it’s dunking), I blithely set them out on waxed paper, causing a flat bottom and occasionally chocolate that has spread like a small lake underneath them. And when they have had the time to harden in the fridge, I do not worry about the toothpick holes. Some of mine even have two holes where they slipped off the toothpick while being dipped and I have had to stab a new spot in order to get them out of their chocolate bath. So even my best attempts look a bit mangled. This year I overheated the first batch of chocolate so that first set of buckeyes is strangely textured rather than smooth. But even imperfect buckeyes taste like heaven. (I know because I eat the ugliest failures myself.)

As for the Tuscan cheese straws, they are a rosemary and parmesan cheese stick that I tried one year for my dad. My mother and grandmother have the sweet tooth gene and so the buckeyes go in their stockings but my dad has always been more a fan of the savory and so I needed something that would become as iconic in his stocking as the buckeyes are in my mom’s and grandmother’s. I no longer remember where I found the recipe for the cheese straws but they were a big hit and I usually make a double batch only to have half of it disappear before Christmas day is even over. My cheese straws aren’t pretty and symmetrical just like my buckeyes aren’t. And as an added bonus, my kitchen is usually covered in a coating of flour (as am I) when I finally finishing making them.

Because these treats are gifts, they happen every year no matter how stressed or short of time I am. And they are never shared. I do my share of nibbling as I make both of these treats but my kids went years before they ever tasted either of them. Normally my parents and my grandmother would share anything in the world with their grands and great-grands. But not buckeyes and cheese straws. And when the kids were old enough to notice, they would hover as I made both of the goodies, hoping that I’d give them a crumbling buckeye or a slightly darkened cheese straw. And from these imperfect tastes, they fell in love with these Christmas treats too. Last year they each savored the one buckeye and one cheese straw their grandparents grudgingly shared with them and even though they begged for more, they did not receive. So for the first time this year, all three of my children added buckeyes and cheese straws to their own lists. Quadruple batches of each of these means that no other baking was accomplished this year but I know a whole bunch of people who will be fat and happy on Christmas day, having received the only Christmas goodies they really care about. And as for me, I’ve already taste tested both sets and they’ve passed muster again this year.

Buckeyes (this is not my mother’s original recipe; it’s an easier, cheater version that tastes the same)
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/3 cup peanut butter (I love crunchy but purists use creamy)
3 cups powdered sugar
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 Tablespoon shortening (you cannot sub butter or margarine or oil here)

Beat butter and peanut butter until blended. Gradually add powdered sugar. Cover and refrigerate about 30 minutes until firm enough to shape.

Shape into 1 inch balls. Poke a toothpick into each ball. Cover and refrigerate an hour until firm.

Microwave chocolate chips and shortening for 1 1/2 minutes. Stir. If needed to completely melt, microwave at additional 15 second intervals. (I actually jury rig a double boiler so I don’t have to work as fast: fill a medium saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer. Float a small saucepan in the medium saucepan and add chips and shortening to small saucepan. Stir to melt. Keep heat low to keep chocolate liquid and smooth. Turning the heat up to speed the process will result in the chocolate equivalent of curdling and you’ll have thick, lumpy chocolate that makes bumpy, uglier than usual buckeyes.)

Dip each ball into the liquid chocolate, coating 3/4 of the ball. Place on wax paper with the uncoated side of the paper up. Let stand until the chocolate hardens. Store in the fridge.

Tuscan Cheese Straws
1 1/2 cups flour
8 Tablespoons butter
1 cup parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 teaspoon dry rosemary, finely chopped (I add extra)
1/4 teaspoon pepper, coarsely ground (sometimes I use a combo of black and red pepper to add a kick)
1/4 teaspoon salt

Add all ingredients into a bowl and blend until a firm dough forms. (Mine never seems to form a dough so I add enough water to get to a consistency I think they might be talking about.) Cover and refrigerate 45 minutes. Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thick on a floured board. Cut into strips 3 inches by 1/2 inch. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool before serving.

Virtual Advent Tour: Bittersweet Christmas

Christmas is a time of love and tradition and family and it is definitely my favorite holiday of the year. (See my post from last year about the things I so love about Christmas.) It's an easy holiday to love what with the giving and the getting and the enthusiasm of the kids. But this year it's a little bittersweet too. My kids are getting old enough that the excitement is a little jaded. When they were small, Christmas literally shone in their eyes. They were in awe of Santa when they sat on his lap at the mall (well, except for my daughter R. who has always been leery of strange men--she was terrified of Santa and screamed in his general vicinity). They thought that every ornament we pulled out to put on the tree was the most beautiful in the whole world. They oohed and ahhed when we drove through neighborhoods looking for elaborate light displays. But most of all, they believed in all of it.

They believed in Santa and the spirit of giving. They sprinkled reindeer food and shopped their little hearts out at the Santa shop at school, wanting to find the perfect gift for everyone in the family (generally amongst the $1 items on the white elephant table, fiscally responsible little goobers that they were). It was pure magic to see their little faces the first time they laid eyes on the presents under the tree. It warmed my heart to watch their sturdy little selves trundle up the center aisle at church for the children's sermon and to be so solemn about the pastor's gift of a candy cane (said solemnity quickly changed to glee when they discovered they could eat the candy cane while the service continued). They were so little, so trusting, so full of belief.

And now they are older. So Christmas is a little bittersweet for me. When the children in the congregation go forward, my older two stay in the pew with us and the youngest one only goes to the front if he's accompanying his younger cousins. And Santa Claus, well there's one unbeliever and one believer. Then there's R. who never much liked him in the first place. Her current line is that she doesn't "believe in him all the way but I don't not believe either." She's hedging her bets, the sceptical one. And she still believes in presents so she won't jeopardize those. The oldest is lobbying to be allowed to help put presents under the tree with the adults. I've told him no. I'm not ready to give up the look, fleeting but still there, that crosses his face when he first sees all the gifts on Christmas morning. Or maybe we should let him so he'll know just how bittersweet it is when you join the ranks of the grown-ups. Then he probably won't want to join in next year but will be content to going back to being a kid.

The traditions of Christmas with small children are waning with my growing kids. They'll be let in on all the mundane secrets of the grown-ups soon, some of it tradition of its own type: like why my dad always thanks his mom, who my children never had the privilege of meeting, for the socks and underwear in his stocking, how the rest of us head to bed long before daddy is finished wrapping the myriads of things he's purchased in his ongoing effort to keep every mail order catalog on the planet in business, and why we all chuckle about the use of the funny pages or store bags as wrapping when the family Claus gets too tired or runs out of supplies. But knowing these things takes just a little of the magic out of Christmas and marks another passed milestone on the road to adulthood. I'm selfishly glad that I still have the one who believes so I can still catch some of the pure delight through his innocent and unjaded eyes. When that goes, well, a tiny bit of the sparkle of the holidays will be gone too. And I know that day is getting closer. Sweet filled with love Christmas but bittersweet too.

If you want to read other posts on the Virtual Advent Tour, look at the dedicated Virtual Advent Tour blog to see the schedule of postings, including others today.

Virtual Advent Tour: Christmas traditions and memories

I love Christmas. I love the Christmas specials on tv, animated or Rankin and Bass stop motion. I love the decorations and the Christmas tree. I love the smell of evergreens. I love Christmas carols. I love the beauty and promise of singing Silent Night at the end of midnight's Christmas Eve service. In short, there's little about the season that I don't love, well aside from the frenzied shoppers who drive like boneheads. In the grand scheme of things, that's a minor irritation, really. But what I love the most about the Christmas season are the special moments from my childhood: my grandfather having us sing O Tanenbaum before going in to see the tree on Christmas morning, my dad chasing the elves away, driving around local neighborhoods to see the extravagant light displays (Anthony, aka Antny the Mobster, always had the best by my paternal grandmother's house), and being convinced I'd seen Rudolph the night before when I was supposed to be asleep (turns out it was just the tail lights from the neighbor's car shining into my bedroom but I was only about 6 so give me a break).

I can't recreate all of my Christmas memories for my children but we do try with some of them. Of course, it is easy to drive around and look at lights and ooooo and aaaaaawwwwww over them. We don't know the people who put up the best light displays now so we can't tell salacious tales, at least salacious to a child, about them though. And given our family's appalling lack of talent in the singing department, we forgo the O Tanenbaum tradition. But I have imposed on my parents to recreate my very favorite tradition of all: chasing the elves away.

Here's how it played out when I was small. My sister and I sat at the top of the steps out of sight of the Christmas tree and listened while the high pitched voices of elves being chased away from the presents rang through the house. Finally a door would slam and there would be silence. Eventually we were told we could come downstairs to see all the presents and stockings for the first time. (We don't put any gifts under the tree until after all children are tucked in bed for the night.) One present or stocking gift would generally be slightly torn with the explanation that the elves Santa inadvertantly left behind tried to take it with them on their way out the door. Obviously we had no trouble reconciling the benign elves who made the toys with the grasping awfuls who had to be chased away and prevented from taking gifts back with them. It was all rather exciting.

Now as an adult, I know more about the magic behind it. Dad had a record (yes, for those among you who are but babies, this was one of those ancient, pressed vinyl artifacts that you see in museums but they were the best technology of the time) that had been made of a business meeting. He said it was dead boring but when you played that 45 at 78 rpms instead, it sounded like the speaker was one of the Chipmunks or, in our case, one of Santa's left-behind elves. So the record was played entirely too fast while dad made chase noises, occasionally banging something, and finally ending with the door opening and slamming shut. I vividly remember sitting on the top step and shivering with excitement, wondering if the elves would get away with a present this year or if dad would prevail again. Can you blame me for wanting my cynical, digital age children to experience the same thing? Oh, and the torn present? I suspect that was an accidental addition the first time, meant to explain away my father's appalling present wrapping skills. To this day, he wraps by winding up the bags things have come in and taping them shut. ;-)

Unfortunately in the lull between my childhood and my children's births, the record of the business meeting was purged from my parents' collection. Really it wasn't of any interest at all in its original form and I suspect that they didn't know what a hold it had on my imagination or they'd have kept it (seriously, when I am unhappy about something having been purged, I remind everyone of the loss every chance I get so it's in everyone's happiest interest to just hang onto the important stuff as declared by me). Obviously I nagged enough that one Christmas my dad re-connected the record player and dug out a record (one with music so not nearly as effective as the purely spoken word) to do the elf chase for my children. I don't know if it went over as well for them as it always did for me but I still try to insist on it every year if I can. We really ought to record it one year so we can just hit play but somehow going through the hassle of the record player is a part of it now too. Sometimes the craziest things strike the biggest chord, especially from childhood. And this one in particular will alwasy evoke Christmas for me.

Even knowing the story behind the magic, I still wouldn't be surprised to come downstairs one Christmas morning to find an elf napping amongst the stockings and to have to chase him away myself.











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