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Christmas cookies: Speculaas
Occasionally I get to bake cookies without a research agenda, to try something new just for fun. Since it’s St. Nicholas Day, Ivy and I baked speculaas cookies, which is what the Dutch traditionally...
View ArticleEnter the Belsnickel
The story of the Krampus has been making the rounds lately. For those who haven’t heard, he’s an old-world Germanic mythical creature who terrorizes naughty children at Christmas. Apparently...
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Have yourself a medieval Christmas
My daughter, who is eight, tells me that her favorite Christmas carol is “Riu, Riu Chiu,” a half-millenium-old Spanish song about the perfection of the Virgin Mary and the birth of Jesus. With vivid...
View ArticleA brief history of the sugar cookie
Traditions have a way of growing sadly stale over the years, don’t they? The spirit that once animated them slowly dies, leaving only the dry outer husk of empty actions. Ah, but sometimes we can...
View ArticleSugar cookies with historical flavor
I actually don’t dislike sugar cookies, despite tweaking them yesterday. They’re fun and they’re traditional, which is good enough in December. But they’re limited in two ways — one structural, one...
View ArticleChristmas cookies the kids can roll and the adults will eat
The winter solstice party was cancelled on account of winter weather, and the world failed to end after all, so we spent Friday evening at home decorating sugar cookies. My nine year-old art director...
View ArticleThe specificity of good wishes
I ran across this quotation this morning, with which I’d like to agree if it didn’t irritate me so much: …When a festival goes as it should, men receive something that is not in human power to give....
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Not nearly frightened enough
The Anunciation by Henry Turner, 1898. The angels in Luke’s gospel spend a lot of time telling people not to be afraid. Fear not, Zechariah! Fear not, Mary! Fear not, shepherds! And over in Matthew,...
View ArticleChildren of the (Christmas) Revolution
A sermon preached at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church in Durham, N.C., on December 20, 2015. Luke 1:39–55 That’s a heck of a greeting Mary gets from her cousin. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed...
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