paksu and valkotukka.

If you were the coordinator in charge of staging a nationwide Christmas event, one in which every American theoretically could participate, what would this grand event be?

            I would organize a nationwide Christmas caroling event, where everyone could gather in stadiums or churches or schools and be linked together by webcams.

            Cliff House, North Pole

            December 23^rd 1931

            My dear Children

            I hope you will like the little things I have sent you. You seem to be most interested in Railways just now, so I am sending you mostly things of that sort. I send as much love as ever, in fact more. We have both, the old Polar Bear and I, enjoyed having so many nice letters from you and your pets. If you think we have not read them you are wrong; but if you find that not many of the things you asked for have come, and not perhaps quite as many as sometimes, remember that this Christmas all over the world there are a terrible number of poor and starving people.

            I (and also my Green Brother) have had to do some collecting of food and clothes, and toys too, for the children whose fathers and mothers and friends cannot give them anything, sometimes not even dinner. I know yours won’t forget you.

            So, my dears, I hope you will be happy this Christmas and not quarrel, and will have some good games with your Railway all together. Don’t forget old Father Christmas, when you light your tree.

            Nor me!

            It has gone on being warm up here as I told you – not what you would call warm, but warm for the North Pole, with very little snow. The North Polar Bear, if you know who I mean, has been lazy and sleepy as a result, and very slow over packing, or any job except eating. He has enjoyed sampling and tasting the food parcels this year (to see if they were fresh and good, he said).

            Somebody haz to – and I found stones in some of the kurrants.

            But that is not the worst – I should hardly feel it was Christmas if he didn’t do something ridiculous. You will never guess what he did this time! I sent him down into one of my cellars – the Cracker-hole we call it – where I keep thousands of boxes of crackers (you would like to see them, rows upon rows, all with their lids off to show the kinds of colours).

            Well, I wanted 20 boxes, and was busy sorting soldiers and farm things, so I sent him; and he was so lazy he took two Snowboys (who aren’t allowed down there) to help him. They started pulling crackers out of boxes, and he tried to box them (the boys’ ears I mean), and they dodged and he fell over, and let his candle fall right POOF! into my firework crackers and boxes of sparklers.

            I could hear the noise, and smell the smell in the hall; and when I rushed down I saw nothing but smoke and fizzing stars, and old Polar Bear was rolling over on the floor with sparks sizzling in his coat: he has quite a bare patch burnt on his back.

            It looked fine!

            That’s where Father Christmas spilled the gravy on my back at dinner!

            The Snowboys roared with laughter and then ran away. They said it was a splendid sight – but they won’t come to my party on St. Stephen’s Day; they have had more than their share already.

            Two of the Polar Bear’s nephews have been staying here for some time – Paksu and Valkotukka (‘fat’ and ‘white-hair’ they say it means). They are fat-tummied polar-cubs, and are very funny boxing one another and rolling about. But another time, I shall have them on Boxing Day, and not just at packing-time. I fell over them fourteen ties a day last week.

            And Valkotukka swallowed a ball of red string, thinking it was cake, and he got it all wound up inside and had a tangled cough – he couldn’t sleep at night, but I thought it rather served him right for putting holly in my bed.

            It was the same cub that poured all the black ink yesterday into the fire – to make night: it did and a very smelly smoky one. We lost Paksu all last Wednesday and found him on Thursday morning asleep in a cupboard in the kitchen; he had eaten two whole puddings raw. They seem to be growing up just like their uncle.

            Not fair!

            Goodbye now, I shall soon be off on my travels once more. You need not believe any pictures you see of me in aeroplanes or motors. I cannot drive one, and don’t want to; and they are too slow anyway (not to mention the smell). They cannot compare with my own reindeer, which I train myself. They are all very well this year, and I expect my posts will be in very good time. I have got some new young ones this Christmas from Lapland (a great place for wizards; but these are WHIZZERS).

            Bad!

            One day I will send you a picture of my deer-stables and harness-houses. I am expecting that John, although he is now over 14, will hang up his stocking this last time; but I don’t’ forget people even when they are past stocking-age, not until they forget me. So I send LOVE to you ALL, and especially little PM, who is beginning her stocking-days and I hope they will be happy.

            Your loving Father Christmas

            P.S. This is all drawn by North Polar Bear. Don’t you think he is getting better? But the green ink is mine – and he didn’t ask for it.

            -Letter from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien


I have another cookie recipe to share today - Lemon Cheese Logs!

1 cup sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1 pkg. (3 oz.) cream cheese, softened

1 egg yolk

2 1/2 cups flour, Golden 86  (white whole wheat)

1 cup finely chopped pecans

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel

1 pkg. (6 oz.) semisweet chocolate morsels, melted

Colored or chocolate decorating sprinkles

Cream sugar, butter, and cream cheese.  Beat in egg yolk.  Stir in flour, nuts, salt, and lemon peel.  Refrigerate covered at least two hours.

Pre-heat oven  to 325 degrees.

 Shape about 1 tablespoon of dough into a log, 1-inch long.  Place on parchment-lined baking sheets and bake until light brown, about 12 minutes.  Slip  the parchment paper with the baked cookies onto wire racks to cool.   Dip ends of logs into melted chocolate and then into decorating sprinkles.  Let stand on wire racks until the chocolate sets.  Store between layers of wax paper in airtight containers at room temperature no longer than 10 days or in the freezer no longer than three months. 

Makes 9 dozen

From the kitchen of Sally Bennett, 11-08-10

the light shines in the darkness.

If you could go back in American history to experience Christmas dinner and conversation with a typical family of that day, which of the following years would you want to go back to?
a. 1620, the year the Mayflower arrived.
b. 1787, the year the Constitution was signed.
c. 1863, midway through the American Civil War.
d. 1899, the turn of the century.


I think I would have to go with d, the turn of the century.




Have you ever noticed that when you open a closet door, the room you're in doesn't get darker? Instead, the closet gets lighter! That's what the verse in John means when it says, "The light shines in the darkness: the darkness can never put it out!" (John 1:5, Simple English Bible). "The Light" that verse was talking about is Jesus! Jesus came to fill our hearts with light. And He promises that if you will open the door of your heart to Him, He will come in and make it light! He will do for us exactly what happened with the closet.

Before Jesus came, the world was in total darkness. That doesn't mean there was no sunshine, but that people's hearts were dark with sin and there was no light to show them how to find God.


Before Jesus came, there were no pastors or missionaries. There were priests and prophets, but they taught that someday the Messiah - the Savior - would come and help them find God again. Then into this darkness, Jesus was born.


The Bible calls Jesus the Light of the world. He is the Messiah that the prophets said would come someday. He is the One who would give us a light to find our way back to God. If you're lost and can't find you way, what do you use to find your way around? A light! That's why God sent Jesus and called Him a light...so that Jesus could help us find God and not be "lost in the darkness of sin" any more.


When we put lights on our house and Christmas tree, or put candles around the house at Christmastime, it's to remind us that Jesus came to be our light. The next time you're driving around and you see a Christmas tree or some beautiful lights on a house, you'll know why they're there! Because Jesus is the Light of the world!


-The 25 Days of Christmas by Rebecca Hayford Bauer


The first picture is of the massive 50-year-old Christmas cactus that my parents inherited from my grandfather. It's a treat every year when it blooms. The second picture is picture that my dad took of the snow in my parents' backyard this morning! Sadly, I missed it, but I guess I can't really complain about getting to spend time with my fiancé in Dallas.

the grand miracle.

A large snowman has been built in a popular city park; it is your job to supply the hat for his head. What hat would you choose to make this snowman unique?


I would of course choose my "hatband."





Supposing you had before you a manuscript of some great work, either a symphony or a novel. There then comes to you a person, saying, "Here is a new bit of the manuscript that I found; it is the central passage of that symphony, or the central chapter of that novel. The text is incomplete without it. I have got the missing passage which is really the center of the whole work." The only thing you could do would be to put this new piece of the manuscript in that central position, and then see how it reflected on the whole of the rest of the work. If it constantly brought out new meanings from the whole of the rest of the work, if it made you notice things in the rest of the work which you had not noticed before, then I think you would decide that it was authentic. On the other hand, if it failed to do that, then, however attractive it was in itself, you would reject it.


Now, what is the missing chapter in this case, the chapter which Christians are offering? The story of the Incarnation - the story of a descent and resurrection. When I say "resurrection" here, I am not referring simply to the first few hours, or the first few weeks of the Resurrection. I am talking of this whole, huge pattern of descent, down, down, and then up again. What we ordinarily call the Resurrection being just, so to speak, the point at which it turns. Think what that descent is. The coming down, not only into humanity, but into those nine months which precede human birth, in which they tell us we all recapitulate strange pre-human, sub-human forms of life, and going lower still into being a corpse, a thing which, if this ascending movement had not begun, would presently have passed out of the organic altogether, and have gone back into the inorganic, as all corpses do. One has a picture of someone going right down and dredging the sea-bottom. One has a picture of a strong man trying to lift a very big, complicated burden. He stoops down and gets himself right under it so that he himself disappears; and then he straightens his back and moves off with the whole thing swaying on his shoulders. Or else one has the picture of a diver, stripping off garment after garment, making himself naked, then flashing for a moment in the air, and then down through the green and warm and sunlit water into the pitch black, cold, freezing water, down into the mud and slime, then up again, his lungs almost bursting, back again to the green and warm and sunlit water, and then at last out into the sunshine, holding in his hand the dripping thing he went down to get. This thing is human nature; but associated with it, all nature, the new universe. That indeed is a point I cannot go into here, because it would take a whole sermon - this connection between human nature and nature in general. It sounds startling, but I believe it can be fully justified.

Now as soon as you have thought of this, this pattern of the huge dive down to the bottom, into the depths of the universe and coming up again into the light, everyone will see at once how that is imitated and echoed by the principles of the natural world; the descent of the seed into the soil, and its rising again in the plants. There are also all sorts of things in our own spiritual life, where a thing has to be killed, and broken, in order that it may then become bright and strong and splendid. The analogy is obvious.


-"The Grand Miracle" by C.S. Lewis


This nativity set came from Israel. Our tradition is that each time you do an act of kindness, you get to place a piece of straw in the manger. And, of course, Baby Jesus doesn't appear until Christmas Ever.

in the midst of our dark world.

            You’re the author of a new Christmas novel that you hope will one day become a classic. What would you choose as the setting for your Christmas story?

            I probably wouldn’t be able to resist setting it in Victorian England.

            I keep expecting loud and impressive events to convince me and others of God’s saving power…. Our temptation is to be distracted by them…. When I have no eyes for the small signs of God’s presence – the smile of a baby, the carefree play of children, the words of encouragement and gestures of love offered by friends – I will always remain tempted to despair.

            The small child of Bethlehem, the unknown man of Nazareth, the rejected preacher, the naked man on the cross, he asks for my full attention. The work of our salvation takes place in the midst of a world that continues to shout, scream, and overwhelm us with its claims and promises.

Hidden Hope

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,

            And a branch shall grow out of his roots.

The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,

            The spirit of wisdom and understanding,

            The spirit of counsel and might,

            The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

            -Isaiah 11:1-3

Prayer

            We welcome you, small child of Bethlehem, whose coming we await with quiet attention. Shield us from the shouts, the screams, the empty promises of the season, and encourage us to turn our hopes to your coming. We know that the promise is hidden in the stable in Bethlehem and rooted in the offspring of Jesse; let us look for our salvation there. Amen.

            -Advent and Christmas Wisdom from Henri J.M. Nouwen by Henri Nouwen

Here’s a picture of my nephew, Patrick, with his Advent calendar. He doesn’t quite understand the concept of just pulling out one figure a day yet, but he still has fun.

now comes the morn.

If you were creating a movie about toys coming to life, which toy would be your main character?

            I think I would go with Raggedy-Ann.

O Oriens

O come, O come Emmanuel

within this fragile vessel here to dwell.

O child conceived by heaven’s power

give me thy strength: it is the hour.

O come, thou Wisdom from on high;

like any babe at life you cry;

for me, like any mother, birth

was hard, O light of earth.

O come, O come, thou Lord of might,

whose birth came hastily at night,

born in a stable, in blood and pain

is this the king who comes to reign?

O come, thou rod of Jesse’s stem,

the stars will be thy diadem.

How can the infinite finite be?

Why choose, child, to be born of me?

O come, thou key of David, come,

open the door to my heart-home.

I cannot love thee as a king –

so fragile and so small a thing.

O come, thou Day-spring from on high:

I saw the signs that marked the sky.

I heard the beat of angels’ wings

I saw the shepherds and the kings.

O come, Desire of nations, be

simply a human child to me.

Let me not weep that you are born.

The night is gone. Now gleams the morn.

Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel,

God’s Son, God’s Self, with us to dwell.

-Madeleine L’Engle

            This picture is of my sister-in-law’s Advent ring and praise tree. They burn the candles every night at dinnertime. I love her idea of writing their thanksgivings on ornaments!

to you Christ is born.

            If you could spend Christmas in any European country, which one would you choose?

            The Francophile in me wants to say France, but I think Austria would be pretty magical for Christmas.

            Well, I’m now in Houston to visit Micah’s family! I have a thought for you today by Martin Luther.

            The angel said to them, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people; for there is born to you this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

            The Gospel teaches that Christ was born, and that he died and suffered everything on our behalf, as is here declared by the angel. In these words you clearly see that he is born for us.

            He does not simply say, Christ is born, but to you he is born, Neither does he say, I bring glad tidings, but to you I bring glad tidings of great joy. Furthermore, this joy was not to remain in Christ, but it shall be to all the people. This faith no condemned or wicked man has, nor can he have it. Christ has a pure, innocent, and holy birth. Man has an unclean, sinful, condemned birth; as David says (Psalms 51:5): “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Nothing can help this unholy birth except the pure birth of Christ. For this purpose Christ willed to be born, that through him we might be born anew.

            O, this is the great joy of which the angel speaks. This is the comfort and exceeding goodness of God that, if anyone believes this, he can boast of the treasure that Mary is his rightful mother, Christ his brother, and God his father. For these things actually occurred and are true, but we must believe. This is the principal thing and the principal treasure in every Gospel. Christ must above all things become our own and we become his. This is what is meant by Isaiah 9:6: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” To you is born and given this child.

            -Martin Luther

            I also have another cookie recipe to share today – this one is for Candy Cane Cookies, another Bennett favorite.

1 cup butter

1 cup confectioners' sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract

2 1/2 cups plain flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon red food coloring

1/4 cup crushed peppermint candy

1/4 cup granulated sugar

Mix butter, sugar, egg, and flavorings.  Add flour and salt and combine to make dough.  Divide dough in half and blend the red food coloring into one half.  Refrigerate the dough for two hours. 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Using approximately 1 teaspoon of dough, roll a 4-inch strip from each color.  Place the strips side-by-side, press lightly together, and then twist the strips like rope.  Crook the top to make a candy cane shape.  Complete cookies one at a time or the dough will become too dry to shape.  Place on parchment-covered baking sheets. 

Bake 9-10 minutes, until lightly browned.  While still warm, sprinkle the cookies with a mixture of  peppermint candy and granulated sugar. 

Makes 3 dozen candy canes.

From the kitchen of Sally Bennett, 11-9-10

20,000 silver sparklers.

            As the Christmas season draws near, what song is it that you can’t wait to hear?

            Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming!

            Top of the World, North Pole

            Xmas 1929

            Dear Boys and Girl

            It is a light Christmas again, I am glad to say – the Northern Lights have been specially good. There is a lot to tell you. You have heard that the Great Polar Bear chopped his paw when he was cutting Christmas Trees. His right one – I mean not his left; of course it was wrong to cut it, and a pity to for he spent a lot of the Summer learning to write better so as to help me with my winter letters.

            We had a Bonfire this year (to please the Polar Bear) to celebrate the coming in of winter. The Snow-elves let off all the rockets together, which surprised us both. I have tried to draw you a picture of it, but really there were hundreds of rockets. You can’t see the elves at all against the snow background.

            The Bonfire made a hole in the ice and woke up the Great Seal, who happened to be underneath. The Polar Bear let off 20,000 silver sparklers afterwards – used up all my stock, so that is why I had none to send you. Then he went for a holiday!!! – to north Norway, and stayed with a wood-cutter called Olaf, and came back with paw all bandaged just at the beginning of our busy times.

            There seem more children than ever in England, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany, which are the countries I specially look after (and of course North America and Canada) – not to speak of getting stuff down to the South Pole for children who expect to be looked after though they have gone to live in New Zealand of Australia or South Africa or China. It is a good thing clocks don’t tell the same time all over the world or I should never get round, although when my magic is strongest – at Christmas – I can do about a thousand stockings a minute, if I have it all planned out beforehand. You could hardly guess the enormous piles of lists I make out. I seldom get them mixed.

            But I am rather worried this year. In my office and packing-room, the Polar Bear reads out names while I copy them down. We had awful gales here, worse than you did, tearing clouds of snow to a million tatters, screaming like demons, burying my house almost up to the roofs. Just at the worst, the Polar Bear said it was stuffy! And opened a north window before I could stop him. You can guess the result – the North Polar Bear was buried in papers and lists; but that did not stop him laughing.

            Also all my red and green ink was upset, as well as black – so I am writing in chalk and pencil. I have some black ink left, and the Polar Bear is using it to address parcels.

            I like all your letters – very much indeed my dears. Nobody, or very few, write so much or so nicely to me. I’m specially pleased with Christopher’s card, and his letters, and with his learning to write, so I am sending him a fountain pen and also a special picture for himself. It shows me crossing the sea on the upper North wind, while a South West gale – reindeer hate it – is raising big waves below.

            This must be all now. I send you all my love. One more stocking to fill this year! I hope you will like your new house and the things I bring you.

            Your Old Father Christmas

            -Letters From Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien