A very happy Christmas to everyone! Here in the Eastern US, as you undoubtedly have heard, it's been unseasonably warm - if not balmy. Today I think we reached nearly 70 degrees F. and broke an all time record for having not a speck of snow here in Worcester, MA, but warm Christmases are not unheard of here in New England ( as in the movie White Christmas), I am sure we will get our share of winter soon enough. Here are some pic's of our Holiday festivities this year. I'd love to hear about your family traditions, especially if they involve plants, but food is OK too, as you will see in this very 'food-bloggy' looking post! After-all, it IS the Holiday season!
Christmas is often all about nostalgia and tradition. In Worcester, MA where I live, there are many Eastern European markets such as this Polish market, which carry imported treats and home made items not only from Poland, but from Latvia, Estonia, Russia and Lithuania. I heard stories about my grandmother, whom I never met, who used to shop on this same street in the early 20th Century. I used to go with my mother to buy sauerkraut, horseradish, sausages and fresh churned butter and farmers cheese for the Holidays. The scent of the herring barrels, garlic pickles and rye bread transports me back to my childhood.

A selection of pigs feet, hocks, chicken feet and pork neck bones will be slowly boiled in a stock pot for about 20 hours, then strained. Not unlike chicken stock, it contains carrots, onions and parsley from the garden. The bones are removed, the clear stock strained and it will set into an amazing gelatin.
Once the Košeliena is set, it is unfolded, cut into cubes or slices and served with freshly grated horseradish and beets from the garden, vinegar and flaked salt. My brothers and sisters hate it, but Joe and I can't get enough of it, and we make so much, that we share it with our elderly Lithuanian neighbors who really cherish it.
Like many cultural Holiday meals, its all about tradition. The Christmas Eve Kūčias traditionally was (pre-Christianity) was a winter solstice event, complete with talking animals and seven cold courses of fish, dried fruits and beets. Today, many traditional dishes include primarily fish with no dairy or meat, but we deviate with - um - Prime rid, but balance it off with other Lithuanian dishes such as beet soup, pickled herring and fruit compote, but nothing beats the family favorite - virtiniai, cheese filled dumplings swimming in melted butter. Similar to Polish pierogi, these contain no potato and are 'lighter', generally speaking.
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Gingerbread Houses made a debut at our house this year. They were much harder to make than we realized. |
I try to decorate the studio in a different way each year at Christmas, sometimes working with a theme. This year, I referenced Scandinavian Jul decorations, Saint Lucia wreaths and old-world pomanders ( clove-studded citrus), which my sister and I used to make each Christmas until our thumbs bleed. I forgot how much work these were, but then in true 'Matt fashion' I decided to 'raise the bar' and make some boxwood trees like those used in colonial Williamsburg.
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The Loquat tree, planted in the ground inside the greenhouse is almost 16 feet tall, and it blooms around christmastime. I never seems to set fruit, but the foliage is nice and tropical looking. |
I started with a base of cake stands and foam cones, which I hot-glued together. I picked some loquat leaved from the greenhouse, since hey - I had loquat leaves, and no magnolia leaves which would have been more traditional.
As you can see, they ended up looking rather fancy, but everyone seems to enjoy the decor. I added some Forelle pears and kumquats to the topiary trees as well. In the wreath, I also used battery powered candles for obvious reasons.
Helleborus niger makes an annual appearance at Christmas, just like it did in 1900. I am so happy that commercial selections like this one are available now at markets.
On Christmas day, we relax. This morning a good friend of mine stopped by with a surprise - a home made chocolate cream pie, which should balance out all of the butter, cheese and beef in our diet. I had nothing to give her, as she was traveling to her sisters house out in the Berkshires, but I quickly threw together an impromptu gift of camellia flowers set into a box with wax paper. She could then have her sister float them in a platter somewhere in their home for a bit of vintage Christmas from the 1800's when camellia's were common in cold, New England greenhouses as a florist flower.
I found a stack of my fathers old home-made Christmas cards starting from the 1940's until the 1970's. Here are a few. (check out the Sputnik in this one!).
I hope you and your loved ones are having a wonderful Holiday!