Advent and Christmas Resources

Ann Voskamp, author of "One Thousand Gifts," "The Greatest Gift," and "Unwrapping The Greatest Gift," has many free printables for Advent and Christmas. Her blog is wonderful, though sometimes a little long! And I highly recommend all of her books. The most recent is for the family, "Unwrapping The Greatest Gift." Both the "Greatest Gift" books use the Jesse Tree tradition. In her free printables she has provided the Jesse Tree ornaments. I plan to do the Jesse Tree this year. 

Family Christmas is Tomorrow

Tomorrow is our family's Christmas Day, in that we will celebrate with family traditions and exchange presents and eat lots of yummy food. That means tonight (December 29) I am making our traditional Swedish sweet coffee bread (like Lussekatter or Lucia Buns minus the saffron). We eat those with cheese and coffee and milk first thing as we gather in the living room by the tree, and begin to sort presents. 

I love cardamom, a spice used in India and the Middle East, but also around the world. In Scandinavia the spice is used in baking primarily, especially seasonal--Christmas--baking. Cardamom is hard to describe. Here is the Penzeys description:

An extremely flavorful and ancient spice native to India, cardamom's use has spread throughout the world, with nearly every culture having its own distinctive use for the flavorful seeds. In India where both green and black cardamom are used, it is an important ingredient in meat and vegetable dishes. In parts of the Middle East the seeds are mixed with green coffee beans before brewing. In Northern Europe (especially Scandinavia) white cardamom is used to season baked goods such as Christmas stollen, cakes, cookies, muffins and buns. Green cardamom is preferred in India and the Middle East. Cardamom is a pod consisting of an outer shell with little flavor, and tiny inner seeds with intense flavor. Fancy white and green pods have no splits or cracks in the shell, so the flavor keeps well. Stored in a glass jar, cardamom pods will stay fresh indefinitely. Shelled or decorticated cardamom seeds are inexpensive and flavorful, but sometimes need to be crushed or ground before use. Ground cardamom has an intensely strong flavor and is easy to use (especially in baking, where the fine powder is desirable). Black cardamom, long a staple in African cooking, was originally used in India as a cheap substitute for green cardamom pods. Black cardamom has a unique smoky flavor and has developed its own following over the years.

I recommend the Penzeys spices. They are high quality and easily ordered on-line or by phone. Since I bake this basically once a year, the small 1.2 oz. jar has lasted me several years. And it retains it's intensity that long.

You can make a braid which takes less time and my family likes because it is moister than the rolls often. Here is a recipe to try (we don't use the saffron---we like cardamom better AND saffron is very expensive). And here is another that is a Swedish Coffee Bread. I have not made this before but my mother did, and she called it a Swedish Tea Ring, making it festive like a Christmas wreath.

Happy 5th Day of Christmas!! Yes, remember, the first day of Christmas is December 26!

Christmas Tree Meditation

I was just reading a Facebook post from a family blog I follow. The author, the mother, said the Advent activity for tonight was to camp under the Christmas tree with the children. That brought memories to my mind. 


As a kid, and even young adult, I loved lying on the floor on my back under the Christmas tree, my head stuck in as far as it would go, looking through the branches, seeing the lights make shadows on the ceiling. I'd squint my eyes and see the colored lights dance and lengthen. It really was a meditative time. Sort of a "stop and smell the roses" moment, but the fragrance was of balsam pine. 

I still do this occasionally, but now our tree is up on an old trunk, so it's more difficult to lie under it. (I am sitting beside it currently though.) I especially concentrate on the different nativity or Holy Family ornaments. It was, and is, a time to think and pray, meditate, to focus on the important part of all the decorations, the "reason for the season," the birth of Jesus Christ-- Emmanuel, God with us. 

Back when, I often had Christmas music playing on the hifi or stereo record player as I starred at the ornaments and sparkles on the tree. Now I more often than not just have silence, which keeps my mind more focused. 

I'm re-reading an Advent devotional book by Jan L. Richardson called "Through the Advent Door." She writes what I have often thought about as well: "Like many folks, it's right around Christmas Eve that I finally feel ready for Advent. Sometimes it seems that only when I'm done with the doing of Christmas...that I am ready to attend to the internal preparations, to open my soul to the God who is ever waiting to be born there."