Don’t flay the sheep.

RevGalBlogPals Friday Five: Festive Foods

I’m not doing much baking for Christmas. But I can dream…

So, in preparation for the holiday feeding frenzy:

1. My favorite candy/cookie/baked good without which it is not Christmas…

It’s got to be just about anything with almonds. Old dutch ladies buy almond paste by the pound for holiday cooking (I kid you not, there are adds in the Christian Reformed denominational magazine for mail-order almond paste by the pound!).

Presbyterians aren’t so into the almonds. I hadn’t really thought about is yet, but it seems very odd to me that among all the goodies being dropped off in the church office, not an almond-paste-confection among them. I guess I’ll have to start ordering my own almond paste.

2. Do you do a fancy dinner on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, both, or neither? (Optional: with whom will you gather around the table this year?)

I’m used to Christmas Eve being low-key and the Day being the big event. This comes from growing up in a pastor’s family. As if there was TIME for a big event on Christmas Eve!

This year, we’ll do Christmas dinner with my mother’s family. They are wonderful, nutty group. I am incredibly blessed to serve a church near to my extended family.

3. Evaluate one or more of the holiday beverage trifecta: hot chocolate, wassail, egg nog.

I am so glad that Christmas, and thus the Starbucks egg nog latte, only comes around once a year, or I would be much, much larger than I am.

4. Candy canes: do you like all the new-fangled flavors or are you a peppermint purist?

Peppermint. Those fruit ones are just gross.

5. Have you ever actually had figgy pudding? And is it really so good that people will refuse to leave until they are served it?

Yes. And no. When I spent a year in England during college, I had the pudding at Christmas dinner in the college dining hall (think Hogwarts without the floating candles).
It was not the highlight of dinner.

Except for this: the English pour straight cream on just about any dessert. And cream can make anything taste good.

And my thoughts on fruitcake?

I have none. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten it; received it; had to dispose of it…Somehow, I’ve avoided the stuff completely.

This entry is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.