So sorry I just can't keep up with the thread as life is getting in the way, so comments are random, but as always thank you to all for the lovely chat and pictures. Can't read CC till much later.
@piscofrisco A belated Happy Birthday! Was the lunch at Hatfield house? I pass it frequently working and keep meaning to take out time one day.
@Bimblesalong I would mourn that tree too.I know it depends on how bad the damage to the roots is, but hope someone tries raising it. Many an old tree has a supporting rhizome structure that will allow it recovery from an uprooting.
I love the squirrels excitedly checking their stashes together!
@RainbowZebraWarrior That sounds unpleasant. Glad the procedures done. Good luck recovering. The projector looks like good fun!
@WeMeetInFairIthilien I love that your cards have decorations within them.
@BobBobBobbing I hope you'll post your work when you get it back.
(I don't know how realistic my plan is, it could come to nothing, but if you haven't found something better, as this would be much lower key home based, next year I may just be looking for testers to look at something I did in lock down involving making glass decorations by zoom and post...)
@AgathaMystery Good for your mum. Bandaging, splinting and re rooting trees is an honorable tradition that's gone on forever. Sometimes I come across old trees that you can see human intervention from long ago and think it's a lovely legacy.
@LillianGish Your 'imaginary friends' are very grateful for the friendship and photo's and seeing things they'd not see or know off without.
@lucysmam Thanks for the heads up about stolen size. Southern Comfort will be fine.
@ExpertlyDecorated Nice to see others whose twigs also service different festivities.
@imp2007 Aw, lovely! Would suggest putting the tree a couple of feet off the ground minimum. It declares it as a human possession, not an interesting creature marking post. But what is enchanted Narnia tea? It sounds fascinating and worrying in equal measure.
@IngenTing It's lovely to see all your traditions. We are quite internationally displaced and also celebrate the 13th Dec, but not for St Lucia. There are many surprising crossovers though considering ours is to do both with the length of the day and a kings death (responsible for painful choices for mothers, that spread across many places and deeply affected our earlier generations with echo's even today) I suspect especially with travel some traditional elements become mingled from over time, but am always intrigued with how things developed across the world.
We actually used to allow school to think we might be celebrating St Lucia as they accepted that as OK, but declared other festivals pagan. (and hated that our boys continue to have long hair) The youngest in each family are responsible for looking after and planting saffron corns, and the last hard one's get ceremonially potted on Friday.
Here Friday is the eight C's: Crocuses, children, cinnamon, coffee, candles, cloth, chaos, cleaning up.
We'll be celebrating on the move this year, either England or France, so some things must be pre-made or pre-prepped and all necessities must travel with us. Part may happen on zoom or video call as we continue ancient celebrations in our modern era.
Two Christmas dinners here, one for the 26th as nominally Yule but also to culturally fit in. All sorts of special food may get eaten then and not yet decided other than cake, pudding, and chutney's, all of which are marinating and steeping happily.
Real Christmas is on the 6th of Jan for us, requires 12 different dishes, starts off rambunctious ends up spiritual. Also not yet planned, but has to involve cake with frankincense, myrrh, saffron, gold decoration, and a bean in it. I believe in France it's called a Gallette de Rois, but is a very different type of cake full off cream. Hoping @LillianGish may know.
(Straw, frankincense oil and myrrh oil are also necessities for the celebration, other things are traditional but not essential.)
7th traditionally is 'women's rest day' and is supposed to be a feast day arranged by everyone else. Unofficially the 8th is known as 'women's clean up day' as a result!)
We also have a big celebration on the 21st December, with fire, candles, decorations, spiced hot wine, breads, persimmon, pomegranate, saffron, carrots, quinces, artichokes all being important. But before any decorations can go up for either that or Christmas, we have another tradition that requires special food, though the date is chosen by community.
The 'festival run' falls mainly on women's shoulders, so preparations start in October to manage it all. Making lots of special food and drink and collecting things, acquiring as much as possible and traditional 'preparation' days for repairing, swapping and sharing has been ongoing. Exactly what will be eaten on the big feast days (21st onward) other than the traditional requirements, doesn't happen until a 'slayer belling' tradition has taken place as it would be considered inviting bad luck to ruin any plans or meals decided before this.
A CC question: What do people think about trying to replace the apricots in NS Apricot brandy, with dried mango? Has anyone previously replaced the apricots with another dried fruit?
Pic clockwise: is peaches (thank you Too Good to Go) in brandy, and peach, mango, and ginger brandied chutney.
St Nicholas dinner (content over presentation)
Christmas stocking coal and sticks (black honeycomb candy and vanilla pods - because a little reminder that the bad things are noticed too, never hurt.)