A Very Nostalgic Christmas!

 Hello dear friends!  Keeping warm?  We keep going from snowy days and spring-like days.  Today it's cold, about sixteen degrees, and windy, so I thought it would be a good day to sit here by the fire and write a post.

And yes, I did put out my vintage bottle brush trees on our first snow day, but I didn't have room for my reindeer herd this year.  And I did listen to Snowfall but not by Doris, instead by Tony Bennett (his rendition was not so good).

Snow always makes me nostalgic for Christmases of the past.  This year I decided to be kind to myself and just keep things simple.  I've been reliving my youth. I even watched a rerun of a Christmas soap opera episode (Ryan's Hope).  Funny that such a thing would bring me so much pleasure, but I don't take myself too seriously. Gosh!  Remember when people got dressed up just to go to a relative's home for a Christmas party?  I've been trying to think when was the last time I needed an evening gown, or any sort of dressy clothes for that matter.  Does anyone wear them anymore, except for being a bridesmaid or a mother of the bride or groom? 

Anyway, my trip down memory lane started when I discovered a skein of red and green Kresge brand yarn at the thrift store.  How many mittens, scarves and slippers have I knitted with that back in the 60s?  I had to sit right down and knit myself a pair of Christmas slippers.

It's not a very good picture.  It's hard to take a picture of one's own feet.  I used a knitting pattern from a vintage booklet, but I would have preferred to use the pattern I wrote about here.  These slip around on my feet too much.  Oh well!  They are fun to wear during the month of December.

Another treasure I uncovered was an apron made from the old Cranston Christmas  fabric that was so popular in the seventies and eighties.  What was even more remarkable was that I had a piece of the companion print in my stash!  Just enough  fabric to be repurposed into making a small charm quilt for the back of the loveseat. I edged it with some red jumbo rickrack (another thrift store find) to give it a sort of vintage postcard look.

I love those old fabrics that came in flat packs and were sold at the Ben Franklins and Woolworths.  How much  fun it was to choose some for an apron to make for mother or grandma. We were busy making a lot of gifts back when.  Christmas consisted of making presents and practice for plays and choir at church and school, with a good bit of ice skating and caroling thrown in for good measure.  It was a busy, happy time.

  BTW, see that little needlepoint pillow?  I picked up the unfinished piece at a garage sale probably a decade ago with the intention of "doing something" with it.   One of my weaknesses is that I'm always adopting other's orphan projects.  Well anyway, I finally got around to making it into a pillow.  Must have taken me about one-half hour.  Should  have done it years ago.

I've kept gift-giving simple this year.  The only cookie I baked was our traditional eggnog logs and a small tin of fudge , those, along with several pounds of coffee (we are all major coffee drinkers) and a jigsaw puzzle were packaged and sent off to the children and grandchildren before we could be tempted by the goodies.

Recipe

One of my fondest Christmas memories was how excited my dad would get when the  dime store got their first shipment of Christmas candy in.  My sister Suzy worked there and would excitedly announce to my father that the candy had arrived.  Oh, the many little white bags of various goodies he'd come home with; maple drops, divinity, chocolate stars and my favorite, seafoam! (Doesn't candy taste better when it is scooped into little white bags at a candy counter rather than coming in a package?) It's one of those things that is going the way of snow chains and skating on the pond, I'm afraid.  I did find some at a Polish market, but they wanted something like $20 a pound for it!  I might be nostalgic for the past, but not that much!  I  remembered that I used to make my own and had the recipe "somewhere".  Well, the old receipt book to the rescue again!  The receipt book is  my own little hard-times cookbook. It is getting so old that many of the recipes are fading into oblivion.  One of the reasons I write this blog is to record all those old recipes before they vanish from the pages forever.  So  anyway, here's the  recipe.  

Seafoam Candy

1 C. sugar

1C. corn syrup

1 Tbsp. cider vinegar

 Using a heavy large pot, boil until mixture reaches the hard crack stage on a candy thermometer (I use the old-fashioned method of dropping a bit into a cup of cold water, it should form a hard ball immediately when dropped into the water.

Immediately remove from heat and stir in:

1 Tbsp. baking soda

Mixture will foam and expand (that's why you need a bigger pot then you may think).

Working quickly, stir in the baking soda until combined and pour immediately into a buttered loaf pan.  Allow to cool and turn out your "loaf" onto a cutting board and break into pieces.

Melt two packages of chocolate chips in a double boiler and dip the pieces.  With the leftover chocolate I stir in nuts or coconut and drop onto waxed paper. Or spread the remaining chocolate on some waxed paper, allow to cool and break it into chunks to be used for chocolate chunk cookies at a later date.

This is so much better than the kind you get in the stores.  It melts in your mouth and almost tastes buttery.

So that's what I've been up to since I last wrote.  Many days you will find me sitting before the fire listening to old Christmas instrumentals and knitting or stitching.  I only leave the house  one day out of the week and that is just to the neighboring town to buy milk for Blackie our cat (he's very spoiled) and tangerines.  Everything I could want is contained in my own little dear home. Choose everyday to take joy dear friends!

Hugs

Jane