This is a blog-style Christmas gift box filled with our selection of a holiday poem, a cookie recipe, carols, our favourite tree ornament, and a book review.
Merry Christmas!
A Poem of Childhood
This is a classic poem that Mom read to me from a sweet picture book when I was little. It’s great to read aloud.
Little Tree by e.e. cummings
little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see I will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don’t be afraid
look the spangles
that sleep all year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads
put up your little arms
and i’ll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won’t be a single place dark or unhappy
then when you’re quite dressed
you’ll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they’ll stare!
oh but you’ll be very proud
and my little sister and I will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
will dance and sing
“Noel Noel”
-Caseigh
A Carol or Two
King’s College Choir singing O Holy Night
There was a time, and maybe this still happens where you are, when carollers would go door to door, bringing songs of Christmas cheer.
If you will, here’s a knock at your door, and a carol of old, shared especially because of these lyrics:
I was driving the kids through the city, Caseigh beside me in the passenger seat, when I heard these words for the first time this year. I’ve heard them thousands of times before, but at the intersection of Kerr and E. 49th, that morning light broke and shone a glimmer right into me.
Oh, we’ve been a weary world, haven’t we? Weary, and during a Vancouver winter, also predictably dreary. But with the break of that first light, the weariness of these days and years sheds like a kid kicking off her shoes with a whoop, running off the dock for her first summer holiday’s plunge in the lake.
Funny how hope really comes in thrills, and springs, and leaps.
Ah, but we can’t be suspended in a glimmer forever. We can hold our bated breaths for only so long. And they are exhaled, it seems, into the wait of another grey day.
Wait. And wait. And wait.
Waiting for the sun to come through the rain, and the mist, and the cold.
It’s good that this hope, come as it may in thrills, stays on too.
So, while we wait, weary with ache and yearning yet hopeful too, here’s another carol in your doorway – one that voices a plea from the very chamber of our hearts and gives a resounding promise:
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
-Sandra
Christmas Baking
Chai Molasses Cookies: A Bit of Spice to Go with the Sweet
C: I love this recipe! It’s not your average Christmas cookie, but it definitely has the flavour of the holidays. The spices are warming, and they taste even better with a cup of chai. To add an extra touch of ginger, I used finely chopped crystallized ginger and sugar and rolled the cookies in the mixture.
S: Caseigh made these cookies in the fall, and since then, I’ve been begging her to make me more. She hasn’t. So, if anyone reading this makes a batch, please send me some!
The original recipe for these cookies is from the food blog, Feasting At Home.
Ingredients
- 1 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2/3 cups white sugar
- 2/3 cups packed brown sugar
- 1 extra large egg
- 1/3 cup molasses
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 3 tsp baking soda
- 3 tsp ground ginger
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp freshly ground cardamon (powder, if you can’t find whole pods)
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 3/4 tsp salt
- Finely chopped crystallized ginger and course sugar for rolling
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Cream butter and sugars together, then whip until light and fluffy. Add egg, molasses, and vanilla, and continue to whip until combined.
- Whisk flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cardamon, cloves, nutmeg, pepper, and salt together in a bowl until well combined.
- Gradually add four mixture to the butter mixture, mixing well. Refrigerate for 2 hrs or overnight.
- Roll into 1 inch wide balls and coat with sugar and crystallized ginger.
- Place on lined cookie sheet, 3 inches apart.
- Bake 8-12 mins, until edges are crisp and the tops start to crack. Cool on a wire rack. They will begin to crack a bit which creates the cool look.
An Ornament for Your Tree
Salmon ornament from Vancouver Christmas Ornaments, designed by Rhonda Nowak
On our tree this year, we’ve added a hand-blown glass salmon ornament, red and green like Christmas.
Last fall, when the salmon were expected to return to the rivers of B.C., a large number of salmon were strangled by dry riverbeds in the Bella Bella region. The rivers should have been running strong, should have given them a course for new life.
It’s not much more than sentiment, but I wish our tears, and the tears of surely many others, could have been enough to carry them home, these whose brave endurance through their journeys make habitats thriving homes for communities of animals, plants, and indigenous peoples.
Tears are not enough. But, I’ll add the little else I have – prayers for all those whose good and faithful work make a difference in our world and its changing climate; prayers to a God who sees each salmon as he sees every sparrow.
In other rivers, salmon waited to embark on their return, their sense of timing attuned to the late rainfall in those regions. When the salmon did come, life came with them. Celebrations heralded and honoured their arrival, and cycles of life beyond their own were set in motion.
I love this salmon ornament. Red and green like Christmas, waiting for a joyful return.
-Sandra
A Holiday Book Recommendation
Dancing Through the Snow is an amazing book that both my mom and I love. It’s written by Jean Little, a Canadian author of many other great books.
The story is about a foster kid named Min Randall, who was abandoned at the CNE when she was three years old. Since then she has been returned to the Children’s Aid by many different foster parents. Eventually, a doctor who has worked with the Children’s Aid and understands what Min is going through, takes her home and helps her trust again. Together they, with Min’s new friends and a rescued dog, celebrate Christmas and learn to be a family.
This book is has a unique story line, and all the characters have vivid personalities that I could relate to. Make some time during winter break between sledding and hanging lights to enjoy a great book!
-Caseigh
Our Ordinary Adventures 
This is Wonderful!!!!!
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Caseigh and Sandra,
May you could continue to recognize the Epiphanies of the season!
Thanks for the lift and light today, raising our eyes to that which is beyond…
In relentless awe of the incarnation! “Immensity cloistered in the virgins womb.”
Love,
Ute🎄✨
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Thanks so much for this! Feels like we’ve had a bit of a visit again. Plus, I love anything with cardamom, so will see about making these cookies… Probably in the new year though 😉
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