A Joyful Christmas

Jack, Shawna, Wayne and I went to Mom's and decorated her house. I think she feels a little more like celebrating the season now. The nativity has been set out on her Italian marble table for at least 35 years. Mom's collection of nutcrackers is awesome. But my favorite things are the tatted ornaments. The one on the left, as are all the square ones, was made by my Grandmother, Hazel Turner, and the round ones were tatted by Mom. I think these are beautiful and I know how hard they are to make and how time-consuming. They are indeed lovely.

I decided to add a touch of the British to our celebration, so I made 24 English Christmas Crackers. Our guests were good sports and played with the little toys, read the jokes, and wore the tissue-paper crowns.

Christmas Eve Menu

Appetizer - Stacy Uriona

Roast Turkey - Claudine

Baked Spiral Ham - Claudine

Cheesy Potatoes - Julie

Durkee Baked Beans - Kristy Schwab

Cranberry Salad - Cherie

Cherie's Salad - Cherie

Stuffing - Claudine

Cranberry Sauces - Claudine

Rolls & Butter - Shawna

Berry, Berry Pies - Claudine

Fruit Cake - Claudine

Christmas Eve Program

"Away in a Manger" by Everyone

Piano Solo by Ellie Schwab

"The Three Trees" read by Various Readers

Piano Solo by Mitchell Schwab

"O Hush Thee My Baby" by Cherie, Katelyn and Lauren

The Christmas Story from the Bible by Wayne Cable

"He Sent His Son" by Everyone

I really loved the program. We read "The Three Trees" because it is a beautiful story, and it reminded me of our two Christmas Eves in Wales at Lisa & Peter Hammond's home where we always had that story read. It was fun to have young children on the program again. "O Hush Thee My Baby" was incredibly beautiful. Cherie, Katelyn and Lauren blend so well together and it was a sweet moment. It was nice having Wayne read the Christmas story but it did make us miss Dad as he has read it for so many years.  "He Sent His Son" is one of my very favorites and singing it on Christmas Eve brought a sweet spirt to each of us.

Christmas morning we were at Kari and Cherie's at 7:00 a.m. to watch them open their Christmas. I have never laughed so much. They are a very amusing family, each one with a great sense of humor and they had so much fun together. It is very organized, but also very fun to be there.  Kari surprised Cherie with a new, big iMac - awesome!  Kari has become such a PC guy I was surprised to see him make the change, but thrilled.  They will not be sorry.  Cherie served a delicious egg, sausage and shredded potato casserole. It was fun.

After Cherie's and before Cherie and Julie, et al. came to our home at 11:00, we went to Melissa's. It was fun to see all the great things she made for breakfast and the millions of gifts Ellie got.

Julie actually liked the counted cross-stitch pillow I gave her that she and I had spent 30 years stitching. That was fun. Julie said, "This has one of my favorite sayings on it and I have quoted it to my children many, many times over the years." She read, "Our best friends are those in whose presence we can be our best selves." Spencer said, "Mine too." He read, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, . . ." Loved it. He is hilarious.

In the afternoon, around 2:00, we went to Mom's to share time with her on Christmas day.

Mom's Fruit Cake Recipe - For All Who Have Asked

 Christmas Fruit Cake

Claudine Cable via her Mom, Dawn Mangum via Aunt Rula Turner
(Best made in October for the Christmas holidays.)

1 ¾ cups shortening (Crisco)

2 cups sugar                                           Preparation Time 3+ hours plus baking time.

1 large jar grape jelly (Welch’s 32 oz.)

 1 teaspoon cloves           

1 teaspoon allspice

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons vanilla

8 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup molasses (or slightly less)                                    Large can Pineapple Juice

2 teaspoons salt                                                             6 new Handi-Wipes

2 cups raisins

2 cups dried currants

32 oz. fruit cake mix (2 16-oz. containers)

1 16-oz. jar maraschino cherries (cut up)

1 lb. or more gumdrops (2 18 oz. pkgs.) (cut up – use scissors)

            [Do not use the black ones.]

2 cups walnuts (cut up)

1 ½ teaspoon soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon water

3/4 cup sour milk  (add a little vinegar or lemon juice to sour)

7 cups flour (and use ½ whole wheat desired)

            Prepare the cherries and gumdrops.

(I mixed all the ingredients, in order, down to the raisins in my KitchenAid stand-up mixer.  Then I poured this into a large pan (I used a cold-pack canner, Mom used a dish pan) to mix the rest of the ingredients.) 

            Cream shortening with sugar until soft and light.  Add jelly, stir until smooth.  Add spices, vanilla, then eggs.  Mix thoroughly.  Add molasses and salt.  Stir.  Now add raisins, currents, fruit cake mix, maraschino cherries, gumdrops and nuts.  Mix well.   Add soda dissolved in water, then sour milk.  Beat until smooth.  Add flour. 

            I used a Bundt Pan, a Pyrex loaf pan and 3 medium loaf pans sprayed with Pam. The fruit cake does not rise very much so you can fill them to about ¾ inch from the top. 

            Bake at 300° for 1½ hours or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Those baked in the larger pans took longer.  Cool in pans to touch.  Turn out on wire racks.  When cold, wrap in Handi-Wipes soaked in Pineapple Juice.  Then wrap in aluminum foil (Heavy Reynolds Wrap).  Store in Zip-Lock bags.  Will keep for a year.  

Tradition! Tradition.

When I was a student at BYU a hundred years ago, my Mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas.  I told her that all I wanted was some of her gumdrop-filled fruitcake.  Generally, I am like the rest of the world and don't like fruitcake, but my Mom's is terrific.  Well, now that Mom is 90 it has been a couple of years since she has made it, breaking a family tradition that has gone on longer than I can say. Someone needed to pick up the gauntlet and carry on.

My sister, Shawna who is a very good cook, said, "Why should I make it?  No one will let me eat any." She's right. We won't let her have any because all she does is pick out the gumdrops and leaves the rest. She was banned from having some a long time ago.

Several years ago I decided that I ought to try making the fruitcake to keep the traditional Christmas favorite alive. I got the recipe, read about all the ingredients and the instructions on how to make it and said, "Are you kidding me! This is way too much work." I filed the recipe away.

A few years ago my daughter, Julie, decided she would carry on the family tradition, but after reading the recipe and instructions, she also filed the recipe away and gave up on the idea.  This year, now that I am retired and have more time, I thought I had better try it again while Mom is still around to answer any questions I might have so as to get a satisfactory finished product. I decided to be brave and make the attempt.  Here are the results:

First I assembled the ingredients.
This is only part of what is needed.

Then I used the two recipes I had from Mom and as I went along, I recorded all the instructions and actual sizes of the "large jar of grape jelly," or "one big bottle of maraschino cherries" so I would know exactly how much to buy if I ever decided to make this again. This is a very old family recipe and over the years items are packaged differently so what was "large" once is not the same size now, i.e., Hershey candy bars. I also recorded all the little inside tips Mom gave me. (I had to call her several times during the process.)

I finally had everything ready to start. I could even use my brand new Kitchen Aid stand-up mixer for the first ingredients - until I started adding the fruit, gumdrops, nuts and flour.

The hardest part was cutting up the gumdrops, they are so sticky.

The maraschino cherries took a bit of time too. 

The rest was just a lot of measuring, dumping and stirring to complete. 

 Three hours after I started, the fruitcakes were in pans and in the oven.

The recipe called for eight eggs and seven cups of flour.

There is so much batter, I had to use the cold-pack canner to mix it in.

It was nice to have two ovens,

one convection and 

one conventional

so I could cook them all

at the same time. 

 At least the batter tasted good and I am hopeful that the final result will have been worth it.

 Another hour and a half in the oven and voila - we have the family traditional fruitcake.

After it cools, Mom wraps the cakes in "Handi-Wipes" soaked in pineapple juice, then in Reynolds Wrap. 

So did I.

I hope it is as good as Mom's. She makes hers in October to have ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas but she assured me doing it this late will be okay. My brother, Dick, who is serving a mission in Austria with his wife, Carole, loves this fruitcake, so that will be the test. I sent him a loaf today.