December Daily: Christmas favorites

rhi Five favorite Christmas treats (cookies to make, mulled cider, Advent calendars, e.g.)

5. Dragging out the Dickens. Every year we read "A Christmas Carol" out loud. We just finished the Ghost of Christmas Present this weekend and left off on the cliffhanger: As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.

After this many rereads, you get to know the document pretty well, and there are a lot of lines that all three of us recite when they come up. And of course if you've also watched the Muppet Christmas Carol repeatedly (a course of action that I recommend), then when the reader says, " 'It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,' said she, 'on which one drinks the health of such an odious --" then naturally everyone else has to fill in the "Hm!"

4. Bringing out the music. I will confess to being rather vain of my Christmas music collection. Most of what you hear at the mall or on the radio is god-awful, but I've got a lot of stuff that meets my personal standards. (Since I'm very fond of both country gospel and Renaissance music, frequently that means "music that sounds like it was made by a nostril.")

3. How stockings work now that none of us are children. All our stockings got hung up this weekend, and gradually, when no one is looking, each of us will put little things in the other ones' stockings. And gradually, when no one is looking, my stocking will change shape. And then you open it on Christmas morning and none of us know the whole of what's in anyone's stocking.

2. The kidlet's Christmas breakfast. The kidlet keeps very strange hours, and on Christmas morning, they will get up in the dark and creep downstairs and make -- oh, the most amazing things. A recreation of a historic meat pie. A dessert that features both meringue and whipped cream. And then we all stagger about in a food coma.

This year, because I get my day off after Christmas rather than before and because when Christmas falls on Sunday things get complicated when there's someone in your family who needs to lead a worship service, it finally occurred to us to work out a division of days, rather than trying to eat Christmas breakfast and Christmas dinner on the same day.

1. Breaking up Christmas. When I put out the holiday dishtowels, coffee cups, etc., I take out the year-round ones and put them in the storage tubs. And then when the season ends I get out my normal stuff again and I'm so happy to see it!




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