Christmas Eve 2016

Pour yourself a cup of tea while reliving [through pictures] Christmas Eve 2016 with the Barkey family. 

On Christmas Eve morning we went to church.  Children performing [ringing bells] always warms the heart.

Steve's sermon was "Real Treasures of the Heart" [eternal things money can't buy].

We lit candles before dismissal signifying we would let the love of Jesus shine brightly in our lives.  

I LOVE Christmas!

After the service I snapped a photo of my granddaughters, Brooke [L] and Brianna [R].

Then it was home to prepare Christmas Eve dinner at 4:00 o'clock.  I set-up a buffet table in the family room so the dining table wouldn't be so crowded.

After dinner we went into the family room where Papa [Jerry] and Isabella [Izzy] took turns reading the Christmas story from the Bible.

Then it was time to open presents.  The grandkids always go first.  Ellie loved her presents and even served me a cup of tea with her new dishes!  ;-)

 Landon was quite happy with his mini-arcade gift.  His facial expression says it all!

~ Granddaughter, Brianna, Sharon, and Lori ~

~ Daughter-in-law, Samantha ~

~ Steve ~

It wouldn't be Christmas Eve at our house without watching Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation, even though everyone practically knows it line by line.  The kids even know when any undesirable language is coming to fast-forward.  ;-)

Even though everyone had just eaten a large meal we had to have popcorn to go with the movie. Lori and Sharon [both recovering from surgeries] shared the ottoman to keep their legs elevated.

Jeremy and Sam wore sweatshirts with lines from the movie.  Margo and Todd had the misfortune of being neighbors of the Griswold's.  Cute idea, Sam! 

Birthday cake for Jesus.   After we sang Happy Birthday to the "Reason for the Season" Ellie and Landon blew out the candles.  The Cassata Cake was declared a winner, and not a crumb was left behind.

~ Jerry and Me ~

~ Lori with her three children - Brandon, Tiffany and Marissa ~

~ Steve, Sharon, Brianna, and Brooke ~

~ Jeremy, Samantha, Isabella, Landon, and Ellie ~

~ John and Tiffany ~

Papa and Nana with our eight "grands".  The older the grandchildren get, the harder it is to get all of them in one place at the same time, but we were all together on Christmas Eve.  Top row L-R: Marissa, Brooke, Brandon, Brianna, and Tiffany.  Bottom row:  Landon, Me, Jerry, Ellie, and Isabella.

The excitement of the evening was John and Tiffany revealing the sex of their baby  due May 15th... It's a Girl, and she'll be named Evelyn Rose.  Rose was my mother's middle name so Rose is in honor of her.  My mom would be so happy!  In the photo below Tiffany was asking "How many think it's a boy?"  Hence the hands raised on the right.  Turns out they were wrong.  ;-)

Below is the photo Tiff and John used to announce 'Evie' to their extended family and friends on Facebook.  Next Christmas Eve a new little family member will be celebrating with us and the circle of life will continue to evolve.

It was a fun evening and everyone left around 11:30 p.m. to go to their individual homes.  I hope your Christmas Eve was merry and bright, and that Santa was good to you!

Four Days 'Til Christmas...

My Christmas and grocery shopping are done with a few days to spare.  Tomorrow I'll begin preparing foods for our family dinner on Christmas Eve.  There'll be 16 of us gathered around the table.

Our 'Birthday Cake for Jesus' this year will be a Cassata Cake with rum syrup and cannoli cream between the layers, and vanilla buttercream frosting on the outside.  I've eaten Cassata Cake before, but this will be my first time making one.   I don't even want to know the calorie count!

Lori is improving each day, but it won't be a week until tomorrow, so she's still sore and on pain medications. The therapist is aggressive and has her motion range almost to 70 with a goal of 90 by next week. She sees the surgeon on Friday.  To her dismay, I snapped the photo of her below while she was sitting in the rocker earlier today.

Our daughter-in-law, Sharon [Steve's wife] had a growth removed from the bottom of her foot the day after Lori's knee replacement, so she's in a wheel chair and out of commission too.  Steve said this will be called the Christmas of recovery!  

Jerry is the 'official' Christmas gift wrapper in our family, and he began the task in his basement workshop this morning.  He made the mistake of doing such a good job the first year, that he got the job permanently!  ;-)

First load of presents wrapped and under the tree, and he'll finish up tomorrow.  When he's done the Christmas tree skirt won't be visible.

We're drinking lots of tea these cold wintry days and nights.   We had a low of 29 today and a high of 31 on this first day of winter. When my grandson and his girlfriend came over on Monday night, he asked for some tea. [He knows how to make his Nana happy!] I brewed their favorite - French Caramel Creme Brulee. Jerry's been enjoying Harney's Hot Cinnamon Spice, and Lori, Tiffany and I have sipped an assortment of teas.   What's in your teacup this holiday season?

A Full Weekend

My daughter, Lori, came to my house to recuperate after a total knee replacement - 28 hours after her surgery last week.  Hospital stays aren't very long these days! Both a home health care nurse and a physical therapist began seeing her on Saturday. Her daughter [and my granddaughter], Tiffany, is an RN and she came Friday night and stayed through Sunday afternoon to visit and help care for her mom too.  With each day Lori is feeling better, and the physical therapist was pleased with her progress this morning.

While Tiffany was at our house her hubby, John, stayed home to put up their outdoor Christmas lights.  Isn't their house cozy and cute?  Tiffany is barely showing and not wearing maternity clothes yet, but she felt life while she was at our house.  John took her today for an ultrasound to reveal the sex of their baby, but we will have to wait until Christmas Eve to find out.

Since all Lori's medical needs were efficiently tended to, I focused on keeping them well fed with old-fashioned comfort foods:  Shepherd's pie on Friday, Chili with cornbread on Saturday, and Roast Beef with Carrots, Corn and Mashed Potatoes on Sunday.  And... I finally got around to decorating the Christmas tree - better late than never!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around our house!

Saturday afternoon Jerry left to go to our youngest son's in Chelsea, MI so he could go to church with them yesterday morning to see our three grandchildren perform in their Christmas program. I hated to miss it, but they videoed it for Lori and me to watch.

After church Jerry returned to help set-up the stable and manger for our church's first Live Nativity service last night. 

Jerry began building the stable and manger [below] before he left for Israel, and put the finishing touches on it after he returned.  The photo was taken just after they got it set-up on site yesterday afternoon.  After people saw it they inquired about him building one for them, but it was a labor of love for the church and won't become a side business.  ;-)

The service began at 6:00 p.m. with everyone singing carols, and special music by the local Romeo High School Choir. Then everyone moved indoors for a candle light service with a devotional, followed by hot chocolate and cookies. I was supposed to be in charge of the refreshments, but the best I could do this year was shop for supplies before Lori's surgery, and recruit other ladies for preparation and serving while I stayed home with her after surgery.  The event was very well attended.  It's always a blessing when a plan successfully comes together, and makes for a very happy Pastor!  ;-)

Live animals including camels.

There were also sheep, cows, and other animals for the children to feed and pet.

My monthly program at the assisted living facility was scheduled for yesterday afternoon. I asked for a postponement until Jan. 1st, but the activities director said it had been publicized and the residents were looking forward to it, so Tiffany delayed going back home until I returned.

 Shore Pointe Assisted Living Facility was beautifully decorated for Christmas.

The program and tea is always held on the second floor.

This month's theme was Christmas Around the World, so I took a few visual props to enhance my presentation.  I learned a lot about Christmas traditions and customs that I didn't know before [or forgot about].  

Three or four ladies came after this photo was taken.  Several donned Christmas red.

Did you know that because of persecution Christmas wasn't openly celebrated until the third century when Constantine became the first Christian Roman Emperor?  

Christmas came to England at the end of the 6th century, but it had several 'bends in the road' before it became an ongoing tradition.  During the Protestant Reformation the protestants and Puritans condemned the festivities, and the Puritans refused to observe it. During the Commonwealth period, Oliver Cromwell outlawed all religious festivals and Christmas Carols were illegal.  When Charles II returned to power in 1660 Christmas could be freely observed again, but the Industrial Revolution had begun and all thoughts were on work.  Common people didn't have much money to celebrate with, nor did they have time. Charles Dickens' character in A Christmas Carol, depicted this.  Who can forget Ebenezer Scrooge and his line, "Bah! Humbug!"  It wasn't until Queen Victoria's reign in 1837 that the Christmas holiday became a treasured, ongoing tradition in England.  We can thank England for the creation and tradition of sending Christmas Cards, Fruit Cakes [or Christmas Cakes as they're called across the pond], and Egg Nog.  Did you know a fruit cake can have a shelf-life of up to 25 years...Ewwww! ;-)

Christmas came to Germany in 813, and the world owes much to that country for many of the traditions we enjoy today.   Our American love for the holiday that began in the late 19th century, would not have occurred had it not been for the enthusiastic influence of Christmas-loving German immigrants.  They gave us Advent Calendars, Christmas Trees, Hand-blown Glass Ornaments, Christmas Carols, Gingerbread Houses, Candy Canes and Nutcrackers [and probably more that I haven't mentioned].

Italy gave us Nativity Sets.  St. Francis of Assisi is credited with popularizing them in 1223 in central Italy so the emphasis of Christmas would be on the worship of Christ rather than secular materialism.  But the first nativity set goes back to 1205 in Naples, Italy, and Naples is still famous for making them today.

The Poinsettia came from Mexico where it's called "The Flower of the Holy Night."  It was renamed after the first American Ambassador to Mexico - Dr. Joel Poinsett - in the early 1800's, when he brought a plant back to America.  I could go on, but I'll stop.  ;-)

This is a synopsis of life at the Barkey home over the weekend.  Lori made Tiffany a Christmas tree skirt before her surgery and gave it to her while she was here.  After Tiffany returned home she sent the picture below to Lori saying: "Oliver [their Golden Retriever] likes the Christmas tree skirt and hopes you get well soon!"  ;-)

I hope you and your family are enjoying this beautiful Christmas Season.

Compressed Black Tea from China

There's always new discoveries in the world of tea.  My friend's son-in-law travels to China frequently on business and brings tea back to her.  Her latest gifts were compressed tea. She showed it to me, but the only two words we could read were Xiangan Dark Tea and AnHua Bailiangcha.  Everything else was written in Chinese.

Knowing I like research, she gave it to me to bring home to see what I could find.  I took it to our favorite Chinese Restaurant and showed it to the owner.  She said it was a very high-grade tea, and to break small chunks from the log to steep, but couldn't tell me much beyond that.  Anyone in blogland seen this tea before?

I discovered on the Internet that AnHua is a county in the Hunan Province of southern China.  Bai Liang Cha is a special compressed dark tea similar to Pu-Er, and the longer it's kept the better it becomes.

Xiangan is a famous brand of tea in China.  A website was printed on the label attached to the tea - www.xianganheicha.com.  The Google description of the website was written mostly in Chinese, but printed in English was the warning: "This site may harm your computer." Needless to say, I didn't go to the website,  but I discovered hei cha is Chinese for black tea, and one of six major Chinese teas that go through a post-fermentation after the initial processing.

The tea is packaged in a cylinder shape and wrapped in woven palm and bamboo.

Once you get through the palm and bamboo, there's another paper-like wrapping that tightly adheres to the compressed tea.  It reminded me of shucking corn!  ;-)

I've seen compressed tea bricks and Pu-Erh tea cakes before, but this was a first time for a tea roll/log.  It doesn't have an earthy smell like Pu-Erh - as a matter-of-fact I couldn't detect any scent or smell. Because it was evening [when I limit caffeine intake] I didn't brew the tea, but I will one day soon. My research revealed the tea can be brewed for many infusions and steeped for a long time without astringency or bitterness.

My friend's son-in-law also brought her small containers of individually wrapped round compressed disks about the size of a .50 cent piece.  The owner at the Chinese restaurant said when brewing by the cup/mug to score it in fourths and use one-fourth.  An entire disk would be used for a 4-cup teapot.

On another subject... my daughter had knee replacement surgery yesterday and will be coming to my house to recuperate after she leaves the hospital, so my blogging will be intermittent until after the holidays.