I love Christmastime! It is a joyful time of year. In our Amish culture we don’t celebrate Christmas exactly like our “English” friends, but we do keep Christmas as a remembrance of Jesus’s birth and we have family gatherings with big meals and lots of time for fellowship or games. Christmas carols are sung, such as the old favorite “Silent Night, Holy Night.” I’m so thankful that Jesus did not remain a baby in a manger but that He was willing to shed his blood for all mankind. All honor and glory to Him!
Christmastime is a wonderful time to gather around with family and friends. There is also a keen awareness, though, that for some people this is a difficult time of year, people who are lonely or have lost a loved one. To those, let us offer our sympathy and loving thoughts.
My husband, David, and I moved out here to Flat Rock, Illinois (from a large Amish community near Danville, Ohio) almost 20 years ago. Very seldom have we traveled back to Ohio to spend Christmas with family. Four hundred miles is too far to travel with a horse and buggy. But we are planning to go this year. How exciting! Daniel and Gloria hired a driver to take us. They have a wedding to attend also.
When I talked with my sister about our plans she said that part of the Christmas Eve supper has been planned already. I think it sounds scrumptious. Sister Sharon had said she’ll make a large batch of three different kinds of stromboli (stay tuned for her recipe in a future column).
They are also planning to set up a salad bar for the 30 or so who will attend; of course, I’m curious to see all of what they’ll come up with.
I plan to take cranberry salad along. Dessert will be ice cream pies.
After supper, a Bingo game is played. A smorgasbord of unwrapped gifts will be on the table and whoever gets Bingo will get to choose a gift. Then we go on again until eventually everyone has a gift (no one gets two).
Afterwards I anticipate singing Christmas songs, too. One of my fondest memories of Christmas time as a little girl is going Christmas caroling with my siblings and our cousins who lived “just up the road from us.”
Another thing I enjoy this time of year is keeping in touch with family and friends by sending Christmas cards and newsletters (an update of what is happening in our life). With over 30 cards to send, it’s too time-consuming to write individual letters, so I make copies. Often I add several personal lines to each letter. I love to hear from friends too.
A highlight for all of us over the years has been a Christmas box sent from my mom and mad. We all gather around to open the box filled with gifts and goodies. Can we imagine how the early settlers who traveled out west with wagon trains would have enjoyed such a box from “back home?”
Here is the recipe for cranberry salad that I’ll be making for our Christmas Eve gathering — a friend gave it to me years ago.
CRANBERRY SALAD
1 box (3 ounces) strawberry jello
1 box (3 ounces) black raspberry jello
3 cups boiling water
1/2 cup cold water
5 unpeeled apples
1 cup cranberries
1 orange, peeled
1 20-ounce can crushed pineapple
1 cup white sugar
Dissolve jello in boiling water. Then add cold water. Grind apples, cranberries, and orange. Add crushed pineapple and sugar. When jello begins to thicken add fruit and mix well.
This is a recipe that will be on the menu for Christmas eve snack time that I’d like to share. I buy the powders mentioned in the recipe at our local bulk food store.
CHEDDAR SEASONED SNACK MIX
2 pounds snack (suggestions pretzels, teddy grahams, ritz bits, pita chips, Life cereal squares)
1 1/4 cup vegetable oil
5 tablespoons sour cream and onion powder
3 tablespoons cheddar cheese powder
Mix real well, then mix with snacks. Bake at 225 for 45 minutes. Stir every 15 minutes. — Dorcas Raber
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