a fish named peter

Merry Christmas and a Blessed Holiday Season to all - I will be away from this space for about three weeks.

Turkey dinner is a north American Christmas staple - as if Thanksgiving does not offer enough of the dry, poultry fare - however in many parts of the world, and especially across Europe - fish is the traditional Christmas Eve meal.

My first recollection of a Christmas fish was when I was about five years old and still in the Czech Republic. I am not certain why this was the case, but in those days people typically bought the Christmas Fish live. The Fish swam in our bathtub for a few days - I think it was a carp. I played with it constantly and named it Peter. It would stick its head out of the water and flap its carp lips at me. I loved it - I had never had a pet and Peter the Fish was my pet. Christmas Eve day came around and Peter the Fish had to be sent to Fish heaven. My dad could not do it!! I think he got one of our neighbors to butcher Peter for him. I don't have many memories of that dinner except for the fact that the fish tasted bland, I did not like it, and I also remember that I did not have any remorse about chowing down on my best friend. That was the last time my parents bought a live fish.

Christmas Eve menu at my house every year:

• Orange soup (curried carrot ginger soup), which my boys hate but always want to know will be on the table for dinner (it's tradition you know)
• Baked salmon stuffed with tangerines, lemons and dill (the fish is purchased directly from Fish Heaven)
• Lime and yogurt sauce for the fish
  Lemon basil rice pilaf
• Haricot vert with fried mushrooms sprinkled with nutmeg
• Czech potato and ham salad (vlaskej salat)

This year, my sister and I got together to make traditional Czech Christmas cookies - we call them vanilla crescents (vanilkovy rohliky). It really was more about getting together, drinking wine, chatting and solving the world's problems - the cookies just kind of happened as all the rest was going on. I think this is something we will do again next year.

the gift of gifting

Bloggers are great gift givers. Yesterday I came home from a frustrating business trip to Winnipeg - where it was -48C with the windchill. That is so cold. I left Calgary in blowing snow at 5:00 a.m. My cab was late and stuck at the bottom of our hill - I had to walk down in my "meeting" boots and barely made my flight. I arrived home late, cranky and exhausted that same day..... to a parcel, all the way from England, from Lin full of wonderful, hand-made goodies - even the cat received some felted balls to play with. I got a necklace, yarn, a hand-sewn tree decoration and a cute card made by Lin. Bloggers give generously - often it is a spontaneous act - the most wonderful kind of giving. I was greatly cheered up and very touched. Thank you Lin.

Giving is synonymous with Christmas. We give presents to our children, to our loved ones, to those who are underprivileged... it is a time of year when we don't want anyone to go without. I often wondered if giving of gifts is a recent tradition that came along with the concept of Father Christmas or Santa or with the story of the Magi bringing gifts to the baby Jesus. I did some research and apparently gift giving to celebrate the winter solstice and the new year predates the birth of Christ and the celebration of Christmas as we know it. As Christianity spread, the act of gift giving was hard for church leaders to get rid of, hence, it was incorporated into the tradition of Christmas. The practice of gift giving as we know it, has its genesis in the Victorian era with the figure of Father Christmas or St. Nicholas. Today, in our somewhat material society, giving has gone to an extreme where people go into debt to give too many things.

I love that bloggers still cherish that special sentiment of giving gifts from the heart, typically made by them or other artisans and giving because they want to give. How fabulous is that?

handmade christmas

Every Christmas, I have an urge to create something. I think it started when I was a child and, like all children, we made holiday crafts at school. This tradition stuck and to this day I make something handmade each Christmas. This year I am into hearts, stars and birds, and I hung these simple crafted ornaments on the curly willow that graces my fireplace hearth. These naive creations suit the simplicity and organic shape of the curly willow.

(I found out about these stars here and the instructions are here)

Quite a few years ago I was into making gold angels, pictured below: dip and drape fabric, Styrofoam balls, straw hair, all spray-painted gold. I was living on Vancouver Island and late November we drove to Calgary (a 17 hour car ordeal involving a 3 hour ferry ride) - I made my sister one of these angels for Christmas and decided to bring it with me for my mom to pass on to her on Christmas Eve. Mom, my sister and I were downstairs just chatting away, when we hear a little voice saying "Merry Christmas Auntie Bo!". There was one of my boys, only about 5 years old then, who thought the present should be opened right away. My sister could not disappoint so she opened her gift a month early. How excited the boys were to watch their auntie open the sparkly parcel.

Speaking of handmade, for my birthday this year, I treated myself to some scrumptious bling made by Bon Bon Oiseau . These beautiful, delicate pieces are unique and are hand-crafted by a most talented artist and wonderful person. Remember to support your artisans this Christmas. There are so many handmade options for meaningful gifts that are made with love and care.

st. nicholas day

When I was little, I did not have a concept of Santa Claus in the north American sense. The baby Jesus delivered presents on Christmas eve - not a jolly, fat man in a red suit with a beard. The closest deity to a Santa Claus in my childhood was St. Nicholas.

St. Nicholas day is celebrated in many European countries. St. Nicholas was a fourth century bishop from Myra (now Turkey). He was said to be a kindly saint and legend has it that he would travel from home to home on the Eve of St. Nicholas (December 5) and leave gifts for good children in their boots, which they discovered in the morning on December 6. He travelled with another mythical character called "Black Peter". I think Black Peter was meant to be a representation of some kind of a devil. If a child was bad, St. Nicholas would leave lumps of black coal instead of candies and little treats.

As a child, I would put my boots out by the window and eagerly await the goodies that would fill them the next day. My boots would be filled with mandarin oranges (only available at Christmas in the Czech Republic and very expensive in those days), chocolates, a type of ginger bread cookie we called marzipan typically in the shape of St. Nicholas and usually, a tiny lump of black coal as a reminder that we are rarely 'always good'. When my boys were young they would also receive little presents such as a hot wheels car or a tiny Lego set.

I can't help myself, to this day I put my boots by my decorated fireplace to remind myself of the traditional celebration. Now I fill them with special chocolates for the Babe and myself more as a reminder of the tradition and the anticipation I used to have as a child to discover what goodies filled my boots.