The Twelve Days of Christ­mas, Red Gate Farm style

When we planned to spend “twelve days of Christ­mas” here in Con­necti­cut, I nev­er dreamed they would fly by like car­toon days off a cal­en­dar.  From the moment we arrived on the night of the 18th, we have been run­ning around like mad peo­ple, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly cre­at­ing and try­ing to run from an avalanche of wrap­ping, food-shop­ping, cook­ing, hostess­ing and guesting.

First up on the agen­da, how­ev­er, after we lugged in our suit­cas­es and greet­ed Rose­mary who had arrived two days before, was a quick look at the cook­book, which I must tell you is even more beau­ti­ful than I expected.

Avery and I flicked through it a bit anx­ious­ly.  “I hate that pho­to,” Avery said about a cou­ple of them, and we realised that as the autumn pro­gressed, she had had far too much of her own real life to be able to make final deci­sions about the book.  A shame, but it could­n’t be helped.  And of course the rest of us can find no fault with her work.

It’s just heavy enough, weighty and sig­nif­i­cant and vel­vety and smooth.  We feel very proud, and every­one who comes over to vis­it gets to hold it and leaf through it.  To think in Jan­u­ary, 1000 of them will find their way out into the world.

I spent one long after­noon with John learn­ing how to send out the e‑book.

But Christ­mas waits for no man, espe­cial­ly not one with an inap­pro­pri­ate­ly pride­ful joy in her own cre­ation.  I’m not sure which I’m proud­er of: Avery or the book, and maybe they can’t real­ly be sep­a­rat­ed, for me.

On the first morn­ing, of course, we popped over to Judy’s broth­er’s farm to get our two trees, fra­grant things of beau­ty so dif­fer­ent from their fiendish­ly non-smelling British coun­ter­parts.  Judy’s sis­ter-in-law greet­ed us.  “Hi there!  Wel­come home; I have your wreaths and gar­land all saved for you over here.”  She explained that there is a new hybrid tree called the “Frasam” or “Balser,” she could­n’t remem­ber which, with del­i­cate nee­dles and a heady piney aro­ma.  They were perfect.

“What a beau­ti­ful job you have here,” I mar­velled, “sur­round­ed by this incred­i­ble smell all day long, all sea­son long.”

“Real­ly?” our helper mused.  “I can’t real­ly smell it any­more.  I think I devel­op a, what do you call it, immu­ni­ty.  But I’m glad you’re enjoy­ing it.”

It was such fun to open the dusty box­es of orna­ments, brought up from the scary and hideous base­ment (“I’m NEV­ER going down there,” Avery says firm­ly, and I’d love to say the same).  Glit­ter­ing trea­sures, new and old, greet­ed us with gen­tle rem­i­nis­cences as they do every year.

 

I described find­ing this last lit­tle fel­low, a one-of-a-kind cre­ation from the amaz­ing crafts­men at Bom­b­ki, at the incom­pa­ra­bly fes­tive “Spir­it of Christ­mas” fair at Olympia in Lon­don.  “We should all go togeth­er some­time,” I sug­gest­ed, and John prompt­ly said, “That sounds very dangerous.”

All this loot was the boun­ty of our tra­di­tion­al trip to Wal­green’s to see what the Amer­i­can Mer­can­tile Indus­tri­al Com­plex has dreamed up in the way of fes­tive giftwrap.  Cheap and cheer­ful is the way to go, we dis­cov­ered, and brought every­thing home in the damp fog, to search through the house for sticky tape — we had 8 rolls stashed about — and scis­sors — not near­ly enough.  “Don’t come in here!” one or oth­er oth­er of us spent sev­er­al days shout­ing, or “You can walk through this room, but QUICK­LY and don’t look around you!”  Final­ly all was in readi­ness under the tree.

And look what greet­ed us in the morning!

It last­ed only a few hours, less than a day real­ly, but the feel­ing of mind­less, child­like fes­tiv­i­ty that it roused in me remind­ed me what Christ­mas is real­ly all about: sheer joy of that kind that makes you smile even when you can’t real­ly explain why.

“You know what?” I asked John.  “Noth­ing makes me hap­pi­er than snow.  Except maybe kit­tens.”  “Oh, God,” was his only reply.

At Christ­mas­time, even a bad thing pales in sig­nif­i­cance com­pared to the joys, so when one after­noon I had a dread­ful stom­achache, it was almost a plea­sure to give in to it and sit qui­et­ly on the sofa, with a hot water bot­tle and a throw over my knees, watch­ing John and Rose­mary scram­ble eggs and assem­ble smoked salmon and bagels for their din­ner, with Avery adding judi­cious help­ing hands.  Is there any­thing more impor­tant to appre­ci­ate, and eas­i­er to take for grant­ed than good health and loved fam­i­ly mem­bers?  When you spend as much time apart from your moth­er-in-law as I do, it’s a life les­son to remem­ber that when she’s with­in reach, it’s a gift.  And that’s what Christ­mas pro­vides, for me.

Fam­i­ly and friends with­in reach explode into chaos at Red Gate Farm at Christ­mas!  Jill and her ram­bunc­tious, fes­tive fam­i­ly arrived in a tor­ren­tial rain­storm on Christ­mas Eve, fol­lowed short­ly by Anne-From-Across-the-Road and her fam­i­ly, and with oys­ter stew and Joel’s famous pulled pork on the menu, I some­how decid­ed that as well, we should invent some won­tons, or “wan­tons” as I’ve decid­ed to call them since they were spelled that way on a restau­rant menu in Lon­don.  After all, our fam­i­ly tra­di­tion when we were chil­dren was to order Chi­nese food on Christ­mas Eve.  How hard could they be?  Not hard at all, as it turns out, and a tremen­dous lot of fun.  When I get back to Lon­don, I’ll try them again and pro­duce a more offi­cial recipe, but for the time being, I give you:

Christ­mas Eve Wantons

(makes at least 2 dozen)

1.5 lb chick­en breasts

1 tbsp peanut oil

2 bunch­es spring onions

2 hand­fuls bean sprouts

2 hand­fuls shred­ded carrots

2 cups shred­ded Chi­nese cab­bage, sep­a­rat­ed into two piles

1‑inch knob gin­ger, peeled and grat­ed (not fine­ly chopped)

2 cloves gar­lic, grat­ed (not fine­ly chopped)

juice of 1 lime

2 tbsps oys­ter sauce

oil for fry­ing (either in deep fry­ing pan or deep fryer)

24 square won­ton wrappers

Put the chick­en breasts through a grinder or pulse in a food proces­sor until the size of small peb­bles, then saute in the peanut oil until cooked thor­ough­ly.  Clean the grinder or proces­sor and pass through the chick­en again to make uni­form pieces.  Place in a large bowl.

Add all the veg­eta­bles, but only half the Chi­nese cab­bage.  Sprin­kle over the gin­ger and gar­lic and lime juice, then stir through the oys­ter sauce and set in refrig­er­a­tor until want­ed.  When ready to fry, add the remain­ing Chi­nese cab­bage and stir well.

Heat oil to readiness.

For each won­ton, place about a table­spoon of the chick­en mix­ture in the cen­ter, then moist­en edges with water on your fin­ger­tip and fold over edges to make a tri­an­gu­lar par­cel.  Bring point togeth­er and press until stuck togeth­er.  Fry for about 2 min­utes, turn­ing once if in fry­ing pan.  Drain on paper tow­el and serve right away, with any sauces you like: sweet and sour, spicy mayo, peanut sauce.

*************

The girls gra­cious­ly posed for one moment, before the lit­tle ones resumed their fran­tic race around our tiny house, paus­ing now and then to pound on the piano keys.

Christ­mas Eve would­n’t be the same unless John made Mol­ly cry, so he duly did, squeez­ing the life out of her, upside down.  “Too tight, Uncle John, too tight!”  Mom­my com­forts her.  Very soon after, “More, Uncle John, more!”

Jane loves to see Mol­ly cry, in her big-sis­ter fash­ion.  How well I remem­ber it, the being-a-big-sis­ter thing.

 

Kate always begins her evenings with Jane and Mol­ly look­ing hor­ri­fied at the may­hem, but then begins to smile admiringly.

Final­ly, she is firm­ly part of the clan.

 

We passed the wan­tons around and lis­tened to Christ­mas car­ols in the back­ground as we told sto­ries about our var­i­ous autumns, tried to keep John from killing the chil­dren, looked through the cook­book.  Final­ly we trooped to the table for oys­ter stew, pulled pork and cole slaw.

Every bite was sub­lime, but real­ly, sur­passed by the sim­ple hap­pi­ness of hav­ing my fam­i­ly — some born, some brought in by mar­riage, some by neigh­bor­li­ness — around me.

 

No time at Red Gate Farm pass­es with­out my feel­ing grate­ful at the fates that placed Anne and her fam­i­ly “across the road.”

We tucked into Anne’s beau­ti­ful Ger­man cook­ie display.

Final­ly every­one called “good night” and braved the awful, cold rain, which had pre­vent­ed our tra­di­tion­al light­ing of the Vic­to­ri­an can­dles on the hydrangea.  “It’s too cold and rainy to go light them, and they will just go out in an instant any­way,” we agreed, but it was a bit sad.

The next day, Christ­mas Day, more than made up for this.  Bright blue skies, crunchy frosty grass.  We opened our presents in a leisure­ly fash­ion, enjoy­ing every cre­ative present, then cooked like CRAZY — stuff­ing, cheesy spinach, pump­kin pie — and motored — with “Cab­in Pres­sure” to enter­tain us, espe­cial­ly, “Get Dressed, Ye Mer­ry Gen­tle­men” — to Jil­l’s house.  The kitchen smelled incred­i­bly of roast­ing turkey, bak­ing cheesy pota­toes with cel­ery soup and sour cream.  Mer­ri­ment ensued.  Avery was giv­en, mem­o­rably, a pig­gy bank labeled “Cap­i­tal­ist Pig.”  “Do you know what Cap­i­tal­ism is, Jane?” she asked.  “OF COURSE I do!” Jane answered indig­nant­ly.  “I’m not dumb! It’s when the first let­ter of a sen­tence is big­ger than all the rest!”

There were thumb­hole run­ning clothes!

Red sweaters!

Jam­mies!  With feet.

Per­haps best of all, the bag that IS Joel’s, because it is not… John’s.  Now it’s all clear.

The table was set by the local rein­deer and elves…

Turkey, gravy, stuff­ing, cheesy spinach, cheesy pota­toes, green beans, then pump­kin and apple pies, cook­ies made by the girls… we were sated.

Home late through the star­ry night, every­one to bed, except me, who stayed up late and took pic­tures of every­thing beau­ti­ful that I want­ed to remember.

Wak­ing up this morn­ing, I thought more and more about the brevi­ty of our time here, how much I love all the images I will take away from our holiday.

Favorite presents from this Christ­mas, all these trea­sured things to put away for next year.  How can I wait a year to use this beauty?

As I walk through the house, inhal­ing the pre­cious aro­ma of bal­sam, Fras­er, what­ev­er amal­gam has cre­at­ed the mag­ic of this year, I wish aloud, “I want it to be Christ­mas all year long.  Why should­n’t I have you all around me, and this heav­en­ly fra­grance, all year long?”

Avery lis­tens, and con­sid­ers.  “I’ll tell you why.  It’s exact­ly what the tree-sell­ing lady said.  She becomes immune to the aroma.”

How very true.  If we were allowed to have our fam­i­lies, and our gor­geous orna­ments, and our beau­ti­ful trees, around us all the time, they would lose their pow­er.  It’s meant to be just once a year, so we can still appre­ci­ate it all.  Or so I tell myself, to explain why life can’t be this per­fect all year long.

More to the point: all the ingre­di­ents for life being this per­fect all year long are in place all the time.  I just need to learn to sniff, and appre­ci­ate them.

Mer­ry Christ­mas, all…