 Posted by Rita Henuber Dec 20 2011, 12:01 am
During Christmas do you hear what I hear? Do you see what I see? Does your Christmas taste, smell, and feel like mine? Doubt it. When we think of the different ways Christmas is celebrated we generally think nationality differences and continental differences. Right here in this country Christmas is celebrated in dozens if not hundreds of different ways.
Let’s start with how you say Merry Christmas. Around here it’s likely to be, “Y’all have a Merry Christmas.”
Or maybe, according to your heritage, you say one of these.
Mele Kalikimaka- Hawaiian
Feliz Navidad- Spanish
Joyeux Noël – French
Fršhliche Weihnachten! – German
Buon Natale! – Italian
I will say I’m far more likely to hear boat motors then sleigh bells.
What does it look like inside and outside your house for the holidays? I see white, but it’s beach sand, not snow. I decorate with Santas in flower print shirts and sandals. 
On my tree are twinkle lights covered with shells and plastic flamingos and starfish.
Outside I see poinsettias in everyone’s garden and palm trees are wrapped with Christmas lights.
Wreaths are made from magnolia leaves and decorated with shells. After Christmas I see Santa in his bright print shorts riding a yellow bicycle on the beach or he’s surfing.
When we lived in the Midwest I would’ve never decorated like that. My Santas were warmly clothed, wore boots and the white I saw out the window was snow.
My Christmas taste experience has a Spanish influence. Paella, saffron rice cooked with chicken, pork, and a variety of seafood.
Ali Oli, a garlic, mayonnaise like, spread eaten with crispy bread slices.
(BTW we were never bothered by vampires)
Also frittata (a potato omelet), roast pork, flan, and candied citrus rind.
Candied Citrus Peel Recipe
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Ingredients
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Orange rind or grapefruit rind
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Granulated sugar
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Water
Grapefruit skins are much thicker than other citrus skins. Cooking them a while in boiling water helps loosen up the white pithy part so it is easier to scrape off.
1 Scrub the outside rinds thoroughly to remove any dirt. Put rind in cold water, bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes. Drain and repeat this process two more times. Drain, rinse with cold water, and scrape away the pithy white part of the peel. Slice into strips.
2 For each cup of rind, prepare a sugar syrup of 1 cup of sugar to 1 cup of water. Put rind in syrup and cook slowly until syrup is completely absorbed – several hours. Stir occasionally and watch carefully near the end of the process.
3 Cool the peel and coat the strips with granulated sugar. Dry overnight on a rack.
In Florida most of the Christmas wreaths and garlands were made with cedar branches. Table arrangements frequently included magnolia leaves and citrus punctured with whole cloves. Most of my friends homes were filled with those scents. I can’t describe the smell. I find it strange that with all the other places we’ve lived these are the only scents I associate with Christmas.
You don’t feel seven layers of clothing. Christmas here feels warm. The evenings can be chilly and damp this time of year. Warm days and cool nights bring late night and early morning fog. Still many of the holiday parties are indoor outdoor by the pool parties.
Nor, do you feel terrified you will slip on the ice and break your bright and shiny hiney or, some reindeer are going to run over grandma.
The Ruby sisters are spread around the globe. North, South, East, and West. As are many of you readers. Please share what the sight, sounds, tastes, smell, and feel of Christmas is to you.
Or, if you have a favorite Christmas memory that includes the senses do tell us. I’ll share mine.
At the family Christmas Eve party a dear auntie  would smoke a stogie and drink down three fingers of bourbon. It was a tradition and she did it until she was 85.
I cannot smell cigar smoke without thinking of her.
Have a drink of bourbon without thinking of her.
When I do think of her I see her quite clearly. She is smiling and laughter and sounds of the party fill my head and the warm feeling of Christmas’ past blankets me.
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I envy you, Rita.
Though where I live we almost never see snow, and I can’t complain about the cold – but still do, I would love to live at a warm beach. I think palm tress wrapped in twinkling lights are beautiful.
My house outside looks like a gingerbread house, with one exception. We have an inflatable A CHRISTMAS STORY leg lamp in our front yard.
My favorite Christmas memories? Too many to share and still building them.
OMG! “The Lamp.” Is it fra-gee-lee?
Ooh, I love your whole scheme! I’m a thematic kind of person, so I always appreciate when someone keeps it consistent with decorating
My house is pretty classic for Christmas. I mostly use red and gold (never been a silver person) though I do have an adorable Disney tree of silver, black and red in my hearth room. I have big bulb colored lights on my regular tree because Like it old school in that department, but Doug said I have to lose them next year in favor of those LED lights because he’s blowing fuses. Sigh. I don’t like LED lights. I like the old-fashioned ones.
For the last two Christmases we’ve blown off traditional cooking in favor of steaks, baked potatoes and asparagus. We’ll have that this year after we work the Love Feast (feeding of the homeless). Very excited about Christmas Day for that very reason. Can’t wait for the sounds and sights of celebrating Christ’s coming with a whole community of people of all ages, races, and Socio-econ. status.
Cheers!
So steaks, baked potatoes and asparagus are traditional for your home now. Your Christmas Day sounds like it’s going to be wonderful. Sharing with other people is what it’s all about.
What a beautiful post, Rita! And a great reminder that smells are one of the most intense triggers of memory (something very useful for writers to play with…hmm…gotta work more of that into the WIP…).
I love the smell of a fresh Christmas tree in the house–but I’ve only recently associated that smell with Christmas, as we had an artificial tree when I was growing up. I was the one who would assemble the tree my last 10 years or so at home (and I helped earlier than that). I remember the prickly feel of the artificial needles, the color coded wire tips that would tell you whether you held a lower or upper branch. It would take my Dad about 3 days to put the lights on the tree (he said he had to study it and do it slowly and right). Eventually I grew too impatient and took over that job, too. I do love decorating trees.
And every year when I put up our tree with my daughter (my husband doesn’t help–he says it’s a tradition for my daughter and me and I’ve never figured out what quirk in his childhood Christmas experiences would make him not want to decorate) I remember the tree in Switzerland, where I was an exchange student one year. *Real* candles on a real tree (no electric lights there!). I held my breath at the beauty of it–and in the hopes that we weren’t going to burn down the place.
Merry Christmas to all!
Your dad really took three days to put the lights on? How funny. I think your husband probably doesn’t want to get involved in all the packing and unpacking to decorate. It was my husband’s job to get all the Christmas decorations out. Then he stood back and we decorated the tree and New Year’s day he undecorated and put everything away.
I just love the idea of celebrating Christmas in other cultures. When we lived in the Midwest an Italian friend said that octopus was always on the Christmas and New Year’s menu. Many Spaniards also serve octopus for the holidays.
I can relate, Rita. I was on the barrier island yesterday and for the first time noticed that the town puts a large snowflake on each light pole so they can light them at night. And planted by every light pole is a palm tree.
Everyone goes for lots of outdoor lights here, probably because a swamp can get so dark at night. Our neighbor is the first to put those big balls of Christmas lights and chicken wire in his trees, but all the neighbors are talking about doing that next year. Can’t wait.
Here at the beach the street lights are decorated with starfish, Nautilus shells, seahorses, and scallop shells. I love the outdoor lights. I didn’t wrap my palm trees this year because they’ve gotten so tall I really don’t like getting up on a 12 foot ladder to do it.
Cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and pine—the scents of Christmas in my world. For years, I did the baking for my whole family; cookies, pies, breads, rolls, anything from the oven on numerous tables came from my oven. My house always smelled of yeast, citrus, apples and the above mentioned spices. I miss it, in some ways. The good news is I no longer bake 24/7 for the week or two preceeding the holiday.
Lots of colored lights and sparkling garland in my house. I have a five foot Santa that looks like Mercury glass standing on the front porch, reading his list beneath a lamp. My tree has candy canes and red bows among the clothes pin reindeer and other children-made ornaments offsetting the gleaming glass balls. I have a creche of black bears in costume and another of porcelain dolls; the reason for the season after all.
I think I’d miss the cold air so crisp it tingles in your lungs and hangs in the night sky like crystal, making the night sky a panorama of diamonds on black glass. While I’m fond of warm, walking through Peddler’s Village with a muff and muffler while carolers or the bell choir, all in Dickensonian dress, entertain and the smell of spiced cider simmering over a wood fire fills the air embodies the season for me.
Looks like I’ll be doing Northeastern Christmases for a while yet.
How we think of Christmas simply goes back to what we grew up with. It’s neat to see how differently we all celebrate the the same event. Thanks for sharing.
I forgot to share one of my favorite Christmas memories. It’s funny. We were in Peddler’s Village, of course. I went into the candy shop (lots of retro candies there!) while Hubble smoked his pipe outside. He wore a newsboy-type cap and a black leather trenchcoat. I walked out in time to see some youngun’of perhaps four or five being pulled along by his mother, his eyes wide with the question “Is he or isn’t he?” Hubble winked at the boy and the child jumped, turned, and hurried to catch up with Mom. He kept glancing back until they were out of sight.
I’m thinking he was probably a very good boy for a while after that. *G*
Sort of the same thing happened with my husband. He always wore beard but generally it trimmed neat and very close. Around 1 November he started letting it get a little longer. And when he went out he wore a Santa hat. I can’t count the times we’d catch a little one standing close, staring, taking his measure.
What a beautiful, evocative post, Rita! A couple of years ago, Mark and I spent Christmas in the Virgin Islands. As Minnesotans, it felt very, very strange to us: heat and humidity instead of desert-dry air laced with snowflakes. Sugar sand beaches instead of piles of snow. Coconuts and fruity rum drinks instead of spiced apple cider. My fish belly-white thighs, ruthlessly exposed ! instead of safely hibernating under layers of fleece.
The extent of our decor is our Charlie Brown Christmas tree surrounded by presents, but we do burn evergreen or sugar cookie candles to get some seasonal scent in the house!
Oh! The Virgin Islands. How beautiful. Do you really have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree?
Think of all of our friends south of the equator where the Christmas season is warm. Snow doesn’t figure into the equation for them either.
We DO have an actual Charlie Brown Christmas tree that we bought at Target. It’s up on a high shelf so the cats don’t destroy the sole red ornament.
Sadly – or perhaps happily for those driving? – meteorologists are calling for a brown Christmas in Minnesota this year. Businesses catering to skiiers and snowmobilers are really taking a hit, and a number of fisherman have fallen through thin ice, even way up north.
I love Charlie Brown Christmas trees.
The weather has been crazy. Last year at this time the fruit on my citrus trees had frozen it was so cold here. Today it’s 75. But there is that huge storm in the lower Midwest. The snow is beautiful to look at but not a great drive on. The ice is what scared me. One time in Kansas City we had an ice storm that laid down anywhere from 3 to 5 inches of ice the kids were ice-skating in the street.
There are NO decorations at my house this year except for a little two-foot Christmas tree. I’m celebrating in Austin with my Sammy!!! I can’t wait. A deer hit my husband on Friday night (MY CAR–the one we were PLANNING to drive to Austin.) Now we’re going in a rental car.
My paternal grandfather was from Spain so our Christmas tradition was also Paella. No pork, chorizo or peas in our Paella. Although, I imagine the pork would be really good. I’ll have to try it. We just used chicken, clams, and lots and lots of shrimp and GARLIC!!!! Most restaurants don’t put nearly enough garlic in to please me, so I NEVER order it out.
I’m getting hungry thinking about it!
Laurie how badly damaged is the car? I’m assuming your husband wasn’t hurt?
The pork was bite-size pieces and it wasn’t always there I did it was just what ever was on hand at the time went into the pot. In Spain I don’t ever recall seeing peas in the dish. Frequently there were strips of red or green pepper. I don’t know that it had any effect on the flavor but it made the dish look prettier. I’ve had it with rabbit, prawns with their heads on, lobster, eel, and fish. I don’t think I would ever bother to order it at a restaurant.
Have a safe trip to Austin. I know you’ll have a wonderful time.
Hi, Rita! Christmas is usually hot here in Sydney, so prawns on the barbie and other seafood is the best bet. But this year we’re having free-range turkey and roast potatoes — all the hot stuff. We haven’t yet put any decorations up as our floors are *supposed* to get sanded and polished before the weekend…
Merry Christmas to all!
Do you have tropical decorations or do you go with the snow theme?
Sanded and polished? That’s a big deal. And it’s got a be all done by the weekend?
Love hearing about everyone’s holiday traditions.
We have a tree (used to be a real tree until last year when we decided to get the fake one, so the scent of pine is definitely a holiday memory). Always has to be as tall as hubby can get it, too. LOL
I have a Nativity that the kids love to play with (which is why I got a sturdy, plastic one). I remember doing the same thing with the nativity we had when I was growing up. Baby Jesus is “hiding” until Christmas. And my daughter decided the wise men can’t be there yet, either, so they’re spread around our living room. LOL
We always put a wreath on the door, and usually have light-up deer, icicle lights, and a blue-light “stream” the deer drink from in the front yard. This year, we haven’t gotten to that. It’s been hard to get into the spirit with Mom sick, but we’re doing all the indoor stuff. Oh! And the Christmas village. The kids like setting that up in our entryway and we add a piece every year. Which reminds me… I’d better go pick out a new one for this year!
Thanks for the Christmas cheer, Rita!
Thanks for sharing your traditions. These little things are what children carry over into adulthood.
Where you are has had a lot of snow lately will it last over the weekend?
Oh yeah, I meant to mention the snow! Yes, we live on a mountain, so even though we’re in Arizona, we get snow. People are often shocked at that. LOL There’s snow on the ground from the storm we got last week, but the roads are clear and it’s sunny. Should stay that way through Christmas, so it’ll be “white” but not snowy… which is good because we have family traveling this weekend. In the meantime, we’re enjoying the sunshine (though it’s cold) and loving the beautiful snow-covered pine trees.
Oh yeah – and I forgot to mention they have “The Polar Express” train ride in Williams (about a half hour from here – part of the Grand Canyon Railroad) and the kids LOVE the half-hour trip… we go through a lighted tunnel (like a time warp) and end up at the North Pole. The trip includes hot chocolate, cookies, and caroling. Everyone wears their footie-pajamas. So fun!
And the Nutcracker has become a Christmas tradition in recent years since my daughter’s ballet group dances in it every year.
Train rides are so much fun and what you describe is wonderful. The kids must be in heaven when they get to do that.
Love the post, Rita! Here in Brazil, it’s the middle of summer, so no snow…just lots of hot weather. The funny thing is, most of the malls and city streets have decorations up that are snow-themed: white batting beneath Christmas trees, glittery plastic snow flakes, Santa in his cold-weather gear.
One of our favorite traditions comes from living in Portugal years ago. We make something called Bacalhau com Natas (dried codfish in cream sauce) as a side dish at Christmas (although many Portuguese have it as a main dish at their Christmas meal). As weird and strange as it sounds, it’s delicious, and my family loves it.
That fishy scent is burned into my sinuses. I can still picture large stacks of dried codfish that would appear in stores around that time–mountains of them, really. The store workers used electric saws to cut the sheets of bacalhau to whatever size you wanted, then you’d take your piece home and soak it in water over the course of a couple of days to rehydrate it. Then you’d cook it however you wanted it. Luckily, we can still get it in Brazil (and they had it in South Florida when we were there as well).
The Italians have something similar if not the same. The dried fish looks like cardboard that got wet and then dried up. And it’s hard like a piece of wood. I have a crazy picture of it stacked up like cords of wood. Is it cooked in a like a creamy sauce? What is your favorite way to serve it?
You described it perfectly, Rita! It’s fat on one end and skinny on the other (tail end versus head), and it’s flat. It’s stacked just like wood (and is hard, just like you described).
We do cook it in a cream sauce. You rehydrate the fish first, then boil it, shredding it with your fingers once it’s cool enough to handle. Then you toss it in a skillet with olive oil, onion, garlic and sliced potatoes to mix the flavors. Then you pile it into a casserole dish and pour cream over it all. We grate cheese and sprinkle over the top and put it in the oven until the cheese is brown and the sauce is bubbly. I bet the Italian dish is very similar. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!
I don’t think I have EVER seen that in a store. But what you describe is similar to what we had. It was excellent. I’m with you I’m wishing I had someplace to go to get some.
This is a perfectly timed post, Rita! We’re traveling down to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with my brother-in-law and I’ve been worrying about whether it would be “Christmasy” enough. (No sweaters! None of my family’s old ornaments hanging on the tree!)
I grew up in Pennsylvania, and loved caroling in frosty air with fingers and toes freezing. Now I’m in Northern California, but at least it’s chilly (despite the roses and red camellias blooming outside our windows.) I can still make the house here smell like my childhood one, though, with all the traditional foods–roast turkey, corn pudding, potato filling, orange-cranberry relish…YUM!!
Road trip! New experiences! In the LA area if it gets below 65 there’s a fire in the fireplace. My kids are a little north of LA and they say it’s been in the mid-60s. The kids will remember Santa in shorts, a red print shirt and sandals. You’ll probably go out to dinner.
You’ll have a great time.
I’m lucky that I get both the hot and cold holiday traditions. Christmas in Hawaii is all palm trees and Santas with surfboards and aloha shirts, singing Mele Kalikimaka and the 12 Days Hawaiian Style (…and One mynah bird in one papaya tree), and shipping Kona coffee and macadamia nut treats to relatives craving them on the mainland. In recent years, I’ve been in Hawaii for Thanksgiving and all the Christmas prep, then flying back to Alaska to buy *another* tree (or two), *another* round of presents, and do the full-on White Christmas – LOTS of snow, almost no light (HAPPY SOLSTICE!), garland on all the banisters, and lots of sledding and snowman building. Either way, hot or cold, Christmas is about family.
You really do have the best of both worlds. I’d forgotten about the Hawaiian version of the 12 days of Christmas. I’ll have to look up the words. When we lived in Hawaii my children were small and they were convinced that Santa went between the islands in an outrigger canoe pulled by six swimming pigs. At each island the menehune’s help him deliver presents.
And you’re right, Christmas is about family whether it’s warm or cold.
When I was a kid for Hawaiian Christmases, I thought my grandpa was Santa Claus. Bushy white beard, pipe smoke encircling his head, and a knowing twinkle in his eye. Who says he lives in the North Pole, anyway? Santa was in Manoa.
We have gone wholly Mexican food many times. After Thanksgiving, much of my family is tired of turkey, so we will often make enchiladas with Spanish rice and beans along with other fixings. But I could eat turkey and dressing both holidays. I love the stuff! Of course, being from NM, we eat Mexican food almost every day anyway.
Maybe turkey stuffed with Spanish rice and beans?Southwest truducken. To me Spanish rice is yellow rice with saffron. Mexican rice is red with tomatoes and peppers. I like both.
Oh, I’ve never made the distinction! We just call the stuff with tomatoes and chile Spanish rice. LOL. And I like your stuffing idea! haha
Lovely post, Rita,
When I want to get into the Christmas mood there are two things that will always put me right there:
1) Tangerines. You peel one of those lovely juicy clemetines and it’s like opening Christmas. I guess that’s because when I was young girl I always got a tangerine in the toe of my stocking. They were considerably more rare in those bygone years than they are now. But it was so wonderful to peel the tangerine and eat it on Christmas morning. Every time someone peels a tangerine I’m liable to say that it smells like Christmas.
2) Listening to all 4 hours of Handel’s Messiah. And it’s not just the Hallelujah Chorus that puts me in the mood. To be honest, “I know my redeemer liveth” does it to me every time, and that’s ironic because, really, that particular chorale is about the resurrection not the birth of Christ. But no one listens to the Messiah at Easter time, do they? Anyway I always put the Messiah on when I decorate the tree and pretend I can actually sing all the alto parts.
I was told that citrus in the stocking was a sign prosperity and great love especially in the north. My daddy was from central Illinois and insisted an orange or tangerine be in every stocking. Even though they are easy to come by where we lived. It was his tradition. He came from a large family, nine children, and I remember him saying that the thing they looked forward to the most was getting that orange or tangerine.
That’s so interesting! And here I thought I got oranges in my stocking to fill out the toe & heel! LOL
Good night all and Merry Christmas