The Christmas Feast

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Happy Christmas to all our dear readers from all of us at Jungle Red! We hope everyone is having a fabulous day, however you celebrate.

And now, let's talk about what we're eating!

We've never really had a set tradition for Christmas Day dinner, partly because we often went to family. But the last couple of  years we've stayed at home, which I absolutely love. I mean, you have to use the good china at least once or twice a year, right? 

But what to cook? I refuse to do turkey. Too much work and mess and I don't like the Thanksgiving foods well enough to want to do them twice. So last year, I brought home from England Jamie Oliver's Christmas Dinner cookbook. I was so excited! We'd have a proper English dinner! Then my darling daughter insisted that we should have....enchiladas. And I made them. From scratch, including the sauce. Two kinds of enchiladas, as one guest was a vegetarian. By the time I got those pans in the oven, my kitchen looked like I'd murdered someone. I was exhausted, and oh, the mess.

This year, I'm sticking to my guns. A standing rib roast from our local organic butcher, a la Julia Child, with horseradish sauce. 

Jamie's baked mashed potatoes with Red Leicester cheese. Jamie's baked creamed spinach. And Yorkshire puddings! (Jamie's recipe is fab.) We'll have Christmas crackers for everyone (the English pull-apart favors, which contain jokes and toys and silly paper hats.) And for dessert, I'm getting out the trifle bowl I haven't used in years for a proper English trifle, and we're buying Sticky Toffee pudding from Whole Foods.

And the vegetarian guest is now a "former vegetarian", so no worries there.

What's on your table, REDS?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Champagne, and oysters Rockefeller. (If I can get it together to make them. It's a huge pain, but so delicious!) Rack of lamb, and yes, Yorkshire pudding! (Which is so much fun when it works.) Asparagus, maybe, grilled, with Hollandaise. (SUPER easy, from Joy of Cooking.)  Dessert, hum. Got to think about that. Maybe something with lemon curd? Any Ideas?

And really, Debs, I think turkey is easy. It just has a long ramp up time. Rack of lamb? 20 minutes tops.

And now I am starving.

HALLIE EPHRON: Christmas eve is the big dinner chez nous. We get dressed up (like Downton Abbey without the servants). But these days it begins at 5:30 and ends at 6... because we re determined to include the grandbabies before they melt down and must be summarily tossed into the bathtub. A hot bath soothes savage beasties. And before the reading of THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

To drink: Prosecco and sparkly cider. Lobster bisque. I follow an ancient NY Times (Craig Claiborne) recipe that is spectacular and all the lobster meat goes into it. Potato pancakes with... maybe a rib roast? I'll figure that out at the market. Desert will be mandelbrot, a double-cooked cookie that's full of chocolate and pecans and maraschino cherries.

Christmas dinner we share with friends, Pat Kennedy (who's been a guest here on Jungle Red) and her family. Pat's making beef wellington! And I'm bringing baked stuffed potatoes. Food at her house is always yummy.  


DEBS: Hallie, we want the lobster bisque recipe!

INGRID THOFT: We start the day with a breakfast spread that includes baked French toast or cinnamon rolls, fruit salad, bagels and lox, and sometimes pumpkin bread.  Baked stuffed shrimp has often been on the Christmas dinner menu, and I swear, my mom’s is better than any restaurant version!  Beef tenderloin and prime rib have also been featured, and now I’m craving Yorkshire Pudding, which we don’t generally have on Christmas, but it would be a delicious addition.  A Buche de Noel will be the main event at dessert, and there are usually chocolate truffles that are passed around having been sent from relatives or friends.  We’ll wash it all down with wine or sparkling cider, and for those who still have room, a small glass of eggnog.  Let the food coma begin!

RHYS BOWEN: Our day begins with hot mince pies and sausage rolls. Then a full English brunch late morning. Goodies at tea-time and then turkey, roast potatoes, veggies followed by apple crumble, custard, cream, and Christmas pudding for those who like it! There will be 9 of us this year. Oh, and I've a bottle of good champagne waiting too.

DEBS: One bottle, Rhys???
JENN McKINLAY: Mimosas to start with and ooey gooey pastry. Ham. Always, ham, which I love so it's no hardship. Then it's scalloped potatoes or sweet potato casserole, green beans, a green leafy salad, and dinner rolls (popovers preferred). Those are the highlights and dessert is homemade apple pie, a platter of cookies, cheese cake or maybe a pecan pie, depending on the mood of the chef (me).

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Here on the Big Island (I can't tell you how luxe it feels to be typing that!) we're having a simple made-at-home meal before heading out to the beach, also with champagne, like Rhys! A big, big change from our usual Christmas dinner for 25 - 40 guests! For Christmas Eve, however, we went out to eat at the wonderful Ponds restaurant in Hilo, for the traditional Christmas feast of fresh fish and ridiculously good tropical fruits! It was far superior to our usual Christmas eve dinner of takeout Chinese. I will admit to indulging in a gooey dessert. As much as I love prime rib, ham and mashed potatoes, I'm not sorry to pass them by just for once!

LUCY BURDETTE: I feel a little guilty saying this when you all are preparing such fabulous spreads on Christmas day – we are going out to brunch! We will be in between celebrations with two sets of family, and that makes Christmas a breather day. The night before we will have crabcakes and shrimp and Caramel cake, so that’s my big holiday cooking. Except for cookies, we have lots of cookies on hand! Happy Christmas everyone! (as they say on THE CROWN.)

DEBS: I'm sure we all wish we were having what Julia's having, but if you have a moment, please share your feast with us!

Happy Christmas from the Jungle Reds

DEBORAH CROMBIE: No matter what or how you celebrate, we want to take a moment to wish you joy today, and to say how much we appreciate all of our wonderful readers, and the time we are privileged to spend with you, every day of the year.

I'll be spending today (after a big family Christmas Eve get together with Rick’s side of the family) at home with Rick and the kids and granddaughter Wren, and our dear friend Gigi Norwood. We enjoyed our quiet Christmas so much last year that we decided to do it again. We’re making a pork roast that a friend ensures me is fabulous (fingers crossed), roasted Yukon Gold potatoes in duck fat, Jamie Oliver’s creamed spinach and another Jamie recipe for braised red cabbage with apples. We’re cheating on the desserts and going for sticky toffee pudding and a Chantilly Cream cake from Whole Foods. I suspect there will be a bottle or two of Proseco drunk, and some traditional Christmas crackers pulled.

But mostly we will be enjoying friends, family, and the delight of the almost four-year-old’s Christmas.

Now, we would love to know how you’re spending the day!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: We are home, and will make rack of lamb and have champagne and I hope we will be able to take a walk and look at the world and relax a bit. The baby children are in California and Brooklyn, and we have plans with them for later.  I am trying to convince Jonathan to watch The Man Who Invented Christmas-- a wonderful wonderful writers’ movie, highly recommended, but mostly we will just soak up the niceness. Love you all, so much, and all of you are my gifts.
Happy happy holidays!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Home, and hosting the traditional Hugo-Vidal Christmas dinner, this year with 28 guests, one dog, two fires, three tables and four instruments for the after-feasting music.  As a gift to the Smithie (aka The Maine Millennial) we’re having an alcohol-free party this year - she’s celebrating 18 months of sobriety, and we all want to support her.

So grateful to have all three of my children home safe and sound, to have family and friends to share the day with, and to have this wonderful community today and every day! Welcome Yule!

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh all your days sound fabulous! We did most of our big events before Christmas (trip to California, dinner with friends and family, Christmas Eve service (beautiful!), so will have a quiet day on Christmas. It won’t hurt us a bit to have that time to be grateful for all the family and friends in our lives (including you Reds and red readers!) Luckily, we have leftovers of the yellow cake with caramel frosting and some Key West pink shrimp, so we may have that for dinner!

HALLIE EPHRON: Our gala dinner is Christmas eve… and since Christmas and Hanukah overlap we’ll be celebrating both. Lamb chops, as my kids requested. With potato latkes, of course. And mandelbrot cookies and iced gingerbread cookies for desert. We’ll play some holiday music and play games so the kids are truly tired out by the time they get in bed. Christmas day we have the morning together, the disperse--my daughter and her family to her husband’s family, my other daughter and us to have Christmas dinner with friends. Happy holidays, everyone!!

JENN McKINLAY: I’m attempting raspberry macarons, a nod to Paris, this year. I used to host the holiday meal but the past few years I’ve always been on deadline so I’ve been relegated to chief dessert baker. Peppermint bark, macarons, and apple pie. The eve is spent at church  and then we head home to watch A Christmas Carol with Alistair Simm (tradition!). Our mornings are usually quiet and then we’ll go to family for a meal with me bringing dessert. It’s not the chaos it was when the hooligans were little but it’s a joy just the same. Happy Holidays to all who celebrate whatever you celebrate. Peace.

RHYS BOWEN: just returned from carols by candlelight with the family. On Christmas Day it’s a big brunch, hopefully a walk if the weather allows, an English tea then a big turkey dinner with all the trimmings. I wish you all the merriest Christmas ever!

Good King Wenceslas Looked Out...

Since I mentioned we were going to be thirty-four for Christmas Dinner, I thought I'd post some pictures of the morning after!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Today is December 26th. It's the feast day of St. Stephen, Boxing Day in England and Canada, or perhaps you know it as 50% off All Christmas Merchandise Day. By whatever name, it's one of the best days in the whole Christmas season. The presents are already bought, wrapped and unwrapped. If you haven't gotten Christmas cards out yet, you now have a pass until next year. If you hosted Christmas Dinner, like we did, leftovers mean you don't have to cook for another couple of days, and if you didn't, you still likely have enough treats and temptations to graze on. All the work that goes into making Christmas is behind, with nothing but the pleasure of Christmas to look forward to. All right, you do have to bang out those thank-you letters today. But after that...?

For my family, the season between December 25th and Epiphany is a time filled with reading books, playing cutthroat board games, going to the movies and seeing friends. We go swimming at the Y, binge-watch Lord of the Rings and take long walks on snowshoes (this year it'll be with boots. We're having a wet, green Christmas in southern Maine.) We're particularly lucky - because Ross is a teacher, he's off work from before Christmas Day until after New Years. This year, the timing of both holidays means he and Youngest are at home until January 4. Then it'll be Twelfth night on the 5th, time for a second, smaller dinner party with our friends who weren't able to make it for Christmas Day.  

The actual season of Christmas is often lost in the rush of events, pushed aside by retailers and ignored by the 24-hour-a-day Christmas radio stations, who drop "Rockin'  Around the Christmas Tree" well before most people have taken theirs down. It's a shame, because keeping Christmas - the twelve days that brighten the darkest and coldest part of winter - is, in my experience, the best way to enjoy it. It prevents the post-presents hangover and keeps you from feeling like you've spent a month building up a single day and is that really it?

How about you, Reds? Do you keep Christmas after December 25th? What are your pleasures and pursuits between now and the New Year? 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Oh, see, I've solved this. I am SO behind that I will spend the day after Christmas (and Day too, most likely) doing my holiday, er, new years cards. It's not procrastination, or overwork, or tight scheduling, right? It's EXTENDING the season. Plus, the revisions of WHAT YOU SEE are due on Jan 2, and --I have to write a short story. And come up with a brilliant synopsis for another book. Or two.  Rum a pum pum. #needanotherweekortwo


RHYS BOWEN: I have fourteen people sleeping over on Christmas night so I'm anticipating Boxing Day (as we still call it) will start with a huge breakfast. If the weather is nice I hope we'll take a hike or play bocce ball. And like Julia, several board games or charades. This year our new game is Selfies. Someone has to take a selfie and the others have to choose the best caption for it.  And the old favorite is Taboo.

John and I are actually invited to a rather swank party in the evening so we'll leave the kids to fend for themselves. Hopefully lots of leftovers.

HALLIE EPHRON: Between Christmas and New Year is a quiet time for us and especially sweet when either of our daughters are visiting. Julia, I'm coming to your house! 

LUCY BURDETTE: I agree Hallie--Julia's post Christmas weeks sound lovely and relaxing! Alas, I'm almost as behind as Hank so I'll be right back to work. I would go to the post-Christmas decoration sales, but  there isn't much of that in Key West. It's the high season and no one wants to slash prices right now.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Julia, I love the quiet week between Christmas and New Year's. I want to watch all those Christmas movies I didn't get to, listen to Christmas music, and enjoy my tree. All the things I somehow didn't find time for BEFORE. But like everyone else I have load of work, so will sneak in what I can.

Julia, I don't know how you manage 34 for dinner. You will tell us, won't you? (We will assume you're still standing!)

JULIA: Still standing, though you'll notice this conversation didn't make it onto the blog until 9:30 in the morning! We have a large old farmhouse, a really big dining room table, and friends with good quality folding tables and chairs. So: 12 at the dining room table, 6 in the table by the Christmas tree (which gets taken down immediately after eating to clear the space for musicians and singers,) 8 20-somthings in the parlour and six college-and high-school youths at the kitchen table. We serve from the library, in the middle of all three rooms.

A festive time was had by all, as you can see from the pictures...

How about you, dear readers? What are your plans for the Feast of Stephen and beyond?

On Christmas Eve

LUCY BURDETTE: I came across this photo of my first Christmas Eve on this earth, with my mom and big sister, Sue. I don't know what we were singing, but my father was probably playing his accordion and warbling along too. This got me thinking about Christmas traditions and what has been strongly carried along with my current family. The one thing none of us will ever give up is Christmas stockings. We love them, no matter how old we get! (And for me also, it's attending Christmas eve carols and lessons service, though I can't confirm that all of my family does that.)

How about you Reds, holiday traditions?

RHYS BOWEN: We gave up stockings only recently although Daughter Anne and I still exchange. One tradition is mince pies and sausage rolls as we open presents. Another is that the tree gives us another small present in the afternoon.. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Our Christmas Eve traditions: Go to the 5:00 service at St. Luke's (the one with the Christmas Pageant in it!) pick up Chinese take out, and watch DIE HARD at home, all snugged up together in front of the wood stove.There will be a huge missing piece in our Christmas Eve this year, so the children and I are getting away from our house, and snowy Maine - all the way to Hawai'i! Where we will probably...go to the service at the Episcopal church in Hilo, get Chinese takeout, and watch DIE HARD.

Hollywood Christmas

HALLIE EPHRON: Everyone stays here on Christmas eve--two little grandkids, my 2 daughters, my son-in-law. The Night Before Christmas must be read aloud. The radio tuned into Christmas music. A delicious Xmas eve dinner served early before the little ones turn crabby (shhh, I'm making a lobster bisque this week and freezing it) that includes potato latkes and Hanukah cookies (mandelbrot). I know, Hanukah will be over, but so what? 

And Xmas-eve night my daughter and I put together something yummy/yeasty to cook the next morning after presents are opened. Sticky buns in years past. This year we're making jelly donuts. 

Here's a picture of Christmas morning when I was little, a tree so big my dad always had to cut the top off to get it into the house. We trimmed it Christmas eve.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: We are a stocking family, too, and vow never to give it up. And this year we will have a stocking for Wren, such fun! When Kayti was little we read The Night Before Christmas aloud on Christmas Eve, along with A Child's Christmas in Wales. I still try to read both, just for myself.  These days we go to my in-laws for a big Christmas Eve party. (There are five siblings, with sibs' others, sibs' kids, and now sibs' kids' kids, and always some non-family friends.) It's great fun, but I often long for a quiet Christmas Eve in front of the fire, with hot chocolate and a movie or a book.

Stockings with Kayti, 1988

Christmas morning the kids come over as soon as we're all up. We do stockings, then breakfast (with something sticky!) then the tree. We used to go to my aunt's for Christmas dinner but the last few years we decided we really wanted to stay home. However, the quiet Christmas Day has evolved into a proper Christmas dinner for eight to ten people! But I love having family and friends around the table to celebrate.


INGRID THOFT: Christmas Eve includes a delicious meal, new PJs for the grandkids from Nana, reading “The Night Before Christmas,” a viewing of the Grinch, and the stuffing of stockings for both kids and adults.  The last few years, I prepped baked French toast to be popped in the oven on Christmas morning.  This year, I decided to let someone else do the work, so I ordered cinnamon rolls from Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor.  Fingers crossed they taste as good as the French toast.  My photo shows a Thoft tree from years past.  We were more ambitious then, but trimming a smaller tree is definitely a more peaceful process!

Hank's mom, circa 1965

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  When I was little, we had champagne and scrambled eggs. Aw. And oranges in our stockings. (This is my mom, circa, maybe, holidays 1965? And now, I see, we have similar nail polish, and rings, and wear a watch with a bracelet.)  Anyway.  We could open ONE thing on Christmas Eve.  And the whole thing was..odd. Because we're Jewish. But we celebrated everything.  And now Jonathan and I do the same thing.We have rack of lamb one of the days, with a great wine. One of our traditions is this conversation.  Hank: Can we get a tree? Jonathan: We're Jewish. Hank: I know, but still, it'd be fun. Jonathan: If you want a tree, of course we can have a tree. Hank: Okay, I guess it's silly. ::sort of:: 

King George with wind-up toys

JENN MCKINLAY: Stockings! So much fun. We still do those, too, and we always have a wind up toy in it. No idea how this tradition started but I have a collection of windup toys that is unequalled. My picture is our newest kitten, King George, playing with a few years worth of windups. I had to check and make sure i hadn't already given the ones I bought this year. When I was a child and when the Hooligans were little, we always read Twas the Night Before Christmas and left out a plate of cookies and carrots (reindeer get hungry, too). Now that they're older we have a make your own pizza party and watch a Christmas movie together. It's still lovely just  to be together.  

Red readers, what will you be doing today and tonight? Any special Christmas eve traditions?

'Twas the night before... and please tell me we're not still running errands

HALLIE EPHRON: It's the day before Christmas so why am I in a store? I've been to the market a gazillion times in the last week and yet, inevitably, there's something I forgot. It's usually something boring yet essential. Like eggs. Or heavy cream. Or butter.

In our non-religious household we celebrate with a mishmash of traditions on Christmas eve. No tree, though my grandkids will hopefully create paper-and-sequin ornaments for the potted Norfolk Pine that I've nurtured since it was a sprout and now stands four feet tall in the corner of my dining room. Brisket and potato latkes for dinner. Banana cream pie for dessert (a new tradition).

And after dinner, this year trying something new, charades that our 5-year-old Frances Louise can play with the answers children's book titles (Mr. Brown Can Moo, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom...) 
At some point someone will read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and I'll try, unsuccessfully, to get people to listen to "A Child's Christmas in Wales." We'll listen to "The Nutcracker." And... then I'll probably have to send someone to the 7-Eleven for something I forgot to buy for breakfast.

In the morning, there will always be a Christmas card for me, drawn by my husband. Here's one from a few years back...

Do you manage NOT to have to go to the stores at the last minute? And what's your night-before-Christmas tradition?

RHYS BOWEN: Luckily we have a couple of stores that stay open on Christmas day, so if someone knocks over the carton of eggs, we can replace them.

I try to be organized. I have three big soups made, half a ham for emergencies, hopefully enough mince pies and sausage rolls for between meals. Christmas Eve is low key for us. Both daughter Jane and son Dominic are with in-laws, so it's just daughter Anne, newly arrived from LA with her little dog and us. I have to sing with my church choir at 9 p.m. vigil mass, then we may play a competitive game of Boggle or Scrabble before bed.

On Christmas Day Jane's family arrives for brunch. We open gifts, Dominic and Meredith meet us to go on a walk, then it's tea, more presents and a big turkey dinner, after which we play something... reverse charades is a new favorite, but Taboo also fun! This year we are without Clare's family from Phoenix, so it's a manageable number that won't require a second dinner table.

I like to think I'm super organized but one year we were thrown a curve ball when the power went out on Christmas morning. We ended up with Chinese take out at our festive dinner table! Now I think I'm better about rolling with the punches... and sorry, too many metaphors in that sentence! Happy Holidays to everyone.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: What is reverse charades, Rhys? And we are having a very quiet holiday..the kids are all in California, so we will have champagne and beef tenderloin and I will gripe that we never have a tree and Jonathan will say we're Jewish and I will say a tree is a tree. That is our tradition!  And I will try not to open any presents on Christmas Eve. We always tried to get mom to let us when were were kids, and she never would. Now I see why.  And maybe we will go see Vice. (And Hallie, now I am trying figure out how to act out Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.. will there be enough room? LOVE that book!)  

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: My last minute item might BE my tree - as of writing this on Friday, I still don't have one, and there's really no time to get to one of the local lots before Sunday. Check with me in the comments to see if I've got it up by Christmas Eve! Maybe I can claim I'm renewing the 19th century German and Austrian tradition, where the tree is erected and decorated in secret on the night before Christmas and the children first see it in the morning.

Our Christmas eve tradition consists of either Chinese take out or a simple crock pot meal, watching DIE HARD, and attending either the 5pm service (with the Christmas pageant) or the 10pm service (with the Portland Brass Ensemble playing.) Other less-hallowed traditions include everyone asking me where the wrapping supplies are, worrying whether the goose is defrosting fast enough, and staying up much later than I want to in order to... meet Santa when he arrives. In a house full of young adults who stay up later than I do, Santa may arrive very early in the morning instead.

There are always, always last minute ingredients to buy. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be stopping in at the local Hanneford on the way to church. For some reason, no matter how much butter I buy, it's never enough.

LUCY BURDETTE: I think we're having crabcakes and shrimp for Christmas eve--that will definitely be a day-of purchase. Then we ride our bikes to the 7 pm service of lessons and carols. This year I know my friend Erik is singing O Holy Night--he's got a beautiful tenor voice and I am so looking forward to that! Christmas day we are flying to California to see the kids and grandkids. I'm planning nothing because with 2 kids under 3 years old, it would likely all fly out the window anyway!

Wishing you all a wonderful season...

JENN McKINLAY: I am always at the store on Xmas Eve! It’s a curse I can’t seem to break. Probably, because I usually spend the day baking before we go to church and I always forget that one random ingredient. Sometimes it’s molasses for a last minute shoefly pie or whatever crazy idea has leapt into my head. This year, because our family lost a beloved member I have not even bought one present. Hub and I are donning our battle gear as I write! Pray for us - we’re going to the mall (gasp)! 

Happy Holidays, everyone. Peace be with you.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: Fingers crossed I don't have to go to the store on Christmas Eve! I did part of my my food shopping on Saturday and picked up a few more things yesterday. 

For years, we've gone to a big get-together at my in-laws on Christmas Eve, starting at five or six and usually not getting home until close to midnight. This year, the party is starting early, at two, in deference to the little ones. So I am really, really hoping that we may get to enjoy a quiet Christmas Eve at home after that.

My dream Christmas Eve  would be spent watching Love Actually with a cup of hot chocolate in front of the fire, then reading "A Child's Christmas in Wales" last thing before I go to bed.

All this, of course, is assuming I'm not still wrapping!! Or cooking! Wishing you all a wonderful holiday!

HALLIE EPHRON:

What are you day-before traditions? Cooking or Chinese food. Love Actually or Die Hard? Goose (really, Julia?!?) or ham? Wrapping or UNwrapping??

Holiday traditions.

 RHYS BOWEN:  At this time of year I love to read books about the holidays, watch movies about them (Love Actually, White Christmas and The Holiday being favorites) and I’ve also written books set at Christmas time. I think my favorite of those was THE TWELVE CLUES OF CHRISTMAS, set in the quintessential English village with all of the customs of traditions that I loved when I was growing up: the carol singers going around the neighborhood, being invited in for mulled wine and mince pies, the Christmas pudding brought in flaming to the table and containing silver charms that predicted your year ahead (you had to eat very carefully). There were always crackers, the type you pull and go bang, with silly paper hats we all wore, and even sillier riddles and useless gifts in them. We played party games and I loved indoor fireworks. They were pieces of paper you lit on the fireplace. One twisted and turned into a snake. Another had fire racing through it and ending in a small bang. They were harmless enough if Daddy supervised but now they are illegal.

So I put all these traditions into my book, reliving them each time I read my own book again. I’ve tried to keep some in my life here. I make mince pies every year, and sausage rolls. I do buy crackers every Christmas. This year they contain wine up reindeer and we’ll have races. I buy a Christmas pudding although nobody likes it except John and me. But I miss the atmosphere… the carol singing, going out into the crisp night air. When I was in school I was in the madrigal group and we went around the big houses near by school.  Sometimes a maid came to the door and brought us out cookies or mince pies. Sometimes we were invited in. It was always magical to hear our voices hanging in the night air. 

So what family traditions do you try to keep up for your holidays? And who has a favorite Christmas movie they have to watch?

 

LUCY BURDETTE: I love writing books set at Christmas time! The first one I wrote was PREACHING TO THE CORPSE, taking place in my hometown in CT with lots of scenes at our Congregational Church. I could enjoy the holiday church supper, the beautiful lights and music, and more, vicariously. I have to say one of my favorite endings ever was in that book–very Christmas related, but you’ll have to read it!

I’ve also done two Key West Christmas installments, DEATH WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS and THE KEY LIME CRIME. Key West is beautiful and quirky during the holidays, with the hometown parade, lighted boat parade, astonishing decorations, and more. I love sharing those traditions with my readers!

JENN McKINLAY: I’ve written a couple of Christmas mysteries and one romcom (THE CHRISTMAS KEEPER, SUGAR PLUM POISONED, and A MERRY LITTLE MURDER PLOT) and it is fun to write about the holiday, although I’m usually writing it in July - lol. 

My traditions are fluid because we often travel for the holiday, but no matter where we are it’s Christmas Eve service (love the candle lighting and carols), presents Xmas morning, and prime rib for dinner! Pass the horse radish sauce. And, of course, it’s never Christmas until the first box of See’s Candies arrives! 

HALLIE EPHRON: Just realizing that I’ve never put Christmas in one of my books. Not once. 

Jerry and I lit Hanukah candles and sang the blessing and ate brisket and potato latkes and mandlebrot (cookies) for dessert. Ecumenically, on Christmas morning we exchanged gifts. No tree and I hang some kind of greenery on the door. 

No Chrstmas decorations, though I do love having a bright red amaryllis in bloom, but usually I think of it too late. It worked for us. 

We’re surrounded by Christmas celebrants and it’s so much fun to walk the neighborhood and see magnificent decorated trees through the windows and glorious outdoor lighting. Not to mention blow-up Santas and Grinches and reindeer. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys, your Christmas books are so much fun, and the best part is the food! And you just reminded me that I don't think I got crackers for this year and now it is probably too late!

I've written three books that are set around Christmas, AND JUSTICE THERE IS NONE, WATER LIKE A STONE, AND A KILLING OF INNOCENTS, and I think they are among my favorites. I love seeing my characters celebrate Christmas.

We do a tree–so much work, but my favorite tradition. Christmas morning stockings and Santa presents, then Christmas dinner in the afternoon. The fixed thing is NO TURKEY! We usually do a rib roast, but this year I think we're doing pork shoulder, with potatoes and hopefully Yorkshire puddings. I love Jamie Oliver's recipe. I gave up on the steamed pudding, no one else will eat it. And no one else likes mince pies, either, boo!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: My first book, IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER, is set in the Cristmas season, but it’s taken until the latest one, AT MIDNIGHT COMES THE CRY, to really lean into Christmas, as it were - a visit to Santa, a Christmas parade, decorating the tree, etc. (One of my agent’s notes was, “Christmas it up!”) Since I love reading stories set during the holidays in November and December, I’m happy to offer the same experience to my readers.

One of our iron-clad traditions, that may be in the minority now, is having a real tree. I mean, living in the Pine Tree State, how can we not? This year, it’s going up very late - today, in fact - because although we’ll be having a gathering on Christmas Day, our real family celebration will be in mid-January, when Virginia comes home from the Netherlands for two weeks. Spencer and his new girlfriend will be flying up from Norfolk, and of course, Victoria and her new wife will be there as well!

HANK PHILIPPI RYAN: Growing up? We celebrated everything you could get presents for, frankly. We celebrated Hanukkah and one memorable tradition was us kids griping at my mom that she was giving low-key presents on the last day. GUM? We would howl. GUM IS NOT A GIFT! We were terrible kids. :-) 

We had a Christmas tree, too, until Mom decided it was inappropriate. We rebelled, but that’s a whole nother story. We always had standing rib roast and yorkshire pudding, and I can still recall the incredible fragrance.

Now we are truly low-key–the kids are coming whenever they get organized to this weekend–there’s finals week and soccer and so many things to juggle!--and we’ll celebrate the whole kit and kaboodle. Always champagne and delicious goodies, and I am, actually, considering the rib roast!

RHYS: I do love the scent of a real tree, but we moved from it years ago because I like it see it up early and I was always afraid it had dried out by the time Christmas was over. 

And you'll notice I have cleverly highlighted everyone's Christmas books, just in case you need ideas for last minute stocking stuffers!

What traditions do you have in your families?

Christmas Roll Call!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  We hope you are cozy with loved ones today...happy and merry and surrounded by crumpled-up wrapping paper and guzzling champagne. Or whatever makes you happy!

I am here in Boston, where it feels more like March than December. Jonathan and I are unwrapping gifts (though it’s tough to unwrap two yet-to-be-reupholstered armchairs, but we will imagine), and we'll have a lovely brunch. BACON! Then I'll work on revisions for a while. And then--we are going to Star Wars!

How about you? Hallie, in Milton, Massachusetts? 

HALLIE EPHRON: Merry Christmas! We’re home with a houseful. Two daughters, a son-in-law, and an energetic two-year-old who comes tiptoeing into our bedroom to wake us up so her parents get a morning or two to sleep in. We’re going make jelly donuts for Christmas breakfast. Filled with seedless raspberry jam. I’ll let you know how they turn out.

Debs? In Texas.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Home, happily. Daughter and son-in-law over for prezzies and breakfast (Trader Joe's cinnamon rolls,  yum.) Later, our friend Gigi will come over, too, and we are cooking prime rib and Jamie Oliver's Yorkshire puddings. And it's balmy here--it's feels like Florida! We may have our Christmas cocoa on the patio. And then I'll see who I can talk into watching Love Actually:-)

Rhys, in California.

RHYS BOWEN: It's rainy so no going on our usual Christmas hike! We have everyone descending on us later today, so we'll have 9 for dinner tonight and then the other 5 arrive tomorrow. So we're putting off our big Christmas dinner until they all get here on Boxing Day, as we still call it. Tonight a more sophisticated meal with a variation on coq au vin followed by a light dessert of berries in liqueur.  So only three of us for breakfast and one is gluten free and lactose intolerant, so eggs and smoked salmon will have to do.

Wishing everyone a joyous and peaceful day!

Lucy, in Florida.

LUCY BURDETTE: We are at home in Key West, with the kids and their spouses and one brother visiting. I'm making dinner--stuffed shells in homemade (low-sodium) sauce, nice bread, a salad, Christmas cookies, and homemade ice cream I hope! I believe we are having 12 people--yikes!

It's been quite hot here so it doesn't really feel like Christmas. But it will! Merry Christmas Reds and red readers!

Susan, in Brooklyn— who gave us the scoop last night and will check in later today!)

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Right now it's a Christmas battle with Kiddo. "How about four?" he asks, meaning waking us up at four a.m. tomorrow morning.

"How about eight?" we counter. 

"Five?" 

"Six." 

"OK, six. My not waking you up until six will be my Christmas present to you guys."

"And we need coffee first."

"If I let you have coffee first tomorrow, can I open one of the presents tonight?"

END SCENE

HANK: Okay, dear Susan. I remember it well. Let us know how that goes… Now to  Julia, in Maine:

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We've seen what Santa's brought and opened out presents from each other, and now we're bustling around before our guests arrive. Youngest is clearing away presents and writing out placecards, The Boy is setting up folding tables and chairs, the Smithie is laying out the good china and sterling and Ross and I are cooking, cooking, cooking! We're having a small-for-us gathering this year - only 18 guests. After a dinner of roast beef and turkey, our more musical friends will break out their instruments and we'll play and sing.

Yes, Ross and I are, in actuality, Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig. Merry Christmas to you all!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  So how about you, dear Reds? Have you checked the past few days blogs for our winners? And just tell us what you’re up to today—and even simply where you are—and you’ll be entered to win the Hank book of your choice.

We love you all madly!

A Child's Christmas in Canada; a guest blog by C.C. Benison

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: About C.C. Benison, I will say little, except that when I was offered the chance to read the first of his Father Christmas mysteries, I enthused, "The traditional British village cozy has never looked better." After you read his delightful essay, I suspect you'll all be as eager to meet Father Christmas as I was.
 

        When I was a lad – many, many, oh, many years ago – in the days when Canada had but a single television channel, two items were staples of Christmas morning programming: the Queen’s Christmas message and a short film, On the Twelfth Day, featuring a young Edwardian man on a penny-farthing bicycle visiting his lady love at her snow-covered terraced London house and bringing her gifts, starting with a partridge in a pear tree. 

It’s significant that he starts with the partridge in a pear tree – not with twelve drummers drumming as I do in the Father Christmas mystery series – because each time he brings his true love another gift – six geese a’laying, say – he also (to conform to the repeating verses of the Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas”) brings another set of his earlier gifts. 

Thus, by the end of the film, the woman’s home is stuffed with 22 pipers piping, 30 lords a’leaping, 36 ladies dancing, 40 maids a’milking, an appalling number of birds, and not a few cattle, such that the only escape from this mad house is from the roof, by hot-air balloon, conveniently supplied by the young man, whose plan it likely was all along to secure his true love to himself.

Unlike Her Majesty and her Christmas message, On the Twelfth Day – designed by cartoonist Ronald Searle – disappeared from Christmas morning viewing by the Sixties (though it has since reappeared on YouTube:

  But I never quite forgot its madcap energy. Any time the song was sung ever after, the images from the film would slip into my head. 

Skip ahead several decades, and I am in a bookshop devoted to mystery novels, in Winnipeg, where I live, trawling with the shop owners through the computer, admiring all the clever concepts for mystery series, whether letters (A is for Alibi) or numbers (One for the Money) or kings (Bertie and the Seven Bodies) or queens (Death at Buckingham Palace). It is Christmas time. Snow is everywhere. Seasonal music pours from every shop speaker, including one that features gift giving on a grand scale. I am reminded of Ronald Searle’s film. Has anyone framed a mystery series around the carol, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, I ask, presuming the computer to immediately spit out a list? No one had. 

 

And so the holiday that inspired a carol that inspired a film inspired me, and the Father Christmas series was born. The protagonist is Tom Christmas, an Anglican priest living in small village in rural England. He’s a widower, a single father, a reluctant detective, and he suffers more than endorses the droll pairing of his profession and his surname. He – and the villagers, too – are seemingly oblivious to the strange pairing of the crimes in their community and a certain Christmas song. A young woman is found dead in a taiko drum in Twelve Drummers Drumming. A member of a Scottish pipe band dies mysteriously in ElevenPipers Piping. A peer of the realm dies at a stately country home in Ten Lords A-Leaping. And yet, for all this Christmasness, none of these three novels are set at Christmas time. Twelve is set in May, Eleven in January, Ten in August. This may disappoint some potential readers, those who are avid for crime novels set at Yuletide. But I agree with Jerry Herman who wrote a song for his musical Mame called “We Need A Little Christmas”. We need a little Christmas. Not a lot.

*          *          *

Meanwhile, as I noted, above[DW1] , the other staple of Christmas TV has not disappeared. Every December 25 since 1957, the Queen has popped up on television in the U.K. and in some of the other fifteen countries of which is Head of State (including Canada) to do a ten-minute show-and-tell about the year’s significant events, particularly ones that touched her personally, often illustrated with footage of some royal tour or some event in her family’s life – royal wedding and such. It’s one of the few times she speaks publicly without the advice of her government, to whom she is constitutionally beholden, but those of you who live in republics and, until recently (thanks to YouTube, etc.), had no access to this annual television rite, needn’t worry that, unleashed, Elizabeth Windsor goes off on some wacky tangent. Her Majesty, as Paul McCartney’s song says, is a pretty nice girl. Really. And she really doesn’t have a lot to say – certainly anything that’s seriously controversial. But at Christmas, amid the noise and haste and astonishing seasonal vulgarity, what she does say I always find welcomingly refreshing.

 

(Or perhaps it’s just that is she saying it.)

As a very young child, seeing the Queen on television Christmas morning was, to use the hackneyed word of our present day, awesome. But in later youth, mockery trumped wonder. Part of the Christmas dinner hilarity was to lampoon some aspect of her presentation – the cut-glass accent, the wobbly parting smile, the unremarkable views – to vex our old aunties and prove our street-cred as the bright young revolutionaries we thought we were. Well, that got old, we got old, and eventually regard trumped mockery. (And eventually, I wrote of series of crime novels in which the Queen, respectfully portrayed, plays detective.)

  
Today, watching the Queen’s broadcast on Christmas Day is the last ritual link to the Christmases of my childhood. Everything else has moved or changed, come or gone ­– the people, the places, me. Her Majesty’s only contribution to change is that she has visibly aged (to watch successive YouTube videos of her Christmas broadcasts is to watch a sort of film flip-card of the softening and greying human form). Otherwise, she seems to remain at heart ever the same, which I find – however briefly – a source of comfort in a corrosive and uncertain world. This feeling is fundamentally irrational, but irrationality is addictive, powerfully so at this time of year when the northern hemisphere is turned from the clarifying sun and the days are short, dark and cold. Christmas is irrational. Monarchy is irrational. But they are harmless irrationalities, and managing our hopeless human irrationality – separating the harmful from the harmless variants – is every day’s civilizing task for each one of us.

 

But more. What startles me each time the Queen speaks from Buckingham Palace or Sandringham House, Christmas tree lit behind her, is that she, a public figure, a highly placed bureaucrat, if you will, does not offer just the usual anodyne expressions of presidents and prime ministers, the vague references to the “holidays” and “the season.” If you don’t enter a church at this time of year – and in the post-Christian West of the 21^st century you may be among the many who do not – then you’d be hardly aware that Christmas is not a season invented to encourage pathological shopping in the service of buttressing consumer capitalism. Without timidity or hedging, the Queen gets to the point of the holiday/holy day – the birth of Jesus Christ.

 “This is the time of year,” she said last Christmas, “when we remember that God sent His only son to serve, not to be served. He restored love and service to the centre of our lives in the person of Jesus Christ. It is my prayer this Christmas day that His example and teaching will continue to bring people together to give the best of themselves in the service of others.”

This public expression feels almost like an act of nerve. Granted, she is the Head of the Church of England and you might think it part of her job description. But her position in life is secular and her expression of faith is, I’m sure, genuine – and touching because it is. Elizabeth doesn’t do “fake”. She’s not actressy. Her simple message is refreshing in a world of jockeying, elbowing politicians and public figures who stick their fingers in the air to see which way the wind blows before they say anything. Long may she reign.

A further memory of monarchial messages: My maternal grandmother, widowed on the eve of the great Depression with four young daughters, kept these words in a frame by her bedside all the years that I knew her:

 

I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied, “Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be better than light, and safer than a known way.

 

They’re from another Christmas broadcast, this one given on radio, by the Queen’s father, George VI, on December 25, 1939, as the citizens of the British Empire faced another world war.

In closing, as a certain monarch would say today, I wish you all a very happy Christmas.

And as a certain monarch wouldn’t say (but I rather wish she would!), Ten Lords A-Leaping is in shops now. I hope you enjoy it.

 

---

 [DW1]Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl, but she hasn’t got a lot to say.

Except, perhaps (and despite Paul McCartney’s lyric, above), at Christmas.


You can find out more about C.C. Benison, and read excerpts from the Father Christmas series, at his website.