Yuletide!

"WINTER GIFT" by Julia Helen Jeffrey
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I am the Christmas Spirit
That comes with the end of December:
A winter solstice spell, perhaps,
When people forget to remember –
The drab realities of fact,
The cherished hurt of ancient wrongs,
The lonely comfort of being deaf
To human sighs and angel’s songs.
Suddenly, they lose their minds
To heart’s demands and beauty’s grace;
And deeds extravagant with love
Give glory to the common place.

--Anthony F. Perrino

A Light Will Shine

So here's the story of the day ~ at bottom, the true meaning of the holiday season and of the rebirth of light in a darkened world. Merry Christmas to all, and may God bless us, every single one.

From Boston.com
17 year old boy drives to a stranger's house every night to carry their son with cerebral palsy up the stairs to his bedroom because the parents can't.

A Tree With Lights

Today the weather here is rather serious, it demands our full attention. The temperature is hovering around 17 degrees Fahrenheit, we have 6+ inches of new snow on the ground and it is falling fast. It looks like a Dr. Pepper snow shovelin' - "shovel at 10, 2 and 4" kind of day. The excited young weatherman on the TV says temps will keep going down and wind speed and snow totals will keep going up over the coming couple of days. No school and no unnecessary driving propels us deep within, our homes if not our souls.

I spent some quality time this morning next to our Christmas tree, a fresh-smelling, "you-cut" cedar-ey thing (can't remember the exact kind) decked within an inch of toppling over with many-colored lights and sparkly glass globes. It sits in the corner of our living room like a martyred saint, like a young-tree Bodhisattva of peace, kindness, forgiveness, goodwill to all mankind and deep illuminations. It is a symbol of the Tree of Life, redeemed and reclaimed by The Numinous, with it's fruits no longer forbidden, Christ's life having healed the rift.

One of my all time favorite books (which I haven''t read in 20 years - memo to self, re-read it!) is Annie Dillard's Pilgrim At Tinker Creek. If you've never read it, get yourself a copy on the double. It is a wise and wonderful set of musings on nature, God and the examined life. She describes her experience of a tree with lights:

When the doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw "the tree with the lights in it." It was for this tree I searched through the peach orchards of summer, in the forests of fall and down winter and spring for years. Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The lights of the fire abated, but I'm still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells unflamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had my whole life been a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck. I have since only rarely seen the tree with the lights in it. The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam.
--Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974).

Happy holidays from The Rosemary Tree. Peace.

~ Deborah

Frozen Tundra Blues

Safely ensconced in my warm house I am busy with cooking and visiting the relatives. I hope all our readers are safe from inclement weather, which is definitely upon us no matter where we are in the States. For example, the high here in southeastern Nebraska today is forecast to be 2 degrees Fahrenheit, with a stiff breeze making it feel much colder than that. Brr.

Wishing you all much joy and peace in these last few days of Advent. And don't forget the "reason for the season".

Recipe Party!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the Yost household. Dan and Toni made Yule log cookies on Sunday and man oh man are they good. My mostly successful efforts to dodge sweets have softened (until after New Year's anyhow) into feeble efforts to eat minimal amounts of sweets. Try these on for a delicious holiday treat:

Yule Log Cookies
Yield: 28 servings
1/2 c Brown sugar, packed
3 tb Butter or margarine; -softened
3 tb Frozen egg substitute; -thawed Or 1 egg white
1 c All-purpose flour
1/2 ts Baking powder
1/2 ts Ground cardamom
1/4 ts Baking soda
1/4 ts Ground cinnamon
1/4 ts Ground cloves
1/4 ts Ground allspice
1/4 ts Ground nutmeg
Red and green decorator -icing
Recipe by: Fast & Healthy Magazine, Nov/Dec 1994
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a medium bowl, beat the brown sugar and margarine until blended. Add the egg product; beat until well blended. Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and spices; mix well. Divide the dough in half. On a lightly floured surface, roll each half of dough with your hands to make two 10 1/2-inch logs; flatten slightly to 1 1/4 inches in diameter. With a spatula, place the logs 2 to 3 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Dip a non-serrated knife in water; score each log diagonally at 3/4-inch intervals. Bake for 11 to 13 minutes, or until set and no longer moist. Cool for 1 minute. Remove from the cookie sheet; place on a wire rack. Cool for 5 minutes. With a serrated knife, cut the logs at the scored lines. Cool completely. Decorate each cookie with decorator icing to resemble a holly leaf and berries. ~ Penny Halsey
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Pursuing the Goal of Perfect Giving

The entire day thus far has been spent in shopping for some small gifts and for the perfect wrapping paper, glittery stickers, USPS-approved strapping tape, bubble-wrap, plain brown paper for the outside of the packages and adorable little boxes festooned with appropriate Christmas decor ~ all to wrap suitably the delicious homemade fudge, both chocolate and vanilla, with which assorted cousins, aunties, in-laws and out-laws will be regaled(out-laws being those one is related, by birth or marriage, to who one may be on the outs with but still gift at Our Lord's birth because they are Family).

The practice of gift-giving at the Christmas holidays is said to be in imitation of the Three Kings who came to the stable in Bethlehem bearing gold, frankincense and myrrh for the newborn King, but I like to think of it as being a form of self denial, shopping for and making for others, then making the gift beautiful, swathing it in warm colored paper & tying it up with a bow.

He Who made man also redeemed him by the utterly perfect gift on the Cross, and still does today by the resurrected love which is offered to transform each and every one of us every time we take holy communion. As we pursue the goal of conforming our lives to Christ's and His Blessed Mother's, at this time of year we get a glimmer that they are lives of perfect giving. As we hand each other material gifts this holiday season, let us remember to give ourselves also, in perfect love.

Saint Nicholas
art credit: julius kronberg
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The Reason For the Season

Christmas Day 2008 is nearly upon us, and at Midnight Masses across the country, Catholics will soon sing "Joy to the world / the Lord is come!" In Eastern Rite Catholic churches, the refrain is a little different, and yet still the same: "Christ is born! Glorify Him!"

Our Advent wait is nearly over; Christ is to be born in Bethlehem. God's plan of salvation rests on this tiny Child, who contains the whole of the Godhead in His wondrous human Body. As we celebrate His Birth, we remember that we still await His Second Birth. In that sense, our Advent continues after Christmas, though it is an Advent filled with joy, as we strive every day to model our lives on Him, and on Our Lady, with the help of His grace.

Throughout the Divine Liturgy for the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord in the Byzantine Catholic Church, the people sing:

God is with us! God is with us!
Understand all ye nations
And submit yourselves to Him
For God is with us!

That is our Advent & Christmas hope.

~ Deborah Yost
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