Hello Blog Friends!
Here we are at “Little Christmas Eve”. In many parts of Europe, especially Scandinavia, December 23rdis known as Little Christmas Eve and special traditions are observed. In our household, we always shared a special meal, often Norwegian Meatballs, a favourite at Christmas time!
The past work-week has been pretty much “business as usual”, although, at this season, there is no point in sending messages to church offices as most clergy and church secretaries are totally swamped in the days before a major festival.
Early in the week I sent around the follow up email to everyone who attended last Sunday’s study program, reminding them to send in photos of their creative responses, made during each session. I have been using mine as a backdrop to the Crèche display in my living room and they are good reminders of this Advent’s study time.. By Wednesday, I had created a Power Point for the final, (Advent 4 aka Christmas Eve 😊) session tomorrow. I am 99% sure it will be just myself participating but I’ll still log on at 4pm, in case even one other alumnus decides to join. This study will be utilising the Sacred Reading Practice of Floralegia and applying it to Luke 2:8-18, the passage in which the Angels appear to the shepherds.
Tuesday I was pleasantly surprised to receive the Scrambler & Climber Small Groups and the Scrambler Afternoon Program sections of the 2024 Program Manual. It is rare that any of our contributors manage to adhere to the December 31st deadline and I really enjoyed reading through the content, making notes of any small changes that will be needed, and generally immersing myself in next year’s program.
All that work sent me off on a tangent, scrolling through all the contacts to build a list of potential communities to which we can start sending Day Camp info. An email did go out in October, after the 2024 Application form first went up on the CTM website and periodically I do check the “Responses” page in Google Drive, but so far no communities have applied thus as soon as January rolls around a fresh round of intensive badgering will begin 😊.
In between the deep dives into the future, I am waiting for an answer from the person I approached as speaker for the next online Team Gathering. Notices for that will need to start going out very soon as will the promo info for Season 7 of the Day Camps Cook-Along. The DC committee has not yet settled on a Theme for those sessions and it may be necessary to do that via email as our next meeting is not until January 10th. The Cook-Along is scheduled to kick-off in mid-February so potential chefs will need to be approached very soon. Of course I do realise that it will be necessary to wait until after January 1st to begin that task, as almost everyone takes the week between Christmas and New Year to hibernate and avoid contact with the outside world 😊.
When not immersed in the world of Day Camps, I have been finishing up a few Christmas gifts, including a rather sweet mouse who I hope will please a certain baby girl of whom I am extremely fond 😊. Wednesday afternoon my solitude was happily interrupted by a short visit from Jessica. We were not able to share our monthly dinner/Netflix viewing evening as she has been quite ill with bronchitis and I’m still not quite up to late nights so we settled on a Mini High Tea together, which was just right!
Today I have a quite small Bake list- Angel Biscuits, Dog Biscuits and Dutch Rusks (there seems to be a “biscuit” theme going on here 😊) and as the Angel Biscuit dough is now risen and ready to pop in the oven, I had better wrap up this second-to-last post of 2023!
For this week’s “Christmas Season” recipe I’m sharing these tasty meat patties that are always part of a Scandinavian Christmas dinner and I plan to make some for my Little Christmas Eve supper tonight. Lacking the traditional accompaniment of lingonberry sauce, cranberry sauce makes a fine substitute 😊.
Beef Lindström
- 1 lb. ground beef
- 1 Tbsp. capers
- 1 Tbsp. tomato ketchup
- 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
- salt and pepper
- Butter for frying
- For the quick Pickled Beets:-
- 2 Tbsps. butter
- 2/3 cup raw diced beets
- 2/3 cup finely chopped onion
- 2 Tbsps. cider vinegar
- 1 Tbsp. sugar
- 1 tsp. coarse salt
Start by pickling the beets:- Melt the butter in a skillet and fry the beets and onion for 5 minutes. Add all the other ingredients and reduce the liquid over high heat, until syrupy. Set aside to cool.
Place all the Lindström ingredients in a bowl and mix together with your hands. Form into 4 patties. Sauté for approx..4mins. on each side, until browned on the outside but still pink in the middle. Serve with the pickled beets, home-fried potatoes and cranberry sauce. Yum!