Advent 4
Hello Blog Friends!
And so we have arrived at the final week of Advent, with the Feast of Christmas now only 4 days away.
It has been a full week around here. The last session of the Advent Study Program will take place tomorrow afternoon and, midweek, I sent around the notes from the Advent 3 episode. This year’s program continues to be very special and I will be truly sorry to see it end. Even though it has required quite a lot of extra time and energy, it has all been totally worthwhile!
Some hours have also been spent reading and editing the manual content relative to the youngest children who attend Day Camps. Sharon has done a super job, with lots of creativity and most of the editing was just persnickety things like the use of a lower case “c” for the word “campers”(this word appears in nearly every sentence of the text!) or the use of “s” instead of “z” in words like “Baptise”. The content for the sections involving our beloved Lamb (puppet) has also been sent in and yesterday I was able to check that over, so the 2025 Manual is really starting to take shape. Sadly, still only one Application form has been filled out but, once the Christmas Season is over, I shall start intensive badgering.
There have also being some regular “office” tasks. One morning I had a long conversation with CTM’s insurance broker that has, hopefully, resulted in shaving a bit of cost off our premium. The invoice has been sent on to our treasurer, as he has the final say in financial matters.
Wednesday, outside of office hours, Jessica came for a visit and we had “brinner”- chocolate chip bread pudding, bacon, fresh pineapple & banana slices and Chai. At other times various friends have also been stopping by to exchange gifts and as the outgoing contents of my gift basket diminish the space is being filled with some incoming packages!
The best gift arrived Thursday evening in the shape of my Christmas Tree!!! Regular blog readers may remember that, last year, I was unable to deal with a tree as I had recently injured my knee so I was doubly excited, yesterday, to unpack the boxes of ornaments and decorate it. My family has never had lights on our tree, although we used to sometimes string popcorn and cranberries for it, but the latter are too precious these days to waste in that way. Some of my ornaments are almost 100 years old and there is even one made by my great grandmother. It is a real joy to see them on the tree again!
We did have some more snow last night but it did not take too long to shovel this morning, after which preparations for the Saturday Bake moved into full swing. I did “cheat” and baked my Caramel Popcorn yesterday afternoon as I planned to bake later in the day today since I’m making Yorkshire Pudding for my own dinner and really did not relish having to eat it a noon!! Also the popcorn takes an hour in a very low oven, which is not conducive baking several things at once, as is my usual practice.
Today the list includes- Several “Christmassy” items- Angel Biscuits (always eaten with fish chowder on Christmas Eve), Oatmeal Muffins (part of lunch on Christmas Day) and Soft Pretzels (a Christmas Season staple), then, of course the Yorkshire Pudding for tonight’s supper.
I hope to stall publishing this post to add a few more photos, but we will see how things unfold.
It is about ten years since a caramel popcorn recipe was included on the blog, so let’s finish off with that! I have tweaked it a bit since then, do give it a try!
Caramel Corn
- 20 cups freshly air popped corn (1 cup kernels)
- 1 cup each dark brown and raw cane sugar
- 1 cup butter
- ½ cup maple syrup
- a pinch of salt
- 1 tsp. baking soda
Place the freshly popped corn in two well greased roasting pans. Combine the sugars, butter, syrup and salt in a large heavy bottomed saucepan. Stir well and bring to the boil. Allow to boil for 5 minutes without stirring. Remove from heat and stir in the soda, the mixture will foam up. Immediately pour the hot caramel evenly over the two pans of popcorn. Fold in the caramel with a wide spatula. Place the pans in a preheated 200˚F oven and bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove to racks and stir periodically as it cools to break up the large clumps. Store in a large tin. Keeps for 2 weeks. (if it isn’t all eaten in the first 5 minutes!!)