Counting Down to the Holidays

A cold day here by the sea but Winter begins on the 21st.
 .

Hello and welcome once again to Toni Taddeo's Tuesday 4 where we hope that 4 questions help you to blog, meet people and think about things in general.     Sometimes the simplest questions can be a bit difficult to answer. 

 Christmas is celebrated all over the world. 

Let's talk about the countdown to Christmas .

1. What was the countdown to the holidays like for you as a child?  Special projects at school.. at home.. with friends?     Do you use an advent calendar?  In school we made paper chains from colorful craft paper.

2. As a kid did  your family stay home on the holidays or go visiting around ... what do you do now?   At first holidays were at my paternal grandparents home with all the aunts, uncles, other grandparents and cousins and etc.   Later my mother took over and everyone came to us.  Now, everyone comes to me for holidays.

3. What foods did Mom and Grandma make for those  days?   What snacks were out?   What is the food situation in your home today? My mother always made Russian Tea Cakes or Snowballs. Beef Wellington was for dinner. Snacks were malted milk balls, Chocolate covered cherries and Petit Fours.

4.  What is Christmas dinner for you and yours? Goose? Turkey? English Roast Beef?   Only one year was a huge goose but his entire tribe appeared on the porch in protest so no one could eat it!!

 .   Dessert will be a Buche de Noelle and/or a German Black Forest Cake and chocolate sacks with mousse inside.  (Paint waxed paper lunch bags with melted chocolate.. refrigerate.  Gently peel off the sack.... Fill part of the way with chocolate mousse and whipped cream. Top with nuts and cherries. Refrigerate until dinner. These will be dessert.

 Dinner will be Beef Stroganoff with potato panckes OR German beef sausage in Sauerkraut and Caraway seed served with  Latkes (Potato Pancake), Jelly donuts, chocolate mousse served in chocolate sacks, loaded with mousse and whipped cream, German Chocolate Cake.   Christmas punch... (1 litter fruit flavored  soda like orange or raspberry, 1 litter of  Champagne or ginger ale or 7UP, and  1 quart of   sherbet in a  punch bowl. Match the sherbet to the soda.  .  Just let the sherbet block float in the  liquid.  It will melt and fizz up a bit.   It's very refreshing and delicious.

We begin with appetizers.. homemade Chinese egg rolls,  and my friends wonderful spinach puffs. She also always makes a peppery soup the kids love.

Cookies will be Snowballs and Snickerdoodles.