{bits & pieces}
The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
(This will all look and work better if you click on the actual post and do not remain on the main page.)
Getting closer…
There was a rare tandem foray to the pharmacy earlier this week, the Chief and I; as I waited for him to get his prescription filled, I noticed that they had some giant nutcracker soldiers on clearance.
Sore temptation!
But I resisted… valiantly… maybe I could go back when they were 75% off but what if someone snagged them first? But do I really need giant nutcrackers??
I was telling them in the car on the way home from Mass, and they definitely had a skeptical look. What on earth would anyone do with a 2 ft. nutcracker guy??
But later that day, who should come home with it under his arm… what a great guy!
I am unreasonably happy about this!
My friend Shyla says that this is how collections start… one purchase at the drugstore after another… I don’t consider myself a nutcracker collector, but, well, I love him (and the other three on the mantel) so that’s that.
In other thrifting news, in the summer I was at an estate sale and found this little cloth for $2 (and the small blue-and-white cake stand at Marshalls, who could resist):
The table is staging ground for a few straggling cards awaiting their addresses, dried oranges ready to string, and a centerpiece that needs sprucing up, like literal bits of spruce to fill it out! Or maybe holly…
Little by little!
If you too have a marble mantel that is also curved, or some other difficult stocking-hanging challenge, you might be interested in this solution.
I had gotten a bunch of those metal stocking-hanging-brackets on deep clearance one year, but they really don’t work when deployed individually. They pop off and everything falls to the floor, dragging mantel decor with it.
I got the idea to find a long sturdy branch (pear-tree pruning! I keep it in the attic with the decorations because it’s really perfect) and use the brackets to hang that.
The rings are actually shower-curtain rings that are dark and elegant enough to work here — they open, which is important, because you don’t want to have to take off each and every stocking to rearrange or access your goodies. But they close in a convincing way.
Under the birdies and dried moss and burlap are a couple of pieces of duct tape, keeping everything stable.
On to our links!
Just before Advent started, I gave a talk at St. Catherine’s in Great Falls, VA. Some asked if it was recorded; it wasn’t, but I wrote it out, and it was published this past week in Crisis: The Home: Cradle of Order and Wonder.
Two Advent motets for you (it’s still Advent! Light that last candle tomorrow!):
We sang this one, Rejoice in the Lord Alway, last Sunday (a bit faster):
When I was a girl, I was totally oppressed by the piano exercises of Zoltán Kodály. I have an almost visceral reaction to his name, and it’s not a good one! But all is forgiven with this setting of Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, which we sing tomorrow:
Fr. Dwight Longernecker with some interesting points about the shepherds who heard the angels’ message in Bethlehem. (To be enlarged upon by these reflections of the infancy of Our Lord by Pope Benedict and this book, Salvation is from the Jews, by Roy Shoeman. These are affiliate links.)
Samuel Gregg on what Edmund Burke’s affirmation of natural law suggests to conservatives today.
In my opinion, a secondary school’s curriculum should include an introduction to Euclid’s Elements as its defining study. This is a problem for boot-strapping homeschoolers: who is going to teach this? I am hoping that my skeptical friend Mark Langley will chime in on this beautiful online interactive reproduction of a 19th-century edition of the first six books of the Elements. Will it help? I know we really need an actual teacher, but what if we are exiled where we can’t find one?
A review of A Year with Fr. Rutler, charming in itself.
A thoughtful meditation on the wisdom of the East, by Thomas More College president William Fahey, to bookmark as we round towards Epiphany.
Here are the cookies I’m currently making:
These Springerle, the recipe recommended by our friend Alice (who used to be Sukie’s roommate in college! You can subscribe to her scholarly reflections on liturgical matters through a medieval lens here). I do like it better than the recipe I’d used before. I have added a little bit of anise oil as well as the seed, and a little lemon oil as well. We find these cookies pretty addictive!
This shortbread, which I have not yet attempted to roll out/press in my molds. I made the gingerbread version but also added a bit of cocoa because why not.
And I have some babka rising (this year I doubled the recipe — it freezes beautifully so seems like the thing to do).
Habou has several doughs stashed away — I’ll have to ask her what kinds; and Bridget made our favorite sugar cookie dough, which we rolled out with the grandchildren/niece/nephews yesterday. I hope I have a chance to post some baking on Instagram!
From the archives:
In this post I talk about the O Antiphons and incorporating them into your family devotions (and writing curriculum). Maybe your children would like something beautiful to copy or color in this weekend while the cookies are baking? The resources for this are from the wonderful Jennifer Gregory Miller, who has worked over many years to collect so much of Catholic tradition for family richness.
If you scroll waaaay down in this post, you will find links to our family favorites in the Christmas cookie department.
And here’s where I chronicled making the babkas using three recipes.
Today we pray the 6th O Antiphon:
O King of all the nations, the only joy of every human heart;
O Keystone of the mighty arch of man:
Come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust.
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