Rural Routes, Blog Version

At the home I lived in for thirty-seven years, I had a seven foot Christmas tree. It took up a great deal of space in my living room and I had to stand on a chair to place the angel on top.

The tree came in three parts and the lights had to be connected properly to shine. I didn’t mind that because there was a mathematical precision to the process of connecting cords in the right way. It was like a puzzle that I got to solve every year. And it was certainly an improvement over the old days when you had to string the lights yourself and one malfunctioning bulb was enough to shut down the entire string.

Now we have a smaller living room and we sold the big tree at a summer yard sale. I bought a smaller tree, one with multi-coloured LED lights. It came in two parts and, wonder of wonders, everything lit up when I plugged it in. No connections needed. How does it do that, I wondered.

I had weeded out my Christmas ornament collection this past summer. Even so, this little tree can only handle about one-third of the ornaments I loved too much to part with. I shall have to rotate them year to year.

I miss my tall tree. I miss the way it took over the living room, becoming the focal point of all gazes. It will take time for this smaller, less majestic tree to grow on me.

In my experience, many things gain value with time.

VINARTERTA

“Mom, you have a recipe for vinarterta, right?”

Indeed, I do. The layered cake with prune filling is a Christmas staple in my extended family.

I do find it interesting that for Western Icelanders, as the descendents of those who came to North America more than a century ago are called, vinarterta is a defining cultural motif. In Iceland itself, not so much. When I travelled to Iceland in 2014, our hosts served us vinarterta made with raspberry jam. It was not the same.

But back to my twenty-something son, who wanted to bake and take the cake to a Christmas gathering where the focus was on ethnic festive foods.

My son had never baked a cake before. And making vinarterta, while perhaps not the most difficult culinary art, is a fiddly, time-consuming process.

“Tell you what,” I said. “Come here and we’ll have a vinarterta making party.”

I issued instructions and he followed them. The result looked good and he tells us it was a hit at the party.

He promised us the leftovers, but we have yet to see them.

CHRISTMAS CAT

Iceland’s Christmas Cat is a ferocious looking creature. Legend has it that it eats little boys and girls who do not get new clothes for Christmas. A kinder version is that it eats their Christmas dinner. Living up to the cat’s standards must have been difficult for families living in poverty; new clothes can be expensive.

In my own family, we always had new outfits for Christmas. We wore them Christmas Eve when we went to our maternal grandparents’ house. The Christmas cat was never mentioned, but now I cannot help wondering if the tradition had something to do with that darned cat.

My husband, in an irreverent moment, once stationed the Christmas Cat beside the shepherds in our Nativity scene. A mix of folklore and Christian tradition, I suppose.

CHRISTMAS CACTUS

Moving in the early winter can be hard on plants. All of mine have suffered.

The Christmas cactus had one lonely bud at the time of the move. That bud dropped onto the floor several days later.

But now I see I have three buds coming and, with any luck, they’ll burst into flower Christmas Week. My cactus has never bloomed at Christmas before. Usually it bursts into furious bloom the month before. I have even seen it bloom a second time a month after the holiday.

I shall take these three buds as a promise that there will be more to come.

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