It's Almost Christmas, Friday Five!

After RevHRod's internal debate about this week's Friday Five (Serious! Playful! Theological! Fun!), we land on the playful side. Which is great, in my opinion, largely because I have very little time to play from now until the big Advent-Christmas Triduum coming our way. So, here goes...


1. What was one of your favorite childhood gifts that you gave?

When I was a kid, our elementary school offered "Kris Kringle," which was a gift fair for kids to purchase parents' gifts. Everything was probably $5.00 or under. At one of those, I bought my mom a recipe card holder: a dowel, about 7 inches tall, stuck in a plaster-of-paris cup, with a clothespin (the kind with a metal hinge) stuck on the top. It was painted like a giraffe. My mom still has it and uses it all the time.

2. What is one of your favorite Christmas recipes? Bonus points if you share the recipe with us.

Oh, I have many. Many, many, many. Mostly cookies. Two favorites are peparkakor (a Swedish ginger cookie) and Parisian wafers (nicknamed "Bastard Cookies" because they're so much damn work). Plus the traditional family recipe for Swedish meatballs. I'll post those separately above.

3. What is a tradition that your family can't do without? (And by family, I mean family of origin, family of adulthood, or that bunch of cool people that just feel like family.)

Okay, this is strange. But true. My mom's family is Swedish, so most of our traditions are Swedish. Growing up, we always had a Yule Tomten in the house: a Swedish elf who watches over you during Advent and keeps track of your good/bad behavior. (As an aside, we never really discussed the details of how this related to Santa. Perhaps the Yule Tomten reported directly to him. Not sure.)

If you were good, the Yule Tomten brought you gifts. And for years, that's all we knew of the story. When we were teenagers, my mom confessed the darker side: the Swedish tradition is, if you are NOT good, the Tomten will BURN DOWN YOUR BARN. Yikes. I mean, we didn't have a barn, but still. So my brothers and I nicknamed him Pyro Tomten, and we cannot have Christmas without him. Each of us, grown up now, has our own Pyro Tomten in our homes. So far the barns are safe.

4. Pastors and other church folk often have very strange traditions dictated by the "work" of the holidays. What happens at your place?

The main dilemma is how to eat dinner: not enough time between the 4pm and 7pm services; pretty late if you eat between the 7pm and 11pm services (Christmas Eve). When I was single, my colleague's wife would go to Wendy's and bring us fast food and we would eat that as our Christmas feast at about 8:30pm in the church fellowship hall. It's a fond memory. Now, my husband and I try to go out for dinner at about that time, though it's hard to find open restaurants. It makes for a fun adventure, though.

5. If you could just ditch all the traditions and do something unexpected... what would it be?

For one, I would totally ditch the Christmas Day service. By that time - especially this year, with the three days in a row - I'm exhausted. Other than that, there aren't many traditions I would ditch. Most of them are very dear to me.

Okay, the lutefisk. I would ditch the lutefisk. And never look back.