Each November, moments after the Thanksgiving leftovers are stuffed into the refrigerator and the autumnal-themed decorations are taken down, I begin to feel the magic of the Christmas season.  The woodsy fragrance of evergreens, the crisp, cold air of December and the red and green brushstrokes of the coming holiday season fill me with a heightened sense of excitement.  This has always been a cozy time of year for me.  A time where twinkling lights, flickering candles and the glow of burning embers never fail to conjure up warm memories of all the past holiday traditions that have brought me a sense of comfort and belonging ever since I was a little girl.

Brussat sisters at Christmas in Janesville (L-R; Nancy, Joan, Karen)

Before I was married, I spent every Christmas with my mom, dad and two sisters in my hometown of Janesville, a small town in southeastern Wisconsin.  Once married, my husband and I took turns celebrating the holidays with our families – each year spending Christmas Eve with one family, then Christmas Day with the other – and to make everyone happy we would reverse the schedules the following year.  Since our hometowns were only a couple hours apart, the drive on Christmas morning was never a burden and probably added to the sense of anticipation for our young children.

Once our son Robby was four and daughter Candace was one, we decided it was finally time to have Christmas in our own home and to establish our own holiday traditions.  Though I wanted to keep much of what made my childhood Christmas’ special, I also wanted to create new rituals – ones I hoped would be meaningful enough to pass along to my children.  After weeks of pondering, I came up with lots of ideas for the whole holiday season, specifically detailing every moment on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Robby and Candace, 1971

The centerpiece of my holiday season has always been cooking.  To me food is not just something to be enjoyed and savored, but it is an outlet for my own creativity and a way to connect people.  It is my identity and my family history.  As the holidays approach – even before Christmas day arrives – I can smell the fragrance of my mom’s turkey roasting in the oven.  I can picture my father carving it, carefully placing the legs, thighs and tender slices of breast meat on the large gleaming white platter reserved exclusively for holiday dinners.  I see my mother – apron tied neatly at her back – stirring onions and celery in melted butter.  She is finishing what is still to this day my favorite holiday side dish: traditional bread stuffing (or dressing as we called it since we never used it to stuff the turkey).  She pulls it from the oven – browned and crispy, smelling of earthy, herbaceous sage – and I can hardly wait to enjoy what to me represents the very essence of holiday comfort food.  Smothered in rich brown gravy alongside a mound of buttery mashed potatoes, I could have been happy eating just those two side dishes as my entire Christmas dinner.

Nancy and Karen

Year after year I revisit these same kitchen scenes, though now the memories of my mother and father are intertwined with other family members and friends who have since contributed to my reel of heartening and singular Christmas memories.  As the years pass, I have come to realize just how much these meals connect us.  And though the food itself never fails to bring joy, it is those moments before and after the eating – the endless preparation, the over-crowded kitchen, the digging out of the “special” china, the epic dish-washing sessions – that live as vividly as anything in my mind.  They have become a part of our family lore.

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Beginning right after Thanksgiving, I would spend hour after hour thinking about these holiday meals: combining ingredients, imagining tastes and visualizing the final dish plated on one of the eclectic china and pottery pieces from my collection.  Planning is in my DNA, and I enjoy it almost as much as I do the execution.  It allows me to pull all sorts of disparate details together and arrange them into a highly personal design.  And with such a grand and important holiday like Christmas, my ideas were limitless.  Of course, my menu would always include dishes that everyone asks for again and again – classics like the bread stuffing and mashed potatoes with gravy – but I always wanted to add something new to the holiday menu that was reflective of my own style and creative evolution.

To this day, memories of that first Christmas when I was “in charge” make me dizzy.  From Christmas Eve to midnight on Christmas Day there was not a minute where we were not engaged in cooking, eating, munching or some other festive activity revolving around food.

It all began Christmas Eve with a soup and salad meal I called my “Early Supper”.  I served potato soup using a recipe from a friend who claimed it was the same one Louis Szathmary served at his famous restaurant The Bakery, one of Chicago’s most popular restaurants from 1963 to 1989.  Whatever its origin, it was delicious.  A baby spinach salad with a lovely warm bacon dressing and slices of crusty country bread accompanied.  Very cozy food.  Very satisfying.   A nice beginning to the evening I thought.  Filling enough – but not too heavy.  Time was of the essence, however, since this meal was only the beginning of a long night full of other activities.

© rob warner photography 2021

Potato Soup
8 servings

Ingredients
¼ cup olive oil
6 cups peeled, cubed (1 inch) potatoes
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 quart (4 cups) chicken stock
1 ½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon pepper
1 bay leaf
3 ½ cups heavy crem
¼ cups flour

Garnish
sour cream
chopped chives

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add the onions and saute for 1 minute.  Add the potatoes and parsley and saute another 2 minutes, stirring to make sure the potatoes are well coated with the oil.  Turn the heat to low, cover and continue sauteeing for 10 minutes.  Add the chicken stock, salt, pepper and bay leaf.  Bring to a boil.  Whisk the flour into the cream until smooth.  Slowly add the cream mixture into the soup.  Cook for 15 to 20 minutes on low heat at a steady simmer.  Remove the bay leaf.

Garnish the soup with a dab of sour cream and sprinkle with chopped chives.

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Right after supper we embarked on an excursion to Marshall Field’s historic State Street flagship department store in downtown Chicago where we planned to stroll past their legendary Christmas window displays.  These displays had a reputation for being magical.  Each year they created a new storyline, everything from themes like ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” to “Uncle Mistletoe” and “Winter Fairyland”.  Each window was intricately decorated with amazing lights and a whole array of figures and dioramas, all with incredible moving parts.

On this particular year, Chicago was enduring an extremely cold winter of record breaking below-zero temperatures.   Bundling up in warm winter coats, woolen scarves and thick mittens, the three grandparents squeezed into the back seat of our car with Robby sitting on Grandma Mary’s lap. I sat in the front with toddler Candace and Bob was in the driver’s seat.  Off we went anticipating a little Christmas wonderment on the most wonderful of nights – Christmas Eve.

Upon pulling up to the massive building, we were thrilled to see the normal crowds surrounding each of the many windows were nowhere to be seen.  What luck!  However, we quickly realized the joke was on us.  I cannot recall that excursion without laughing out loud, even to this day.  We had known it was going to be quite chilly for a leisurely stroll from window to window, so we planned to have Bob pull up to the curb in front of the first window in the storyline and then idle for us around the block where the series ended.  My father – eager to experience the magic – bounded from the car with everyone quickly following.  No sooner had my father reached the first window (I’m not sure he even looked at the display), than he spun on his heels like a man 20 years younger and sprinted back to the warmth of the car.  Confused (but relieved), the rest of us quickly followed.  If anyone had been around, I’m sure we were a comic sight – like watching Charlie Chaplin as the “Tramp” scoot across the screen followed by a cast of equally fast-moving characters.  It was simply too cold to enjoy anything outside – even something as festive as those window displays.   Once we were all safely back in the car, Bob attempted to salvage our adventure by slowly creeping past the other windows, but it was difficult to see anything so far away through steamy windows inside our packed car.  We were all disappointed, but it didn’t take long for the absurdity of the situation to send us all into fits of laughter all the way back to the warmth of our home in Evanston, just north of the city.

My Dad and Mom with Robby

As everyone warmed themselves in front of the fireplace, I brought out dessert.  Hot chocolate was the first thing everyone grabbed from the tray in an attempt to defrost themselves, but it didn’t take long for them to dive into the huge platter of Christmas treats that I had been baking for the past two weeks – recipes of my own, plus many from my mother and mother-in-law.  The cookie assortment included chewy chocolate drop cookies, spicy gingerbread men, raspberry thumbprints, peanut blossoms, Mary Barocci’s apricot and prune stuffed kolaches and my mother’s famous iced sugar cookies.  Slices of golden apricot bread and cranberry walnut bread added the finishing touches.

After filling our tummies and warming our souls, we began the ceremonial part of our Christmas Eve.  One of the many Barocci family traditions that I incorporated into my first Christmas was the reading of The Littlest Angel a book by Charles Tazewell.  That and the poem ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas were read aloud just before the kids were tucked into bed.  Bob did the honors with the book and I the poem, the reading of which would eventually be taken over by our children.   We sang a few classic Christmas carols like Silent Night and Santa Claus is Coming to Town, then concluded the children’s part of our evening by setting out a plate of cookies and a glass of milk for Santa, as well as some carrots for his reindeer.

At four, Robby was fully appreciative of Christmas and all its festive traditions.  Candace – barely a year old – was still too young to understand this was an annual occasion, but she certainly recognized that wearing a fancy new red-velvet dress, getting to help sprinkle iced Christmas cookies with red and green “candies” (the ones that didn’t go into her mouth) and waking up to a big tree ablaze with twinkling lights and surrounded by presents was certainly not an everyday occurrence.  And who she must have wondered, was this mysterious “Santa Claus” that everyone was talking about?

While visions of sugarplums (hopefully) danced in their heads, I went about the business of preparing the next item on my Christmas Eve agenda; something different, something new – my Midnight Antipasti Buffet!  I decided to add this not because of Bob’s Italian heritage (it had not been a part of his family’s traditions) nor as a prelude to the Italian market I would open years later, but simply because I thought it was a “cool” idea – one I came up with during my musings about my first Christmas and subsequent research.  And..well…and I did love Italian food!

with my Mom and Robby at my 1970s Christmas table

After considerable research, I learned that Italian custom dictates that a typical Christmas Eve meal should feature fish and seafood, but not meat – a Roman Catholic tradition of abstaining on the eve of a feast day.  But since I wasn’t following any Italian Catholic practice, I decided to serve a combination of both seafood and meat dishes.  I laid out a platter of salamis, zesty marinated shrimp, cheeses, prosciutto-wrapped melon, olives, roasted peppers, breadsticks, and crostini – a wonderful, glorious spread served on platters and in bowls of Italian pottery – the beginning of a collection that would expand exponentially over the years.  I had prepared many of these dishes the day before but there was still plenty of tweaking to do for each dish and then the final arrangement on the dining room table.  I was offered plenty of help but for this particular meal, I decided to go solo.  Since it was the first time I had prepared my Italian Antipasti Buffet, I wasn’t exactly sure how to delegate.  And anyway, after years of the three grandparents being in charge of this holiday, I wanted them to relax and enjoy their grandchildren and one another.  Besides there was plenty for them to help with on Christmas Day.

We did not, however, make it to midnight.  As I was arranging the antipasti spread, I would occasionally peek into the living room to see how everyone was doing.  The room had become quieter, conversation having slowed to a trickle, punctuated occasionally by one of my father’s enormous yawns that seemed to echo through the house warning me to ‘hurry up’ (he was as famous for those yawns as he was his enormous appetite!).  It was then I began to realize that keeping everyone up until midnight might not be such a good idea, so I pushed my schedule forward an hour to 11:00 pm.  “Settling down for a long winter’s nap” was more on everyone’s mind than another glass of wine and a heaping plate of antipasti.  However, everyone kindly indulged me.  They knew that I had worked hard on this late-night meal, so they pretended to enjoy every bite.  Maybe they actually did, but more than anything…they were ready for bed.  We ate quickly, (there was no lingering) cleaned up the kitchen and retired to our respective rooms exhausted.  Me especially!

I slipped out of bed early Christmas morning to begin preparing for the day.  Just thinking about what lay ahead made me tired and I was already beginning to wonder if I had gone too far.  Had I planned too many activities and too much food?  Would my fist Christmas be remembered as an over-indulgent bust?!  As Mary Barocci’s stollen (a traditional Christmas bread filled with nuts, spices and dried fruits) and my cranberry orange muffins warmed in the oven, I made a pot of coffee and set out a pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice.  This would tide us over during our present-opening ceremony.  I also set the table for the eggs Benedict brunch that would follow.

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So much of what I had planned for my first Christmas was to please my dad – my own personal Santa Claus – who loved food more than anyone else I knew.  He was an award-winning “plate-cleaner” and celebrated anyone who could join him in that feat.  The holidays I remember most vividly are those from my early childhood when my dad made certain that Christmas was as special as possible for his three daughters, even though the holiday season was often difficult for my mother who battled depression throughout her life.  As joyous as the holidays are, the stress involved undertaking all these meals, traditions and reunions is a lot to bear for anyone, and it was sometimes more than my Mom could take.  The times when this happened (and it wasn’t every Christmas), my father quietly and stoically assumed the responsibilities of both parents, trying to keep everything as normal as possible, always making sure that clothes were washed, dinner was on the table and activities went uninterrupted.  The holidays were already busy for him since he also worked a second job at the Post Office for extra Christmas money to subsidize his junior high principal salary and to buy his family presents – especially the items on his girl’s “Santa” lists.

He didn’t want us to see that he might be over-extending himself or that he was exhausted. No matter what else might be going on in his life, my father wanted to make certain that his girls could experience the magic of the Christmas season.  He simply knew that following established family traditions – the rituals we performed every year – would provide us with a sense of security and comfort.  And that it did.  Later when my own personal life was in turmoil, I would remember his example and try to follow it as best I could.  It was a wonderful lesson – one of many from my father – that I carry with me to this day.

Looking back, I can only image the enormous burden he carried.  But to his children he never appeared dispirited or put-upon.  He made certain that the traditions our family had established – baking and decorating our mother’s Christmas cookies, tree decorating and the celebratory opening of presents on Christmas morning – were always followed.  But for him, the highlight of the season came when it was time for Christmas dinner– a traditional holiday feast always complete with roast turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, brown gravy, green beans, sweet potatoes and – of course – cranberry sauce.  Those family meals are among my most happy memories, especially when both my parents were scurrying about the kitchen in the throes of trying to finish all the dishes at exactly the same time.  I would eventually appreciate this challenge when it was my turn.  And “my turn” was now upon me.

Mom & Dad

I wanted to please everyone on this, my first Christmas “in charge” but especially my dad.  He deserved it!  After our Christmas morning present-opening ceremony, I put on my leadership hat and began to orchestrate the day’s activities.  Brunch was next on the agenda after the chaos of present-opening had subsided.  I had Bob prepare the Bloody Marys and Mimosas as I busied myself with poaching eggs, making hollandaise sauce and browning hash-brown potatoes.  I can hardly remember actually eating the meal (one of my favorite breakfasts) or the events that followed since the moment I finished one thing, my head was already moving on to the next.  My brain was jam-packed with details and was constantly weighing which task I needed to perform next to keep the flow of the day on track.  That Christmas was pretty much a blur.  I do remember, however, a sense of relief when we finally sat down for the main meal – a four o’clock dinner – the finale of my first Christmas as host.

Candace and I with Mary and Thelma

But before the relief, comes the hard work!  It was not the preparation that was exhausting, since I had plenty of help that day –  my mom making the bread stuffing, Bob’s mother Mary mashing the potatoes and stirring her yummy gravy, my father tending to the turkey and Bob freshening everyone’s cocktails and pouring the wine. But we were in my house and it was my responsibility to make certain the experience for everyone was perfect: dishes had to come out at the same time; the turkey had to be done (but not too done), then carved and plated; the seating arrangement had to be just right; the wine chilled just so; the decorations impressive, but not ostentatious.  Then I had to decide what bowls and platters would be used for each item coming off the stove or out of the oven, and attend to the final – but critical – details: lighting the candles, selecting the Christmas music, making certain that the children’s hands were washed, and getting the family seated on time.  Though everyone contributed, the weight of the whole day – honoring past traditions while trying to establish new ones – was on my shoulders.  It was one thing to be assigned a task, and another completely to be in charge.

As we all took our places around the table, I couldn’t help but notice a less than enthusiastic response to the huge meal put before them. There was a lot of food being pushed around everyone’s plate – not a lot making it into mouths. Even my Dad fell into that category – my jolly father who could always finish everything put in front of him.  His enormous appetite, I observed, had been pushed to its limit by my marathon eating fest!   Then it struck me.  It had only been a short while since our hearty eggs benedict brunch (which itself is not exactly a light meal).  Was it only four hours ago?  Less?  Yikes!

As the dishes were cleared, washed, and put away, I began to review the past two days.  My next Christmas Eve and Christmas Day would have to be edited to some degree and the volume of food I put out would need to be scaled back a bit.  Clearly the midnight antipasti buffet would have to go.  Too late and too much! And the Eggs Benedict Brunch was just too close to the Christmas dinner (unless we planned to start Christmas morning at 4am!).  I decided that muffins, stollen, juice, and coffee would be enough for breakfast.  I certainly wanted my Christmas dinner – which took hours and hours of preparation and weeks of planning – to be anticipated and savored by hungry people!

It only took this one Christmas for me to recognize that I am somewhat extreme in my execution of Christmas.  But why not?!  It’s by far my favorite holiday of the year!   The amount of food and the frequency that I served it would have to change, but I knew I would continue to think of new ways to celebrate, new dishes to make, new activities to participate in – all with the goal of making people happy.  I couldn’t help myself!  I was my father’s daughter!  ’’Over the top” as my kids sometimes describe my holidays, was to me, part of the fun.  Maybe I would always be a little over the top (spoiler alert – I am!), but I still had room to reign things in just a little so that my family wouldn’t have to experience actual exhaustion and distress at keeping up with my exuberant celebration of Christmas!

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Robby and stocking

For the next six years we would spend Christmas in our Evanston home with mostly the same cast of characters and most of the same traditional fare (with at least one unexpected dish or preparation to keep everyone on their toes).   I did, however, frequently experiment with the dishes I served for Christmas Eve supper.  One year, instead of potato soup I made Cappelletti in Brodo (Little Hats in Broth is the English translation), plump meat filled pasta served in a rich chicken broth which I had been introduced to by my sister-in-law’s Italian American in-laws at their New Haven Connecticut home.  It was fun to borrow from other family’s food traditions.  I since learned that Cappelletti in Brodo is a highlight of the Christmas Day meal in Reggio Emilia, a town near Bologna.  Making the filling was easy.  Making the pasta – not so much.  I did not have the strength to roll out the pasta dough to as thin as it needed to be and at the time, did not have a pasta maker. The pasta maker was my husband.  It became a joint project and one that I’m not sure he always looked forward to!  As the years went by, my son took over for Bob and eventually he became my new cappelletti-making partner.   Although not an annual commitment, he still makes cappelletti from scratch for his family from time to time.

Christmas continued to evolve for me every year.  A few years after my first one I was inspired by a recipe I had found in a holiday food magazine.  It looked interesting to me both visually and taste-wise, and since the Christmas Eve tradition was gradually becoming one whose theme was “experimentation”, I went for it.

The recipe I found was a baked pasta dish – sumptuous rolls of flat noodles filled with spinach and cheese then baked in two sauces – tomato and bechamel. The result was a perfect symbol of the season; a warm, bubbly Christmastime mix of red, white and green.  It was such a hit with my family that once I opened Convito, we sold it both in the market and offered it as a holiday special in the café.

Nancy & Candace with Primizia

Rotolo Primizia
(makes 24 rolls)

Ingredients:
3 – 20-inch lasagna strips (blanched for 2 minutes in salted water)
3# frozen spinach (cooked, drained and squeezed dry)
3-cups ricotta
2 ½ cups grated Parmesan
5 eggs
¼ teaspoon minced garlic
1/8-teaspoon nutmeg
1 tsp salt
Freshly ground pepper

Sauce
3 cups tomato sauce
3 cups béchamel sauce

Lay the carefully drained lasagna strips on a board.

Mix the spinach, ricotta and 2 cups of the parmesan together (reserve ½ cup for later).  Loosely whisk the eggs then add to the spinach mixture incorporating well.  Add garlic, nutmeg, salt and pepper.  Spread mixture on pasta strips about ¼ inch thick.  Roll each strip tightly.  Wrap rolls in cheesecloth tying ends.  Poach rolls in simmering water for about 20 minutes or until they float.  Remove cheesecloth from rolls soon after poaching. Allow rolls to cool.  Slice each roll into eight pieces. 

Place rolls overlapping in three rows in a 10 x 12 casserole dish.  Spread each row with half tomato sauce and half béchamel sauce.  Sprinkle the center of each row with the remaining grated parmesan. Bake in a 350-degree oven for approximately 25 minutes.  Serve immediately.

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During those early Christmas years, I tried to think of more than just new food ideas, but also holiday themed activities that would please my kids – activities that would add to the magic of a child’s Christmas (though they usually did involve food in some way).  Making and decorating my mother’s Christmas cookies was always one of the highlights, which is a tradition that dated back to my earliest childhood memories.  It was ritual that all three Brussat girls carried with them into their adult life and continues a generation beyond with all their kids.  The husbands participated as well, occasionally leading the whole project.  My father especially delighted in the final decorations after the cookies had been iced.  He was a sprinkles guy and his favorites were the chocolate jimmies and red and green sugar crystals.

Candace and Kianna Warner making cookies

My children and my sisters’ children hold cookie baking sessions each year, all with their own “take” on my mother’s recipe.  My son-in-law, Rob Warner’s version is concocting weird icing colors like khaki green, murky brown (his intention was dark purple) or cloudy grey-blue.  It has become his signature.  We tease him about his weird color selection each year but must admit that his cookies are always quite interesting and all have a sense of humor.

My nephew Travis’s family – son of my artist sister Karen – creates an impressive batch as well.  Travis, his wife Mandy (both architects), their daughter Addie and Mandy’s mother Jonell all participate each year in this amazingly creative cookie making session.  They each bring their own particular family tradition of Christmas cookie baking to the table.  The results are unique, due in great part to the fact that they often establish a theme.  Mandy calls the theme “Anything Goes”. Basically, she says, “we are just trying to impress one another while having a great family time”.

Mandy & Travis Butler’s cookies

One year Addie decided to make a gingerbread man into a zombie which then established the tradition of making a zombie army each year as part of their collection.  Whatever their theme, they have certainly impressed me!  Their cookies are always works of art!

Grandma Brussat’s Christmas Sugar Cookies
Makes approximately 12 dozen cookies

Cookies
Ingredients
3 ²/₃ cups sifted cake flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
²/₃ cup butter
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 teaspoons milk

Directions
Sift flour once.  Measure in baking ups made for measuring dry ingredients.  See below. Add baking powder and salt.  Mix.  Then sift again.

Cream butter thoroughly.  Add sugar gradually, creaming with butter well.  Add eggs one at a time.  Mix.  Add vanilla.  Add milk and flour alternately.  Blend well.  Chill in refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Roll part of dough out to approximately 1/8 inch thick.  (Lightly flour board so dough doesn’t stick)  Cut with cookie cutters.  Place cookies on butter greased baking sheets and put in oven for approximately 9 minutes.  Watch them carefully so they don’t burn.  Keep rolling out dough until it is all used up.  Cool cookies on racks.  Ice with Butterfly Frosting and decorate.  Decorate before frosting hardens.

Butterfly Frosting
Ingredients
4 tablespoons butter
5 cups sifted powdered sugar
2 egg whites unbeaten
2 tablespoons cream
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
¼ teaspoon salt

Directions
Cream butter.  Add part of sugar.  Blend well.  Gradually add the rest of the sugar alternately with the egg whites and cream until right consistency is achieved.  (not too soft but able to spread easily).  Add vanilla and salt and blend well.  You may add more cream if frosting is too thick.

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Another event we loved to repeat especially when my kids were small was an ornament making Christmas party. Robby and Candace’s school friends as well good family friends’ children were invited.  Besides making ornaments (some of which still hang on many of my friends Christmas trees to this day), a visit from Santa was usually orchestrated and always highly anticipated.  A good friend dressed in a Santa outfit with a pillow for his tummy stood in for the actual St Nick and invited each child to sit on his lap and recite their long list of Christmas wishes.  They were thrilled.  Each child left with their homemade ornaments, cookies, and a bag of Christmas candy and the certainty that Santa had gotten their message!

Robby telling Santa his wish list

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In 1976 we moved to England for 3 years.   Candace was six and Robby was ten.  We always came back to the U.S. the week of Christmas to New Year’s Eve to celebrate with our family and friends (and where I was pleased to step into a supporting role for a while) but since the Christmas season in England lasted the whole month of December, we were surrounded by festivities the other three weeks leading up to our trip back home.  England along with Germany, in my mind, are the most Christmasy of all countries but I was still surprised to learn that many of the traditions we practice in the U.S. today actually began in England during the Victorian era.

Charles Dickens, one of my favorite authors, had introduced me through his novel, A Christmas Carol” to many of England’s Christmas traditions long before I moved to the U.K.  To this day each Christmas season I look forward to either rereading that book or watching one of its many movie versions (my favorite being the 1984 George C. Scott adaptation).  It never ceases to warm my heart.  The Dicken’s novel, I learned, helped to popularize many of the elements we now associate with Christmas – families getting together, swapping presents and even saying “Merry Christmas”, a phase that had been around for three centuries but rarely used.

Those warm, Christmas-y Dickensian feelings are on display all over London during the Christmas season.  While we lived in England, I always made certain we brought Robby and Candace into London at least once during the season to see the beautiful display of Christmas lights.  Those on Regent Street (the first to install Christmas lights in the fifties) and Oxford Street were the most stunning.  Their festively decorated and illuminated displays changed themes and colors each year instilling all viewers with the magical spirit of Christmas. We also visited Trafalgar Square to stare in amazement at the huge Norwegian spruce Christmas tree, a gift to England each year from Norway in appreciation for Britain’s support during World War II.

Robby and Candace

Other magnificent Christmas Trees could be seen all over the city – in stores, in restaurants and in hotels – and one of my favorites was in the Connaught Hotel located in the elegant and posh area of Mayfair.  Theirs was spectacular, as were all of their holiday decorations that fit perfectly with the old-world feel of this storied hotel.  The gentle crackle of the fireplaces and the heavenly scent of the fir trees made me feel like I was back in Victorian times.  I could easily imagine Charles Dickens in the warm and intimate Connaught Bar sitting in one of their handsome leather chairs sipping a gin punch, his favorite drink.  Certainly, the presence of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, could be felt here- as he could throughout the city.  After all, it was Prince Albert who introduced England to the custom of the Christmas tree, something he brought with him from his native Germany.

The Connaught was also one of my favorite places to dine during the Christmas season.  They not only had traditional English Christmas dishes like game and roast beef on their menu, but roast turkey as well – something I originally thought was exclusively an American holiday dish.   I was actually surprised to learn that turkey had been a holiday favorite in England for years.  Although turkeys are not native to England, people in the UK began to eat them when King Henry VIII began having turkey for Christmas dinner back in the 16^thcentury.

I also frequently visited London on my own during the Christmas season, not only to enjoy the festive decorations but also to do my Christmas shopping – food-gifts being at the top of my list.  My very favorite destination was the celebrated and historic Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly, the most glamorous and intimate food emporium in all of London.  Their handsome decor and glistening chandeliers put you in the mood for Christmas shopping as soon as you walked onto their plush crimson carpet.  Nutcracker-decorated tins of biscuits, fancy jars of jam and honey, and colorful containers of their own special blend of Christmas Tea were just some of the many gifts I purchased to bring back to the U.S. each holiday season.

For my own personal consumption, I bought my first Christmas Pudding at Fortnum and Mason called the St. James.  Once again, I was first introduced to this pudding in Dicken’s novel, A Christmas Carol.  But I had never eaten one.

It is a steamed cake-like dessert comprised of dried fruits, candied citrus, flour, suet and eggs.  “Figgy Pudding” is another name for this dessert which dates back to the 14^th century.  Topped with holly, drenched with brandy, and then set alight, it makes for a flaming and very dramatic ending to the meal.  It was surprisingly “light and elegant”.  I loved its lovely spicy flavor.

My mother ‘s version– a steamed cranberry pudding served with a hard sauce – was not nearly as complicated a recipe as the English version, yet still has the same fruity and spicy flavor.  Hers, however, was never lit – a bit of a disappointment once I learned how the real English steamed pudding gave such a theatrical ending to their meal.

© rob warner photography 2021

Steamed Cranberry Pudding with Hard Sauce
(serves 6)

2 teaspoons baking soda
½ cup hot water
1 tablespoon white sugar
½ cup molasses
2 cups whole cranberries
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

Dissolve the baking powder in hot water.  Stir in 1 tablespoon sugar and the molasses, then mix in the cranberries and flour.  Pour into a greased 6 cup steamer mold.

Cover the mold tightly with tin foil.  Place on a rack in a deep kettle.  Add boiling water until water reaches 1 inch above the bottom of the mold.  Cover kettle. Bring water to a gentle boil.  Steam for 1 ½ hours until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.  Add more boiling water if necessary.

Cool for 10 minutes.  Unmold pudding and cool 30 minutes. In the meantime, make the hard sauce.

Hard Sauce
1.2 cup unsalted butter
½ cup cream
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Make sauce just before serving the pudding.  Heat the butter, cream and 1 cup sugar and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook stirring until heated through and smooth. Serve warm pudding with warm Hard Sauce.

make ahead tip
To make ahead, wrap and store cooled pudding in the refrigerator.  To reheat, wrap pudding in foil and place on baking sheet.  Bake in a 350-degree oven for 30 – 40 minutes or until heated through.

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While living in England, I also discovered Christmas Crackers at Fortnum and Mason.  Christmas Crackers are festive table decorations that when pulled apart from either end reveal a small gift, a riddle or a joke and a party hat inside. The noise that it makes when they are pulled is a “snap” or “cracking” sound which is what gave them their name.  The Fortnum and Mason selection was incredible – everything from fun Nutcracker designed crackers, silly reindeer festooned crackers to the more elegant and classic gold and red crackers.  Once I discovered this custom, I quickly incorporated it into our annual Christmas ceremony.  How fun I thought, and it was.  The paper hats, usually worn when eating Christmas dinner, is a tradition that supposedly dates to Roman times.  Everyone looks rather silly but that only adds to the festive and fun vibe of Christmas Day

I carried these Christmas crackers home in my suitcase each Christmas when I returned to the States.  Some stores like Asprey even offered “luxury crackers” with custom gifts inside like sterling silver trinkets.  The crackers could costs upwards of $1,000 for six, so needless to say, I chose the less extravagant ones.  When we eventually moved back to America, I had them shipped from England, though now they are everywhere – available in almost every store that carries Christmas decorations.  American Christmas is now completely Anglicized, crackers and all.

My mom, Robby, my Dad, Candace and I with Christmas cracker hats

Christmas is a glorious season for me.  I find the annual embrace of tradition and history to be incredibly comforting and reassuring at the end of a long year.  I also find it soothing to repeat the various events, festivities and meals that have been a part of my life as far back as I remember.  It re-connects our family each December and it reminds us of those who have passed on.  But I also believe that a certain amount of reinvention and breaking with tradition compels us to expand our horizons and find new ways to celebrate not just the holiday, but each other.  This is what I did when we moved back to the states after our years in England, both at home and eventually with my business.  When I opened my Italian wine and food market shortly after returning to the US, I began a journey of honoring tradition and innovation that was profoundly influenced by how I celebrated with my own family.  Beginning that journey (which I am still on forty-plus years later) opened a whole new chapter for me– not just during the holidays but in every moment of my life.  And as much as change forced itself into my life, I made sure certain holiday traditions always remained the same.

My next blog focuses on those many new and exciting Christmas adventures – each one meaningful in its own way and each establishing new traditions, though always mindful of the past.  No matter where I go, who I’m with, whether I’m preparing the meal or sitting at someone else’s table; whether the meal is traditional or completely new; Christmas remains my very favorite time of the year.

My Dad on Christmas morning