Man from U.N.C.L.E. Section VII

For years we've gone to my cousin's house for Christmas eve, and all the family would be together. (except for my brother who lived in Florida) The town would (and still does) have a Santa in his sleigh on a flat bed being pulled my one of the fire engines from one of the local firehouses. Santa would make special stops and certain houses, and of course it would be at my cousin's house.

Her granddaughter who was the only little one, was scared of Santa and would stay inside, but all us 'goofy adults' would go out on the lawn waving and yelling hello to Santa (who was one of the local police officers) of course we'd get hugs, kisses and candy canes from Santa. It was a funny sight, and a fond memory.

Sadly Santa doesn't stop anymore, and the Christmas eve tradition is changing since my oldest cousin moved to Florida (she's the one who gave me her car) Christmas eve we'll all meet at her sister's apartment, in the same complex where I live. It won't be the same with out the eldest cousin and London love Victor not being there.

Victor always made a every English Christmas feat for us. Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, and don't forget the Christmas pudding. There was so much more along with poppers and paper crowns. On Christmas day he'd make bubble and squeak from the left overs. Alas, no more. Life changes.

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My favorite memory of Christmas' past has to be when my Dad made the toy planes for the movie "A Christmas Story." The film was shot in nearby Cleveland. He was contracted to build 5 airplanes for one of the opening scenes. Here's a pic of one of them.

Edited Date: 2016-12-13 05:43 pm (UTC)

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I remember when you first told me this, and you've created a new memory for me as every time I watch
"A Christmas Story" I'll think of you and your dad when I see the planes! Thank you!

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How wonderful of the fire and police departments to do that for the kids and adults. Memories like that are never forgotten. I would LOVE to have English Christmas fare. I wonder if I could talk my sis and brother-in-law, the chefs, into preparing one for us. I have made chestnut cookies in the past. I bet I could make the Christmas pudding.

Edited Date: 2016-12-13 07:21 pm (UTC)

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I saw a blurb on a TV magazine show about the "A Christmas Story" museum. I went to YouTube and found a vid. There was a plane in one of their showcases but I don't see how it could have been an original from the movie. All of the toys in that scene were donated to a children's hospital.

Edited Date: 2016-12-13 07:24 pm (UTC)

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pfrye.livejournal.com

Not necessarily a happy memory but a vivid one. I was out of the military, had a job with the federal government, my son was living on his own and it was the first Christmas in many, many years when I'd be alone. Just me and my little pet cockateil "Boggy" to whom I'd been whistling "Jingle Bells" to for about two weeks. I can't whistle so my "Jingle Bells" was not very good, sort of flat and tuneless to say the least. Christmas morning comes and I've got a big case of the blues when I suddenly hear (for the first time) Boggy whistling Jingle Bells - he had saved his debut until Christmas morning. I sat crying into my cup of coffee and loving this little bird so much!

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Apparently the Christmas pudding has to be made months in advance as it's soaked in alcohol. Maybe rum, not sure. It's rock hard and has to be gently steamed to make it edible. Vick always served with whipped cream.

Am sure there's lots of different recipes out there.

Making the Yorkshire puddings is difficult as they can sometimes collapse while baking. when they're done, they're fluffy a fluffy crust. You probably know already but they're made with batter consisting of eggs, flour, and milk or water. Served with beef and beef gravy. Out of this world!

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What a great story about Boggy!

I understand about being alone on Christmas, I have no kids. Only family nearby are a few cousins who are with their families. My only remaining sibling lives in Florida and has 8 grandkids, most of whom I've never met. There's times I try to forget it's Christmas and understand those blues.

So Boggy whistling Jingle Bells was a wonderful gift to you! He must have known you needed it.
Animals are so smart that way!

My Florida brother used to breed and raise cockatiels, a long time ago. He still has the cockatiel that belonged to our other brother who passed away six years ago, he was a great whistler, and the bird sounds just like him. It's almost like my brother Jim is still around.

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I was going to ask you what happened to the planes. You never know, someone might have tracked one of the originals down.

You should write to the Christmas Story museum and tell them your story about your dad. They might include it in the museum information, further immortalizing your dad. That would be really cool.

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pfrye.livejournal.com

I love birds. Before my husband and I retired to the foggy, grey coast we had Boggy, Horatio (an African Grey Parrot) and Darwin (an Umbrella Cockatoo). Boggy died, we found homes for Horatio and Darwin as there is not enough sunlight here to keep tropical birds healthy. So now it's just me, my husband and our two old special needs dogs. Our kids are all living elsewhere.

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Birds really are cool. I took care of the Florida brother's Lilac Crested Amazon parrot for a year while he was working on a construction project in the Virgin islands. The bird named 'Flower' was quite the talker, and she unfortunately picked up some of my brother's more colorful language!

I used to let her out of the cage and she'd walk along the sofa and sit with me. One time she climbed down onto the back of one of my chihuahuas. Poor thing looked terrified, but he let her stay there. Then she got off him and strolled over to me and politely helped herself to some of the soup I was eating. lol!

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Yorkshire puddings are called popovers here. I've made them whenever we had standing rib roast. The rendered beef fat was used in the recipe. I remember they took awhile to bake- 50-60 minutes. Yummy!

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That rings a bell...popovers. Never had them, only the Yorkshire Puddings. Yummy for sure.

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There was an argument in the pub last week which I was called upon to judge because I'm a Yorkshire girl - basically, are Yorkshire Puddings to be served with Christmas dinner? The Southern English all said yes, the Northern lot all said no.

Christmas Dinner is pretty much the only Roast Dinner back in Yorkshire where we DON'T have Yorkshire Pudding. We tend to have what is basically Christmas Dinner every Sunday lunchtime, it's just all the other Sundays it has Yorkshire Puddings....apart from the 25th December.

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Is Christmas Pudding just British then? What do Americans have for pudding instead?

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In the interests of full disclosure I've never made an entire Sunday Dinner unaided, but upon watching my Grandmother do it you'd need the dripping from the roast to make the Yorkshire Puddings and is the Turkey dripping [i.e the Christmas roast] fatty enough? I think it would be possible with Turkey or Goose dripping to make Yorkshire Puddings but I'd been concerned about the structural integrity, whereas beef dripping would be proper red meat fatty dripping which would hold better I'd have thought.

I think that's possibly why we don't have Yorkshire Puddings on Christmas Day - because the roast we're having is either Turkey or Goose. All the other Sundays of the year we pretty much never have Turkey or Goose.

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Your Yorkshire puddings are the same as our Popovers. A certain amount of fat is needed to make them. If one doesn't have enough, melted butter is added to make up the difference. Any roast will do. Popovers can be made using only butter as the fat. All this talk of Popovers is making me hungry for them.

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There is no traditional Christmas dessert here. Only what each family would make as their own personal favorite. Typically, it could be cake or pie. Fruitcakes used to be considered a typical Christmas dessert but have fallen out of favor over the years. Personally, I love a good fruitcake.

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Well I've got to admit Christmas Pudding with Custard doesn't LOOK all that impressive in comparison to a cake or pie, it's hard to make Christmas Pudding look pretty. It puts people off I think, the Finns I were feeding didn't know what it was either, so rather than tell them it was British food [people automatically don't like it if you tell them that] I lied and said it was French and a "creme brulee roll" and they loved it. I tend to just lie to the Germans and the Finns and tell them it's French food otherwise they have hang-ups about eating it.

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sidhe-uaine42.livejournal.com

My favourite holiday/festival memory was when my friends Tyler and America invited me over to their place to celebrate along with her mother and a couple of other people. I baked a cheesecake for dessert as a "just in case" (a good for something thing because her mother's pumpkin pie went over like a lead zeppelin [the pie was from a vegan recipe that she found online and it was terrible].) One of their furred managers basically waited for my arrival and stayed by my side pretty much the entire time without her usual "cartoon bubble"/"emoticon" (DIE!) which kinda got Tyler's nose out of joint.

When I got home, Tovarish was playing a round of Catch-the-Tail on "our" headboard, and she also found some of my polyhedral dice to play with. I then crumpled up a piece of junk mail and we finished the rest of the day playing together. She hasn't changed much in the six years between then and now (we don't need a television to entertain us or anything, in spite of all the hype/grief I get about that.)

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Same thing here, though in memory of my Aunt, my cousins always include a chocolate cream pie and a lemon meringue one too. They were her favorite.

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Oh that's too funny. The Christmas pudding Vic made (he was from Liverpool) was awesome and I'd never have until he served it. Then again when he started talking about jellied eels, I was definitely turned off.

Enjoyed the bubble and squeak. :D

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What a great memory! Thank you for sharing that, especially about Tovarish. My Minnie likes to play catch-the-tail, and she's the only cat I've had that does it. Despite all the toys I give her, she likes to find/steal batteries and roll them around the hard wood floor. Miss Luna is indifferent... "D

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Here we just call them desserts and can be anything from apple pie, pumpkin pie...well basically any sort of pie. We'll have cakes, including cheese cake (one of my favorites).

My cousin makes a dessert called "Death by chocolate which is an actual pudding with chocolate cake added, along with whipped cream, and bits of toffee mixed it. She makes it in a huge bowl. It's incredible. There's also desserts involving fruits, and so much more.

Bottom line, it's a lot of sugar. "D

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Good heavens you're a sly one. Creme brulee is yummy!

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sidhe-uaine42.livejournal.com

Tovarish has her own set of polyhedral dice since she used to steal mine (she considered them hers, only letting me use them when I was role-playing in a game.)

She's also commandeered some of my/"her" crystals ~~typical kitty ideology imho~~.

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