Christmas Day

Today is Christmas, but only the first day of Christmas (what Norwegians would call 1. juledag, or "First Christmas Day"). 

This is the start of the twelve-day festal tide adopted by the Christian Church: In 567 C.E. church leaders proclaimed the days from December 25 to Epiphany as a sacred, festive season.

Now my preparations are finished, and I can relax with my family, do a puzzle, eat, drink, and generally wallow in joyful abandon. 

In some old traditions, this whole season was seen as a sort of Sabbath: Prepare ahead of time and then spend the Twelve Days doing as little work as possible. It's a good time to rest, reflect, and find peace within.

Agenda:
1. Open Gifts
2. Have a feast
3. Christmas pudding
4. Continue the Festal Tide

1. Open gifts:
My family will all meet again this morning to open our presents, sit by the fire, eat prune bread, fruit, and egg nog. We celebrate the birth of Jesus by giving gifts to those we love. 

2. Have a feast:

This is a day of unrestricted feasting. The table is filled with goodies- breads, cheese, tangerines, nuts, chocolates, and cookies. We will snack all day long, and then we will have a big mid-day meal!

3. Christmas pudding:

After our feast we will reheat the Christmas pudding I made a month ago by steaming it again for about an hour, then slide it out of the pudding basin onto a plate.

Then we will put some brandy into a metal ladle (about 1/4-cup), heat it over a candle flame until it steams a bit, set it on fire with a match, and pour the flaming brandy over the warm pudding. 

This is really worth the effort! We turn the lights out and the blue flame dances all over the pudding for a minute or more.