Hallelujah!

On Sunday afternoon I was privileged to see the Omaha Voices' 46th annual performance of Handel's "Messiah" at the Holland Performing Arts Center in Omaha, Nebraska.
It was absolutely beautiful and a little bit magical. My sisters and I grew up listening to Handel's Messiah at Christmas time and I can't ever hear those familiar notes and words without my heart being warmed and a smile stretching across my face.

I've also enjoyed the many variations and performances of the "Hallelujah" chorus that I've seen in email forwards and facebook posts. My favorite are the "flash mobs" that surprise people in public places (like shopping malls and department stores) with amazing performances of this timeless piece. Others are a bit silly, but still fun.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Shopping Mall Food Court


A Macy's in Philadelphia


Silent Monks

Some overdue photos of the snow

About two weeks ago Iowa got hit with a ton of snow. You may recall my post about the three snow days in a row that I had that week. In that post I included some photos of our driveway and cars under 10-20 inches of snow (depending on the drifts). I also promised to post some pictures from our drive around town that day. Well... two weeks later, here they are!

Our street:

The hills of Glenwood, Iowa:
Downtown Glenwood:

We're up at Seth's parents' place right now for Christmas and they're forecasting 12"-18" of snow by Saturday morning (on top of the 1/4" - 1/2" of ice that's already coating everything.)

It should be an interesting drive back to Glenwood on Saturday morning... at least it's only 90 miles!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

My Family's Christmas Cookies

One of my favorite parts of preparing for Christmas when I was growing up was helping Mom make the Christmas cookies. There were several different types that we always had: French lace roll-ups, Swedish heirlooms, white chocolate covered pretzels (I know, technically these aren't cookies), and... my favorite... Lebkuchen! Lebkuchen is a traditional German molasses cookie that looks kind of like gingerbread. They include pecans, walnuts, and dates along with a whole lot of yummy spices!

The first year I lived on my own, I got way too excited about recreating the wonderful Christmas coziness that I always enjoyed at home with my parents. I did have to make a few sacrifices. I got a fake tree instead of a live one, thinking the lesser fire risk would be a good idea since I was living alone. I did buy a few pine scented candles to try and make up for it though.

One thing I knew I couldn't scrimp on was lebkuchen. I went out and got a new mixing bowl that was big enough to handle the huge recipe as well as a heavy duty wooden spoon as I had heard my mother's stories about all of the spoons she had broken over the years trying to stir her lebkuchen dough.

I remember calling my mom from every aisle of the grocery store confirming that I was getting the right ingredients. "What kind of molasses do I need?" "Whole dates or chopped?" The calls continued when I got home and started mixing. Unfortunately I tried to add one cup of flour at a time... which worked great for the first four cups. By the time I got to the fifth or sixth cup I was calling my mother once again asking her how in the world I was supposed to finish adding all eight cups when my arm already felt like it was on fire. She laughed and told me that I should have only added the first two or three cups one at a time and wished me luck on the remainder of my stirring.
When Seth and I got married, my parents gave us a kitchen aid standing mixer and even at the end of June I was thinking about lebkuchen and how much easier it would be to use the dough hook to mix in those 8 cups of flour!

This year was my third year making lebkuchen with the mixer and it was every bit as wonderful as I remembered! I invited two middle school girls from our church to come over and help me since I didn't have much time and needed some extra hands. We had a lot of fun and the girls loved the cookies.
After a few hours of work (and having to put a few dozen back through the oven a second time) we ended up with about 8 dozen cookies. More than enough for the church bazaar, sending some home with the girls, taking some to work, bringing some home to my family for Christmas, and still having some left over for Seth and I to enjoy in 2010! Now if only I could find a use for that gigantic wooden spoon...

Taking my holiday temperature

I have always prided myself on my ability to wait until after Thanksgiving to turn on my Christmas mood. I would walk by the holiday aisles in Kohl's and Hobby Lobby shaking my head at how crazy it was for people to start decorating for Christmas before Halloween was even past. I had very strict rules about waiting until December 1st to listen to any Christmas music. I love holidays, but I have always taken them one at a time. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas. No blending. No mixing. One. at. a. time.

Then I moved to Iowa.

I have written about at least once already, I am working on adjusting to the weather up here, which is a bit of a challenge considering I had finally started to get used to the weather in St. Louis just in time to move away. Don't get me wrong, I love it here in Iowa! I love our new town, our church, my job - all of it. But I'm having a bit of trouble with the weather.

October temperatures in Iowa are too much like December temperatures in St. Louis and it's throwing off my internal Holiday thermostat! Halloween is still 4 days away and I am finding that I am getting a bit itchy for Christmas. What the heck. Seriously.

I was running errands in both Kohl's and Hobby Lobby this evening and I actually caught myself looking longingly at the Christmas aisles, and even - gasp - wandered down a few! And even worse, had to tear myself away from the stocking hanger display (which got me really excited because we actually have a mantle piece now from which to hang stockings!) while chanting to myself "It's not even Halloween yet. It's not even Halloween yet."

I have also noticed that when sitting at my desk at work and scrolling through the playlists on my ipod I've been lingering a little too long on the "Christmas Instrumental" mix. It is far too tempting. I'm even considering removing it temporarily until after Thanksgiving as I'm becoming fairly certain that I won't have the will power to last another month without taking the plunge.

I brought up this whole weather/holiday conundrum to Seth tonight. He said he likes that it gets cold earlier because then Christmas is in the middle of winter instead of the beginning. "You'll get used to it," he says.

Used to a winter that's long enough for Christmas to fall in the MIDDLE?!?!?!?!

I think my Christmas itch might be least of my worries after all...