Saturday was a very exciting day, because we went to Christmas Traditions in St. Charles, MO, where Chickadee got to see her very favorite Legend of Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge:
She was also very excited that this year she got to see the Sugar Plum Fairy, and also Santa Lucia (on Santa Lucia Day!) and the Christkind!
Happy Santa Lucia Day!
As always, we started our day with coffee and lussekattes:
A real highlight of the day was going to Christmas Traditions in St. Charles, MO, and greeting Santa Lucia on her day!
We had our traditional dinner of potato pancakes and kielbasa:
And cranberry fluff topped with sugared cranberries for dessert:
The commemoration days that fall during the season of Advent are some of my favorites of the whole year!
Now that Epiphany has come and gone, I guess the holiday season is officially over (I’m still not taking my Christmas tree down yet, though!). Let’s take a look back at the festive feasts and holiday baking we enjoyed during the holidays!
As I did last year, I kicked off Thanksgiving week by making pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies:
Speaking of Thanksgiving, we enjoyed our traditional feast:
And TEN pies (the bonus cookie butter pie was still in the freezer)!
We had chicken döner and gingerbread whoopie pies for our postponed St. Nicholas Day dinner:
And for Santa Lucia Day, we had lussekattes, potato pancakes and kielbasa (a day late), and white-chocolate cranberry cupcakes:
We didn’t have a fancy dinner on Christmas Eve, but we did have a carrot cake filled with gingerbread mousse:
For Christmas Day breakfast we had our favorite coffee cake:
And the best meal of the year, the pick-out dinner!
I think our M*A*S*H Day dinner counts as a festive feast, because Tony Packo’s was a Christmas gift.
On New Year’s Eve, we had fondue:
And the hot chocolate bar:
New Year’s Day was a full German feast of schnitzel and spaetzle and red cabbage:
With a Black Forest cake for dessert:
We had one more turkey dinner while we waited for the first snowstorm of the year:
And our traditional snow day dinner of French toast the next day:
Our festive feasts always end with Ryan’s birthday dinner…this year, we had chili and fry bread:
And a Frango Mint cake for dessert!
Of course there was plenty of cookie baking, starting with the French Christmas cookies we made in school:
And all of our favorite Christmas cookies!
It made for a beautiful Bunter Teller!
We also enjoyed Christmas Tree Cake treats all season long, including both standard and big cakes, donuts, and ice cream:
And a few festive drinks along the way…wassail and eggnog:
This has been a great season of feasting…now it’s time to give the kitchen a break! (Who am I kidding…I’m already planning the next cake I’m going to bake!)
It’s finally time for a look back at all of the Festive Feasts we enjoyed over the holiday season, and all the baking we did!
Let’s start with Thanksgiving, which was our traditional turkey dinner with the addition of some delicious roasted fennel this year:
And a record-tying nine pies!
Our next big holiday was Nikolaustag, and it’s become a tradition for us to enjoy Döner kebab on that day (or, as was the case this time, several days later, once Bunny got home from college). We also had a gingerbread-based dessert as has become our custom…this time, I made gingerbread bars with a cream cheese frosting that were amazing!
On Santa Lucia Day, we enjoyed lussekattes for breakfast, and potato pancakes with smoked salmon and Kielbasa for dinner (a day early), plus an cranberry-orange layer cake with rosemary for dessert:
On Christmas Eve, we had a peppermint chip cake after church:
And coffee cake for breakfast on Christmas morning:
On Christmas Day, we had the best dinner of the year, the “pick out dinner.”
And then things got kind of messed up because I hurt my back. We postponed the fancy Christmas dinner we were supposed to have on the 27th, but we did manage to have our annual hot chocolate bar on New Year’s Eve:
And I also postponed the (different) fancy dinner we were supposed to have on New Year’s Day, but I did manage to make a gingerbread layer cake with molasses mousse filling and cinnamon whipped cream frosting, garnished with sugared cranberries:
On Ryan’s birthday (which was also Epiphany), I finally made the tenderloin that was supposed to be the star of our fancy Christmas dinner, plus s’mores pie for dessert:
Yesterday, I finally got around to the turkey dinner we were supposed to have on New Year’s Day. We also tried a new recipe for replica Starbucks’ cranberry bliss bars for dessert. I haven’t had the original, but Bunny tells me these are even better, because they don’t have that mass-produced flavor!
Before my back injury, we spent a few days baking our favorite Christmas cookies (and I put together a Bunter Teller!):
And we did eventually get around to the sugar cookies (not the gingerbread, though…we just ran out of time, but at least we had lots of other gingerbread desserts!):
I made kinderpunsch, wassail several times (not pictured), and eggnog over the course of the holiday weeks:
And then there were lots of other festive treats spread through the holiday season, from the weekend before Thanksgiving when we made soft pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to the Valentine’s Day Funfetti Bunny made for us before she went back to school (and also my first attempt at Dampfnudeln, which were amazing!):
By my count, we ended up short one fancy meal, because normally the tenderloin wouldn’t have been available for Ryan’s birthday dinner. We were also short the gingerbread cookies and the cannoli that I had hoped to make for New Year’s Day, since I simply didn’t have the strength or energy to do much the whole week between Christmas and New Year’s. It certainly wasn’t my best effort at holiday food, but at least I hit all the highlights, right?
Chickadee has a fun time at the Missouri History Museum learning about Christmas nostalgia…I was not so thrilled that part of what they considered nostalgia was a neon photo wall that represented the malls of the 80s!
She also had fun being Santa Lucia yesterday!
Not to mention Garden Glow at the Missouri Botanical Garden last night!
Happy Santa Lucia Day!
As always, we started the day with lussekattes, served by our little Lucia.
We had stroganoff for dinner again this year. I’m not really sure why, but it makes for a very nice dinner on Santa Lucia Day.
For dessert, I made a cranberry cake with cream cheese frosting. This is the third year in a row I’ve made a cranberry cake for Santa Lucia Day (I really like the way the red fruit against white frosting reflects the colors of the holiday), so I guess it’s a family tradition now. I’ve never made the same cake twice, though!
This was another nice Advent day!
Here’s one more look at our Santa Lucia Day celebration, featuring our little Lucia:
Today is one of my favorite days of the year…Santa Lucia Day! Chickadee started the morning as our little Lucia, serving lussekattes to the family:
I thought about making Swedish meatballs for dinner, but I decided stroganoff would be less putzy. I served it over egg noodles, with sides of pickled beets and smoked salmon, which seemed pretty Scandinavian to me:
For dessert, I made Molly Yeh’s Bløtkake with sugared cranberries:
It was nice to have a reason to celebrate at the beginning of finals week!
As always, Chickadee loved dressing up for Santa Lucia Day on Sunday!
Our Santa Lucia Day celebration was a little different this year, but for once, it wasn’t because of COVID-19. Because the commemoration date fell on Sunday this year, we decided to wait until after church for our traditional lussekattes, and only Chickadee dressed up. It was very nice to get to go to church today, though, and since it’s Sunday, I decided to add a special dessert, an orange-cranberry cake, to the menu as well.
Happy Santa Lucia Day!