~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
December 25

★~ Today’s Quote:  I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

★~ Christmas Day:

I was poisoned on Christmas Eve Day. I ate lunch at one of my favorite places and a homemade pot pie nailed me. I really felt betrayed…not by the restaurant where I have enjoyed many wonderful meals and will again, but by the pot pie. It’s just not right when a pot pie nails you. They were one of my favorite childhood meals (Banquet 29 cents); these days I enjoy popping a Marie Callender pot pie into the oven. A homemade flaky-crusted chicken pot pie should not be a food poisoning culprit—it’s just wrong.

Cole is celebrating Christmas Eve with friends without me. Sounds sad, doesn’t it? It wasn’t how I planned to spend the evening, but as the old adage goes, tell God your plans and watch Him laugh. Not that I am blaming my tainted pot pie on God. Not on Christmas Eve… Besides, it gives me the opportunity to babble my way through El Morno, and I have a funny Christmas story for you.

A Facebook friend told me Christmas Eve morno that she could not find her Nativity set and was afraid she threw it out by accident last Christmas. The Facebook friend that, I believe, ironed the tissue before rewrapping her heirloom Christmas ornaments one by one by one by one is now possibly responsible for pitching baby Jesus, the Holy Family, three wise men, and a bunch of sheep (and more than likely a shepherd or two) into the dumpster. Poof. Gone. No matter what other magic she creates this Christmas, the story will be told every year about how Mom threw out baby Jesus…and of course, the story will be handed down for generations. Children will ask, “Was that the great-great-grandmother that threw out the Holy Family as they point to her picture?”

I know for a fact my sweet mother is laughing hard as she reads this (for the first time in a week) because we can so relate. Thanks, Facebook Friend. And for those of you who fail to see the humor, rest assured that I offered up a prayer to St. Anthony in hopes that he would help my friend find her Nativity set.

★~ Christmas Day Dinner Day:

A Toast to Christmas dinner, “Peace and plenty for many a Christmas to come.”  Bon Appetite.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1939 – The Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol, was read by Lionel Barrymore on The Campbell Playhouse on CBS radio. The reading of the tale became an annual radio event for years to come.

♥~ 1949 – Dick Tracy got married on Christmas Day. The comic strip hero married Tess Trueheart. The couple later became parents of a daughter. The little girl’s name was Bonnie Braids

♥~ 1993 – Mariah Carey had the #1 single in the U.S., Hero, from the #1 album in the U.S., Music Box. The single topped the charts for four weeks. The album was up there for eight weeks

★~Born Today:

♥~ 1899 – Humphrey Bogart Academy Award-winning actor [The African Queen (1954)]; Casablanca, The Caine Mutiny, The Harder They Fall, We’re No Angels, Sabrina,Tokyo Joe; died Jan 14, 1957

♥~ 1924 – Rod (Edwin Rodman) Serling scriptwriter: The Twilight Zone, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Planet of the Apes, Seven Days in May; died June 28, 1975

♥~ 1946 – Jimmy Buffettsongwriter, singer: Margaritaville, Come Monday, Changes in Latitudes – Changes in Attitudes; main ‘Parrot Head’

♥~ 1948 – Barbara Mandrell CMA Entertainer of the Year [1980, 1981], Female Vocalist of the Year [1979]; Standing Room Only, I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool,Sleeping Single in a Double Bed, If Loving You Is Wrong

♥~ 1949 – Sissy (Mary) Spacek Academy Award-winning actress: Coal Miner’s Daughter [1980]; Missing, The River, Carrie, The Migrants

★~ Did You Know: Traditional Christmas dinners around the world

♥~ Australia:  Due to Christmas falling in the heat of the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, meats such as ham, turkey and chicken are sometimes served cold with cranberry sauce, accompanied by side salads or roast vegetables. Barbecues are also a popular way of avoiding the heat of the oven.

♥~ Austria: Christmas dinner is usually Goose, Ham served with Gluhwein, Rumpunsch, and Chocolate Mousse. It might also include fried carp, Sacher torte and Christmas cookies

♥~ Denmark: The traditional Christmas meal consists of roast pork with duck or goose.  Sometimes both. The meat is served  with caramelized, or  roasted potatoes, red cabbage, and plenty of gravy. It is followed with a dessert of Risalamande, rice pudding served with cherry sauce or strawberry sauce.

♥~  Germany: Christmas dishes are roast goose and roast carp, although suckling pig or duck may also be served. Typical side dishes include roasted potatoes and cabbage.

♥~ Netherlands: One Dutch tradition is where small groups of people sit together around their own little frying pan to cook and season their own food in very small portions. The host has prepares finely chopped vegetables and different types of meats, fish and prawns/shrimps. Everything is accompanied by different salads, fruits and sauces.

♥~ Norway: The most common dish is svineribbe, pork belly side prepared with seasoning. Usually it is enjoyed with sauerkraut, redcurrant sauce, flatbread and a few shots of akevitt (to wash down the rather greasy meal). In the western parts of the country, pinnekjøtt, mutton ribs, is the traditional Christmas dinner. For dessert rice pudding with a raspberry sauce.

♥~ Slovakia: Christmas dinner includes oplátky (thin waffles with honey or garlic), cabbage soup with mushrooms and sausage (sometimes with dry plums), carp or other fish with potato salad, apples and Christmas biscuits and opekance.

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…and there is only one thing left to add…Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good day!