No Pink Cookies

How do traditions get started anyway? My family did not make Christmas cookies. My mother didn't believe in cookies - or desserts in general - and although she did make some concessions to Christmas she didn't go in big for traditions. We always had a tree - although it didn't often materialize much before Christmas Eve and my mother generally tried to take it down the day after Christmas. And we did have Advent Candles and a Birthday Cake for Jesus - largely, I think, because my mother tried it one year and we kids decided it was "tradition".

So why does Ajigasawa Church decorate its tree with real cookies no matter how busy the season? I think it started with my Grandmother's pink cookies...

But our cookies now

are a LONG way from Grandma's Pink Cookies!

My Grandma made (very) soft molasses cookies frosted with anise flavored pink icing and cut in slabs. She made them a lot. But I guess the recipe died with her. My cousin's wife, hearing how much I liked them, tried to make them for our wedding dinner on the 27th of December, 1975. (Hence the Christmas connection. My Grandmother was more likely to make them for the 4th of July picnic.) But they just didn't taste like Grandma's Pink Cookies... For the next 10 years I spent my Christmases trying new gingerbread cookie recipes. Quite silly really as I imagine my Grandmother cut slabs because the cookies couldn't hold their shape ... and just imagine hanging pink slabs on the Christmas tree! But I guess by this time I was heavily influenced by Tasha Tudor.

Christmas Cookies in the mid 1980s

After many years I gave up trying and now I just make Spice Cookies because they're softer than most the gingerbread recipes I tried and - more to the point - I never seem to have any molasses in the house come Christmas. (I order molasses from Tokyo.)

Then my daughters rebelled against the anise icing. So we are now a long way from Pink Cookies. But as, my mother would say "come hell or high water" (or is that deep snow?!) we still have cookies every year. "Its tradition!"

Sarah, Sachimi, Shion and Ayaka cutting the cookies.

STWs, John Orme and Shirley Ku, stringing the cookies

Our Sarah strings the last cookies

while Sarah Heidebrecht looks on.

Ayaka, Shirley, Sachimi, Shion and John

9 Lessons and Carols

I don't remember what I was talking about with my (Irish) friend last spring that she told me about "9 Lessons and Carols" but it stuck. So this year the Christmas Service for the (English) evening service in Itayanagi on the 25th will be "9 Lessons and Carols". I'm putting it on PowerPoint and getting lots "oohing and ahhhing" from my husband who thinks its beautiful - but I'm beginning to feel that its A LOT of work. And I am very tired.

 

Anyway, on Sunday night before the service in Itayanagi we're having dinner by candlelight at 5:30 pm. It's the Elliots turn so we're making Sweet Economy Casserole because its pasta but I like it better than the spaghetti we had for our wedding rehearsal 30 years ago.

 

And then at 6:30 pm the Carol Service followed by our 30th wedding Anniversary Celebration.

 

If you have never heard of 9 Lessons and Carols see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Lessons_and_Carols

Ginger and Garlic (alias Poor Man's Penicillin)

Sarah was sick last night. Really sick. I actually took her to the hospital. (Dehydration in the aftermath.) So today we ate ginger and garlic. In fact, I don't think I've ever eaten quite so much garlic and ginger in one meal in my life as we ate tonight. We must smell like (very) ripe kimchi.

Sarah's feeling better. :-) Now if the rest of us can just stay healthy.

It gets shorter every year!

Listening to Sarah explain Messiah to her cousin, Aaron, Sunday evening I was reminded of Luke's comment "Handel’s Messiah is by far my favorite vehicle for reviewing and reflecting on these prophesies and promises." And looking at Aaron's intent face as he gave her his full attention, I was reminded of why I never pandered to juvenile tastes when the kids were young. (My philosophy was always, Give them the "real thing".) I love the look on their faces when children encounter something really big and wonderful.

It wasn't always easy. When I first took my kids to "Messiah for the first time I was alone with 4 kids between the ages of 10 and 3 and sitting in the front row. They were not quiet little mice. They wiggled and squirmed. It was a long 2 1/2 hours! But it was worth it. I was in heaven... and they were mildly interested. I went again the next year. We were in North America for Christmas 1989. But after that we never missed a year. I brought all 5 kids every year.

As we were that first year!

They didn't always love it. For many years I brought Sarah muttering and squirming in protest. But now says she doesn't want a funeral when she dies, she just wants them to sing the entire "Messiah" in her memory.

Once they stopped selling "Family" tickets it got expensive - but it was worth every yen.

Handel's "Messiah"

Today, December 18th, 2006, at 3pm we sing Handel's "Messiah" at Gijuku High School. It's my favourite part of Christmas - Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without this concert.

Last year's concert was in the Shimin Hall. Sarah sang last year and she's been singing all year. But today she's going to listen. (And Mary is going to sing.)

Mr. Kumaki at last night's practice. I think he lives and breathes "Messiah".

Cats in Winter

John often says he want to be a cat in front of the stove in winter.

But can this really be comfortable?!

Masa's Baptism

Yesterday was Masa's baptism. We've been praying a long time for some male church members. I must admit - I had a different type of man in mind! But Paul said "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things ... " So I suppose this is God's way of working.

Masa is in the white sweat shirt

Zechariah 4:6

Thanksgiving Potluck

Over the years most people who have come to church events have come by personal invitation. There are notable exceptions. In fact, almost all members of the church were exceptions to this rule... But still, in a town where family ties are binding it usually takes more than an ad in the mailbox to bring someone!. So, when we came back from Leta's wedding just 3 days before Aji Church's annual Thanksgiving Potluck, I hardly knew how to pray for the Thanksgiving Potluck this year.

Neither John nor I did much in the way of inviting folk. If I had been entirely earnest about it, I suppose I could have emailed all my friends and contacts from America. Or maybe sent them post cards. I even considered it... But in the end I decided in favor of being wholly involved with where I was at the moment.

I had however been reading about the difference between our work and the work of God's Holy Spirit. (More on that later.) So when it was my turn to pray - in our house we all pray together every morning - I asked God to let us see His power by bringing some people from an "unexpected quarter".

And he did!

9 HIGH SCHOOL BOYS

You could argue that I might have expected it since one of the boys (the one in red) showed up at Thanksgiving last year with a few of his friends. But 9?! of them! I consider my prayer answered!

There weren't any hundreds of people there. But a backslider came for the first time since this time last year - and brought her mother. And two of Sarah's friends showed up on very short notice. My friend from Russian class, the one I went to Russia with and who told us at last month's meeting that she'd "never been so sad before" (her best friend died after a year battling with cancer) came even though she'd just gotten a leaflet in her post box.

It was GOOD meeting. And, even if it was only me, someone saw the power of God.

That week something wonderful happened every day. But its been so busy that I didn't have time to post. I'm busy today, too. Sarah H. (see her baptism post) is coming, and then another friend is coming for supper, and I can hear Angela downstairs in the kitchen. Later tonight I have to go out for a couple of hours - a goodbye party for our Russian teacher. So who knows when I'll get back to it. But maybe, just maybe, I'll write it all down.

More on Commitment

"A true friend is someone who is there for you

when he'd rather be anywhere else."

- Len Wein