How do you spend Christmas Eve?
(Why are you reading this post?)
We spend it centered on preparing food, eating food and music.
Preparing the Ule Log
When I married into the Ule family, I suggested we serve a Yule log for dessert.
My husband’s family claimed to have never heard of a Bûche de Noël called a Yule log, so I began a tradition.
I turn on Handel’s Messiah and we all cook together.
Some years the younger generation has held contests to see who can make the best Ule log.
Ule Log Recipe
- 1/4 c. cocoa
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 c. cake flour or 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp. Salt
- 3 eggs
- 1 c. granulated sugar
- 1/3 c. water
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 c. whipping cream, sweetened and whipped
Directions:
Heat oven to 375o . Line jelly roll pan, 15 ½ x 10 ½ x 1 inch, with aluminum foil or waxed paper; grease. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
In small mixer bowl, beat eggs about 5 minutes or until very thick and lemon-colored. Pour eggs into large mixer bowl; gradually beat in granulated sugar. On low speed, blend in water and vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture, beating just until batter is smooth. Pour into pan, spreading batter to corners.
Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Loosen cake from edges of pan; invert on towel sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. Carefully remove foil; trim off stiff edges if necessary.
While hot, roll cake and towel from narrow end. Cool on wire rack. Unroll cake; remove towel. Spread whipped cream over cake. Roll up. Ice with chocolate buttercream frosting.
Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting
Chocolate buttercream frosting: about 4 cups of sifted confectioner’s sugar, 2-4 Tbsp cocoa, 3/4 stick of margarine/butter, 3-4 Tbsp milk (needed to thin). Beat together until smooth; adjusting amounts to taste.
Traditional Slovenian Sausage meal
My husband’s family likes to remember their Slovenian heritage on Christmas Eve.
We gather and eat a traditional meal: Slovenian sausage, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, and bread.
Our children start to ask about the sausage around Thanksgiving. “Have you ordered it yet?”
I purchase it every year from Raddel’s Sausage in Cleveland, which now sends me an email every year in November!
They ship promptly and so we usually send a few pounds to our niece who lives far away.
We bought 10 pounds this year. I hope it’s enough!
You boil the sausage most of the afternoon (usually while making the Ule log), adding potatoes, cabbage and carrots at the end.
We actually prefer mashed potatoes, so we don’t cook the vegetables in the same water with the meat.
Everyone loves it.
Except for the Sicilian, who has a small piece of meat to be polite and then focuses on the vegetables . . .
Christmas Eve Music
For our family, Christmas Eve ends at church.
We attend the 10:30 service–which goes until midnight–and sing from the choir loft.
This year, as in years past, we’re singing selections from our Christmas cantata.
We usually leave the choir loft and sit in the congregation toward the end of the service, picking up a white candle along the way.
As we quietly sing “Silent Night,” to end the service, we light the candles, from the pastor to the person on the aisle, to the end.
It’s a hushed, solemn moment, remembering how different things will be the next morning.
Invariably, we leave quietly into a silent, chilly, dark night and home.
Some of us have Christmas stockings to fill on Christmas Eve!
Whatever your plans for Christmas Eve 2019,
blessings and Merry Christmas.
A small bowl of Minute Rice
is going to be my Christmas Feast,
and honestly, it’s very nice
with butter and some Brewer’s Yeast.
Barb will have some Pringles
with olives on the side,
and we’ll listen to The Bangles
and some Charlie Pride.
Later Barb will sing at church;
for me the service is too long,
but I am not left in the lurch,
for I’ll watch “Brian’s Song.”
Might be my last Yuletide run,
but, by God, it will be fun.