By popular demand, I've decided to post some additional pictures of my grandmother's home decorated for Christmas. As I mentioned in a previous post (Ghetto Beautiful - 10/30/08), my paternal grandmother, Nonna, decorated a cactus, not a tree. Sadly, we don't have any pictures of the Christmas Cactus, nor do we have any pictures of the red and white striped clothesline made from bakery string which hung from the top to the bottom of the bannister and on which were clipped (with mini, multi-colored, plastic clothespins) all of the Christmas cards she received each year. Here, however, are pictures of a few more items from Nonna's that always said Christmas to us.
Here is a picture of Jake with Nonna's "abominable" snowman. This plastic snowman made its debut on the stairs on or about the time I was, well, Jake's age in this picture - around 2.
The Snowman, as we called him, scared me to death!! I would refuse to go up the stairs alone while he was there, and the only bathroom was on the second floor. It didn't matter to me. I hated that snowman.
The picture to the right is of Nonna's creche. We called it, "the manger." Nonna lovingly set it up each year and even more lovingly, let us play with it, within reason of course. The scene was not complete without the white cotton batting draping the manger and the "ground." Clearly she wanted to give the image of snow, conveniently forgetting that Jesus was born in the desert.
The glitzy Christmas mobile below probably was not made by Nonna. She could cook, but with the exception of crocheting, she wasn't particularly crafty. Perhaps it was made by a friend or relative. I'm guessing it was someone Italian. Who else would incorporate so many sequins into each Christmas ornament hanging from the shiny gold wreath? Who else would spray paint each pine cone blue and then paint its tips in gold? It hangs proudly over my kitchen table as I type this. I LOVE this mobile, in all its sequined, spray-painted, gold glory.
When I worked at a previous high school, I hung it over the doorway to my office. One of the secretaries, Lucille, a good-natured, generous Italian woman really admired it. One day, as she walked by, she reached up to the mobile, gently touched it, looked me straight in the eyes and said knowingly, "Made with love." Indeed.
Merry Christmas!
Nonna’s Cranberry Orange Bread
Confession: This recipe doesn’t always work, can take forever to cook and sometimes comes out too moist in the center. BUT the flavors are always GREAT! Feel free to experiment with the amounts of flour and cooking time or cook in a pan other than a loaf pan.
Preheat oven to 350.
2 C flour
1 C sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 C margarine (Fleishmann’s*)
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. grated orange peel
3/4 C orange juice
1 1/2 C golden raisins
1 1/2 C fresh cranberries, chopped
Mix first 8 ingredients. Cut in margarine until crumbly. Add egg, orange juice and orange peel all at once. Stir only until evenly moist.
Fold in raisins and cranberries. Bake in greased 9x5 loaf pan at 350 for 1 hour, 10 min. If using a 9x9 brownie pan, watch the time carefully.
Wax paper on bottom of pan.
*Note from Nonna: Do not use Promise margarine, butter or low fat oleo.
*Note from Nonna: Do not use Promise margarine, butter or low fat oleo.
2 comments:
Okay, I CANNOT be the only person who wants to know... why a cactus????
Nonna had a large cactus (about 5' from planter to top) in her living room. She's not the only Italian person I've known with a thing for succulens and cacti. I can only assume that once she and my grandfather were older (she was 57 when I was born), they nixed the tree and just decorated the cactus. If you saw how much stuff my grandmother put up for Christmas in general, you would have known that she didn't need to add a tree to the mix. I can also ask my uncle, in case there's a better reasons with those I just presumed.
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