Tasha (yes, that's her name, she was named after Tasha Tudor, a family friend) invited the rest of the Technical Services Department over for dessert. It will be small, she said.
Understatement of the year.
It was beautiful. First, their tree is a blue spruce, not trimmed. With real candles on the tree. She lit them for us after everyone had arrived, and turned out all the lights. All her ornaments were either big balls that have pictures from Tasha Tudor greeting cards or wooden from Germany. She's been to Germany many times. She also has some Scandinavian ones, which I recognized as such. She even had one Polish one, a blue bird, painted exquisitely.
Our tree, the one at my parent's house, has Scandinavian, German, and all sorts of ornaments, so I felt right at home.
We sat around the dining room table--Tasha had ice cream that was formed in molds--mine was in the shape of grapes, Alice got a hen, Ellie had a rabbit, and so on. Alice didn't want to pour hot fudge on her hen, or eat it--I offered to trade but she didn't want to do that either. We sat around and shared stories for two hours! We laughed and laughed--it reminded me why we have holidays (besides the religious reasons, I mean), to share food and fellowship with friends and family.
I'm still the junior member--I don't have stories about children or grandchildren, so no one asked me if I'd decorated my house yet. But I did entertain them with stories like when my brother expected a toothbrush from Santa (we got one every year) and threw his old one out Christmas Eve. It was the one year Santa didn't give out toothbrushes...
So it's beginning to feel a bit like Christmas...did I mention my new favorite Christmas song, Trees on Fire? It's a parody of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire.
(The post title refers to Tasha Tudor's Christmas book, a perennial favorite in the Louise household.)
2 years ago
4 comments:
I love Tasha Tudor!
I actually was going to title this post "Take Joy" after TT's Christmas book, but was too tired to remember that when I wrote it. I spose I could edit it...
So, I just have to ask...Did Mom go back to leaving off all of our hand-made ornaments courtesy of grade school? I love all my mom's ornaments, but I remember it used to irritate me (when I was little) that she thought it was tacky to put those on her Tasha Tudor Christmas Card ball tree...And then we finally convinced her. Don't remember how we did it, but I suppose she just finally gave in to the begging. O:-)
I can't wait to go home and see the house all done up for Christmas and smell the tree and the greens. And of course, being Tasha's daughter, I'm looking forward to all the good food too! It doesn't feel like Christmas, really, until I'm home.
Anni, how did you find me? I almost fell out of my chair! Yes, the tree is almost entirely the Tasha Tudor balls and the wooden German ornaments.
Your mother is an amazing cook and a fabulous hostess.
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