Saint Lucia's Day (one day early)

We have celebrated St. Lucia’s Day (13 December) for as long as I can remember as a kind of reminder of the Swedish heritage on my side of the family. I have never really understood how the commemoration of this Italian saint (Santa Lucia) ever migrated to Sweden, a Protestant land that does not have the calendar of saints of the countries of the south, but nevertheless St. Lucy’s Day is an important part of the pre-Christmas festivities in Sweden and has been in our family for many years.

Since the feast day comes on a date close to the shortest day of the year, it is inevitably associated with light, and involves the oldest daughter of the family bringing a plate of warm buns to her family members while wearing a wreath with candles in her hair. These buns, called Lussakattor, are one of our favorite taste sensations of Christmas. If you look up Lussakattor, you will inevitably find them characterized as flavored with saffron. The recipe N has used for years, however, features cardamom. As we have lived in various places—Kansas City, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Connecticut—she has shared these delicious treats with many friends who first learned about this delightful celebration from us. We hope that there are families across the country who remember St. Lucia (and the delicious taste of her buns) from hearing about the feast day from us.

There have been many years that there were no “eldest daughter” to do the honors on the morning of 13 December in our household, but again this year we had our three eldest Austin grandchildren with us for the weekend. Hooray! That means I was awakened from a sound sleep by a beautiful little blond girl carrying candle and a warm Lussakattor. It doesn't get any better!

Winter Pastoral

Winter Pastoral, originally uploaded by ch in nb.

One of my fondest memories of New England is Cherry Brook Farm, located in North Canton. Since New England has just received its first major winter storm of the season, I return to this picture to remind me of how beautiful the winter can be. And I can also honestly say that I was glad to sell my snow shovels and snow blower last fall before we moved!

Williamstown llama

Williamstown llama, originally uploaded by Clark Hendley.

Going through my old pictures, I could not resist bringing this fellow to light once again. I made his acquaintance one late fall morning in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Truly, this is a face that only a mother could love.

Enchanted Rock

Over the Thanksgiving holiday we took our visiting children and grandchildren to Enchanted Rock, just outside Fredericksburg in the Texas Hill Country. We got started late in the day, so I feared that we would be too late for any pictures, but in fact the long golden rays of the setting sun provided perfect light for the reddish, ochre granite--and I took advantage of the beautiful photographic conditions.

Enchanted Rock is one of the oldest rock formations in Texas, and it has had human visitors for the last 11,000 years. The rock is described as a pink granite exfoliation dome, and it rises to an elevation of 425 feet and covers 640 acres. Enchanted Rock is one of the largest batholiths (an underground rock formation uncovered by erosion ) in the United States.

The name seems to derive from the weird creaking and groaning the Tonkawa Indians heard at night. Geologists today explain that what the Tonkawas heard was a result of the rock's heating by day and contracting in the cool night. A conquistador captured by the Tonkawa described how he escaped by losing himself among the boulders on the rock, giving birth to the Indian legend of "a pale man swallowed by a rock and reborn as one of their own."

The first well-documented explorations of the area date from 1723, when the Spanish intensified their efforts to colonize Texas.

Definitely worth a visit!

Weather Update

Contrary to what we might have thought last year when we moved to the Hill Country, this region does have an autumn. In fact, we have been experiencing autumn for the past few weeks--warm days, cool nights, and insects very busy as if they could sense the coming of winter. And even autumn color! We do not see the abundance of red that we loved so much in New England, but in fact deciduous trees have been changing colors, just like they are supposed to. All of these signs in nature are a reminder that last year with its oppressive drought was an anomaly.

Now, with two plus weeks to go of the season of autumn on the calendar, the weather has turned cold, and we are already experiencing more chill than all of last winter after moving from Connecticut. The most recent storm actually dumped snow on Houston--and that is a rarity! Much to the disappointment of school children in our area, there was no snow here, but the unusual precipitation did make garner a story on the NBC nightly news tonight.

Right now I am so glad that I did not throw out all my winter woolens when I moved south!

22 November

Until my generation dies out completely, all of us I trust will come to this date--22 November--and remember where we were in 1963 when President Kennedy was slain. There are fewer of us each year, I guess, for only a few years ago newspapers would carry human interest stories on this fateful day interviewing ordinary people about their memories. Now reporters and editors are by and large too young to have been spectators of the events of that year themselves, so the date now passes almost unnoticed. Except by those who lived through that nightmare.

I was studying at the University of Vienna. My roommate and I rented a room from a Viennese "hausfrau," who regularly took in students to help with the rent. Along with the rent of the room came daily breakfast, which she brought in on a tray each morning. Before she entered the room, she sounded a warning gong--placed strategically outside the door--to announce her arrival. That morning she rushed into the room, where Phil and I were still blissfully dozing, and yelled, "Der Präsident ist tot!" (the president is dead). She did not say your president or the American president but the president. In a way, the choice of language was very important, for in the days and weeks that followed, we learned that this young, dynamic leader was indeed thought of as the president. It was my first understanding of how the rest of the world views the American president.

These were the days before instant 24/7 news. There were no satellites in the sky to broadcast words and pictures around the world. Film was loaded on a plane and sent abroad and then shown to international television audiences. So we waited for information--for hours and for days. Yes, the Austrian radio and television were providing audio coverage of the events, but I had been in Austria a short enough time that following radio news readers was a bit beyond my linguistic capabilities.

Vienna was as stunned as if an Austrian leader had been assassinated. We wandered the streets looking for news updates that we could understand. When people learned that we were Americans, they freely came up to us on the street to express their condolences. The Vienna Philharmonic gave a public concert that featured only the slow dirge-like movement from Beethoven's Third Symphony. I have never heard that movement since without recalling the somber performance in those sad days following the assassination.

Many shops in Vienna placed a photograph of President Kennedy in the window--a well-known portrait of the president, with a black crepe band stretched across the upper right-hand corner of the picture. I have searched the internet to find a copy of that picture which is still so fresh in my mind's eye, but to no avail. 22 November 1963. RIP, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

So How German is New Braunfels, Anyway?

In a word, a lot.

Yesterday's edition of the New Braunfels Herald Zeitung announced that this weekend the city was sponsoring its annual Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas fair) with the headline "Weihnachtsmarkt ist Hier" (the Christmas market is here). The New Braunfels Weihnachtsmarkt is as close to a Christkindlmarkt (Christ Child Market) as anything one would expect to see out of Germany, Austria, or Switzerland. How do I know? We went to check it out. The pictures will give some idea of what it was like. It may not be Thanksgiving yet, and it may not be frigid outside, but the Weihnachtsmarkt ushered in the season!