December 25: Christmas Day

Merry Christmas! I hope this day brings with it joy and blessings and happiness as the light returns, no matter what form the light takes in your life. I hope that as we have counted the days towards Christmas together, you have had some time to think about the darkness and the coming light. I hope you had time to revel in the darkness, to sleep and rest, to wonder and be in awe, to feel sadness and grief if those things come to you in the deep of winter. Solstice was a few days ago and the days are getting longer by a minute or two each passing day. Today is Christmas, my culture's most holy day as we celebrate the birth of light in the dark of winter.

For many people this story, the story of a baby literally born in the dark of winter, the dark of night, the dark of a stable, is the ultimate story of Christmas.

For many other people there are many other stories of light being born in the dark. Here's another of my favorites - wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas.

Merry Christmas, friends! What stories are important to you on this day of light in a season of dark? How do you celebrate our culture's most important holiday? What brings you joy on this winter morning?

December 24: Christmas Eve Mac and Cheese

It seems that most everyone has a special food tradition for Christmas Eve.

In Eastern Europe most Christian families prepare a large feast, usually with twelve meatless dishes representing the twelve apostles. Pickled mushrooms are popular in Poland and a sweet wheat and poppy seed porridge is necessary in the Ukraine. Serbs insist that a round of unleavened bread and a dish of salt are present at that meal while in Bulgaria they make pastries with fortunes in it for the year ahead.

Italian and Italian American families also make a meal with a large number of meatless dishes, a tradition called The Feast of the 7 Fishes. Baccala (salt dried cod), fried scallops, oysters and cod fish balls in tomato sauce are some of the well loved dishes.

In Colombia it is traditional to eat ajiaco, a potato soup, and buñuelos, a sweet pastry, while waiting up until midnight to wish everyone a merry Christmas. Christmas in Puerto Rico wouldn't be complete without a spit roasted pig, lechon asao. All over Latin America families gather to make tamales during the holiday season, a tradition I wish I could marry into sometime soon.

Some American families do their big Christmas meal on the 24th with lamb, ham, beef or even boring turkey. Not in my family, though. The beef is saved for December 25th and Christmas Eve is a time for macaroni and cheese. You may not think it holds a candle to Puerto Rican pig, Italian cod fish or Polish pickles, but my holiday wouldn't be complete without it. And yes, the potato chips and frozen peas are vitally important.

Merry Christmas!

A Modern Broderick Family Macaroni and Cheese

Salt 1 pound elbow macaroni
6 T butter
1 medium pressed garlic clove
1 t dry mustard
1/4 t cayenne pepper
6 T flour
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
3 1/2 cups whole milk
16 ounces colby jack cheese, shredded (about 5 1/3 cups)
8 ounces extra sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (about 2 2/3 cups) plus 1/2 cup more for the topping
Ground black pepper
2 cups frozen green peas
1 bag of kettle style potato chips, possibly the aged cheddar flavor

 1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and preheat to 400 degrees. Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil in a dutch oven over high heat. Stir in 1 T salt, the macaroni and the peas; cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente, about 5 minutes. Drain the pasta and leave it in the colander; set aside.

2. Wipe the pot dry. Add the butter and return to medium heat until melted. Add the garlic, mustard, and cayenne; cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly, until golden, about 1 minute. Slowly whisk in the chicken broth and milk; bring to a simmer and cook, whisking often, until large bubbles form on the surface and the mixture is slightly thickened, 5 to 8 minutes. Off the heat, whisk in the cheeses gradually until completely melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. Add the drained pasta and peas to the cheese sauce and stir, breaking up any clumps, until well combined. Stir in about 2/3 the bag of potato chips and pour the mixture into a 9 x 13″ baking dish and top with the rest of the potato chips, slightly crushed, and the reserved cheese. Bake until golden brown and bubbling around the edges, approximately 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Adapted from Cook's Illustrated and my father's age old recipe. Seriously, don't knock the potato chips until you've tried them.

December 23: Dickens' Christmas Carol

``A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!'' cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
``Bah!'' said Scrooge, ``Humbug!''
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

``Christmas a humbug, uncle!'' said Scrooge's nephew. ``You don't mean that, I am sure.''
``I do,'' said Scrooge. ``Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? what reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.''
``Come, then,'' returned the nephew gaily. ``What right have you to be dismal? what reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.''
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, ``Bah!'' again; and followed it up with ``Humbug.''
``Don't be cross, uncle,'' said the nephew.
``What else can I be,'' returned the uncle, ``when I live in such a world of fools as this Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas. What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,'' said Scrooge indignantly, ``every idiot who goes about with ``Merry Christmas'' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!''
``Uncle!'' pleaded the nephew.
``Nephew!'' returned the uncle, sternly, ``keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.''
``Keep it!'' repeated Scrooge's nephew. ``But you don't keep it.''
``Let me leave it alone, then,'' said Scrooge. ``Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!''
``There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,'' returned the nephew: ``Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!''

And so begins one of the best loved and most wonderful Christmas story ever told. A very early Christmas memory of mine is watching the Mickey's Christmas Carol, an animated version of the classic starring Mickey as Bob Cratchitt, Goofy as Marley and Jimminy Cricket as the Ghost of Christmas past. Today, my favorite Christmas movie is the Muppet's Christmas carol starring Gonzo as the Narrator, Kermit, Piggy and Robin as the Cratchitt family and the wonderful Michael Caine as Scrooge. In addition to staying true to the story, going so far even as to use Dickens' original prose in some scenes, there are wonderful musical pieces and great Muppet comedy. These musical pieces are one of my favorite parts of the Muppet version in that they bring to life the secular values of generosity, cheerfulness and good will towards men that Dickens was really aiming for with his story. Where ever you find love, it feels like Christmas.

Like my other favorite Christmas movies (It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas), Dickens' story taps into the secular beauty of the holiday season. Dickens wrote his story in a time when the echos of the Puritan restrictions of the Cromwell era were still the main influence on how the English celebrated Christmas. The festive and joyous celebrations shown in A Christmas Carol reflect older, more pagan customs and were very attractive to the Victorian era English people so desperately looking for a way to cement their national identity and move into the modern era. Prince Albert had just introduced the Christmas Tree and Christmas cards were gaining popularity - our modern Christmas was invented by the Victorians and Dickens' story was a huge influence on that process. He actually coined the phrase Merry Christmas!

At it's core, A Christmas Carol is a morality story about being good to each other. I encourage you to re-read or re-watch a version of it this holiday season. Here it is in full text online, but your library will have copies of it as well. What are your favorite versions of this classic story? What inspires you to be good to other people in this season?

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

December 22: Fourth Sunday: Awe

Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon or the top of a mountain. Looking at a new baby sibling, daughter or nephew. Walking through a grove of cherry
blossoms in March. The power and destruction of a winter storm and the compassion and generosity of individuals helping rebuild afterwards. Images of nebulae, the concept of geologic time, the understanding of the interconnectedness of biologic life on Earth. These things bring us the experience of awe, of that heady mix of wonder, admiration, surprise and fear.

Awe inspires us. It inspires us to create, to live better lives, to help others and to protect.  Nicholas Humphrey who has written The Biological Advantage of Being Awestruck says “being enchanted by the magic of experience, rather than being just an aid to survival, provides an essential incentive to survive.”

Religious communities have known this since the dawn of time. One of our earliest spiritual impulses is to be in awe of the universe, of creation as we experience it. God has often been seen as awe-ful, something which inspires fear, awe and and overwhelming sense of connection. Cathedrals, standing stones, ceremonies and even simple candlelight have been used to produce and
maintain awe in religious contexts. These days, science is backing up what we have known about awe since prehistoric times. One study out of Stanford found that regular incidents of awe leave residual benefits to the individual and are residual including an increased sense of empathy, compassion towards other increased altruism and general well being.

That Stanford study defined awe as a experience of such perceptual expansion and vastness that you literally have to upgrade your mental schemata just to take in the scale of the experience. Paul Pearsall defines awe as an "overwhelming and bewildering sense of connection with a startling universe that is usually far beyond the narrow band of our consciousness."

 

A thundering waterfall. Frost on the grass and the crescent moon bright in the sky. Friends coming out of the woodwork to help you through rough times. A rose window. The Earth from space. A baby in a manger. What brings you awe?

December 21: Winter Solstice

This is a story of the year and the seasons and of creation. It is not The Story, I don't think humans can know The Story, but it is A Story. May it bring you joy, peace and wonder. 

Long, long ago in a time before there was either time or ago, all there was was the Darkness of the Divine. Out of this Darkness the Goddess formed herself and for almost as long as there had been just Darkness there was just the Goddess. Eventually, she came to realize she was alone, and then realized that she was lonely. Out of the one that was The Goddess became the Two, the Goddess and her consort the God. And they were happy.
 
Out of their happiness and their love sprang the myriad things. Out of their love sprang the stars and the earth, the water and the stones. Out of their love sprang the plants and the grass, the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea and the beasts of their land. Out of their love sprang rain and snow and the light of dawn and the still of twilight. All these myriad things were beautiful and rejoiced in their love of the Goddess and the God. And they were happy.

As time passed the God and the Goddess watched the drama of life play out on Earth. They watched plants grew and deer eat them. They watched deer grow and wolves eat them. They saw the vultures and flies eat the wolves' flesh after they died and the plants grow out of them again. The Goddess and the God watched this cycle, and the countless other cycles of birth and death and rebirth and saw that something else was needed in this world they had created. Just as the mouse sacrificed its life for the life of the snake and the minnow sacrificed for the perch and the fruit for the monkey, something or someone needed to sacrifice their life so that all the life of the myriad things could continue. And they were not happy, but they were at peace.

The God, the Goddess's consort, lover and partner, knew that it was his role to sacrifice himself for his creation. As he grew into the full strength of his power he prepared for his own sacrifice. Finally, despite the Goddess's sorrow, he chose his moment and sacrificed himself in a blaze of color and light. And they were not happy, but they were at peace.

The Goddess mourned his death and plant life seemed to die back in the face of her sorrow. The world grew colder and darker but the God's sacrifice had worked. Like autumn leaves mouldering under the snow to produce the next years light spring soil, his life force permeated all of creation. His sacrifice gave all things a chance at rebirth and renewal. And, miracle of miracles, like the cow elk in the early winter The Goddess found herself pregnant; pregnant with the God himself. And she was happy.

She grew larger in her pregnancy as the world sunk deeper into a winter hibernation. When it felt like the Earth could not be colder or darker, or the Goddess any greater with her child she gave birth. She gave birth to a son, to the God, to light and warmth and growth. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and held him close to her as he grew. And they were happy.

The Goddess was so happy with her child, with the birth of light and of summer to come that she wanted to celebrate. In her joy she created humans to help her celebrate, to keep watch over the year as the God is born, grows, becomes strong and fills the world with growing green and warm thing. The Goddess and the humans she created watch and celebrate as The God reaches his full strength, realizes his destiny and sacrifices himself in light and color. The Goddess and the humans she created watch and celebrate even as the Earth sinks into restful dark and cold, renewing and waiting. And again, we celebrate at the birth of the new year's Light. And we are happy.

  These images are created by AlicePopkorn. Please check out all of her amazingly beautiful and spirit filled work on her flickr stream.

December 20: The Cosmic Calendar and Land Plants

On Carl Sagan's Cosmic Calendar, where the history of the universe is condensed into a calendar year, the first land plants emerge around December 20th. Since we last checked in on the Cosmic calendar on December 5th, simple and then more complex animals had evolved including insects, fish and even

The Rainforest I Live In

early amphibians. But all of that diversity of life existed in the seas. The planet had been in existence for 3.5 billion years already, that's thirty five thousand million years, with almost nothing living on the land. The oxygen level in the atmosphere was very low and there was no ozone layer, making the terrestrial environments bathed in UV light that destroys living tissues. Right around 500 million years plants like mosses and lichens started to be seen in the shore line environments at the edge of coastal waters. They had probably been colonizing the intertidal zones and estuaries for a long time, evolving adaptations to survive being dried out by the sun and the wind. Then, 425 million years ago in the Silurian Period, a totally new kind of plant evolved. These plants had special structures that helped them manage and transport water in their tissues like xylem and waxy coverings on their leaves and stems.

Spring in Portland

With these new pioneers the whole of the Earth's surface was opened up to colonization by the animals that ate plants and in turn by the animals that ate other animals. We are terrestrial creatures who would not have evolved, all those hundreds of millions of years later, if it were not for the amazing advances in water management devised by these early plants.

I live in an ecosystem dominated by large plants. Parts of Western Oregon are actually designated temperate rainforests and all of it is heavily covered in trees, grasses, ferns, shrubs and weedy herbs. My mother, who grew up in Southern California, still sometimes complains about "all this damn green!" At times you literally can not see the forest for the trees where I live. As a teenager I had an epiphany moment in a forest near my house when I gazed up at a young alder tree next to a creek and really processed what my science teacher had been lecturing about xylem, phloem and water transport in trees. This tree is moving water dozens of feet, and that one over there hundreds of feet, with simply water tension, evaporation and magic! It blew my mind then, and it blows my mind now. It blows Derek Mueller's mind too so he made this amazing video to tell us why trees can get so tall. Enjoy!

What blows your mind about plants, or about anything else outside? What is your favorite plant? Spend a moment to thank a vascular plant today, we depend on them for a lot.

December 19: Axial Tilt, the Reason for the Season

We moved to Portland OR from San Francisco when I was 10 years old and I distinctly remember feeling that the summer sun didn't set until so very late in the evening. It seemed like the days stretched on forever. The memories of a dreamy 10 year old are not necessarily to be trusted, but my observations were based in reality - the summer days in Portland really ARE longer than those in San Francisco. At the Summer Solstice in late June, Portland has a full hour more sunlight and the difference between an 8:30 sunset and a 9pm sunset is a very big one, especially when you still have a bed time. We also have a distinctly shorter winter day, with the sun setting here well before 5pm on the Winter Solstice.

The reason for this difference in the sunrise and sunset times is due to a quirk of our planet called the axial tilt. Remembering back to our middle school earth science, you know that there is an imaginary line running from the north pole to the south pole of our planet called the axis. Every day the earth spins on this axis once, giving us a sunrise, daylight, sunset and another sunrise. By some accident of planetary formation our Earth's axis is about 20 degrees off perpendicular to our orbit - the poles point a little bit towards the sun at some times of the year and a little bit away at others. As the earth revolves around the sun, the north pole points towards the sun in June and the south towards the sun in December causing the sun's rays to fall unevenly on the earth. When we in the northern hemisphere are pointing towards the sun we get longer daylight and more intense solar heat while the opposite happens when we point away. We call these changes in daylight and average temperature winter and summer. The closer to the poles you happen to be, the more pronounced this change in daylight over the course of the year is. My northernmost Facebook friend is in Barrow, Alaska this winter and when the sun set on November 19 has stayed below the horizon and won't come back until January 22nd. Other friends in Fairbanks Alaska will have 3 hours and 45 minutes of daylight today, here at the 45th parallell in Oregon we will have 8 hours and 42 minutes while my southernmost Facebook friend in Honalulu will have almost 11 hours of daylight.

It blows my mind that we live on a planet that is set up this way. If we lived on Mercury we wouldn't experience seasons because that planet has virtuallly no axial tilt. Venus also doesn't experience seasons, but it's tilt is close to 180 degrees, with a rotation opposite that of any other planet. Another planet with wacky seasons is Neptune, but with an axial tilt of 90 degrees one of it's poles faces the sun for about 40 years before the seasons shift and it gets 40 years of darkness. Totally crazy!

I love living in a place where I can experience a change in daylight over the course of the year. I love watching the sunrise and sunsets shift north and south on the horizon over the course of the year. A marking point of every autumn is when the sunset matches up with the one mile of directly west running freeway by my house and there are "inexplicable" traffic jams there every afternoon for a week. I enjoy the cozy dark evenings of winter, when the sun has set by the time most folks are home from work, and I revel in the long sunlight afternoons of summer where you can get hours of socializing in between work and sunset. I daydream about living in a place where I can mark the locations of those solstice sunsets on the land, like Ada Monroe did towards the end of Cold Mountain, seeing a physical representation of the link between the earth and the sky as the seasons shift. The shift in the seasons is a rhythm I can fall back on, it happens no matter what. And this week, the rhythm reaches it's dark point. Soon we'll climb back towards summer.

For more images and other explanations of the seasonal changes on Earth check out this great post at Skeptic's Play or this fun video at Brain Pop. Knowledge is power, so get some!

Holiday Giving: My Favorite Non Profits

The holidays are often a time when people feel more free to give to charities and non-profits. One of the best ways to move on this impulse during the holiday season is to give money to charities in the name of your friends and family rather than giving them a tangible present. An interesting way to do this is to give your loved one a gift certificate to a donation gift site, many of which are listed in this article and blog post. 

If you are needing some ideas on non-profits to support this year, here are some of my favorites. Many are local to Portland, but many are not.

I love my dog more than anything and feel compelled to help animals whenever I can. The Pongo Fund is an emergency pet food bank in Portland doing amazing work to help pets stay with their people during times of economic crisis. I tear up when I think of all they are doing for people and pets in the area. The Oregon Humane Society is another organization I whole heartedly support. They have been serving the needs of homeless and neglected animals in Portland since 1868. In addition to rehoming pets, OHS has a technical rescue team that will help pets stuck out in the mountains or woods, an amazing Humane Education program and a veterinary teaching hospital. No doubt there are organizations just as amazing as these serving dogs, cats and their people in your local area, too.

I care very much about people, too, and support a number of organizations working towards bringing self reliance, dignity and escape from poverty to people all over the world. Shelter Box is an amazing organization that provides emergency shelter relief to people after disaster strikes. Each shelter box contains a roomy tent, blankets, a water filter, a tool kit, a stove and usually some special gifts for children like coloring books and crayons. Another program I love is the Empower Kits available through Glad Rags and donated to Empower Women in Africa. Buying one of these kits sends 5 high quality, reuseable cloth menstrual pads to a teenage girl in Africa. Lack of access to these important personal hygeiene tools causes many young women to miss days of school and maybe even eventually drop out.

Other local groups I love include, but are not limited to, the Oregon Food Bank, Friends of Outdoor School, Neighborhood House, Street Roots, Sisters of the Road Cafe and so many others. Which charities do you support this time of year? How do you give them your support?