Christmas

a note and a few little gifts

Next week we’ll return to part two of the essay we started last week, “knowing what the questions are”. Today, I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Merry Christmas. For those of you that celebrate other types of holidays, I still offer my wishes for the beauty and warmth of this time of year to find you.

Christmas is a difficult time for us since the death of our youngest daughter. This will be our third Christmas without her and it still feels inconceivable. Our oldest daughter and her family, complete with world’s cutest granddaughter, still can’t leave the US because of immigration processing. So it’s just us, Troy and I, with our middle daughter, Ella, who just had the audacity to turn 27 years old. Christmas Eve has always been reserved for our nuclear family. It’s when Troy and I and the girls would spend the day tobogganing and playing games. In the evening we would have our own feast, attend midnight mass, and then come home to drink hot chocolate and eat homemade treats while we opened presents. Yes, a late night indeed, but so special. It’s how I celebrated Christmas as a girl. Intimate and slow and rich with love and food.

On Christmas day, a small huddle of close family will come this year. We will eat from the offerings of our farm. We’ll swarm around the fire pit with mulled cider and dunk our buns in the wood-fired, cow trough hot water tub - the brave amongst us rolling in the snow in between dips. And we will also go to the cemetery together. We will pray to God and to our Mila. We will light a candle and play Ave Maria as loud as we can for all the souls that have departed, but for Mila most of all.

There will be joy and there will be anguish. A melancholy, open heart. I wouldn’t have it any other way knowing what I know now. To live in this world honestly we must learn how to carry both pain and joy. It’s the connector we seek and the teacher we need. Open hearts willing to take it all on with grace and humility. Look for them among you and care for them when you find them as you would a rare and mystical treasure. Be one yourself and remember to care for yours, too.

I wish for you all love and warmth and feasts worthy of our short time here. Look for the beauty in the simplest of moments and be love - it’s our highest calling, the antidote to this time of division and strife. It’s what matters most. Merry Christmas lovely humans of planet earth. I am honoured that we share this little blip of time here together. How blessed we all are.

Below, a couple of little presents from me to you.

Last year I shared our pork rind making process and my Bapka’s delicious Christmas cake (or “krizmus kek”). Homemade pork rinds are a hit every holiday season. They’re a process, but so much better than throwing a bowl of chips on the table for snacking. It’s too late for the cake this year, but if you make it this coming January, it would be ready by next Christmas. What’s more hopeful than cake that you make now for a year or two later?

When my beloved Bapka died, I asked for her gallon glass jar full of her cookie cutters and tin candy moulds. How could I ever have been able to make her cookies without those moulds? With the gift of receiving those treasures came the responsibility of making those cookies every now and then. Mine will never match the delicacies that wonderful woman produced in her kitchen, but they’re not too shabby either.

These ones, a Slovak cookie called “zazvorniky” require an overnight sleep under the maker’s bed. Now if that doesn’t make you fall in love with them, what would? They are, I think, the Slovak version of biscotti only shaped different and taste totally different so maybe that’s a stretch after all. But, they’re hard as rocks and keep forever and make the most amazing cookies to dip into fresh, raw milk or a creamy, sweet tea.

An oldie Christmas carol that’s very conducive to making up your own little messages for your kids. I used to sing this one with my own little reasons for my “little girl don’t you think it’s time you were in bed”. They used to love it. My mom had the Nana Mouskouri records so this one still feels special (even when I don’t fiddle with Nana’s perfection). Her whole Christmas album is quite soft and pretty.

Christmas carols are a big part of the season here. We go for the classics sung by the classics, but there’s a few that snuck in when I was a kid (thinking Boney M here - a revolt of epic proportions would befall anyone who didn’t include them on the Christmas mix), but also this Canadian treasure that came out awhile back. It’s snappy and happy and somehow remains beautiful. That moment when Sarah’s voice pierces into the song still fills my eyes with joyous tears. What an incredibly talented species we are! We can sing hallelujah and just know it reaches God’s ears. God doesn’t have ears, but God knows what I mean.

This one is both a gift from me to you, and one I received. The brilliant mind and fearless woman, Heather Heying, recently recommended little ole’ Slowdown Farmstead on the Darkhorse Christmas 2023 gift-giving-guide podcast. I was beyond touched and deeply honoured to make it onto her list for two years in a row. Feel like I’ve made the big time now. Note: If you don’t know about the Darkhorse podcast, you should - a married couple who happen to be evolutionary biologists with sharp minds, sound ethics, and humility willing to call a spade a spade even when the rest of the upside down world insists it’s a lollipop. They are courageous in a time of cowards. A favourite podcast of ours who also wrote a fantastic book.

Finally, this little video I made awhile ago. It’s terribly edited, but I think it’s still a treasure. A wee beaver I followed around for a time. A gift better than any this beaver-loving heart of mine could ask for (unless, of course, the heavens would like to put an abandoned, lonely little baby beaver in my path one day). I hope you, or maybe your kids find it as wonderful to marvel at this industrious little creature as I did.