Advent Calendar - December 2 - Holiday Foods

I can remember as a kid waking up mom & dad to let them know that Santa had been there.  Once everyone was up, we were tortured into eating breakfast before opening our presents!  Just kidding!  I'm sure the bacon and eggs, and the coffee for mom and dad, helped make the morning go smoother as we ripped into our presents.  Believe me, we ate breakfast at a lightning pace!


Our family pretty much had all of the traditional holiday foods for Christmas dinner - everything from ham to turkey, plenty of pies, even cranberry sauce (yuck!).  Honestly, I probably don't pay enough attention to what is being served - if you fix it, I can eat it.

One particular holiday tradition that I remember growing up involved special "Santa" mugs filled with lime-green holiday punch.  My grandma Wright started this tradition, I believe, and my mom still has this punch every year.  The kids really enjoy it :

Christmas Punch

Makes 36 servings

2 cups sugar                                    6 cups water

3 packages lemon-lime koolaide         2 liters lemon-lime soda

3 cups pineapple-grapefruit juice*       1 quart lime sherbet

1/3 cup lemon juice

About 2 hours before serving, stir half of the lime sherbet in punch bowl to soften.  Mix sugar, koolaide, juices and water together in large pitcher.  Stir until sugar is dissolved.  (This could be done ahead of time and chilled).  Blend into the sherbet that is in the punch bowl.  Scoop remaining sherbet on top.  Carefully pour in 7-Up or any lemon-lime carbonated beverage.

*If pineapple-grapefruit juice is not available, mix 1 1/2 cups of pineapple juice and 1 1/2 cups of grapefruit juice.

** Freeze 7-Up ice cubes with drained marschino cherries in the middle for color.

(Not so) Wordless Wednesday: LeMaster home - Portland, Indiana

These photos are from the house on West Water Street in Portland, Indiana that my father grew up in and that I remember from a boy visiting my grandmother. The first one is dated 1947.

This photo shows a winter view. From the type of film used, it was probably taken sometime in the late 1970s.

The final photo appears as I remember the house in the 1980s.

Genealogy Research Journal - December 2, 2009

Updated my database today with information I received from a correspondant regarding a collateral COOK family line.  Janet Cook Hart saw my database at Worldconnect and gave me corrections and additions to connect James S. COOK b. 1803 Guilford County, North Carolina into the main branches of the Quaker COOKS already in my database.  Turns out James is a 3rd cousin 6 times removed from me, but a descendant of Peter COOK and Elinor NORMAN.


Looking at the data reminds me that I have far to go to correct and document the correct Quaker dating in my records.