Yes, it's too early for Christmas music!

But heaven help me. I'm too sad. There's too much garbage going on in the world. But I will not discuss it.

Most of us love Christmas music, and this is really superb. I loooooooooove ancient music. I will admit that Medieval and Renaissance music in general is an acquired taste, but Baroque... well, this is just sublime. It will get you in the Christmas spirit. I'm not advocating that you skip Advent, but if you (like me) need some peace in your soul, seriously, give this ensemble a listen. Beautiful hymns and carols, and a very talented group of singers and musicians.

We will reclaim the culture through beauty. That is all.



PS this video is not narrated in English. Yet at the very end I heard the name "John Rutter," and John Rutter is NOT a Baroque composer (but his music is also sublime! We will leave that for another day.) Enjoy, and God bless your day! (Just 6-odd weeks till Christmas!!!)
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Waiting for dawn

The houseplants near my kitchen patio door, waiting for sunrise. 

Christmas is almost officially over, as Ordinary Time begins tomorrow.  I hope you had a nice Christmas; our family certainly did. It's always sad at the end of the holidays to see the adult and college-age children going back to their jobs and studies.  This January is more poignant than usual, since Daughter #5 is leaving home, and there are various other changes afoot, some of which I did not anticipate. As they say, "Change is the only Constant" (actually, "they" is the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus, which I just discovered this very moment. Isn't Google useful sometimes?)

Despite the various challenges of life, my spirits are lifted because: 1) God; 2) we are POST-SOLSTICE: more hours of daylight--yay! I have trouble getting up early in the morning at the best of times, but winter is even less fun. When one of our daughters was little, she called everything between midnight and sunrise "Dark Morning," and the label is apropos, literally as well as metaphorically. 

Wise men still seek Him

Happy solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord!

I thought I would jot down a few notes inspired by Mass today. Here is the Opening Prayer:

“O God, who on this day revealed your Only Begotten Son to the nations by the guidance of a star, grant in your mercy that we who know you already by faith may be brought to behold the beauty of your sublime glory.”

It's funny (or sad) how sometimes the words of the prayers and readings of Mass go in one ear and out the other, without even pausing to register. And then other days, a sentence, or phrase, or word will jump out at you and sear itself into your brain, and inspire you to go home and meditate on it for a while. This phrase from the Opening Prayer caught my imagination this morning:

Happy Christmas Eve

To our Ukrainian and Orthodox friends!

Here is a lovely article about the traditions of Ukrainian Christmas. Being of Slavic descent, and having been gifted with a beautiful volume of Russian folk and fairy tales in the early 70's (thanks, big sisters!), and having been introduced to Catherine Doherty's writings at young age (thanks, Dad!) I have a great love for Eastern Christian art, spirituality, rituals, architecture, culture and so forth. (How did I not mention food in that list?) I have never experienced a Ukrainian Christmas Eve feast, but someday I would love to.

Happy January First: Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God

One of Bourguereau's lovely paintings.

Happy New Year! This is not going to be a long post, because it's still holiday time, and I'm spending it with my family. Did 2017 go by as quickly for you as it did for me? I can't believe how time is flying. You'd almost think I'm getting old or something. 

But stop for a minute (at least) and think about this--even if you're not Catholic: God chose to have a mom. You know, GOD, creator of the universe, who existed before and outside all time and space. That should tell us something about how important it is to be a mom. It's the most important job in the world. And Mary did hers to perfection (everything she did pointed to her Son). That is why we honour her.

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Guest post

Ha ha, not really. But I'm phoning it in this morning (i.e., not really writing the content of this post). I'm heading off to Mass, and then my hubby and I are doing a bit of shopping and checking in on his folks.

My guest blogger this morning is the Prophet Isaiah, and his contribution comes to us from the Reading of Morning Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours. (Isaiah 11:1-5). It is one of my favourite Advent readings; part of it is inscribed on our family's Jesse Tree poster. (Which sadly, my children have 'outgrown.') If you have not read any Scripture yet today, here you go! Two birds with one stone, so to speak:

Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse,
And a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and strength,
The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

And He will delight in the fear of the Lord,
And He will not judge by what His eyes see,
Nor make a decision by what His ears hear;
But with righteousness He will judge the poor,
And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth;

And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.
Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins,
And faithfulness the belt about His waist.

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The Urgency of Advent

Today, I offer our dear readers some used goods (slightly edited from the original). But I hope the message still resonates. This column was originally published during Advent 2012, in The Record, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of Perth, Australia. Once upon a time, I was their "Mom Columnist." The paper is no longer in print (alas, a victim of the digital age) but they still publish online. 

“URGENT!” I texted my sixteen year old daughter, “What key is "O Tannenbaum" in?” The reason for the urgency: I was at a church twenty miles away with my youngest children (10 and 8), the younger of whom was about to perform her first-ever vocal solo in public. My teen would know the answer because she had spent weeks accompanying her little sister on the piano at home.

This was my theory, anyway.

But for this anecdote to make complete sense, we need to backtrack a few hours. We had just finished lunch at home, and were about to leave for the event at which my daughters were scheduled to sing.

Me: “Do you girls need to bring any of your music with you?”

Girls: “Naww.”

Fast-forward. I am approached by the girls’ vocal teacher. “Does Sophia have her music with her?”

Me (sheepishly): “No.”  Then like any self-respecting mother, I quickly blamed my children for this state of events.

“It’s OK,” the teacher replied, “I have the song in another music book, but I need to know what key we rehearsed it in.” She was accompanying my tot on a digital piano, and could transpose with the press of a button. (Sometimes, technology is not evil, I will admit.)

I texted the question to my teen and breathlessly awaited a reply. Sophia was due to perform at any moment. The response came back: “A Major.” Unfortunately, the reply came about ten minutes after my eight-year old had finished her song. (Incidentally, I’m not sure how that works. When teens are texting their buddies, they seem to be able to manage about ten messages to the minute. When Mom is on the line, somehow ‘urgent’ seems to take on a slightly different meaning.)

Sophia sang like a little trooper, even though her teacher quickly discovered—to her dismay, but too late to adjust it—that the piano had been mistakenly set (by someone else) several keys below the range in which Sophia is used to singing. (For the non-musical out there, yes, it really does make a difference.) The happy conclusion is that the performance went well regardless; no one noticed anything was amiss.

There is, of course, a lesson to be gleaned.

It’s Advent: do you understand the urgency?  I have surely felt urgency, but probably not the kind the Lord intends (and I don’t wait for Advent; I start fretting in mid-October). Advent ought to be a time of waiting, reflection, preparation, anticipation, excitement, joy. Waiting? Oh dear, yes: in long, long line-ups at the till, or for that gift order to arrive from Amazon. Reflection? Only a blurry one as I dash past the big department store windows (gosh, it’s time for a new winter coat; this old one makes me look fat and frumpy). Preparation? Oh yes: baking, cooking, cleaning, driving, shopping, wrapping, hiding stuff. Anticipation? As in, I can’t wait for this to be over, so life can resume a slightly less frenetic pace? Excitement? Does feeling like you’re going to die of stress count? Joy? Not on the radar—call me in January, when this is all over.

When one is forced to stop and think awhile, it’s amazing what God can do. Thank heaven for Mass, good priests and homilies, and even, occasionally, editors.

My prayer for you this Advent is that you do not fall into the trap that I so often do. I neglect things like quiet prayer time, because I think I’m too busy. I forget that this season is a time to contemplate Christ’s Second Coming (and my own demise, which will likely happen much sooner). Am I ready? Have I seen to my eternal spiritual welfare? (Is sacramental confession near the top of my long Advent ‘To Do’ list?)

Do I get the urgency? 

Advent is not all Armageddon and Judgement Day, by the way: just re-read St. Luke’s Gospel (Chapter 21) from the First Sunday of Advent: “Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near!” If that doesn’t fill you with joyful hope, I don’t know what does.

We need to be a bit more like Sophia: relax, go with the flow. Stop creating your own false urgency (it’s often pointless: your Christmas guests want to visit you, not your gluten-free gingerbread cathedral).

Sing in the key you’re given, because it may just be where God wants you, even if you didn’t quite plan it that way.

Out of the mouths of babes. Even when they’re singing "O Tannenbaum," in the wrong key.

Copyright 2012, The Record and Mariette Ulrich

Kindly contact me at ladywriter.ulrich@gmail.com for reprint/quotation permission

Those interested in reading some of my other work for The Record may visit here. 

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"Let new and nobler life begin"

Happy New Liturgical Year! It's Advent, and thus the beginning of a new cycle in the Christian liturgical calendar. Every year, I try not to be overwhelmed by busy-ness, but instead try to focus on the spiritual meaning of the pre-Christmas season. This year I did what I have never done before at this time of year: attend an Advent retreat. And what a great idea that was. I hope to do something like this every year from now on.

Retro Cookie Charm

Yes, by golly, it's the vintage Tupperware cookie cutters! Did you have these as a child? (In other words, did your mom or grandmother?) Our mom did, and my sisters and I grew up baking with them. So much fun (but I never understood the pig. Why a pig? What holiday has a pig for an emblem? I found only National Pig Day, but that's a bit of a stretch, especially since the holiday only seems to date from 1972! Something to do with Ireland was the best I could come up with, but there is clearly no shamrock associated with the Tupperware piggy.)

Many twenty years ago or so, I was at a garage sale, and I found two of them: the Santa and the gingerbread boy. I was so excited, I bought them right away. But the entire set eluded me (eBay, of course, was not invented back then) Then last year (Christmas 2015), I received this set from the Beazly household. As I vaguely recall, I squealed in a most unladylike fashion when I opened the box and saw them all there. 

I'm not sure what to make of this

When we renovated the kitchen/dining area, Mr. P turned down my request for a fireplace or wood-burning stove to be included. I can't really blame him, since we didn't need it. The area is small, and it stays quite warm enough with the heat from the large windows (southern exposure) and cooking/baking. Plus, there is no seating/lounging area to speak of: I basically eliminated my living room in order to have a large kitchen and adequate dining space. (There goes the resale value...)  And YES, someday I will post Before-During-After pics of the reno, for which DOH fans have been clamouring! (Well, OK, one reader requested photos, on one occasion...but I digress.)

I love the ambience of a fire. And my hubby apparently agrees. I came downstairs the other morning to join him for coffee (he had been up for a while). This was on his tablet, and I thought it was funny. If not strange.  

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Some musical groups just cry out to be purchased.

The Burgundian Cadence is one of them. "Burgundian Cadence" … Burgundian Cadence! Saying that is almost like a substitute for chocolate. Their name is so musical, one hardly needs to preview their albums. But of course I did. This one is on my iTunes wish list. (At $52, can't afford it on Amazon.) And it's STILL Christmas, so I can still talk about Christmas music.

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Is identifying with Winnie the Pooh a good thing or a bad thing?

Head full of fluff: check ("Think! Think!" is almost an hourly mantra--welcome to middle age.)
Short: check
Round: check
Cute: not so much
Obsessed with food: check (see "Round" above)

Oh well, at least I saw this on Facebook yesterday. And it's true. Stoutness exercises are better than no exercises at all.

And after all that Christmas sugar, it's back to green smoothies. You KNOW you've overdone it when you are craving organic spinach. 

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Let us begin the New Year

With this thought. "Perfect love casts out all fear."

Time to get out the silver polish

 I still haven't finished polishing my vintage silver-plated flatware set I scooped up last year from an estate sale. Yes, last year. But I've been too busy to blog about it. Too busy to blog; too busy to polish silver. There has to be something amiss with my time management skills. But I really want to use it this Christmas, so I'll make one more attempt.

Before

After

The whole glorious set (a 12-place setting). I can't tell you what I paid for it, because I'm embarrassed. Honestly I should have offered the guy more (he named the price, which is what keeps my conscience clear). And he has the internet too. It's not my fault if he doesn't care to google stuff.  (In fact, I did not know the set's value before I bought it, but only after I got home. So that helps keep me from feeling guilty too.)

The box geeks me out… so Midmod! 

Awesome Italian-made silver salad tongs (bottom) were not part of the Rogers Bros set, but they were included in my haul. Bonus! 

So were these adorable 1960s chrome Made in England jam/relish ladles.

Dyslexia, much?

Was Christmas shopping for a certain man (who doesn't read this blog, so it's ok), and when I saw this, I thought, "DENIAL? Really??" (I didn't buy it, BTW). Memo to self: wear your reading glasses when you shop.  

At least the colour is improved, and other things are too.

Smoothies, continued. This time, rosy red-crabapple butter and berries masked the swiss chard. 

And the taste was good too. But not as good as this: 

Yes, daughters! I must sheepishly admit that I consumed my Christmas 2014 mulled wine gift only this past month. But really, who drinks mulled wine in Lent, Easter, or summertime? I pretty much had to wait for another winter. And it was worth the wait. 

Diet-wise, the first week of December did not feel exactly great. There were too many treats and lapses, and the schedule was too crazy. And yet last week, I managed my first treadmill run in ages: did a modest 2.5 km (yes, Imperial friends, I know that's a mere 1.55342798 miles, but who's keeping track?). Most surprising of all, the bathroom scale was my friend this week. It was only 1.8 lb down (from Dec 1), and yeah, it was probably all water, but down is down. It's encouraging.

But another week of Advent is nearly gone, and I'm starting to feel a bit frazzled: a sure indication that I need to force myself to slow down and spend more time in prayer.

Cooking Your Goose

Literally and figuratively. I am making my Christmas wish list for the kids (sorry I'm so late with this, gals!), and came across this baby. These pots are simply beautiful, but OUCH! At $650, that would blow my Christmas budget (like, for the whole family), perhaps for several years. And that's ON SALE: on Amazon.com, they're listed 'regularly' at $750 (red) and $860 (blue). On this site, $930. Oh dear.

Here is a link to a video of a chef cooking a goose in this product: photos of the pots alone really don't indicate much (unless you provide reference, as this person has done):

Some lucky cook's assortment of Le Creuset pots.
From left to right: 8 qt, 15.5 qt (goose), 5.5 qt.

Watching the video was totally not a waste of time for me, because (THANK YOU, MICHAEL RUHLMAN!!) I have now been liberated from the angst of presenting lovely cuts of poultry meat to my guests: he just chops up EVERYTHING except the breast. I also learned how to keep the poultry meat hot AND moist while hubby is carving (am I the only cook who stresses about the turkey meat not being hot enough when you serve it? And the only cook who's dumb enough not to have figured out Mr. Ruhlman's brilliant yet painfully simple method by this point in my life?) He keeps the cut up meat in a shallow covered pan of hot stock. So much more sensible than putting it on a cold platter. I am now actually looking forward to cooking the turkey this year! Though I do realize I will never, ever own cookware made by Le Creuset. (And no, daughters, that is not a self-pitying passive aggressive hint. The stuff is just. Too. Expensive.)

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A vastly underappreciated hymn

I have loved this Christmas song ever since I first heard it on The Bishop's Wife, but in vain did I struggle to know more about it. In those days, there was no internet, and I could not find out who wrote it, or what it was called, or anything. I even thought it might be an original piece that had been written for the film.

Thanks to Google and YouTube (and eventually iTunes), not only did I find out about it, but I purchased a version of it (but not, alas, the one below). The hymn/anthem is a 19th century piece: the English title is "O Sing to God" and the words were written by Rev. Benjamin Webb. The music (original Title: "Noël: Montez à Dieu") was composed by Charles François Gounod (yes, the Ave Maria guy). I found this information, and much more, at this site, The Hymns and Carols of Christmas.

The thing that makes me really really sad is that there are SO FEW recordings of this hymn! (You know you are truly desperate when you resort to listening to a scratchy 1916 recording on YouTube.) I cannot  fathom why some of those great choirs kicking around (King's College, Cambridge, I'm looking at you) have not recorded this piece on any of their Christmas albums. If I'm wrong, please let me know! I've searched high and low online but I can't find any professionally recorded choral renditions. The version I purchased was by French Canadian tenor Richard Verreau, which is simply lovely (indeed, the entire album, Un Grand Noel Classique is sublime).

I would love to find a CD or mp3 file of a good children's/boys (or any!) choir singing this piece--the few versions on YouTube are mostly amateur, and leave much to be desired for audio quality. As does the clip from the Cary Grant movie below, delightful though it certainly is.

This arrangement is original to the film, as they do a bit of juggling and omitting with the original lyrics, but it's still extremely beautiful, and gives me shivers every single time I hear it. Enjoy.



The Robert Mitchell Boys Choir appeared in other films as well.
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O Sapientia

O Wisdom

The countdown to Christmas Eve has begun! Today we pray the first of the O Antiphons. Read more about them here. Let us now listen to this beautiful rendition of Veni, veni Emmanuel by the King's Singers:


I love these guys; their Christmas album (on which this is the first track) is fabulous.


Isaias 11:2-3
And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom, and of understanding, the spirit of counsel, and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of godliness. And he shall be filled with the spirit of the fear of the Lord, He shall not judge according to the sight of the eyes, nor reprove according to the hearing of the ears.

Isaias 28:29

This also is come forth from the Lord God of hosts, to make his counsel wonderful, and magnify justice.

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Like that kid said in that movie

They're baaaaaaaaaaack. The Dumb Old Housewives are blogging again. More to follow (we hope).