At the end of very year humorist Dave Barry releases his review of the past 12 months. Every year, I literally laugh until I cry. This year was no exception….

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2014/12/28/davebarry-yearinreview-2014/

Have a great weekend.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.  Isaiah 43:18-19

Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet? –  Lucy Maude Montgomery from Anne of Green Gables

May you all have a happy, holy and prosperous 2015!

I spent yesterday looking back at my year as documented by Nana’s Whimsies. What a year 2014 was!

January

After much waiting, my niece gave birth to Baby Lilly, and Austin surprised us by immediately loving her. Bec and I spent one full day with our friend Andrea as she showed us how to make tamales. The Broncos brought us to our feet by making it to the Super Bowl only to break our hearts on February 2. I attended my first dog show.

February

Erik’s delicious gumbo.

In our own inimitable style. we celebrated Mardi Gras in typical fashion, with lots of family and lots of food. I made my big transition from nanaswhimsies.blogspot.com to nanaswhimsies.com. It was a good change, and my readership continue to grow.

March

Bill and I had some kind of fun attending an amusement park fundraiser put on by the local high school, though we kept in mind my brother’s adage that death by amusement park is only a matter of time. We also attended several Spring Training games, which always, of course, includes a trip to Portillo’s for hot dogs or Italian beef sandwiches.

April

Our month was full of wedding activities. My niece Kacy and David renewed their vows in a beautiful ceremony at which Bill presided. Maggie and Bec and I spent an entire day making a variety of small desserts to serve at their rehearsal dinner.

We capped the month off on a cruise of beautiful Saguaro Lake with Bec.

May

We returned to Denver just in time to be there for the birth of our 10th grandchild Cole Jonathan. He arrived a bit early, but was healthy as can be. His sisters loved him from the get-go. Kaiya couldn’t keep her hands off of him. She still can’t. You might also recall that was the beginning of my car issues in a nerve-racking experience involving a stalled yellow bug in the middle of one of the busiest streets in Denver.

June

In June, I published what turned out to be one of my most popular posts, the story about my not wearing my glasses as a small girl, though I desperately needed them. I attribute its popularity to the fact that the story included the photo of my little friend Addison Kay, who looks adorable in glasses. The month of June was also exciting because it was my first celebration of National Martini Day. I finished off the month with the purchase of two knives from my grandson during his short-lived stint as a Cutco salesman.

July

July included a road trip with Bec to our old stomping grounds of Columbus, Nebraska, where we reunited with a number of relatives. Mark, Maggie, Austin and Lilly also came to visit us and the Austin got a chance to play with his own cousins. I got a bit of one-on-one time when Alastair and I went geocaching. He went above and beyond — literally — to gather a geocache from high up in a tree.

August

Late summer is peach time in Colorado when the western slope peach growers start sending their ripened fruit to the markets. I purchased a case, and made delicious pies. But the best part about August was a visit from our Vermont family, which included a dinner at which our entire family gathered.

September

And if August is peach time, September is green chili time. I bought way too many chilies, and spent a considerable amount of time cleaning them. We also began harvesting our pears and our peaches, and Mylee and I spent one afternoon making applesauce. “I want to put my whole face in the bowl,” she told me. A visit to Bill’s mom in Chicago included one of the highlights of my year — a trip to Eatily in downtown Chicago. September also included several days of keeping three of our grandkids full time as their mom and dad traveled. Our babysitting included a trip to Steak-n-Shake.

October

To celebrate Bill’s birthday, we took a train ride up into the mountains to the pretty little town of Glenwood Springs with some friends. Jen and I also had the opportunity this year to spend a weekend in Estes Park to listen to the beautiful sound of elk bugling for their mates. Bill and I returned to AZ late in October to open up our house after the long, hot summer, only to find our garbage disposal was among the casualties. Bill, never one to scrimp when it comes to household appliances, installed the Waste King 8000 Legend, which could grind up a refrigerator, but which, my friends, we have yet to use.

November

Thanksgiving, of course, is the highlight of November. I offered a Thanksgiving dressing Throw-Down and got lots of response. November was also the month in which I confided to the world that our AZ neighbor may — just may — be a nudist. It was again a very popular post. It just shows where ya’all’s minds are People. Finally, early in November, while still in AZ, the sisters got together and put together a timpano party.

December

And now we come to the end of this wonderful year. I have been writing Nana’s Whimsies for over a year. I have published over 400 posts. I have over 12,000 views and have received 1,006 comments. One thousand of these may have been from my biggest fan and blog manager Jen! It’s been a wonderful year, I’ve had a great deal of fun sharing my life with you all, and I am looking forward to even more success in 2015. Thanks for all your help. Word of mouth has been very beneficial.

I leave you with these two Christmas memories….

My brother’s favorite Christmas album.

One of my biggest laughs of 2014.

Remember those days, fellow Baby Boomers, when you were newly married or had moved into your first apartment and you owned absolutely nothing? Perhaps Mom and Dad gave you some of their old pots and pans or shared a few cracked dishes with you to get you started. Maybe you went to the hardware store and purchased some flimsy flatware and plastic glasses. Your bookshelf consisted of (and I KNOW you all remember this) concrete blocks holding up pieces of wood. They went well with the macramé plant holders hanging from your ceiling that you made with your own hands.

Well, when Jen and Bill and I first bought our Arizona house, that’s sort of the way we initially set up housekeeping. Only this time instead of getting our hand-me-downs from Mom and Dad, we got them from Jen’s daughter Maggie. She got married a few years ago and still had a lot of duplicate items, which she gladly shared with us. Enough to get us by for a bit anyway.

Now, as time goes by, and especially since Bill and I spend most of the winter here, I’m trying to get our house into tip top shape with all of the necessities. It has required that I really think about what exactly we need, especially given the fact that storage is at a premium in our lovely little home. Like most homes in the desert, we have no basement. It makes a huge difference in our ability to store our things.

So what, exactly, are necessities? Well, I, for example, have concluded that a Kitchen Aid stand mixer is a necessity. I use mine almost daily back in Denver because I bake a lot. I also love to use my Kitchen Aid to knead bread. But given its footprint, a Kitchen Aid would be considered a luxury instead of a necessity by most. However, it is a luxury I am going to allow myself. While my Kitchen Aid in Denver has a proud spot in the corner of my fairly large kitchen, here in AZ, it will live in the garage. Bill is extraordinarily happy about this, as you can imagine, especially since he dreams of the garage being a so-called “Man Cave.” Nothing says Man Cave like a large kitchen appliance resting comfortably under your Jeff Gordon banner.

I have been giving this some thought the past few days because we will be entertaining my family with a large and wonderful meal on New Year’s Day. I’m talking a honking prime rib – 7 bones and 15 pounds, to be exact. I am expecting as many as 14 adults and all of those wonderful children running around. It appears, by the way, that Mother Nature is going to give us one of those rare chilly and rainy days. Wouldn’t you know?

So I have been going over the meal preparation in my head so that I can figure out what we need. For example, because of its sheer size, we may need to divide the rib roast and do half in the oven and half on the grill. In this case, we would need a second meat thermometer.

The au jus will require a gravy boat, which we currently don’t own. Steak knives will be necessary for the meat, and we only own a few. What about a platter large enough to hold half a cow?

I think several trips to Bed Bath and Beyond armed with coupons (I probably have 200 in my drawer) are in order. Will they notice when I take one package to the car and return again to buy one more thing at 20 percent off? And then again? And again?

What housekeeping items could you not live without?

Addie and Nana clean mussels in preparation for Christmas Eve dinner.

In the Catholic Church, the Sunday that falls between Christmas and New Year’s Day honors the Holy Family – Joseph, Mary and Jesus. As we were leaving for church yesterday morning, Jen (who is in AZ visiting her family) said, “This is my favorite Sunday of the year.”

Really? I wondered why.

“I love that the church is still decorated for Christmas, that we sing Christmas carols, and that we honor the Holy Family,” she said.

Well, she was right about two out of three. The church was beautifully decorated with sparkling white lights, many pointsettias, and a lovely nativity scene. We did celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. Our gospel, in fact, was Luke’s story of Joseph and Mary making their way to the temple to have their son Jesus purified according to Jewish law.

Unfortunately, and inexplicably, there was not a Christmas carol to be had. That was rather odd, as we generally sing carols up until the Feast of Epiphany. Oh well. There were no carols being sung the day our savior was born so we just had to get a grip.

Our deacon preached the homily, and I really loved what he said. He directed our attention to the pretty Nativity scene that is set up at the front of the church and suggested that we mostly think of Bethlehem when we think of the Holy Family. He reminded us that Jesus, while the son of God, was also a human much like you and I, and had a typical Jewish family life, which included many extended family members. That was the way they lived.

Deacon Bernie told us the most interesting story, supposedly true. Apparently sometime in the 60s, it became apparent that heart disease and cancer was on the rise in the United States, and nobody could quite figure out why. So really smart people who know how to do such things figured out what city in the United States was the healthiest. I can’t even imagine how this could be done, but I’m not a statistician. Anyhoo, it turns out that it was a small community of about 2,200 people in Pennsylvania that comprised mostly Italian immigrants. The unusual thing about this community (according to Deacon Bernie) was that there were hardly any families consisting of only two generations. Instead, most of the family groups consisted of three or four generations living under one roof.

The really smart people concluded that somehow this community of extended family members resulted in healthier individuals. So, he went on to tell the largely older population of the church that our role of grandparent is more important that we even imagined.

Micah with his Papa.

Well, as my two-year-old grandson Micah would say, “Ta da!” (In fact, he said those exact words quite loudly at our Christmas Eve service just as the person reading Luke’s account of the birth of Christ said that baby Jesus was born.)

But anyway, TA DA indeed. I have long preached just how important our role as grandparents (and aunts and uncles and cousins and all sorts of extended family) is. Every single one of us is an important person to so very many others. As Nana, I am someone who can enjoy my grandkids unequivocally and without judgment or the need to do much more than love them and keep them safe. For example, one day a couple of weeks ago, Addie dropped by on her bicycle. She came into our house and greeted me. I could tell she wasn’t herself. She was feeling sad about something that had happened and needed an ear to listen to her without

My littlest, Cole Jonathan.

judging. That was me. I listened, offered her some likely-less-than-stellar counsel, and gave her a big hug.

She left shortly after, Oreo in hand and feeling better, and I felt so happy that I lived only a couple of blocks from her and that she trusted me.

So I loved that Deacon Bernie endorsed my thoughts on the importance of being a grandparent. I just wish he hadn’t done it only a few days after I have left my grandkids for the warmer climes of AZ and am missing them like crazy!

In just over a week, we (and when I say we, I mean I) will be watching the premiere of season 5 of Downton Abbey. I can hardly wait.

But fellow fans, take a look-see at this spoof and, if you have been a loyal fan, you should laugh out loud as I did.

http://www.today.com/popculture/george-clooney-takes-over-downton-abbey-video-thats-holiday-hoot-1D80385604

Have a great weekend.

Following is a reprise of a post originally published in December 2013. 

I have mentioned on very many occasions that my father (and my grandfather before him) was a baker. He owned a bakery for many years – 20-some years in Nebraska and then five more years in Leadville, Colorado. Because of all the holiday baking I have been doing, I have been thinking about the bakery and what we had to offer in the way of holiday treats at Gloor’s Bakery.

As I thought about it, what I came to realize is that in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, at least in Columbus, Nebraska, it wasn’t “Everything-Christmas” in the same way that it is nowadays in the retail world. My dad definitely had a few things that he only offered at Christmastime – almond bark and peppermint bark come immediately to my mind – but he didn’t even sprinkle red and green sugar on top of a cake donut for heaven’s sake. And apparently no one expected him to.

I do recall that he made a butter cookie – were they spritz cookies? He put the dough in a pastry bag with a flower tip and squirted them out onto the pan, where they were sprinkled with sugar. I’m pretty sure that was it as far as Christmas cookies went.

But having blabbered on and on about all of this, I have to say that there was one thing that he made that was totally associated with Christmas – to his family and to his customers. It was a braided loaf of bread that we called Butter Braid. For years I have been obsessed with trying to find the recipe for this bread. However, if I Googled “Butter Braid”, what always came up is the sweet pastry similar to a coffee cake. Delicious, but not what we called Butter Braid. What we called Butter Braid wasn’t particularly sweet.

Finally, the other day, I was playing around again trying to find a recipe and stumbled across something called Swiss Braided Bread. Hey! My grandparents came from Switzerland. They made a braided loaf of bread. Eureka!

Now that I had something to call it, I learned that in Switzerland it is called Zopf. I would be willing to bet that if my father was alive and I asked him about Zopf, he would say, “Oh, you mean the Butter Braid we always made at Christmas?” (Kids, ask your parents all your questions now because some day it will be too late or they will be too old and crotchety to answer your question.) Anyhoo, according to what I’ve read, in Switzerland, Zopf isn’t a traditional holiday bread; instead, it is something they bake and eat on Sunday mornings, perhaps toasted and smeared with homemade jam. In our bakery world, there wasn’t enough time to braid a hundred loaves of bread every day all year long. Thus, it was something special for Christmas.

We sold very many loaves of Butter Braid every Christmas season, more than I could begin to remember. I do remember, however, that my mother would wrap the bread in cellophane, using a hot iron to seal it. She would then wrap that crinkly ribbon around each loaf of bread and use a scissors to curl the ribbon. Later, when plastic bags became more common, I assume she used them for our Butter Braid and closed the bag using the ribbon.

In memory of my dad, here is a recipe for Butter Cookies (from Taste of Home) and Zopf (from Allrecipes).

Butter Cookies

Ingredients
1 c. butter, softened
1-1/4 c. confectioners’ sugar
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
½ t. almond extract
2-1/2 c. all-purpose flour
½ t. salt
Colored sugar and decorating candies, optional

Process
In a large bowl, cream butter and confectioners’ sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extracts. Combine flour and salt. Gradually add to creamed mixture; mix well.

Using a cookie press fitted with the disk of your choice, press dough two inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Decorate as desired. Bake at 375 for 6-8 minutes or until set (do not brown). Remove to wire racks to cool. Yield 7-1/2 dozen.

Swiss Braided Bread (Zopf)
Ingredients
1 (.25 oz) package active dry yeast
1-1/3 c. warm milk
1 egg yolk
2 T. butter, softened
3-1/2 c. bread flour
1 egg white
1 T. water

Process
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm milk. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes. Add the egg yolk, butter and 2 c. of bread flour; stir well to combine. Stir in the remaining flour, one-half cup at a time, beating well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 min.

Divide the dough into 3 equal pieces and roll each piece into a 14-in. long cylinder. Braid the pieces together and place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a small bowl, beat together egg white and water. Brush risen loaf with egg wash and bake in preheated oven for 20-25 min, until golden.

Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock. The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear. The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying:

Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.

Merry Christmas to all. For good measure, a Christmas greeting from Colorado via a carol that brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it.

Papa and Micah — Every time 2-year-old Micah sees Bill, he hollers out “Papa!” and holds out his arms.

The big day draws near, and things are hoppin’ at Nana’s Whimsies. I have lots of cooking to do and many hugs and kisses to give and get before Bill and I board an airplane on Christmas Day that will take us back to Arizona for the remainder of the winter.

While we are very sad to say our goodbyes, one thing we are not sorry to say goodbye to is the cold weather. Bill, in particular, has had his fill of the cold. He believes his 30-some years in Chicago and the the 40-some years here in Denver have been plenty, thank you very much. He is ready for warmer weather. Let’s hope the Arizona gods are generous.

Our Christmas celebration is divided into two parts because of family conflicts. Last night our son Court and his family were here. Racks of lamb were on the menu, as they will be any time you ask him what he would like. Delicious sides and pecan pie and cheesecake  filled us all up. The kids had fun opening their presents.

Christmas Eve will be with the McLain clan, including Heather, Lauren, and the two boys visiting from Vermont. I’m doing a modified Feast of the Seven Fishes, traditional in Italian households. Having not one ounce of Italian blood, I am

New England Clam Chowder and Manhattan Clam Chowder. Yum.

putting my own spin on it, offering four kinds of fish — clam chowder, grilled salmon, and mussels meuniere — plus sushi. I will also make a Caesar salad, which an Italian friend told me he counts as one of his seven fishes (the anchovies). For the meat eaters in the group (including Dagny and her papa!) I will be

Magnolia and Dagny helped me make Grandma Wilma’s meringue shells.

offering huge servings of rib-eye steak.  Ice cream served on Grandma Wilma’s meringue shells for dessert. Dagny and Magnolia helped me bake them Sunday. And I’m told someone has rustled up a flourless chocolate cake too. Yum.

And, for what it’s worth, it’s probably a good thing that we are offering fish and seafood, as we will probably all have to have open heart surgery after the start of 2015. Between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, we will be eating rib-eye steak on (Christmas Eve), beef tenderloin on the feast of St. Stephen (day after Christmas), and prime rib on New Year’s Day. Can you say colon cleansing? Take a look at this 7-bone prime rib. According to the butcher, it’s the cow’s whole rack! I guarantee there will be nothing left but the bones that will have been gnawed clean.

I wish all of you – friends and family and strangers alike – the merriest and holiest of Christmases. Enjoy your loved ones and I hope that Santa is good to everyone.

Here are some holiday photos of my family….

Mylee happily displays her Ninja Turtle blanket.

Kaiya loves her new afghan made by Nana!

Cole gets help opening his gifts.

Joseph and Allen mug for the camera.

Kaiya is very happy with her Barbie mall.

Micah and Cole get acquainted.

Joseph and Alastair deeply absorbed in, well, something.