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National Pfeffernuse Day 2023
Herzliche Glückwünsche zu Weihnachten! It’s National Pfeffernuse Day, so be careful not to let the confectioner’s sugar get all over your upper lip. People will get the wrong idea…
Festivus
It’s a Festivus for the rest of us! ~Frank Costanza
Frank’s idea for a personal holiday is a classic comedy bit.
The Festivus – Seinfeld
In fairness, all holidays are made up.
Some have better reasons for having come into existence than others, but if it has meaning to you it’s well worth celebrating.
Christmas wasn’t always celebrated the way it is today. It was just another church occasion for most of Western history.
Only after people began to get an idea of having some level of comfort in life did it start to catch on.
As cultures began blending here and over in Jolly Olde England, we began to see how people from other places could add something worthwhile to the holiday and the culture in general.
We got Christmas trees from the Germans. Clement Clarke Moore modeled St Nick after a Dutch burgher. A newly created postal system was a perfect mechanism for distant relations to keep in touch via Christmas Cards. Little by little, new people brought new ideas and the holidays grew more festive.
This is one of the best times to be alive. If we can survive the current administration and get a President who actually likes the country and its people, it might get even better.
Despite the current problems, it’s Christmastime. Even a senile crackpot of a POTUS can’t spoil that for us.
Pfeffernuse
Pfeffernuesse – Authentic German Christmas Cookies aka pepper nuts
These aren’t the most glamorous cookies in the broad range of holiday offerings, but the pfeffernuesse is still a tasty little morsel if you can find them. If you can’t, there’s a lovely recipe in this video.
Literally “pepper nuts”, but there isn’t any pepper in the modern sense. Apparently, pfeffer or pepper was a catch-all term for spices back in the day.
The term may not be literal, but it’s reasonably applicable. Pepper nuts or spice nuts or even spice nuggets is a reasonably descriptive name for the cookie.
On the other hand, there are snickerdoodles. They’re delicious, but what’s the etymology on that?
Who cares? They’re tasty and they have a distinctive name. You know what they are when you see them.
Painting Of The Thoughts
Eloquence is a painting of the thoughts. ~Blaise Pascal
Right now, I’m less about painting my thoughts and more about painting these miniature nutcracker figures. The intent is to have them look like my four kids and my son-in-law. We’ll see how well I do.
This is one of those times when I’m less involved in beating keys and more involved in letting a story marinate in my subconscious.
This is actually a necessary part of my writing process. It may seem like time-wasting or procrastination, but it’s how I deal with other tasks than writing.
While many people operate in spaces that recognize that the holidays are a time to shift into low gear, have people take unused PTO and get a little R&R before you hit the ground running again in the new year, that’s not where we are at work.
It’s not as bad as retail or hospitality work, it’s still pretty hectic. There are a lot of demands on my time and brainpower, which leaves me pretty exhausted.
As Brandon Sanderson mentioned in his excellent writing course, he recommended a mentally relaxing job like being a night manager of a hotel over something like software development that takes a lot of brainpower.
Well, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. I’m good at data conversion. It pays better than factory work and it’s a lot less punishing on my decrepit body.
Be that as it may, I’m really busy supporting some aggressive project goals and it’s making it difficult to get any writing done.
Even so, I’ve still got to finish the last few episodes of Carol’s Christmas before the stuff I already have scheduled catches up.
Don’t worry, I will. The sooner the better, though. I’d rather not be right up to the last minute. I was hoping to be done the whole thing before Thanksgiving, but things got busy at work.
Oh well, whenever I’m done with this year’s story, I’ve got to start churning out the Christmas All The Time monthlies so I can get an earlier start on next year’s story. Fingers crossed.
For now, I’ve got to get those mini-nutcrackers done in time for Christmas and the rest of this year’s story done before my scheduled episodes run out.
Pressure at work. Pressure at home. It’s not exactly relaxing, but it is what it is. As long as Kelly keeps me supplied with freshly baked cookies, I’ll get through it all in due time.
That’s all for this holiday season weekend. I wish you a very Merry Christmas or whatever holiday you prefer.