Just baked cookies!

I made Christmas cookies this week to give as gifts for my co-workers. Of course I wanted to use Aunt Lillian’s recipes. The best ones from her cook book for Christmas were her Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, which I’ve already blogged about and a new one I tried. These were her Molasses Fruit Cookies. Both are sure fire hits that everyone loves!

Here I am with the finished batch of Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. Both of these cookies stay moist and chewy forever – and I mean forever!

Lillian’s Molasses Fruit Cookies were interesting. I needed to find a similar molasses cookie recipe that had raisins and nuts – not such a common thing in Molasses Cookies, but not uncommon either as I found in searching the internet. Here is Aunt Lil’s recipe:

Molasses Fruit Cookies

• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 tablespoon lemon
• 3 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 stick softened butter
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup molasses
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup walnuts

Making soured milk for Molasses Cookies

Make your soured milk by mixing 1/2 tablespoon of lemon with 1/2 cup milk. Let this sit for 15 minutes. Stir once more and its now ready for your recipe. Set aside.

Next sift flour, baking soda, salt, ginger & cinnamon together. Cream sugar with the softened butter and then add beaten egg and molasses. Add sifted ingredients alternately with the soured milk in small amounts to make a batter. Add the nuts and raisins. This will be a very wet batter. Drop from a teaspoon onto a greased cookie sheet and bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 12 minutes. Cool on racks.

Molasses Fruit Cookies out of the oven

Merry Christmas everyone!

If you’ll recall a few blogs ago I had some issues with that easy breakfast staple, waffles. Aunt Lillian’s waffle recipe had produced a thick, chewy waffle that really didn’t make anyone want to run to the breakfast table. But after reading up on waffles, I did indeed find a recipe that was a winner.

So, on a recent morning I decided to tackle another staple – pancakes from scratch. I found loads of recipes in my vintage cookbooks, but decided on one from my very funky The New England Yankee Cook Book, by Imogene Wolcott from 1939. This cookbook is great.  According to the cover the recipes are from the files of Yankee magazine and from “time-worn recipe books and many gracious contributors.”

Well, no wonder I like the cook book. As a young girl when we spent our annual summer vacation at the home of friends in upstate New York near the Vermont border, I used to pour over their copies of Yankee magazine. I was obsessed by New England, history, inns, and all things antique! Yankee was my entree into that world. And of course, I still love all things New England. Heck, I married a Bostonian didn’t I?

Which of course brings me to the Parker House Hotel in Boston, scene of one of our most romantic early dates! It was our first Christmas as a dating couple, and we attended the historic Parker House’s Victorian-themed dinner, followed by a performance of Charles Dicken’s great, great grandson’s performance of A Christmas Carol. Oh, it was enough to make this history lovers heart swoon. So how could I resist trying the recipe for Parker House Pancakes on p. 130 of the cook book?

Parker House Pancakes (which were Perfect)

• 2 c. flour, sifted
• 3 tsps. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbs powdered sugar
• 2 eggs, well beaten
• 1 3/4 cup milk (about)

Mix and sift the dry ingredients. Combine eggs and milk; add flour mixture and beat until smooth. Bake on a hot well-greased griddle. One tablespoon of the mixture makes one cake. This recipe makes about 24 small thin, delicate cakes.

My notes after a bit more reading on the perfect pancake (in no particular order) which I found interesting and helpful:

smooth batter, but don't over beat!

• don’t over beat your pancake recipe – some lumps actually are good
• if you have the time, put your pancake batter in the fridge for 30 minutes to let it rest, but don’t stir it again once you take it out
• use very little butter, and best to use unsalted butter or vegetable oil for frying the pancakes
• don’t stack your pancakes as you cook them. Lay them in a warm oven flat on a baking sheet until ready to serve. Or have your family eat them while you make them. Staking makes them soggy.
• Use Rumford Baking Powder which doesn’t have aluminum in it. Will make your pancakes taste better and its much better for you!
• Use a wire whisk to combine the dry with the wet ingredients

Aren't they pretty?

The Results – this was an excellent, light, fluffy pancake! Easy to make and really tasty. And so much better than a mix.

Just as a fun side note, the Yankee Cook Book had this interesting tid bit under the recipe:

Our great-grandmothers used hard wood ashes (in place of baking soda) to make pancakes rise. They poured boiling water over sifted ashes in a cup, let ashes settle and used the liquid as we use soda that has been dissolved.

While I don’t encourage this, I do hope you enjoy this recipe! And if your in Boston, do check out the Parker House Hotel downtown, which is filled with wonderful history.

Photo by Lady Disdain

One valuable lesson I’ve learned from this experiment in cooking Great Aunt Lillian’s recipe’s is NEVER, and I repeat, NEVER, think you will make one of these recipes on the first try to take to a big gathering such as Thanksgiving or Christmas. As I think back to my cooking tests, very few recipes have been successes on the first try. Most have had to be made again after a bit of tweaking after the “ah ha moment” when I realize what is unspoken in the recipe.

And so the story of Great Aunt Lillian’s Crystal Cranberry Sauce. Ah, the name conjures up such visions of a beautiful cranberry sauce gracing the Thanksgiving table as I waltz into my friends home with an angelic smile on my face. But this was not to be. Instead I had buckets and buckets of super sweet uncongealed cranberry syrup an hour before I was to appear at the event! Thankfully, my husband had over bought on the cranberries, and I was able to save the day with the modern recipe on the back of the cranberry bag. So what happened? I’d say lack of research due to my haste in getting ready for a holiday.

My normal routine in preparing to cook a recipe is to find similar recipes from the period and read them for common cooking instructions, times, and temperatures. This time, I grabbed our 1970s Joy of Cooking and read their version of Cranberry Sauce and dove right in. I mean how hard can it be to cook cranberry sauce right?

The First Thanksgiving photo by Turtlemom4bacon

Before we look at the recipe, let’s look at the history of Cranberry Sauce in America. Cranberries may or may not have been served at the first Thanksgiving. We don’t know for sure. Cranberries were eaten and enjoyed by the Native American tribes that the first settlers came into contact with. From them early settlers adopted the cranberry into our cooking, even though cranberries are known to grow in England. (Many people wrongly believe the cranberry is native to America. Nope!) The Colonists did find them bitter and added sugar to sweeten them and used them as a condiment or relish and in sweetened pies and puddings.

In reviewing some early recipes you have the whole range from very sweet, such as the 1840 recipe that calls for a quart of cranberries, a wine glass full of water, and a pound of brown sugar, to an 1885 recipe that calls for a quart of cranberries, a teacup full of water, and a teacup of brown sugar. I have found scores of recipes and all call for different ratios of sugar to cranberries. Of the five recipes from the 19th and early 20th century I had access to I found that three of the recipes call for a very sweet two to one ratio of cranberries to sugar while two called for a more modern three to one ratio.

Aunt Lilly's recipe

Here’s Aunt Lillian’s recipe:

Crystal Cranberry Sauce (and yes, this makes a HUGE quantity of Sauce)

• 2 quarts (8 cups) cranberries
• 5 cups sugar
• 1 quart (4 cups) water

Wash the cranberries and place in a covered kettle. Dissolve the sugar and water and pour over cranberries. Let boil 15 minutes and do not stir, Take from fire, keep covered and let cool in syrup.

Here’s what I did and what ‘d do the second time IF I’d try it again:

I washed the cranberries and put them in the pan with with sugar and the water and brought them all to a boil. I let it boil without stirring (this must have been very important as she had this underlined) for 15 minutes. I then took it off the burner and let it cool in the syrup.

The cranberries do look like little crystals when the cook!

Here’s what I do differently:

1. I’d boil the sugar and water first until the sugar dissolves and pour that over the cranberries and then bring the whole thing to a boil again for 15 minutes.

2. I’d keep the whole thing covered during the 15 minutes (note her reference to “take from fire, keep covered…..” which implies the cranberries are covered during cooking)

3. I’d keep the pan covered as the sauce cools.

But here’s the rub. In tasting what I cooked it was mind numbingly sweet! So sweet even if it had congealed we’d never eat it. Diabetic coma you bet!

4. So, for Christmas I’ll half the recipe and reduce the amount of sugar to get to a modern 3 to 1 ratio and try it one more time.

And since I just spent an eon agonizing over the measurements that is roughly:

• 1 quart cranberries
• 1 3/4 cups sugar (that’s the rough part for us Humanities majors!)
• 2 cups water

Thankfully we are eating Christmas dinner alone with the doggies so if this batch doesn’t work oh well! But I will report back on the results! Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year!

p.s. – if the Cranberry Sauce doesn’t work, the one on the back of the cranberry bag is excellent!

I’ve been pretty lax of late with writing a post – mainly because I’ve been so busy! But over Thanksgiving I made two of Aunt Lillian’s recipes that are perfect for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. For this post I’ll focus on Mince Meat Pie.

Like a lot of you I’d grown up hearing about Mince Meat Pie, but I’d never tried it even though its about as American as well – Apple Pie. In my family pumpkin pie was the traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas dessert. Lately, I’ve added Dan’s family recipe for Plum Pudding to Christmas Dinner. Unfortunately, my mom did not like to bake, so even during the holidays our pumpkin pies were sadly frozen concoctions reheated in the oven! Yikes! Obviously I did not get my cooking gene from my mother (or my grandmother for that matter).

Medieval pies on the table

So what’s the history behind this pie. It seems that Mince Meat Pies date back to the Middle Ages when these pies, in smaller form, were mainly minced or chopped meat with dried fruits and spices added to stretch the meat further. As time went on the meat became less prevalent and the fruits take over until by the Victorian times mince actually refers to predominantly dried fruits, brandy, and suet filling the pie with only the possibility of meat being included. Mince was traditionally made and served in the fall and winter and so became associated with the Christmas holidays. In America it was not uncommon for American housewives to have pie making frenzy days where they and their household would make hundreds (yes that’s right) of pies which would be stored in the coldest part of the house to freeze. They would then be brought out when needed during the winter months to feed the family. Smart huh! Though it also helped to have 8-10 kids and servants on hand as your helpers when you were chopping and cooking hundreds of pies.

Aunt Lillian's recipe book with my key ingredients

Which brings me to Aunt Lillian’s recipe and the making of Mince Meat. Wow – we are talking another time consumer when you aren’t using modern conveniences! I followed Aunt Lilly’s recipe to the letter which meant I made 2 quarts and 1 pint of Mock Mince Meat. Total prep time for chopping – a whopping  one and a  1/2 hours! Yep, I stood there and chopped 4 lbs green tomatoes and 2 lbs apples into tiny bits and in my heart of hearts I know I didn’t chop them fine enough, but my arm was aching by the time it was over. Of course I encourage you to use your food processor, but be careful not to turn it to mush. That would be the wrong consistency. Mince means just that – very finely diced. Not mush.

Oh sure, it doesn't look like much in the photo......

As I was chopping here were some things that came to my mind:

It makes perfect sense to can Mince Meat at Thanksgiving when your green tomatoes are ready (at least here in Tennessee). I got my tomatoes from my friend Jeanine. Thanks Jeanine!

The Fanny Farmer cookbook said that Mince Meat pie should have a puff pastry top and to achieve this artful creation you must have a cold kitchen – again perfect time of year to be making this. I never did try the puff pastry top. Aunt Lillian’s cookbook does not mention one and oh my it looked so hard!

I too would have had ten children just so I would not have had to mince all this and this recipe only makes enough for five pies!

Here’s Lillian’s recipe:

Green Tomato Mince Meat

• 4 lbs green tomatoes
• 2 lbs apples
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 1/4 lb suet (I substituted butter. I just couldn’t stomach the idea of suet)
• 1 tbs each of salt, allspice, cinnamon, and cloves
• 1/2 lb raisins

Chop tomatoes and drain overnight. In morning drain and scald.

As usual, I needed to find a period cookbook to help me decipher Lillian’s lack of instructions. She was cooking on a wood stove and also knew in her head what to do.

My Fannie Farmer 1928 Cookbook was very helpful. From Fannie I learned that Mince Pie should always be baked with a bottom and top crust and that at Thanksgiving and Christmas the rims and upper crusts should be Puff Pastry, “but this is never satisfactory when used for under crusts.” Got it!

Befitting its popularity she has three versions with meat (beef and suet) that include other goodies such as apples, quinces, molasses, cider, raisins, currants, citron, brandy, and the spices. Actually sounds interesting and very rich! She includes another three recipes for Mince Meat that don’t contain meat, but one of these has suet. The last two are Mock Mince Meat. Mock Mince Meat came along in the late 19th century with either green tomatoes, or common crackers as a substitute for the meat. Cheaper and again more in line with modern taste buds. It was by reading all these recipes that I got a better idea of what to do with this recipe.

What the mince looks like as you cook it - pretty!

Here’s Fannie’s recipe that I followed the most (though I used Lillian’s ingredients)

Mock Mince Pie Meat II

• 3 pints chopped apples
• 3 pints chopped green tomatoes
• 4 cups brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups vinegar
• 3 cups raisins
• 3 tsps cinnamon
• 1 tsp clove
• 3/4 tsp allspice
• 3/4 tsp mace
• 3/4 tsp pepper
• 2 tsps salt
• 3/4 cup butter

Mix apples with tomatoes and drain. Add remaining ingredients, except butter, bring gradually to the boiling-point (on the stove in a big pot), and let simmer three hours, then add butter. Turn into glass jars as soon as possible.

The mince in jars ready to make pies!

Since I was going to make the Mince Meat Pies soon I just kept them in the refridgerator and did not can the mince meat. If you were going to keep this long term, please follow canning directions.

Now the next step was making the pie! Still no directions on baking it. I found a recipe for making pie crusts from scratch. For the life of me though I can’t remember where I got the recipe but I know I mangled through it and it certainly wasn’t my best crust. It’s amazing how we have lost the art of pie crust making. When you read the old cook books you know these ladies knew how to make a crust! And homemade crusts taste nothing like the frozen junk we buy in the store that is filled with high fructose corn syrup and all sorts of bad things for us. Flour, lard or butter, ice cold water, and a bit of salt. How simple!

The 1972 Joy of Cooking informed me to bake the Mince Meat Pie in a 450 degree oven for 10 minutes and then for 20 minutes longer at 350 degrees. It came out beautifully.

Mock Mince Meat Pie!

I proudly took it to Thanksgiving dinner at friends and they were all polite and called it a success. Dan and I were underwhelmed by it. I might like to try it again with different tomatoes (my friend only had Roma tomatoes which were dry and certainly would not have had the same taste as what a regular green tomato would have). It was an unusual taste, not bad, but not great. Were my friends just being polite? I’ll never know. Maybe they really liked it. All of them had had mince meat before and said it was one of the best they’d tasted, so much better than the gooey sweet store bought.

I encourage you to try it yourself – but half the recipe and use a Cuisinart! Or find an army of 10 small children to help!

Next post – Cranberry Sauce like you’ve never had before!

My friend Amy told me about a new book entitled Fannie’s Last Supper: Re-creating One Amazing Meal from Fannie Farmer’s 1896 Cookbook by Chris Kimball, the host of America’s Test Kitchen and the editor of Cook’s Magazine. Yippee, I thought! A book about Fannie Farmer and a cook who spent two years (!) recreating Fannie’s twelve-course Christmas supper from 1896. My heart beat so fast I could barely contain myself. I immediately bought the book and dove right in.

Kimball’s premise was that after buying his 1859 Victorian townhouse in Boston he became so fascinated with the lifestyles of the era. Around the same time he found an old copy of a Fanny Farmer cook book. This lead him to wonder about the cooking of the era.

As I read the acknowledgments, I realized this man obviously has just a bit more access to cash then I do. His wife began to restore their town house and fill it with the proper antiques, he was able to hire a researcher, a man to restore his Number 7 cast iron cookstove, a test cook (can’t this man cook?), five sous-chef (again can’t this man cook?), two people to clean up, and six wait staff. Oh, and lets not forget Yvonne who engineered the Mandarin Cake and Andrea who “played” with the jellies and homemade calves foot gelatin. Phew! Naw, I’m not envious I promise. But I’m still questioning whether this guy can cook.

More than just a family over for dinner!

Anyway, after getting through those details I dug into chapter one on Victorian punch. I got kind of worried after reading on page 11 this “Victorians were also less apt to invite friends over for dinner. Dining in someone else’s home was an intensely personal event, and an invitation was the “highest form of social compliment.”  Uh,oh. I found no foot note for this interesting, and slightly erroneous piece of information, (and I quickly learned that the bad editing job on the book meant that the few footnotes he does have do not match with the page numbers). Victorians of a higher social status often ate out at each others home and yes, it was a form of social compliment. But you did it often. Did he notice all those ways of setting the table in the Fanny Farmer cookbook? It sure wasn’t just for Ma, Pa, and the kids……

On page 15 I realized that Mr. Kimball is no objective historian. He writes “Where does one start planning a twelve-course Victorian menu? By the late nineteenth century, home dining was a culinary mishmash, from a simple supper of leftover cold meat and prunes to birds in potato cases and Gateau St. Honore. It was the end and the beginning of an era – everything was up for grabs.”  Well, not exactly Mr. Kimball. What this means is that there were two types of dinners in Victorian times. One was the formal dinner for company that included fancy dishes elegantly prepared, and the other were simple dishes for a Sunday night supper after church when you didn’t want to cook. This was the norm, not a culinary mishmash.

Victorian punch bowl - photo by Joey Day

This chapter also dealt with Victorian punch, or at least it tried to. Mr. Kimball decided  to serve alcoholic punch to his guests while they arrived before dinner. This is despite the fact that Fanny’s Christmas Dinner did not mention a punch. His chapter goes on to detail an interesting history of punch mainly from the 17th and 18th century. Here we see again Mr. Kimball’s strange bias against Victorian cooking and Fanny Farmer in particular which will be oddly laced throughout this book which is supposed to be a book that celebrates her!

He writes, “Things started to go seriously wrong with punch recipes in the early twentieth century. What had been a simple, strong alcoholic drink became a rather revolting cooler, the sort of thing that a modern teenager who was trying to achieve alcoholic oblivion might appreciate.” He goes on to say, “Another recipe,this one from around the turn of the century, suggested adding sliced bananas to the punch bowl. No words can describe the horror.”

I’m sorry Mr. Kimball that bananas in a punch bowl in 1919 brings thoughts of horror to you, but the point is that is what they drank. I’m sure 100 years from now when people read your recipes some one will find your recipes equally horrifying! That is not the point of history. Sigh.

I will be making some of these horror producing punch recipes once I’m back from vacation next week. They look quite good to me. Here’s two that I’m going to try from Fanny’s cookbook.

Ginger Punch

• 1 quart cold water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 lb Canton ginger
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup lemon juice

Chop ginger, add to water and sugar, boil fifteen minutes; add fruit juice, strain, and dilute with crushed ice.

Cider Punch

• 1 quart new or bottled cider
• 3/4 cup lemon juice
• Sugar
• 1 quart Apollinaris water
• ice

Mix cider and lemon juice,, and sweeten to taste. Strain into punch-bowl over a large piece of ice. Just before serving add Apollinaris.

My latest issue of MaryJanesFarm Magazine has a whole article on “Bringing Back the Holiday Punch Bowl.” It seems that punch is hot, hot, hot right now with bars in larger cities selling punch bowls and glasses to share with friends.

I’ll report back on the punch experiment and on next week’s book chapter in which is doesn’t deal with Fanny’s oysters – a first course for most formal Victorian meals.

It’s almost Christmas and Dan and I have NOT succumbed to the shopping frenzy. But that’s really not new this year for us – we have never indulged in the Christmas shopping frenzy that has taken over America. We have always exchanged a few Christmas gifts depending on our economic status of the time, which usually isn’t much since I work in the non-profit world!

And last night as we were talking about exchanging presents we asked each other what we’d given each other last year. We couldn’t remember! Can you remember what you gave as a Christmas gift to your spouse or family members or received from them last year? Chances are the answer is no, and your unremembered gift is languishing in a corner somewhere. Or perhaps you returned it to get something else.

This year, since we are shopping unchained, my whole take on Christmas has altered even further as I continue to think more deeply about the meaning of Christmas.

Barn & Co., on Cape Cod

While we were in Cape Cod before Thanksgiving, Dan purchased a nice $25 blouse for me from a very cool gift store in Dennis, The Barn & Co. He’s promised to buy me a few of my favorite mystery books at the used book store in Chattanooga, McKay Used Books. And other then that there might be a few stocking stuffers that I don’t know about.

McKay's new store in Chattanooga

For him, I’m knitting a scarf (half way through – yikes!) in a wonderful yarn he picked out. And I have a few small surprises I can’t divulge as he will be reading this post. Total spent by each of us – well under $100 each.

So here’s the thing I was thinking about on the way home from work yesterday – and stick with me even if you aren’t into the whole Jesus thing. Because even if you’re not, let’s face it, Christmas is supposed to be about the joy of giving to those you love — in the spirit of Jesus or whatever spiritual tradition you believe in.

The Three Wise Men by Hans Memling

Ok – let’s review what Jesus got for Christmas (at his birth). Three Wise Men show up with three gifts. Not, thirty mind you. Just three. So how is it suddenly we feel as Americans that we need to give each other (mainly our kids) so many gifts? Well, of course that’s where the mass media comes in telling us we MUST have those gifts or we are not cool, hip, in, or happy.

Maybe we should reconsider and go back to the original idea of giving three gifts?

Now these gifts were pretty expensive items for the time: Gold, Frankincense, and Myrr. They were nothing to sneeze at. But here’s the thing. Whatever happens to those gifts? I racked my brain, but I never read about these three gifts again in the Bible. And I’m pretty sure Mary and Joseph raised Jesus as a normal son of a carpenter with no special privileges of wealth.

So what DID Mary and Joseph do with those gifts?

You don’t hear about Joseph’s cashing them in so Mary can get a big diamond ring to show off back in Nazareth to hush up the gossiping neighbors about her early pregnancy. You don’t hear about a vacation beach-side condo so they can get away when the carpentry business gets to be too stressful. Nor do you hear about a college fund for baby Jesus so when he grows up he can better himself.

My guess? Mary and Joseph being good, devout Jews, sold the goods and give the proceeds to charity to thank God for the gift of their son.

Animal Shelters need your donations!

Mmmmmm – giving donations to others in need during Christmas? Cool idea — and one I am going to follow this year!

Here’s some suggestions in case you might need them:

• Your local homeless shelter.
• Your local no-kill animal shelter.
• Your local soup kitchen.
• Your local food bank.
• Your local museum or cultural organization. (My favorite place to donate to!)

It is truly wonderful to share your love by giving a gift to someone during the holidays. But I think it’s time we thought about why we give gifts, how we give gifts, and where we purchase the gifts. I hope you bought at least some of your gifts at independent stores this season!

And I hope you and your family have a wonderful holidays – no matter what tradition you celebrate!

I know Christmas is just around the corner because the slow trickle of junk mail in the form of the Christmas catalog is coming in the mail. Slow because since we don’t use catalogs, we don’t receive many. But the average household receives many a Christmas catalog each day which accumulate and then are thrown in the trash.

A few years in a row I purchased Christmas floral gifts from Jackson & Perkins for my sister who is in a nursing home in another state, so we tend to get gardening catalogs and L.L. Bean which Dan used to purchase clothes from. Since we’re shopping unchained they just go in the trash.

My new December issue of Mary Janes Farm had a short blurb on cutting down on catalog clutter. I got excited at the thought that I could stop junk mail. So I went to the website, but was sorely disappointed! Rather than being a site that told you how to completely stop junk mail like Christmas catalogs coming into your home because you wanted to shop locally, it was merely a site that helped you stop the catalogs, and then receive them via email! Yikes! That wouldn’t help us at all.

So I did some googling for a better solution to stop junk mail and came up with this very thorough, no-frills site. This site helps you stop all junk mail. It’s the ultimate site to help you declutter your life and save the environment at the same time.

I will be sitting down and taking the time to email places to stop junk mail — not just Christmas catalogs — but lots of other clutter as well. All types of junk mail including the dreaded and extremely pesky credit card solicitation! I throw out at least one a day and it would be a real blessing, as we say down here in the south, to not have to participate in that waste of trees and filling of the landfill.

So, please take a few moments out of your day to sop the junk mail waste coming into your home. The environment and you will be happier! Merry Christmas to all and let’s remember to shop local this holiday season!