Saturday, December 14, 2013

2013 Virtual Advent Tour: Day 14


Today marks the end of the second week of the tour and I hope you are enjoying the tour so far. I am sure that we will all continue to enjoy what our hosts today have prepared for us. They are:



For today's post I am sharing a quote from Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole. This is an epistolary novel and so the passage I am sharing is a part of a letter from David, a young man who lives in Chicago to his friend Elspeth (who he calls Sue... you will need to read the book to find out why) who lives on the Isle of Skye




Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A
January 12, 1914

A Happy New Year to you, Sue!

You're right, you do make a marvelous Christmas pudding! It's similar to the fruitcake my mother insists on making for us each Christmas. The woman doesn't set  foot into the kitchen all year, unless it's to make a last-minute change to the menu. But every year, as the Christmas season approaches, she dons a lace-edged apron about as effective as a paper cake doily and waves all the staff out of the kitchen. Mother emerges hours later, air floured, a smear of molasses on her cheek, and a shine in her eyes that could only be brought about by "sampling" the brandy, but victoriously bearing a fruitcake. It generally has the appearance, texture, and taste of a paving stone, but we must all eat a hearty slice on Christmas Eve.

The joy we had this year, Sue, was eating your delightful Christmas pudding. Both Evie and Hank insisted on examining the box you'd sent, to make sure I wasn't holding out on them. Even my father begged for more. When my mother asked, with the air of a jealous mistress, how this pudding compared to her fruitcake, we were quick to reassure her. "Oh, the Christmas pudding is good, but it's very...you know... British." We left it to her to to interpret just what that meant.

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