This fruitcake and another like it are now swadled in brandy-laden cloth, wrapped tightly and tucked away in a cupboard. The other day, it took Jordan and me more than two hour to assemble, weigh, measure and prepare all the ingredients for these cakes. As usual, I used a family recipe that my great grandmother brought with her from England. The cakes will spend the next weeks soaking up the brandy and be ready and perfect for Christmas.
I’ve said it before… if you don’t like fruitcake, then you are eating crappy fruitcake. Don’t eat the stuff from the grocery store, and don’t eat “fruitcake” with maraschino cherries in it. Like, ever. It’s true, trust me. My husband, totally lacking a British gene in his body, the man who apparently collected fruitcake jokes, who didn’t like fruitcake, will now, without a second thought, wrestle me for the last piece. And every year when I lament the cost of making fruitcake and maybe I won’t make any this year, he says, “What?! We need fruitcake! I love fruitcake!” Bwhahahaha. :D

A few weeks ago I told Jordan that since I don’t have any daughters, he is it; he must learn my recipes and make them for his children. I said, usually, those traditions are passed down by daughters. But I don’t have any, so it is up to him. He is taking this very seriously and worked hard making the fruitcakes. He liked that the “recipe” is actually just a list of ingredients (by weight), because everybody knows how to make a cake, right? We talked about why fruitcake might have been important 150 years ago in Britain, about how special some of the ingredients were. This morning, as we were wrapping the brandy-soaked cloth around the cakes, he told me that he’ll need a copy of my recipes for his own records. He also plans, he told me, to help me with all the Christmas baking, so that we can do it together, and so he learns how. Very cool :)

Earlier this year, Ulrika set up a knit-gift-exchange. It has been a lot of fun. This week, I got my first gift from Eva. oooooooh!

First of all, look at that envelope! All those stamps! More than 70. My fil collects stamps, so he’ll be getting those. But you should have seen the staff at the store where I rent my PO box. lol. They were all excited and wanted to know what in the package. It was funny.

I’ll show you what was in the package…

Two balls of beautiful SOFT thick and thin wool. I’m going to knit something for ME! That empty chocolate wrapper may or may not have contained actual chocolate :P A card, and some beautiful polished stones for making stitch markers. I’ve already dug out my pliers and rings :)
Thank you Eva! I love all of it.

The other morning, after getting the fruit cakes in the oven, Jordan and I made beeswax candles. He is concerned that we don’t have enough “to last all winter”. I reminded him that we do have electricity, so we don’t *need* a lot of candles. No, he said, he wants to use only candles, all winter. uhhh… don’t think so ;)
Of course, when our candles were assembled, we broke out the glitter. Let me tell you how I feel about glitter.
Glitter is inherently good. Like babies and homemade vegetable stew. Glitter is happiness in little flashes of coloured light. I don’t care about the “mess”, how it gets stuck in the grout between the tiles on the kitchen floor. Or how, months later, you are still vacuuming up the occasional piece. It is all worth it to me. Glitter is that good.
I remember once, talking to a neighbour who was shocked that I’d let my toddler use glitter in his crafts. “You never get that stuff up. Ever! You can sweep and vacuum and wash, but you’ll still have glitter on your kitchen floor.” I grinned. “I know. I like that. Glitter on the kitchen floor. It’s like diamonds on the soles of your shoes.”
We never really connected, she and I….

Edited April 1, 2007:
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