BLOGGING: Advent Blog Tour Welcome

I am taking a different approach to my stop on the tour. I have included a cookie recipe below, but I love trivia and quizzes, so my present for you is a riddle:


What Christmas carol is this?


1. Move hither wards, the entire assembly of those who are steadfast O Come All Ye Faithful
2. Ecstasy towards the terrestrial sphere Joy to the World

3. Hush, the celestial messengers produce harmonious sounds. Hark the Herald Angel Sings
4. Creator, cool it, you kooky cats God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

5. O tatterdemalion ebony atmosphere O Holy Night

6. The thing manifested itself at the onset of a transparent day It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

7. Embellish the interior passageways Deck the Halls

8. Tintinnabulation of vacillating pendulums in inverted metallic resonant cups. Silver Bells

9. Hey, minuscule urban area south of Jerusalem O Little Town of Bethlehem

10. Nocturnal time span of unbroken quietness Silent Night

11. This autocratic troika originates neat the ascent of Apollo We Three Kings of Orient Are

12. The primary carol The First Noel

13. Natal celebration devoid of color, rather albino, as in a hallucinating phenomenon for me I'm Dreaming of White Christmas

14. Valentino, the roseate proboscis wapiti Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

15. Diminutive masculine master of skin-covered percussionistic cylinders Little Drummer Boy

16. O nativity conifer O Christmas Tree

17. What offspring abides thus? What Child is This?

18. Removed in a bovine feeding trough Away in a Manger

19. Proceed to declare something upon a specific geographic Alpine formation Go Tell it on the Mountain
20. Thoracic- Squirrel Diet Barbecue Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

21. Obese personification fabricated of compressed mounds of minute crystals Frosty the Snowman


And if your vocabulary is great, or even if it's not, check out http://www.freerice.com/, to improve your vocabulary and donate rice to people who need it. It is weirdly addictive, and good for you and others. The rice is distributed by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).

PS: If you highlight the space after the carol, you will find the answer, but don't peek until you know it. How many did you get right?



Christmas Cookies Too

I love to bake, and making cookies at Christmas is an important tradition to me. It's the only time I take the extra care, and add a trimming or decoration or take the time to posh them up. If I am feeling short on time, I make these shortbreads since they don't have to be rolled and cut. It's important to mix them as long as it says if you want them to melt in your mouth.

These cookies remind me of my maternal grandmother. We liked to bake together, and at one point, her son (my uncle) dated one of the authors of the cookbook. My grandmother always had many copies of these cookbooks around, and she baked from them a lot. So do I now, and it reminds me of those times.

Whipped Shortbreads from The Best of Bridge cookbooks

Ingredients:
1 cup butter (do not use margarine)
1/2 cup icing sugar (powdered sugar)
1 1/2 cups flour

Instructions: Cream butter and sugar. Add flour and beat for 10 minutes. Drop from small spoon onto cookie sheet. Decorate with maraschino cherry pieces if you wish or sprinkle with colored sugar. Bake at 350 F. for about 10-12 minutes, until bottoms are lightly browned. Makes about 3 dozen small cookies. This recipe doubles well.

Thanks for stopping by, and I wish you a Merry Christmas. I've been enjoying this Advent Tour and I'd like to thank Marg and Kaliana for organizing us. It's nice to share traditions and recipes and get to know this little community a bit better.


Here's the guide to the rest of the tour, and don't forget Chris (Stuff as Dreams are Made on), who is also hosting today.
10 December - Dewey (The Hidden Side of a Leaf)
11 December -Suey (It's All About Books)
12 December - Chris (Book-a-rama)
13 December - Jill (The Well-Read Child)/Stephanie (The Written Word)
14 December - Robin (A Fondness for Reading)
15 December - Alyssa (By The Book)
16 December - Rachel (A Fair Substitute for Heaven)
17 December - Literary Feline (Musings of a Bookish Kitty)/ Stephanie (Stephanie's Confessions of a Book-a-holic)
18 December - Dev (Good Reads)
19 December - Callista (S.M.S. Book Reviews)
20 December - Tiny Little Librarian (Tiny Little Librarian)
21 December - Carla (Carla Nayland Historical Fiction)/ Susan (Reading, Raving, and Ranting by a Historical Fiction Writer)
22 December - Carolyn Jean (The Trillionth Page)
23 December - Booklogged (A Reader's Journal)
24 December - Kailana (The Written World) / Carl V. (Stainless Steel Droppings)