Watering the Christmas Tree with a Plastic Pipette and Other Christmas Adventures

Life in this tiny log Farmhouse is never dull, and at Christmastime it can be downright entertaining. Take, for example, the mouse that was indeed stirring on Christmas Eve - probably stirring up a Christmas pudding for friends and family. There was a rustling in the front entry, and then I heard a rustling in the little room off of the kitchen where the dishes’ cupboard and the piano live. Do you suppose that little vagrant was intent on snitching a raisin or two from our homemade brandied fruitcake? One wonders.

This year we decided to celebrate Christmas in a simpler fashion: fewer presents, fewer cookies, a smaller tree, and more time with family. So when I dragged out my grandparents’ vintage 1930s cast iron tabletop tree stand from its hiding place under the desk and proclaimed it splendid for a smaller tree, Mr. Century Farmhouse took it to heart and found a diminutive branch. At three feet tall with a trunk of less than two inches in diameter, that perfect Christmas tree just fit into that perfect tree stand. Success! We stood it on several stacked boxes near the log wall in our living room and decorated it simply with tiny white lights, glass baubles, hand-blown glass icicles, and candy canes. It is quite pretty, if a little lopsided, and needs to be watered with a plastic pipette because the space between the tree trunk and the edge of the tree stand cup is so tiny. Can you imagine a tree so thirsty that it guzzles thirty-seven pipette squeezes of water several times a day? I can.

Our pretty log cabin farmhouse has seen many a Christmas in the 135 years it has been in my family, and probably several decades-worth more in the years between the time it was built and when my great-grandparents moved in.

A large room was purposefully built in this house as the parlor and this was where the Christmas trees stood and where family, friends, and neighbors would gather for celebrations and dancing. As we have worked on restoration we have found that the interior surfaces of all the logs were - in every room - covered with a lime plaster which was whitewashed and sponge painted with cobalt blue dots. I like to imagine this large parlor with walls covered in the blue dots, a big Christmas tree cut from the home woods and covered with candles and homemade decorations, candles in the three windows, a fire in the wood or coal stove, and a noisy gathering of family and friends. There might have been tables of cookies and other homemade baked goods in the kitchen, and singing and dancing and sharing of stories.

The reality of course was probably not quite so romantic, but we do know that Grandpa would cut a big tree in the woods and stand it in the parlor. It was decorated on Christmas Eve Day and the family would celebrate Christmas simply. During the days between Christmas and the New Year, families, friends, and neighbors would visit each other to see the Christmas trees and swap stories. On one memorable New Year’s Eve when my Grandpa was growing up, one of the visitors got so excited he went outside and shot off his gun at midnight - the evidence of which can still be seen embedded in a log on the east side of our house and the story of which has become something of family lore.

So as the Christmas of 2019 is past and we look into the future of the next decade in this lovely log cabin farmhouse, we build more memories and celebrate what was and what is to come. With family, of course.

---------

In the weeks leading up to Christmas my grandmother would bake and make candies that often were the treats shared at the celebrations between Christmas and the New Year. We have a few of her recipes, but perhaps our oldest family recipe belonged to her mother-in-law, my great-grandmother, Anna Tennies Wagner , who made fruity cupcakes she called Hermits. According to my mother, she made them all the time as after-school treats for her grandchildren, but they also were on the cookie plates among other treats at holiday celebrations. We don’t know exactly when she started making them - perhaps she made them as a child, growing up in the mid-1800s.

Great-Grandma Anna’s Hermit Cupcakes

1 pound seedless raisins

Boiling water

3 cups flour

2 teaspoons ground cloves

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature

1 ½ cups sugar

2 egg yolks or 1 whole egg

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ cup milk

In a saucepan, combine raisins and boiling water. Simmer until raisins are tender and plumped. Drain, reserving ½ cup water in a 1-cup or larger measuring cup. Let water cool to just warm.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift together flour and spices.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg.

Add baking soda to the ½ cup warm water; it will foam up.

Add flour mixture and milk alternately to batter, beginning and ending with flour. Stir in water and raisins.

Divide batter evenly among 48 greased or lined mini-muffin cups.

Bake at 350 degrees 10 minutes if using a dark pan, 12 minutes for a light-colored pan.

Let cool 10 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool completely. Sift powdered sugar over the top, if desired.

 Makes 48 mini-cupcakes.

Note: This recipe was originally published in The Flavors of Washington County Cookbook, page 292, submitted by my mother's cousin, Rosemary Gundrum, of West Bend, WI. My sister Carol and my mom reworked the recipe to fit today's baking standards and that was published on May 23, 2017 in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. These Hermits are wonderfully soft and fruity. Yum.