Christmas Treats

 " I am the Ghost of Christmas Present, said the Spirit, Look upon me!"- "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, Butler Brothers, 1880 edition , New York and Chicago.

Smokey

 My beloved Dickens books. Found at a church Christmas bazaar many moons ago. Each book sewn together with linen thread, pages in really good condition. My favourite, of course, being "A Christmas Carol". Read and re-read a thousand times. I keep it, always, on a table, with a brass lions' head door knocker......I keep expecting the face of Jacob Marley to drift out of the cover.

 Some of my favourite descriptions are of the FOOD.  Christmas Treats. Yum.

 Years ago, I would get company to read this passage JUST before dinner, not exactly a Dickens style of dinner, But dinner nevertheless........it still conjures up images that stay with me today......

Greek Shortbread

 "The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light,as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there, and such a might blaze went roaring up the chimney....never known in Scrooge or Marley's time.

Mince/Cherry tarts

 Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne,......

were turkeys,geese, game, poultry, brawn...... (Dickens loved to serve goose and plum puding, lots of booze, at his dinner parties)

Cranberry Bark

Great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince pies (these used to be made with meat, but gradually became fruit based)......

Ugly Sweaters

Plum puddings, barrels of oysters ( which were sometimes mixed into poor beef, carrots and watered down with stout to make a pie, in poorer homes), red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples ,juicy oranges......

  Luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes ( a decorative cake baked to distribute to friends on 12th night , which is Jan 6).......

Rose Cakes

 Seething bowls of punch,(something called Smoking Bishop, or a Gin punch) that made the chamber dim with their steam....

.In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant....

Jam Jams

glorious to see, who bore a glowing torch...

Bunny's Butterscotch

 In shape not unlike Plenty's horn......

Fruitcakes

  and held it up, high up......

 To shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door." Scrooge was to learn what Dickens wrote about: Kindness, Generosity, and compassion are the values we should give to others.....

Shortbread

 “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year,” Scrooge vows near end of the story. “I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

Tiger Butter

 "It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men, and travel far and wide......" 

Photographs 2018