CHRISTMAS TIME

   This year I started to decorate my house with Christmas ornaments during the first weekend of December. I hung lights on a curtain pole in our living room. I put a glass bauble with a lit house on a bookshelf. I even ordered two children's books about Christmas to read them to my kids. The books haven't arrived yet but their reviews sound very promising. The first book "12 miesiący ze Świętym Mikołajem, czyli trawnik pełen reniferów" (Eng. 12 months with Santa Claus with a lawn full of reindeer) by Friedbert Stohner. It is about Santa Claus who appears unexpectedly in the house of an ordinary Finnish family to spend the whole year with them. From that moment on, nothing is the same, and the life of the family turns upside down: the reindeer graze in their garden, big sleds are hidden in the garage and Santa's helpers are organizing rowdy meetings in the living room at night.

   The second book "Niezwykły Święty Mikołaj" (Eng. Extraordinary Santa Claus) by Sven Nordqvist is about Pettson, a calm old man, and his extraordinary cat Findus who are experiencing many adventures. Pettson promises Findus that Santa Claus will visit them on Christmas Eve. But where to find the real Santa Claus? Or maybe you can ... build him? Pettson being busy with constructing Santa Claus does not notice that Findus feels abandoned. Will Findus finally get his Santa Claus? And what will really happen on Christmas Eve? The author answers all these questions with a great sense of humor.

   This year I'm going to bake gingerbread for the first time. I've already prepared the dough which I have left it in the fridge for three weeks. I used the following recipe: 

500g plain flour

100g butter

100g brown sugar

250g honey

65ml milk

1 gingerbread spice

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 egg

Heat butter, brown sugar and honey in a pot until the mixture melts down. Leave it for 15 minutes to cool down. 

Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and gingerbread spice and pour it into the bowl of a food processor. Add an egg and milk and blend until the mix looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the cooled mixture of butter, sugar and honey.

Pour the dough into a glass bowl and leave in the fridge for 3 weeks.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Line two baking trays with grease-proof paper.
Roll the dough out to a 0,5cm thickness on a lightly floured surface. Using cutters, cut out different shapes and place them on the baking trays, leaving a gap between them.
Bake for 10–12 minutes, or until lightly golden-brown. Leave on the trays for 10 minutes and then move to a wire rack to finish cooling. When cooled pipe icing and put cake decorations.

   I'm going to bake gingerbread just before Christmas Eve and hang some of them on the Christmas tree.  I'm also going to make Christmas ornaments from the pine cones that we collected during our last walk in the forest. I enjoy Christmas time because of the decorations that I spread around my house, Christmas songs and carols, the smell of pine and Christmas dishes but mostly because I can spend some nice moments with my family.

Gingerbread house

Gingerbread tree

VELVETEEN RABBIT

   "Aksaminy Królik, czyli jak zabawki stają się prawidziwe" (Eng. The Velveteen Rabbit or How Toys Become Real) is a British children's book written by Margery Williams and illustrated by William Nicholson. The book was published in 1922 and has been republished many times since. Sentences from the book have been cited in other books and films and the story of the stuffed rabbit has been filmed several times. 

   Before I received the book I found a family film from 2009 about the Velveteen Rabbit. I watched it with my kids as it was not age-limited. The film was not an exact adaptation of the book but was following the main theme. My daughter was strongly touched by the moment when a sack with the rabbit inside was thrown into a fire. She kept trembling and crying even after the movie ended. It was pointless to explain that the rabbit became real and escaped from the fire. When I received the book I hid it from my kids as I didn't want the bad emotions to resurface. I read the book in one evening when my kids were sleeping and I was enchanted by the history of the velveteen rabbit. There was no violence, no throwing into a fire but a touching story about a boy's love for a soft toy.

   The stuffed rabbit was given to a small boy as a Christmas present . At first the boy preferred to play with his modern and mechanical toys instead of the old-fashioned velveteen rabbit. The rabbit felt lonely but in the boy's room he met Skin Horse, who was the wisest and oldest toy. He told the rabbit about toys magically becoming real due to love from children. "Real isn't how you are made (...). It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." 

   One night, the boy's nanny gave the rabbit to the boy to sleep with, in place of a lost toy. The rabbit became the boy's favorite toy. Time passed, and the rabbit became shabbier but happy. When the boy came down with scarlet fever, the rabbit was sitting with him as he recovered. The doctor ordered that the boy should be taken to the seaside and that his room should be disinfected - all his books and toys burnt, including the velveteen rabbit. The rabbit was bundled into a sack and left out in the garden overnight, where he reflected on his life with his boy. The toy rabbit started to cry, a real tear dropped on the ground, and a marvelous flower appeared. A fairy stepped out of the flower and comforted the velveteen rabbit. She said that, because he had become Real to the boy who truly loved him, she would take him away with her and make him into Real to everyone. The fairy took the rabbit to the forest, where they met other rabbits. She gave the velveteen rabbit a kiss and he changed into a real rabbit. 

"The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams