On the 11th Day of Christmas . . .

Celebrating for 12 days this Christmas has been a delightful experience. I chose a different country for each night and we explored the food, Christmas customs, music, and more. We "visited" Greece, France, Italy, Mexico, "Norman Rockwell's" America, and others. Within each meal experience I hid something related to the particular "Day" of Christmas. For example: Five Golden Rings = five corn tortillas.

I thoroughly enjoyed the cooking, riddling, and all the rest, but I will admit, I failed to adequately pace myself for all the celebratory wear-and-tear and these past few days I have been dragging my feet a bit. When Pipers Piping came about I readily accepted Rachel's offer to make "piping" hot pancakes.


As a veteran pancake maker, she has mastered the measuring and mixing . . .

Even managing to quadruple the recipe to feed our hungry pack of people piping up for pancakes. "Math is very important in cooking," she confidently states; adding, "Chemistry is too." By George, I think she's got it! : )


Her well-practiced pour technique results in round beauties . . .

. . . that rise to the occasion,

but only with the help of master pancake-flipper . . . Dad. He wields the spatula with an expertise that makes for well-rounded pancakes.

You will have to take my word for it that we ate with delight, as I see that this camera failed to capture the candle-lit dining shots wherein we saluted the pipers piping with piping hot pancakes.

Our 12 Christmas Feasts included:

1. "Pear" & Apple Crisp following our meal.

2. Chocolate-Caramel "Turtles" and "Dove" Dark Squares of Chocolate -- Two for each!

3. Three French Hens brought us quiche, of course.

4. The original song lists "Collie" Birds which posed a puzzlement. Since the root word for Collie is "Coal"(in Welsh), I made brownies and cut them to look like coal chunks. ( I stumped them with this one because they thought it was "Calling" Birds.)

5. Five Golden Rings = Five Corn Tortillas on our Mexican Buffet.

6. Geese laid six ginger cookie "Eggs" (cut with cookie cutters) for dessert.

7. Swimming Swans came courtesy of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake Ballet suite playing in the background.

8. Milking Maids? Why naturally they would produce Milk chocolate truffles for dessert. (My friend Karen Deborah had joined us by now and had no idea that her delicious gift of Harry & David Peppermint Truffles would serve as our riddle of Christmas -- fooled her and the rest!) ; )

9. The ladies waltzed to Strauss as we dined. (You can tell I began to wear out and resorted to music again).

10. Those leaping lords sparked a LEAP for pizza by the kids as Dad and Mom slipped away for a Chilean meal at "Diego's." I had macadamia-encrusted mahi-mahi -- I'm sure it "leaped" out of the water once upon a time.

11. "Piping" hot pancakes. (Bless you Rachel, my little chef)

12. And tomorrow I shall make turkey-rice soup with the DRUMsticks I pulled from the freezer, leftover from our Christmas Day feast.

And so we will have celebrated the 12 Days of Christmas. I mentioned that I couldn't wait to hear my children tell their children about the time we celebrated for 12 days straight. Elizabeth piped up and said, "Aren't we going to do this again next year?"

Hmmmmmmmmm . . . I pondered for a moment and my mind spun back all the laughter, smiles, feasts, joy, and good cheer over the past 12 days (I'm counting on fun tomorrow too) without any thoughts regarding dishes and such. "Yes," I brightened, "I can hardly wait." And then I plopped down for a looooong winter's nap. ; )

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And so, Merry Christmas continues around here as we prepare to welcome the Three Kings on the 6th.