Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics General Stuff Christmas Shopping, Gifts, Cards, Parties etc.

I agree. Good fruitcakes. Wish my brother were still here so I could send him one. Sorta sad this Christmas, I keep seeing these things and saying to myself, "Bob would love that." And then it hits me again.

Festivus is a fictional holiday created by Frank Costanza (played by Jerry Stiller) on the popular television comedy Seinfeld. Some fans of the show now celebrate this fictional holiday in real life.

Festivus is a holiday held on 23 December of each year. It was created as a response to the commercialism of the other December holidays.

Its slogan is “Festivus, a holiday for the rest of us”. Listen to Frank's explanation of the origins of Festivus...



The Genesis of Festivus

Frank: Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.

Kramer: What happened to the doll?

Frank: It was destroyed. But out of that a new holiday was born . . . a Festivus for the rest of us!

Kramer: That must've been some doll.

Frank: She was!

Cica 1991, there was fruitcake recipe in the San Francisco Chronicle.

I first want to state, that I am not a fruitcake kinda guy...erm, fan of fruitcake.

I ended-up trying out the recipe because, as I recall, said recipe didn't have all of that colored nasty stuff as ingredients.

OMG! It was awesome! I lost the recipe - or - it got thrown out and I've never seen the recipe again. I've tried looking for the recipe on microfiche at the library with no success.

Recipe please.

Sam too. I mix what I eat with kibble (Iams). If my food is fatty, he doesn't get it and gets his default meal: rotisserie chicken (minus the skin)

Sam gets a scrambled egg and kibble for breakfast, usually - or - if I have cereal, he get rotisserie chicken for breakfast.

The other night he had teriyaki chicken, brown rice, broccoli and kibble for dinner.

Raw fat and chicken skin is actually good for dogs, in moderation of course. Roscoe always gets the raw meat and poultry trimmings.

Sammy is a beautiful dog!

The cake recipe is forthcoming, I want to work out a couple of details to ensure success. This recipe was lost to my family for over twenty years after my grandma died. My sister eventually found the handwritten recipe stuck inside an old cookbook. It wasn't very detailed. It calls for the juice of two large oranges, what the hell does that mean?
"sour or buttermilk" Yuck. Can I just use milk?
"Bake until done in a moderate oven" 1 hour in a 325F oven seems to do the trick. 45 minutes in a 350 oven might also work. I consider 375 to be a moderately hot oven and 300 to be a moderately cool oven.

No more dreaming of a white Christmas... this is what we woke up to this morning (about 12" so far).

Beautiful Craftsman home. My M-I-L has an almost identical one, though with wooden railing and ornately turned balusters instead of the brick.

Major drawback to it is oil heat, so it costs a ton to heat it. Also the wiring sucks, the plumbing is old, and I suspect a lot of asbestos in the basement area. But it is a pretty old thing. The trusses on the roof area facing frontward were made with a slight bow curve in them, which is subtle but distinctive. Probably about three or four inches of bow.

Rick~Sammy is looking good!

Logtroll~That snow sure looks pretty. I have never had a white Christmas, living here in SoCal. It is predicted to be 76 degrees on Christmas Day!

Greger~That orange fruitcake sounds so good!

Churalpat~Craftsman-style homes are my favorite type of architecture.

Ours is a 1912 Sears kit (at least partially). We have been working on it for two years and the wiring, plumbing, and heating system (95% efficiency condensing gas boiler and wall mounted radiators) are all the latest good stuff. I finally did all the prep work in the attic and will upgrade next week from what is probably an R-8 average to an R-50 using our sprayed cellulose insulation. The walls I can't do much about, they are brick and "pen tile", a hollow clay tile that used to be manufactured at a state penitentiary. Lots of mass but minimal R value. The radiant heat allows us to be comfortable at lower air temperatures, though, so the heat loss is reduced from what it might be with a forced air system.

Still a lot to do and I expect my Christmas presents to mostly be things like light fixtures and storm windows! Something to play with on Christmas day, oh boy!!