The Plague...and also Christmas!

So I've been sick since December 8. Two days after singing for Lessons and Carols, I started losing my voice and developed a horrible cough that lasted for over two weeks. I thought I was getting better after spending 10 days on antibiotics, but then yesterday, the day after I finished my last dose, I ended up with a brood of tiny, hostile chickens laying snot eggs in my sinuses. Seriously, it's like they're out for revenge. (TMI?)

{Photo unapologetically pilfered from my mother's Facebook}

So we had a relatively quiet Christmas. My mom was still recovering from about three weeks of the flu, and my dad caught the same bug on Christmas Eve, so most of our family celebration was kind of postponed. We got to hang out with Josh's family and go to church on Christmas morning. We had Christmas dinner at my parents' house. Jason made prime rib with Yorkshire puddings and all the fixings, and he made another version of Mock Dragon's Tail this year. Last year it was made of cake with three different kinds of filling and puff pastry scales. This year, Jason outdid himself by making a chocolate version with chocolate sponge cake and homemade chocolate mousse and mocha filling. The scales this year were made by painting chocolate onto individual rose leaves. The effect was stunning. (You can kind of see the Dragon's Tail in the photo above. I apologize for not taking pictures! Next time!)

If you aren't familiar with the tradition of the Mock Dragon's Tail, it's from Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham:

It was still the custom for Dragon's Tail to be served up at the King's Christmas Feast; and each year a knight was chosen for the duty of hunting. He was supposed to set out upon St. Nicholas' Day and come with a dragon's tail not later than the eve of the feast. But for many years now the Royal Cook had made a marvellous confection, a Mock Dragon's Tail of cake and almond-paste, with cunning scales of hard icing-sugar. The chosen knight then carried this into the hall on Christmas Eve, while the fiddles played and the trumpets rang. The Mock Dragon's Tail was eaten after dinner on Christmas Day, and everybody said (to please the cook) that it tasted much better than Real Tail.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas! I'm looking forward to spending much of the this week as I spent most of last week--lying on the couch and reading, still trying to recover.

Blessings to you all on this sixth day of Christmas, and may you be blessed richly in the New Year!


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