Kentucky Traditions: Southern Lights
Usually during the Kentucky wintertime, with its unpredictable weather, I spend a lot of time holed up in my house. I don't have kids, so there isn't a lot of incentive to head to parades or to see Santa. There is, however, one holiday tradition that I do brave the cold for: Southern Lights at the Kentucky Horse Park.
Photo by whenlostin on Flickr
This marks the 20th year of Southern Lights, which is a wonderland of oversized lighted holiday decorations that run through the Kentucky Horse Park. You get to stay in your car and "ooh" and "aah" at the over 1 million lights while running the heat at full blast. My favorite display every year is the "12 Days of Christmas" which is illustrated through twinkle lights. There are also animated displays, which are fun.
Photo by osubeav on Flickr
I don't stay in the car for long though. I always pop out at the end where they have pony and camel rides (for the youngin's), craft vendors, refreshments, and other fun things. But the real reason I get out in the cold? The petting zoo.
I mean really, who doesn't want to feed the goats?!
I'm not quite sure why my husband and I love the petting zoo so much. It's just a fun thing to do, and you can get your hand tickled by animal lips as they eat feed. They're just so darn cute.
The lights are on each night (from 5:30-10:00 pm) through December 31, and the indoor attractions are be open each night, with the exception of November 28 and December 24 through December 31.
Southern Lights is a great family event and is budget-friendly since you pay per car versus per-person.
- Personal Vehicle (Sunday - Thursday) $15.00
- Personal Vehicle (Friday and Saturday) $20.00
- Extended Van $30.00
So, if you head out to Southern Lights, make sure to look for me at the petting zoo. I'll most likely be with the goats.
The Christmas Repeal
We don't drink in my hometown.
Well, people do drink alcohol, of course, but it's never been as socially acceptable to go out and have a glass of wine or a cocktail in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky as it is in the Commonwealth's bigger cities. Part of it is a religious distinction; there's a whole lot of Baptists in our neck of the woods. Part of it is economic; there isn't a lot of extra income for frivolous things like drinkin'. And, more than a little of it comes down to the booze we produce. The Appalachian end of the state doesn't produce Kentucky's storied bourbon. We don't have limestone in our water, nor do we have oak barrels charred to exacting specifications. We have a proud -- or perhaps infamous -- history of moonshine stills. Most of us have a 'shiner or two on our family tree, whether we want to admit it or not. When your spirits are less than legal, you generally don't announce them with pride.
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| via Maker's Mark |
That all changes, come the holidays. Now, it's never been any surprise to me that the 21st Amendment was repealed on December 5th. You need to break out the good stuff for the Christmas baking. And, we may need a little nip in the house, because you never know if company will want some. Even the most devout Baptist grandmas suddenly know their liquor store order when it comes time to make holiday confections. They want Maker's Mark or Early Times. Or rum for the cake. It's not like we drink the rest of the year. It's simply a month-long lift on the Prohibition, in the name of good cheer.
My grandma Margaret would never touch a drop, but she sure would soak her fruitcake. My great-aunt Marie made these weird little cookies with raisins and cherries and a whole lot of rum; they were strangely addictive, and the whole family loved 'em. And then, there are the bourbon balls. My family's recipe. I can't make enough of them during the holidays; everybody wants some. It doesn't matter if you touch bourbon the rest of the year.
This week, we celebrate the 80th anniversary of Prohibition's repeal, and the far longer-standing tradition of the Christmas Repeal. Here's my family's bourbon ball recipe, if you find yourself in the mood for drinking or baking.
- 1 to 2 cups good bourbon whisky (preferably Maker's Mark)
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- 1/2 to 1 cup whole pecan halves (optional)
- 1 two-pound bag of powdered sugar
- 1 stick butter, softened
- 1-2 bags semisweet chocolate chips (preferably Ghiradelli)
- paraffin wax
- Place 1/2 to 1 cup of chopped pecans in shallow bowl.
- Pour bourbon over nuts, immersing completely. Cover and let soak 12 hours to overnight.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place pecan halves in shallow pan and toast lightly for about ten minutes. Cream butter in stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment.
- Combine bourbon-pecan mixture with just enough powdered sugar to form a stiff ball. Refrigerate to let stiffen slightly. Roll dough into small balls.
- In double-boiler (or a sauce pan placed over a cooker full of boiling water), add a third to a half a bag of semisweet chocolate chips and a small shaving of paraffin wax (no more than 1/4 cup). Heat until just smooth. Dip dough balls into the chocolate mixture. The key is to coat them quickly and make small, frequent batches of melted chocolate.
- Place bourbon balls on wax paper to cool.
- Top each ball with a toasted pecan half, if desired. Results are better if you leave them to cool at room temperature rather than in the refrigerator.
"New" Old Community Traditions
There are some community traditions you grow up enjoying. Then there are some traditions you don't discover until well into adulthood. Last night my family attended our first ever Downtown Advent Walk.
The walk is a progressive ecumenical celebration among five historic churches in downtown Paducah. We began at Broadway Methodist Church for a short service then we walked to Washington Street Baptist Church for music and scripture reading. Then, we went to our home church of Grace Episcopal Church for more choral music and a short sermon. Last on the walk were services at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church and First Presbyterian Church.
It was such a special thing to be out on the streets of Paducah with so many people from the community. However, it was more than that. It is not very often that one gets to experience so many different churches and worship styles in one evening. I couldn't believe how few churches I had worshiped in in my own town. There were so many buildings I'd driven by a thousand times but never actually stepped foot in.
I recently read an essayist who argued we all want to rush Christmas because it's one of the few remaining communal celebrations in our society. As I celebrated advent with my town yesterday evening, I knew exactly what he meant.
I'm already counting the days until next year's advent walk.
~ Sarah Stewart Holland
Enough
Our dear friend Erin Smallwood Wathen is back for another gorgeous essay about life, faith, and family. As I prep for the holidays, realizing that I sure would like a new Dutch oven in which to cook Thanksgiving dinner and that I don't quite know where I'll put all of my Christmas trees, Erin's wise words certainly hit home. As always, you can follow along with Erin's blog Irreverin or on her Facebook page. -- HCW
The calendar says it’s Thanksgiving
week, and the stores say it’s Christmas already…but what I’m thinking of at the
moment is Halloween. Halloween 2 years ago, to be exact.
I followed a sparkly red lady bug and a plush green dragon down the street.
Nevermind it was October 31. It was about 100 degrees outside, and the
plush, fuzzy, cozy costume—which would have been just swell in some chilly
autumn Midwestern burrow—was utterly ridiculous in the desert. But dang, he was
adorable.
We’d just moved from one desert suburb to another… just a few miles apart,
but worlds away. The place we’d been the previous year—with a two-year-old
witch and a newborn, who went dressed as a newborn—had proved a little
disappointing on Halloween. We only knocked on about 8 doors, and of those,
only two actually opened and produced candy.
We were in a new neighborhood, expecting more of the same
non-Hallow-happenings. But nossir, on our new block, trick-or-treat was an
EVENT. We had a potluck on the cul-de-sac, took group pics of the kids, and
then went trick-or-treating en masse.
Our group had about 8 kids and twice as many parents. And every street we went
down, we encountered another mob of kids and their chaperones. Nearly every
house was decorated, every porch light on, every resident proffering a giant
bowl of tiny treats.
About 12 houses in, my furry monster was burning up, and both of their
buckets were full. The little lady bug could no longer carry her load, and I
was picking up the trail of M&M packets accumulating behind her. I
announced that, since the buckets were full, we were calling it a night.
That’s when one of the other moms said, “oh, this always happens, so we come
prepared.” And she pulled out a handful of empty plastic grocery bags and
started handing them around.
So…we did another block of houses.
Don’t get me wrong. It was great fun. And I like digging through the
buckets, post-bedtime, and hijacking all the Snickers as much as the next mom.
But, come on…at some point, you’ve got to acknowledge that the daggone bucket
is FULL, and go home already.
This fear of ‘not enough’ whispers anxiety in our ear at every turn. It is
the real goblin that haunts us, all the year around; maybe, even especially,
into the holiday season. It snatches our happiest moments from us and fills us
with dread. Sometimes, it even tries to take hold of our children.
Maybe I should explain a bit about why our old neighborhood was such a
–pardon me—ghost town, the year before. It was 2010. And in Phoenix—one of the
hardest hit housing markets in the country– that meant that every third house
on the block was in foreclosure, pre-foreclosure, short sale process, or just
plain empty. That’s why we, along with half the city, found ourselves in a
different house the following year.
I couldn’t help but feel that, had the big banks just gone home when their
daggone bucket was full, there would not have been quite such an exodus
situation. But…the mythic voice of scarcity just keeps pulling at people. And
really, the more you have, the more vulnerable you are to the voice that keeps
whispering “you need more.” In very real
ways, investors gambled with real people’s livelihood and equity. Eventually,
the handle on that bucket broke, and every last gumball rolled out into the
street. That was 2008, of course.
Some of us are just coming back, while the
big kids who broke the buckets went home with extra treat bags.
Ok, that metaphor has played out. Sorry.
Still, when I think about what it means to practice gratitude, I think of
trick-or-treating with young kids, and teaching them to say ‘enough,’ even as
the world says, ‘here’s an extra bag so you can carry more stuff.’ That was an
important transitional time in our lives, and I learned a lot about simply
breathing it all in, and being grateful for what is. Now that I’m in transition again—from one
church call to another; from the desert to the prairie; from parenting babies
to parenting big(ish) kids— it all seems like a timely liturgy of thanksgiving.
On that Halloween night, 2 years ago, I hauled a loaded bucket, a
full-to-breaking plastic bag, and an exhausted toddler home. I was grateful for
my new neighborhood; for doors that actually opened in welcome, for a roof over
my family’s head, for healthy kids who could eat candy…and for these fleeting
years of glitter and wings and magic.
Out of the overflow, I handed my kid two pieces of candy and I said,
Repeat after me: this is enough. This is all we need.
Heine Brothers Coffee Giveaway!
This holiday season, I'm thankful for so many things. I'm thankful for the exciting new opportunities that my beau and I have undertaken. I'm thankful for the cute house we found in Louisville's St Matthews neighborhood. And I'm thankful for HerKentucky -- the wonderful friendships I've made through this blog and the amazing readers who follow along with us here on the blog as well as on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter.
So, today, I'm saying thanks to all my Louisville-area friends with a little giveway.
I love my new neighborhood, and I love a good cup of coffee, so I'm giving one HerKentucky fan a $20 gift card to Louisville's favorite coffee spot, Heine Brothers' Coffee.
You can enter to win using the Rafflecopter widget below. The contest runs now through midnight on Wednesday the 27th.
Favorite Thanksgiving Dish? Easy.
I have one job to do for Thanksgiving. I pack up my family and get us all to Kentucky. No kitchen, no turkey brining, no worrying about the perfect side. This leaves me with plenty of time on the road to feel nostalgic for my favorite holiday dishes and extoll the virtues of my favorite sweet potato topping. (Pecans, in case you were wondering.) There is one simple dish that serves as my holiday harbinger, and that is my mother's uncomplicated but superb cranberry relish. Although she has made this recipe for as long as I can remember, she won't take credit for creating it. She attributes this recipe to Mrs. Pauline Eblen of Henderson, who is the sweetest little woman you could ever hope to meet. No wonder it's so delicious.
Here's what you need:
2 small oranges, unpeeled
1 lb. cranberries
1 cup sugar*
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| The mason jar in the back contains coconut palm sugar, which I substitute for the cane sugar to the right. The result is not as pretty but every bit as scrumptious. |
Slice the ends of the oranges away, then cut oranges into 1/2 inch chunks. Fill food processor with all the ingredients, then chop and grind to your desired texture. I recommend letting it chill for a day or so in your refrigerator to allow the flavors to marry. They will be so happy together, I promise.
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| Takes about a minute to grind all this to a perfect relish consistency. |
Here's some helpful cranberry relish advice that you will want to follow, assuming that you make this once and immediately declare that you wish you had more of this or could save some for next summer. Try buying eight pounds of cranberries and a full bag of oranges. This stuff freezes exceptionally well, so plan on freezing one cup portions that you can easily thaw when you want to add a lovely burst of color to a table or just want a crazy good dollop of tangy cranberries on your mid-May turkey sandwich.
I didn't have any cooked poultry available, so please take my word that this tastes heavenly on any type of bird. Say you have some chicken breasts in the oven, but you become distracted by one child while his tiny partner in crime tosses your timer into the sink. Dried out chicken? Boom. Cranberry relish to the rescue! Imagine a boring leftover turkey sandwich promoted to gourmet status by some leafy greens and the zing from this cranberry relish. But just between us, you don't need anything but a ramekin dish and a spoon to enjoy this stuff.
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| Digging into some of this deliciousness in a few short days! |
What dish signals Thanksgiving and the coming holiday season for you? We would love to hear from you!
When Mother Nature hits too close to home...
Sometimes, for all our compassion and empathy for far away places struck by disaster, it's easy to forget that the weather can flip your geography upside down as well.
Yesterday a tornado passed just north of Paducah before hopping the river to wreak havoc on the nearby town of Brookport, Illinois. By nearby I mean three miles or less as the crow flies.
One of my dear friends was principal at the town's elementary school until last year, today one of his students was found unresponsive. One of the beloved workers at Mommy's Day Out - a woman who has taken care of both my boys since they were babies - just posted that she lost her home.
Her previous post was yesterday. She had just put up her Christmas tree.
So, in this season of thanksgiving, let us remember that nothing is guaranteed and be thankful for every peaceful moment afforded us.
Then, let us help those who had chaos come knock on their doors.
~ Sarah Stewart Holland