We're now in the waning days of the Christmas season. The octave has passed. The twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany are gone. The priests are still in white vestments until the Baptism of Our Lord on Sunday, though, so that's what we're going with this year. One of our priests said that in Poland they party until Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation in the Temple, on February 2, but then we'd have no recovery time before Carnival.
In the United States, Epiphany is observed on a Sunday rather than January 6th and we use an American missal here. So we had several days of Epiphany celebrations. I was inspired by the train of camels we used to decorate the wood stove for Christmas, and, on Saturday, I put a star on the top of the chimney for the Wise Guys to find us. At mass on Sunday we had Father Tomascz bless water and chalk, and Tuesday night (Epiphany Eve) we doused our house and marked it as under the protection of Casper, Melchior and Balthasar for the year.
On Wednesday, I took out the second engine for the train and the kings for the creche that had appeared Christmas morning. For dinner, I made cornbread dressing. I'd told myself at Thanksgiving it would be at least another year before I had this delectable dish again but with the leftover bread from New Year's Day, mock chicken broth powder from my grandma, and fresh celery from a neighbor's garden I couldn't resist. After dinner we ordered the last of our Christmas packages a dump truck with rattling wheels and a working lever from Great-Grandpa Earl and Pampa.
Yesterday, we were reading a number book with candy counters and Ruth Anne remembered the stash from her stocking. I cut a pear for her to eat first and she shared the last piece with me. She was going to share her chocolate too but then thought better of it (which was okay because Santa brought me a little something too). "I need to say thank you Santa," Ruth Anne said as she nibbled her sweet.
Last night's dinner was the opposite of our Christmas day dinner. We had a package of spagetti from Amazon through the pouch, a jar of fire roasted tomato sauce we sent with our household effects, parmesean cheese Joe's colleagues had brought back on the plane and gave us when they left post, and cauliflower that Mehri washed and cut for me when Ruth Anne was napping. It was pretty tasty, actually.
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