third Sunday of Advent

The third Sunday of Advent is also known as the "pink" Sunday because of its traditional rose-colored vestments. Today three candles are lighted on the Advent wreath, the third one is the pink candle. This change in color signals that our waiting is nearly over, that only one more Sunday of Advent is left and then our Christmas joy will be complete, our expectation and hope fulfilled as we commemorate anew the Birth of our Savior, Jesus at Bethlehem all those years ago.

My Christmas tree is up and I am feeling happy about the coming holiday even though it will be, as all of my holidays are, a simple one. As all of my days are, actually! I will try to write some Christmas cards this year, I think.

This year, in honor of my new resolve to attempt to diet, I am not baking the marvelous goodies of yore. (I was one of those people who made a list of all the cookies I was going to bake and then made the grocery list and went out and hauled home enough butter to feed the neighborhood for a year. One year this extravaganza included eighteen kinds of cookies. Some of the recipes would be doubled and I frequently ended the baking at 11:00 pm dropping into bed exhausted and dreaming of more. I only stopped doing this when for several years running we had infestations of ants in the walk-in closet pantry in our kitchen. A mouth full of ants instead of a mouth full of favorite cookie was not my idea of fun. Now all those cookies would truly be extravagant considering how we are all trying to keep our carb and fat consumption low.)

Eighteen kinds of Christmas cookies! It's hard to believe. But we did share them. They went to the church coffee hour and as presents to many people. There are a few that I do miss. A wonderful recipe from a vintage Gourmet for Viennese Marzipan Stars. I made the marzipan too from an old cookbook of my mother's. A delicate lemon and pistachio cookie from Italy. Springerle, made with my great-grandmother's springerle board. These have no fat, but a great many eggs. In the last few years I have made only two: gingerbread and cappuccino flats. Chocolate!

By the third Sunday in Advent the baking would have been in full swing. This year it is sufficient to reminisce and I hope pick up my old missal and absorb myself in the texts.