Holiday Traditions – Christmas Adam
The holidays were always a major production in my neck of the woods. I’m the oldest of five children in an Irish-Italian family, and Christmastime was always a time of dramatics and theatrics. Lots of our celebrating centered around food – a constant rotation of courses: antipasta, appetizers, salads, breads, pasta dishes, chicken cutlet parmigiana, fish of all varieties, ham, and not to mention the oodles upon oodles of desserts. As my siblings and I got older and started to “branch out” so-to-speak, dividing time between our prospective in-laws, our wild extended family, and each other became a very difficult feat. So, we created our own special day; a day that we would set aside for just the siblings and our parents. We called it Christmas Adam, and it’s celebrated on December 23rd (because Adam came before Eve in the traditional sense).
This day became our time together. We did a grab-bag style of gift giving (which was beneficial to the struggling college kids we had grown into), and we didn’t bother with the formalities of a seven-course meal – Chinese food or pizza worked beautifully. The day fast became an exciting and highly anticipated tradition for us.
As adults, now with our own families spread out in the country, Christmas Adam is still a thing. We’re not all together anymore, and long gone are the days of deciding where we’re eating Christmas Eve dinner and where we’re eating Christmas Day dinner. Christmas Adam is no longer a necessity for us as a family, but it’s a day we still recognize and observe. I’ve since passed on the tradition to my daughter, and it has evolved into our “cooking prep day” for the season. The original meaning behind the day has evolved, but we still hold the old observance as a part of our family tradition, and the sentiment will certainly remain as family legend.
**FUN FACT: In The Coal Elf, the coal elves celebrate a holiday they refer to as Adam’s Day! That’s my own little personal nod to my brothers and sisters and to the wonderful times we shared together.
The Coal Elf Chronicles
Book One
Maria DeVivo
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Publisher: 4 Horsemen Publications
Date of Publication: October 15, 2024
ISBN: 979-8823204231
ASIN: B0CW1HMWZJ
Number of pages: 260
Word Count: 73k
Tagline: Santa is real, but this isn't your childhood Christmas tale!
Book Description:
Ember Skye is a fed-up teenaged Coal Elf with a big ashy chip on her shoulder. Torn away from her carefree life Aboveground, she was forced into a world of dirt and darkness in the Mines. Now, the coal is starting to take its toll. Plus, being the only girl-elf coal miner at the North Pole is not fun at all!
Maria DeVivo writes horror and dark fantasy for both a YA and adult audience. Each of her series has been Amazon best-sellers and have won multiple awards since 2012. A lover of all things dark and demented, the worlds she creates are fantastical and immersive. Get swept away in the lands of elves, zombies, angels, demons, and witches (but not all in the same place). Maria takes great pleasure in warping the comfort factor in her readers’ minds – just when you think you’ve reached a safe space in her stories, she snaps you back into her twisted reality.
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Holiday
Recipe – Rainbow Cookies
I love to bake!
And while I am partial to quick and easy recipes (I mean, who isn’t?),
sometimes the more complicated ones have the biggest payoff!
One of my absolute FAVORITE cookie recipes is an old Italian one that was
passed to me from my mother—RAINBOW COOKIES! My mother was a wizard in the
kitchen, and even with her amazing culinary skills, she only made rainbow
cookies one time a year: Christmastime! So naturally, growing up I equated
rainbow cookies with the holiday season, not realizing that they were readily
available at any other time of the year at any given Italian bakery in New
York.
If you like jelly, and almond, and chocolate, then this is for you… but I warn
you, the recipe and process of the recipe is not to be taken lightly! But
once you’ve mastered the art of the rainbow cookie, you know you’ve elevated
your baking game to that whole new level!
Good luck, godspeed, May the Force Be With You, Valar Morghulis, It is Known,
This is the Way…
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DeVivo’s Rainbow Cookies
Materials needed:
Three bowls
Electric mixer
Parchment paper
Three large cookie/baking pans
Small bowl for egg whites
Ingredients
needed:
1. 8 oz. can of Almond Filling
2. 6 sticks of butter (softened)
3. 2 cups sugar
4. 8 eggs
5. 2 teaspoons almond extract
6. 4 cups flour
7. Red food coloring
8. Green food coloring
9. 1 jar apricot preserves
10. 1 jar raspberry preserves
11. 1 package Toll House mini chocolate chips
Instructions:
1. Oven at 350
2. Separate the egg whites into a small bowl. Beat with the mixer until they
are thick and stiff
3. Mix the yolks, almond filling, softened butter, almond extract & sugar
in one of the large bowls
4. Beat in the flour to the mixture
5. Fold in the whites to the mixture a little at a time. This is a very gentle
process!
6. Separate the mixture into three parts – so this way you have batter in each
of the three bowls. It won’t be exact, so you’ll have to eyeball it. It helps
if the three bowls are the same or at least the same size.
7. Leave one bowl WHITE. Use the food coloring to color the others (one red,
one green)
8. Grease one of the pans and line it with parchment paper. GREASE the paper.
9. Pour the white batter onto the pan and spread it out like a giant rectangle
shape. Try to have it even with no “breaks” in the batter.
10. Bake for 15 minutes
11. When done, flip the contents of the pan onto another pan (CAREFULLY) and
remove the parchment paper. Spread the apricot preserves on top. You will
really only use half the jar for this.
12. Do the same with the other colors. Grease sheets and even out the batter.
Bake for 15 minutes each.
13. When the second batter is finished, flip that on top of the layer with the
apricot preserves (CAREFULLY)! Remove the parchment paper and spread the
raspberry preserves. (again, probably half the jar).
14. Finally, the third color goes on top of the raspberry preserves. Leave the
parchment paper on and press down to hold everything together.
15. Put in refrigerator overnight.
16. Heat up the chocolate chips so you have a spread. Remove the parchment
paper from the tray and spread the chocolate on top. **you don’t want the
chocolate to be on too thick, or else it will be hard to cut
17. Back in refrigerator for about an hour (give or take) to let the chocolate
harden and settle.
18. Cut into cookie squares and serve.
19. ***the edges might be messy, but that’s ok. I make a separate cookie bucket
I call “THE REJECTS”. Reject cookies are still delicious! They just aren’t
pretty to look at.
***FUN FACT: For years, I used wax paper instead of parchment paper. It was
what my mother used. Thanks, Mom, for putting us in a potentially
life-threatening situation. You were always good for that. Miss you, Red. <3
The Coal Elf Chronicles
Book One
Maria DeVivo
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Publisher: 4 Horsemen Publications
Date of Publication: October 15, 2024
ISBN: 979-8823204231
ASIN: B0CW1HMWZJ
Number of pages: 260
Word Count: 73k
Tagline: Santa is real, but this isn't your childhood Christmas tale!
Book Description:
Ember Skye is a fed-up teenaged Coal Elf with a big ashy chip on her shoulder. Torn away from her carefree life Aboveground, she was forced into a world of dirt and darkness in the Mines. Now, the coal is starting to take its toll. Plus, being the only girl-elf coal miner at the North Pole is not fun at all!
Maria DeVivo writes horror and dark fantasy for both a YA and adult audience. Each of her series has been Amazon best-sellers and have won multiple awards since 2012. A lover of all things dark and demented, the worlds she creates are fantastical and immersive. Get swept away in the lands of elves, zombies, angels, demons, and witches (but not all in the same place). Maria takes great pleasure in warping the comfort factor in her readers’ minds – just when you think you’ve reached a safe space in her stories, she snaps you back into her twisted reality.
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