Adapted from The Modern Priscilla, December, 1912

One of the ever-returning joys of the holiday season is the making of homemade Christmas candy.  Almost every household does something along this line, and as this pleasant task is usually annexed by the junior members of the family, it is well to have handy a few general directions and some simple recipes for their guidance. Read more »

Adapted from Dennison’s Christmas Book, 1922

Home is the place to which all hearts turn at Christmas time. Then, to be one of a family in a home is the universal wish, however independent one may like to be at other seasons. And the stay-at-homes are glad also – glad they have a home, glad to see relatives from far away, glad to welcome homeless friends and give them a “real” Christmas. Read more »

Adapted from The Modern Priscilla, December 1912

Scraps of leftover wallpaper can be used in creating lovely, handmade Christmas gifts.  Here are some instructions for using wallpaper scraps to make Christmas gifts.

The original photos from the magazine were in black and white, so the instructions describe the colors that are in each project. Read more »

By Rosamond Lampman
Adapted from Home Life, December 1911

If you have friends who live in a hotel or boarding-house and don’t have a lot of home-cooked meals, why not give them a gift that you’ve made for Christmas? Read more »

Adapted from Morrell’s Pride Book on Hospitality, 1922

Christmas is a joyous day in homes where there are children, but it may be lonely for the childless home, or people who live alone. How great a gift it would be to share the children’s Christmas joy with these friends. There is a sacred quality surrounding Christmas day hospitality – the quality that echoes these words: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

Of course, the house is beautiful with Christmas greens, red berries and bells. The tree lovely with gilded walnuts, and strings of popcorn and cranberries made by the children. At the front door hangs a Christmas wreath. The dining room fireplace is festooned with green, and on the mantelpiece are shining candlesticks with red candles.

For the center of the dinner table have a miniature Christmas tree, bearing tiny joke gifts for everyone – a low pot of poinsettias – a basket holding red alder berries and asparagus fern – or snow-white popcorn balls, red apples and bits of holly. Tie place cards onto individual place flowers, or onto red paper nut cups or snowball candy-box favors.

Choose a menu easy to prepare, and made up of foods which the children can eat, for Christmas is a day on which the word “don’t” should be forgotten.

Menu

Orange cocktail or oyster cocktail
Cream of tomato soup with croutons
Little veal and ham pies
Roast chicken, turkey or guinea hen
Franconia potatoes
Peas
Buttered rolls
Cranberry jelly
Celery
Plum pudding with orange hard sauce or
Vanilla ice cream and little sponge cakes for the children
Fruit and nuts
Coffee

Veal and Ham Pies

1 1/2 pounds veal, fully cooked
1 cup ham, fully cooked
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1 teaspoon chopped parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 teaspoon pepper
2 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 tablespoons flour
2 hard-cooked eggs
Pastry

Cut the fully-cooked veal and ham into small pieces, add them to the parsley, lemon rind, salt, pepper, and water. Simmer for about 30 minutes, till heated through. Thicken with butter and flour rubbed smoothly together, and fill individual baking dishes with the meat and gravy. Add the eggs, sliced cool, then cover with any desired pastry and bake for 15 minutes at 350 to 375 degrees. Serve hot.

Orange Hard Sauce

1/2 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons boiling water
1/3 cup orange marmalade

Cream the butter, add to it half of the sugar and 1 tablespoon of boiling water. Beat thoroughly, add the remainder of the sugar and water gradually, then, when the sauce is light and fluffy, stir in the marmalade and set aside to chill. This sauce may be used to garnish Christmas plum pudding.

1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Cream butter.  Add 3/4 cup sugar and cream thoroughly.  Add 1 egg and beat well.  Mix the flour and salt and add to the first mixture alternately with the cream.

Spread 1/8 inch thick on buttered cookie sheets.  Brush with the remaining egg, well beaten, and sprinkle with the remaining sugar mixed with the nuts.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.  Cut into 2-inch squares while still hot.  Makes 70 to 75 squares.

*Orange cocktail or oyster cocktail

*Cream of tomato soup with croutons

*Roast chicken or turkey

*Potatoes

*Peas

*Buttered rolls

*Cranberry jelly

*Celery

*Plum pudding

*Vanilla ice cream and small sponge cakes

*Fruit and nuts

*Coffee

Morrells’ Pride, Book on Hospitality, 1922

Christmas is Coming!

Christmas is coming!  The day of all days when homemakers bring to the highest point of perfection their knowledge of cooking.  Just now there is as much of an air of suppressed excitement in the kitchen as in the “spare room” where the presents are hidden away!  Now, as at no other time, does the good housewife utilize to the fullest extent, all the delightful puddings, pastries, soups and roasts.

From Armour’s Monthly Cookbook, December 1912

2 cups dry rolled oats

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup sugar

2 level teaspoonfuls ssalt

Combine ingredients and pour 3 cups of boiling water over the mixture.  Set aside to cool.

Put 2 cakes of compressed yeast into 1 cup of tepid water.  When the first mixture is cool, add yeast and water and 2/3 cup of chopped nuts, such as pecans, walnuts, or hickory nuts.

Knead into this enough white flour to make dough a little stiffer than white bread.  Form into 3 small or 2 large loaves.  Allow it to double its size in raising, and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

Home Life, December 1911

Christmas is the children’s day more than any other holiday, and their tastes and feelings should be consulted on this day which commemorates the birth od a Child whom millions of people worship and adore. Read more »

Here are five vintage Christmas games for children.  They include Santa Claus Hunt, Christmas Tree Game, Trimming the Tree Game, Christmas Secret, and Stocking Hunt. Read more »