12-21-2025 — Winter Solstice

Howdy all. Today is the longest night of 2025. Tomorrow the daylight starts to increase again. Yippee. I am tired of the sun setting before 5 pm and not rising until almost 8 am. Just short of 15 hours of night and barely 9 hours of daylight. That is at this latitude. My S.A.D. lights are getting a workout (Seasonal Affective Disorder — fake indoor sunlight lamps to try and offset the depression from no real sunshine).

And this weather is not helping. While it is staying below freezing today, the snow melted yesterday.

Off topic. Today, for lunch, I fulfilled my biyearly quest for Braunschweiger luncheon meat. I’m not sure what is the appeal. I know I first had it as a kid, but can’t imagine why. It most certainly couldn’t have been cheap, nor in the government food boxes each month. But, I remember it much more as a treat. What I do know is, it is best with American cheese and yellow mustard. I dislike yellow mustard, and American cheese is something that is to be used in grilled cheese sandwiches, if you are having tomato soup. Not many other good combinations for it.

I occasionally find myself yearning for something from my youth that I considered a treat.

And off I go on a side topic from my side topic. When we were kids, once a month we would have to walk into the city (Johnstown) to pick up the government free food boxes. They would have cheese, sugar, flour, peanut butter, butter, raisins, powdered milk, rice, corn meal (ugh), and a few other items that would otherwise be thrown away.

As a treat, my mother would make a custard with the powdered milk, sugar, rice and raisins. I remember it as the greatest pudding ever made. Well, as an adult, I asked her for the recipe. A quite simple one it turned out. So, I bought the ingredients I didn’t have (like powdered milk!!) and made up some. It was the most horrid school paste, with lumps of raisins, that you could possibly imagine. I wondered if I got it wrong. Nope, according to her, that’s what it was exactly. Needless to say, that is one childhood treat I’ve never yearned for since.

Back to the side topic. Braunschweiger is a liverwurst type Pâté mixture of beef liver and spices. Sure doesn’t sound like something that would please a child’s palette. I must admit, nowadays, one lunch of a couple sandwiches, and the rest of the tube just dies in the fridge. However, that one lunch is a good one.

And another side-side topic. Someday I need to write about Gobs. They are these heavenly sandwiches made of cake-like cookies with a creamy filling between. The main ingredients are sugar and Lard. I have a great story about them. But not today.

Anyways, it will not be a white Christmas — which is the only day I want to see snow..

Instead, after weeks of below “average” temperatures, and lots of white days, it will rain and be above normal just enough that Christmas day should be brown and muddy outside. Isn’t that the perfect Xmas card scene?

At least it will make it easier for families to get together safely, and have a happy holiday and Enjoy Life