Friday, January 14, 2011

Learning About New Years Eve

Pat and I watched a groovy movie over the holidays. The title: Bachelor Mother. It is from the late 30s early 40s. The stars were David Niven and Betty Grable. It is a sweet little movie. Whenever I see a movie from this time period I imagine mother and dad seeing the movie and I wonder what they thought about it and how it influenced them.
This particular movie included bringing in the New Year at Times Square in New York City. We probably can all relate to what that looks like because we've seen it more than a few times on TV. Well, as I was thinking about it, I realized that mother and dad never would have seen it on TV because TV didn't exist -- at least it wasn't available to them. They probably knew about the celebrating in Times Square from radio and newspaper and possibly magazine reports but TV's visual experience of seeing the ball fall and seeing the crowds celebrating would have existed only in their imagination. So seeing the celebration documented in a film would have been pretty captivating and truly informative. Can't you just see them, young things that they were, watching and enjoying a movie together?

Happy New Year Tradition

How did you usher in the New Year? It was pretty quiet at our house. I don't think either Pat nor I stayed up for the official bringing in of the new year. Now, our neighbors couldn't miss the chance to sound off a whole lot of fireworks and, of course, we are happy to allow them this indulgence.
What traditions did we have as a family for the New Year? The only thing I remember doing with some consistency on New Year's Eve was eating a shrimp dip that mother made. It was pretty exotic for little ole Idaho and the possible ingredients that we could get in our grocery store. I'm not sure where she got the recipe but I think she started making it sometime about the mid 60s. Maybe someone else will remember the origins of this little speciality. I LOVED it! We'd eat it with rippled potato chips -- another NeW and pretty amazing treat. Recipe for dip is as follows:
1 8oz. package of Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1/3 cup cream
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon onion juice (mother used to buy this in a little jar, I'd just grate some yellow onion and collect the juice)
dash of Worcestershire sauce
mix until well blended. Add 3/4 cup canned shrimp, chopped. (This was the exotic part to me and they were the tiny little shrimp -- maybe that is the only size you can buy canned).
Enjoy!

Sorry for the very long hiatus with the blog. I've had lots of stuff going on in my head and heart and processing it has zapped me. I hope to be back up and writing and get lots more family stuff onto the blog in 2011. I WeLcOmE your comments, suggestions, input, etc.
Most of all, please know that I LOVE you!