So as soon as Thanksgiving is over, and before the last turkey sandwich is devoured, we are propelled forward into the frenzy of Christmas!
We are Christmas Eve People. That is, we do our BIG celebration on Christmas Eve, including opening all the gifts, except, of course, for the ones that Santa Claus brings while we sleep. The world seems to be heavily weighted toward the Christmas Morning People, which actually works out nicely for us, as most everyone is available to come to our house on Christmas Eve.
So basically, Christmas Eve consists of a heathen ritual of heaping monstrous piles of gifts on children and adults, regardless of evaluations of their goodness or badness over the prior twelve months. In the past this gift-giving reached shameful excess, with the unwrapping process lasting well into the early morning hours of Christmas Day. One year I decided it would be lovely to also have a full sit-down Christmas Eve dinner when we finished opening gifts. This decision belongs in the same category as the infamous Thanksgiving From Hell of 1990. (Refer to Blog “What Were We Thinking??”)
Cooking an entire turkey dinner with all the trimmings WHILE opening piles of gifts in a house full of people is a very bad idea. To bring things to a halt and herd everyone to the dinner table is like trying to stop a pack of bloodhounds on the scent. Dinner actually got served well after midnight to an exhausted group of unenthused diners. And the best part of all was cleaning up at 3 a.m. Again, we learned from our errors, and never attempted this again.
Our Christmas Eve menu has evolved into a conglomeration of everyone’s favorites. It is spread out in the dining room and can be accessed at any time during the evening. We take short breaks, more easily tolerated by the excited children (ages 4 to 65). The menu is as follows:
Greg’s Famous Chili with all the toppings
Potato Salad
Ham (a good spiral sliced one, usually from Costco, which is as good as Honey-Baked and 1/3 the cost)
Rolls and condiments for sandwiches
Homemade Popcorn Balls
Homemade Cream puffs – half of them filled with lemon, half with vanilla
Let’s start with a really fun one … the POPCORN BALLS!
These are the GOOIEST, THE SYRUP-IEST, THE STICKIEST, MESSIEST AND THEREFORE THE BEST popcorn balls ever. Grandma Alice taught me to make these, and the recipe goes way back to Ellendale, ND, and a lady named May Anderson. I never think of her without remembering that every Christmas she gave me a gorgeous book… I don’t know WHERE she got them! Ellendale, pop. 1,500, circa 1950, did not have a Barnes and Noble! They were always the classic stories with the most beautiful illustrations and they were pure magic to me! And here I am, sixty years later, still getting a good feeling from thinking about them! AND her popcorn balls……
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup dark Karo syrup
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp white vinegar
1/4 cup butter
AND…………. POPCORN
You can either pop your own popcorn, or buy a good quality popcorn at the market. I try to find Cape Cod Brand Popcorn, which is the best, but if I can’t find that I get whatever looks like it has the biggest kernels, not a lot of little popcorn pieces. I have also used microwave popcorn and that works fine as well. You could also go to a movie theatre and buy fresh popped corn, if you budget allows for such extravagence! I always double this recipe at Christmas, which makes about 30 to 35 popcorn balls. If you double it, you will need about 4 large (not giant) bags of popcorn that you find in the market.
Combine all ingredients EXCEPT the butter and cook in a very large pot over medium heat. (the mixture with bubble up quite high as it cooks, hence the large pot) Cook until it hits the “softball” stage or 230 degrees on a candy thermometer. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, you can test it two ways: if it “spins a thread” or forms a “soft ball”. Dip a regular spoon into the syrup and hold it over the pot. If the syrup forms a thin thread as it drips off the spoon, it is probably ready. To be sure, drop a small amount into a cup of cold water. If it forms a very soft lump, but hanging together to form a ball, it is done. The trick is to not overcook the syrup, as you will get hard popcorn balls. On the other hand, if you undercook it, then you will have no balls!! (I know that may seem overly judgmental for simply undercooking a syrup……)
When you have determined that the syrup is ready, remove from the heat and add the butter and a pinch of baking soda. Stir just until butter melts and is combined.
Put part of the popcorn in a very large bowl and start drizzling the hot syrup over the popcorn. Ideally, this is a two person operation, with one pouring, and one tossing the popcorn with two spoons to get syrup on every piece of popcorn… Keep adding the syrup until the popcorn is all covered. Add more popcorn and more syrup until you have used up all the syrup. You want the mixture to be very wet and sticky. Don’t add all the popcorn if you do not have enough syrup to keep it very very sticky.
This is when the kids can get into the act, if you like. You have to be careful though, as the mixture will still be pretty hot. So everyone needs to wet their hands with water to avoid sticking, and dig in to form popcorn balls. We make them about the size of tennis balls. Be sure to press them firmly together so that they will stay formed and not collapse as they cool. Put them on a tray lined with parchment or waxed paper to cool.
You can make these a day or two before Christmas if you TRUST yourself to not eat them. I personally make them Christmas Eve during the day. I am powerless in the presence of these things and have been known to sneak to the kitchen in the middle of the night to eat two or three more.
COMING UP NEXT: THE CREAM PUFFS — an absolute must at our house on Christmas Eve. Sometimes these are called “eclairs”, but the recipe is identical, and the only difference is that elcairs are typically long and skinny, unlike those of us who EAT them. So stay tuned and FA LA LA.
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