Dickens Caroling Party
In the spirit of the yuletide season, we invited our friends and family to join us for a merry old fashioned Christmas Caroling Party! To celebrate the time honored tradition, everyone gathered at our farm first to enjoy holiday favorites like eggnog, wassail and figgy pudding.
As a gift to our guests, they were greeted by silhouette artist Nina Nightingale, who created framed portraits for the children (and parents too!) to take home.
With lanterns, song books, and to go cups in hand, our group of 35 headed out just before sunset to regale our neighbors with classic favorites such as “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Setting the table is one of my favorite aspects of entertaining, especially during the holidays. This Christmas, I created a sparkling glass forest on our reclaimed barn wood farm table. Featuring our collection of Simon Pearce’s hand blown glass candlesticks, I was delighted to learn last week that one of their Master Engravers was in our town at a local shop, Peachtree Place, hand engraving pieces for the holidays! Merry Christmas to me, it was time to add one of their signature Vermont Evergreens to our tablescape!
Simon Pearce master engraver Mary Trefney at Peachtree Place, engraving our Vermont Evergreen.
Silhouette portraits have a long romantic history, and have been hung in homes to remember family members for hundreds of years. A shadow of the past, there are currently only 60 artists in America using this ancient technique which predated photography. People in the Victorian era were particularly fascinated by silhouettes, in fact novelist Charles Dickens sat for a documented 95 portraits.
We were thrilled to have talented Chicago scissor artist Nina Nightingale at our farm creating portraits for our guests. Hopefully the portraits that went home with everyone found a special place where they will be admired and remembered for many years at Christmas, and beyond.
Beginning in the 1960’s, Joyce Byers spent the lead-up to every Christmas hand crafting Carolers as decorations and Christmas presents for friends. What started as a few small gifts for family made out of some clay, paint, scraps of old clothes, (and her sons’ hair!) quickly grew into a business that took over the Byers’ house every December as more and more people learned about the Carolers and wanted one of their own.
From there, the company has grown to a team of over 80 artisans working to handcraft the Carolers, which are now sold all over the world bringing Christmas joy every year to those who collect them. I inherited my collection from my mother a few years ago. In addition to the Byers pieces she handed down some vintage Carolers from her birthplace, Scotland. This year for Christmas my mom gave me the Bob Crachit and Tiny Tim figurine, which was perfect timing for our Dickens themed Caroling party! I just love unpacking them every year, seeing their happy, singing faces and finding the perfect spot for each one to spend the season with us.
vintage carolers
So just what is figgy pudding? Surprisingly, this traditional Christmas dessert with Medieval origins is quite delicious! It is a pudding in the British sense, meaning dessert, but not the creamy dish most Americans think of when they hear “pudding.” As referenced in the song “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and served by Mary Crachit in A Christmas Carol figgy pudding is actually a steamed cake full of raisins, currants, and brandy. The history of figgy pudding carries a lot of Christian symbolism, in fact the classic recipe has 13 ingredients representing Christ and the 12 apostles.
You’ve probably seen the Caprese Christmas cheese board all over social media- I saw it and knew it would be the perfect holiday accompaniment to Jim’s homemade sourdough bread! Unfortunately here in the Midwest, farmers market season has long passed. Good thing we can rely on agricultural startup Mighty Vine for tomatoes all season that are plump and juicy! The Illinois grower and favorite of many high-end Chicago restaurants, Mighty Vine leaves the tomatoes on the vine longer than most producers to ripen.
We love serving cheese and charcuterie on this farm board we bought while visiting the bucket list worthy Blackberry Farm!
Thank you to our friend (and test baker) Josephine for these incredible cookies and beyond yummy spinach dip!
Jim was busy baking all Sunday for our caroling party, but still found time to make loaves of bread to send home with our neighbors!
Thank you to Better magazine for including us in their recent article about plastic free entertaining, and for the inspiration to keep our water dispenser on the counter year round!
The Challenger family Christmas tree, a Concolor Pine- it did NOT look this big in the forest! http://www.dudeckspinecountry.com
From what our neighbors tell us, there has never been carolers on Old Farm Road! We are thrilled to have started what we hope will become a tradition for generations to come. Wassail was a thick, hot spiced beverage that helped keep the traveling well-wishers warm.
The concept of Christmas carols and the joy of spreading them by singing to the community to celebrate Christ’s birth started first in Europe. History tells us in the 16th century, Anglo-Saxon peasants adapted these pagan customs and called it “wassailing.” They would go door to door singing good tidings, in hopes of receiving bits of nourishment from their superiors.
Caroling did not experience a surge in popularity until the 19th century during the Victorian Era when the joyful hymns were welcomed. A common legend says that Christmas carols were named after Carol Poles, a little English girl who supposedly went missing in London during the holiday season in the late 19th century. People supposedly searched for her by going door-to-door, singing to declare their good intentions.
Before it got too cold, and too dark- we all bundled up, filled up our to go cups with wassail (or various other beverages), and headed out down the road! The kids were happy to join in, albeit on our farm UTV, The Boss! What a big, jolly group we had. Our neighbors all threw open their doors and welcomed our singing crew, some even handed out candy canes and baked cookies for us! A truly magical evening to kick off our Christmas Festivities!
After caroling we all returned back to the farm for (lots) of cookies and treats by the fire! Each guest left with something to remember the evening, A Christmas Carol and The Ghost of Christmas Past candles! Made by local artisan Elyse Chilton of Sky Apothecary, the candles are 100% soy wax, eco-friendly, renewable, and sustainable. Elyse first etches each individual jar and lid before hand pouring each candle.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
If you don’t happen to have any carolers in your neighborhood, call Dial-A-Carol, (217) 332-1882, 24 HOURS A DAY! A tradition at the University of Illinois since December 1960, it’s a wonderful group of mostly volunteer students during finals week that sing holiday songs to anyone around the world who calls, 24 hours a day during finals week, all in the name of spreading joy and kindness! Have your request ready- fyi they have a version of Apple Bottom Jeans about Santa Claus!
