Author Archives: John Cutrone

Dec 22 2025
6 Comments
Advent, Midwinter, Solstice

We Add Our Light to the Sum of Light

Sunday brought the Midwinter Solstice to our Northern Hemisphere at 10:04 Eastern, in the morning. Shortest day, longest night. We’ve been on the approach to this for six months, a small decrease in light with each passing day, a small dose of change. And now things appear to stand still for two or three days (solstice meaning sun stand still). But change is the only thing that stays the same, and at these darkest nights, we begin our approach now to the next extreme: with the Midwinter Solstice’s passing, light again begins to increase, as darkness decreases, until things shift again in June at Midsummer. The dance of light and dark was here long before we came to be and will be here long after we are gone: a mystery explained in the beauty of geometry, all based on the fact that this old earth is tilted on its axis, causing the seasons, and, in a way, our response to them: what foods we eat, what stories we tell, what songs we sing. The very stuff of this blog.

The Fourth Sunday of Advent happened to coincide with this longest night, a lovely bit of exquisite timing. We’ve been lighting a new candle each Sunday since the 30th of November in a ring of light that began dimly, with the lighting of one purple candle, representing hope. We added a second purple candle the following Sunday, this one representing faith. A rose candle was added next, last Sunday: rose for joy, a distinct break from the solemnity and penitence of purple. And last night, the night of the Solstice, we added the fourth candle in the ring: another purple one, this one representing love. The Advent Wreath, of course, is not exactly celebrating the coming of the Midwinter Solstice; it is helping us prepare for the child born on Christmas Day. There is powerful imagery there, and it is no coincidence that the early Church chose this time of year to celebrate the birth of Christ: think “Jesus the Light of the World” (as the old hymn goes).

And so the darkest night came and with its passing, we enter soon into Christmastide. Here in this house, we got our tree, under the lights at the tree lot in Downtown West Palm Beach, late last week. It is illuminated now, but not yet decorated… that we’ll get to in the coming nights. Seth was up on the rooftop last night, solstice night, putting up lights there and up on the garden fence, too. We are doing our part to add our light to the sum of light, through light, but also through respect for and acknowledgment of the turning of the wheel of the year, the seasons as they pass, the tilt of this old earth, and the respect and kindness we offer the people we encounter along the way. We use our light to dispel the night, to counter all the darkness in the world, a darkness that is in no short supply these days. It is all we can do.

 

Dec 03 2025
4 Comments
Advent, Book of Days Calendar

The Mellstock Church West Gallery Choir, or Your December Book of Days

There’s a book I have picked up and begun and lost twice in the last five years: Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy. Both times I have read the opening chapter, which is set at Christmas (“Part the First: Winter”), and then perhaps some of the next chapter, and then something important comes up and I set the book down in a very logical place and eventually I forget the logic behind that particular decision. The book remains unfinished to this day. Be that as it may, I’ve just found it again. It is, I think, an early 20th century printing (undated, part of the Sun Dial Library by the Garden City Publishing Company) bound in green buckram, a small book. I think it’s the perfect book to reopen now. I’ll begin at that same Christmastime chapter, but the plan this time is to not set it aside once I move on to the following chapters. I’m going to read the story through and through this time, and then, perhaps, it may be Christmastime in my own life, too, and not just for the folks who make up the Mellstock Church West Gallery Choir.

In his BBC Radio program from 2014, A Cause for Caroling, Jeremy Summerly laments the passing of the West Gallery Choirs, like the Mellstock Church Choir, from English churches. The sound was heartfelt, real, not polished… pure joy. By the late 19th century, the Victorians had effectively replaced the west gallery choirs with organs and proper choirs who sang proper arrangements of proper carols. And I do love a choir like that (don’t you?), but I also feel, like Jeremy Summerly, a sense of loss: that perhaps we may have lost something of the passion that was more prevalent in the Mellstock Church Choir, with its strings and woodwinds and brass and less polished sound.

This all brings us to your Convivio Book of Days calendar for December. Our cover star this month is an old penny postcard by Alfred Moritz Mailick, printed around 1902, who, if you ask me, was just as wistful for the west gallery choirs that had, by then, gone by the wayside. Click to see it: four musicians are bundled up, trudging through the snow, on their way to town (to the church, no doubt, for Midnight Mass). One has a trumpet, one a French horn, another a cello, and the one bringing up the rear has, I think, a violin in a green case. I see this image and I immediately think of Dick Dewy and his father, Rueben, and the other country folk that make up the Mellstock Church Choir. I may be wrong, colored by the fact that I have just found my lost book again… but I don’t think I am.

And so here we are: Advent has begun and we are now on our approach to Christmas. These weeks ahead of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are designed to help us prepare the way: a time of darkness that leads us to the light of Christmas. It is a time to make our homes as fair as we are able. On the Sunday evening that just passed, we lit one purple candle in our Advent wreath of three purple candles and one rose candle. The first candle, representing Hope. When Sunday comes again this weekend, we will light two purple candles in that ring, the second representing Peace. On the third Sunday, a day known as Gaudete Sunday, we will light the two purple candles we’ve lit before, plus the rose candle. The rose candle represents Joy. And on the fourth and final Sunday of Advent, we will light all four candles, the last purple candle in the ring representing Love. That also happens to be, this year, the day of the Midwinter Solstice, and on that darkest, deepest night of the year, our Advent wreath will shine brightest. Brightest and Best. Like an old carol sung by a west gallery choir.

 

COME SEE US!
We’ve got several pop-up markets planned these next few weeks and we’d love to see you if you’re local!

Saturday December 6, Miami
MIAMI CHRISTMAS MARKET
We’ll have a huge pop-up shop filled with handmade artisan goods from Germany plus specialty foods, too, and our Advent candles and calendars. Saturday December 6 from 11 AM to 8 PM, indoors and outdoors (we’ll be indoors) at the German American Social Club in Miami, which is where we spent Oktoberfest this year. 11919 SW 56th Street, Miami.

Friday December 12, Lake Worth
KRAMPUSNACHT
On the Eve of St. Nicholas’ Day, it is Krampus who accompanies the good saint to scare girls and boys into good behavior, and he gets his own celebration at the American German Club in suburban Lake Worth (a little later than St. Nicholas’ Eve) on Friday evening, December 12, from 6 to 11 PM. We’ll be there with our biggest pop-up shop ever as this night ushers in the weekend’s Christkindlmarkt. Tickets required and must be purchased in advance. 5111 Lantana Road, Lake Worth.

Saturday & Sunday, December 13 & 14, Lake Worth
CHRISTKINDLMARKT
The annual Christkindlmarkt at the American German Club in suburban Lake Worth is just wonderful, and we’ll be there with our biggest pop-up shop ever, filled with German Christmas artisan goods plus more from Sweden and Mexico, as well as specialty foods and who knows what else! Tickets are required and must be purchased in advance. Usually sells out! Saturday December 13 from 1 to 9 PM and Sunday December 14 from 11 AM to 7 PM. 5111 Lantana Road, Lake Worth.

Friday Evening December 19 and Saturday & Sunday December 20 & 21
SOLSTICE MARKET at the shop
We don’t keep regular hours at the shop, but we do open for special events, and this is our next one. Festive shopping, good music, good company, homemade Christmas cookies while you shop with our own Löfbergs Coffee from Sweden… and your last chance to pick up Christmas items from us before the Yuletide Season begins, as we won’t be open again until January (though we will open for you by appointment, should you need us). Our Solstice Market is on Friday evening December 19 from 6 to 9 PM and on Saturday & Sunday, December 20 & 21, from 11 AM to 4 PM.

 

Image: “Happy Christmas,” printed postcard by Alfred Moritz Mailick, circa 1902. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons. A note, too, on the “Brightest and Best” (also called “Star in the East”) video above: Jeremy Summerly, in his A Cause for Caroling BBC Radio program mentioned earlier, makes the argument that “Christmas has always had one foot in the church and one in the pub.” I think this is readily observed in the performance of this old carol.

 

Nov 23 2025
7 Comments
Advent, Stir-Up Sunday

Stir Up, We Beseech Thee

I’ve decided that I need to stop thinking it’s still September (it’s not) and just accept the fact that Hallowe’en has passed and Thanksgiving is but a few days away and we will very soon be well on our way toward Christmas. Even though I’ve spent the past two days at our pop-up shop at the Scandinavian Christmas Market in Lantana, the reality of the calendar has yet to make itself apparent in my head.

Ah, but today is Stir-Up Sunday. It is the last Sunday of ordinary time, the last Sunday before Advent begins (on November 30 this year)––Advent, of course, being our time of preparation for Christmas. I need to face reality. And, if you want to make traditional cakes and cookies for Christmas that need time to age and mellow in order to reach their best flavor (think Christmas puddings and boozy fruit cakes and even traditional German pfeffernüsse), well… this is the ideal day to make them. The timing is just right and it happens to coincide with the collect––the prayer after Communion in the Anglican Church, which today will go like this:

Stir up, we beseech thee, o Lord, the wills of thy faithful people;
that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works,
may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And whilst the minister is reading those words, those of us who are prone to wandering thoughts may be hearing these words instead:

Stir up, we beseech thee, the pudding in the pot;
Stir up, we beseech thee, and keep it all hot.

Slightly irreverent, perhaps, but our intentions are good: We just want to make Christmas extra special through things of this earth that we love, and surely the Lord would grant us that at Christmastime. A good fruitcake (and I mean a good one) requires a good four weeks to age and become sufficiently brandy-soaked to reach its best depth of flavor, as do steamed Christmas puddings.

Some of us would argue that it requires the four weeks of Advent for our Christmas celebration to be the best that it can be, too: four weeks to prepare and to make our houses as fair as are able. This is a concept we here at Convivio Bookworks are all for: We call it the Slow Christmas Movement. It focuses on the idea of taking time to savor each season as it comes: the four weeks of Advent being a time of preparation for the joy of Christmas that follows… and then allowing Christmastime itself to blossom and unfold and last its full season: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and all the Twelve Days of Christmas that follow, and if you really love Christmas, you might celebrate the ancient tradition we follow each year, keeping Christmas all the way to Candlemas Eve at the start of February.

But lo! I am getting ahead of myself. For now, let’s focus on today: Stir-Up Sunday. It is said that a good Christmas pudding should contain thirteen ingredients––one for Jesus and each of his disciples––no more and no less. And when it is prepared on Stir-Up Sunday, each member of the family should give the pudding a stir, making a wish as they do. The stirring must be from east to west: the same direction the Magi traveled to visit the newborn child.

Here is a recipe I’ve shared with you before: it is Nigella Lawson’s recipe for her Ultimate Christmas Pudding. You’ll find two versions presented there: one in metric measures and one in imperial measures. The two versions have more differences than just ways of measuring ingredients: The metric includes the British name for raisins (the lovely word sultanas), but it also lists suet as an ingredient, where in the American version, the suet is replaced by vegetable shortening. I won’t be making this pudding today, as it is the final day of that Scandinavian Christmas Market I mentioned earlier, but when I do, I’ll be making it using the shortening. Today may be the best day to make your puddings and fruitcakes, but I’m all for delaying if necessary, and for me this year, a delay is necessary.

l will also soon be dusting off music for the Advent season, which I think I love as much as Christmastime itself. I am, at heart, a guy who loves anticipation. Stir-Up Sunday and Advent? These things are right up my alley.

 

COME SEE US!
We’ve got several pop-up markets planned these next few weeks and we’d love to see you if you’re local!

One more day (today!) of the
SCANDINAVIAN CHRISTMAS MARKET
This lovely Christmas market began on Friday and ends today, Sunday November 23. It’s open today from noon to 6 PM and at our booth you will find our Swedish Christmas decorations and other imports of ours from Sweden, Iceland, and Finland, including Finnish tea and licorice, Icelandic chocolate, and Swedish saft, ginger snaps, licorice, and candy canes made by hand in the same Swedish candy shop where candy canes were first invented. Other vendors, too, plus AMAZING Finnish baked goods made on the premises. At Annan Maja at Finnish-American Village, 1800 South Drive, Lantana, Florida. (We’ve been having the best time there since the market began on Friday!)

Shop small with us this Thanksgiving Weekend: Friday November 28 through Sunday November 30
ADVENT & CHRISTMAS MARKET at the shop
We don’t keep regular hours at the shop, but we do open for special events, and this is our next one. Festive shopping, good music, good company, and homemade Christmas cookies while you shop, with our own Löfbergs Coffee from Sweden. Friday November 28 from 11 AM to 6 PM and Saturday & Sunday, November 29 & 30, from 11 AM to 4 PM.

Saturday December 6, Miami
MIAMI CHRISTMAS MARKET
We’ll have a huge pop-up shop filled with handmade artisan goods from Germany plus specialty foods, too, and our Advent candles and calendars. Saturday December 6 from 11 AM to 8 PM, indoors and outdoors (we’ll be indoors) at the German American Social Club in Miami, which is where we spent Oktoberfest this year. 11919 SW 56th Street, Miami.

Friday December 12, Lake Worth
KRAMPUSNACHT
On the Eve of St. Nicholas’ Day, it is Krampus who accompanies the good saint to scare girls and boys into good behavior, and he gets his own celebration at the American German Club in suburban Lake Worth (a little later than St. Nicholas’ Eve) on Friday evening, December 12, from 6 to 11 PM. We’ll be there with our biggest pop-up shop ever as this night ushers in the weekend’s Christkindlmarkt. Tickets required and must be purchased in advance. 5111 Lantana Road, Lake Worth.

Saturday & Sunday, December 13 & 14, Lake Worth
CHRISTKINDLMARKT
The annual Christkindlmarkt at the American German Club in suburban Lake Worth is just wonderful, and we’ll be there with our biggest pop-up shop ever, filled with German Christmas artisan goods plus more from Sweden and Mexico, as well as specialty foods and who knows what else! Tickets are required and must be purchased in advance. Usually sells out! Saturday December 13 from 1 to 9 PM and Sunday December 14 from 11 AM to 7 PM. 5111 Lantana Road, Lake Worth.

 

Image: “Making the Empire Christmas Pudding,” illustration by FC Harrison produced for the Empire Marketing Board, circa 1926–1939. [Public domain] by The National Archives UK via Wikimedia Commons.

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