Reflection of the Holiday Season

Now that Christmas has come and gone, I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable holidays I've celebrated in a long time. Between the family visits, which truly were more like reunions, since I don't have the opportunity to see many of my family members all that often, and all the heavenly food, and good cheer, I feel so blessed and loved. That is the magic of Christmas! I am interested in hearing what each of my readers loved about the holiday. . . whether a memorable moment, being reunited with a long lost family member or friend, a favorite gift, or the simple joy in a child's face when opening gifts.... please share . . . these are the things that make life beautiful!!!

Now 2013 is soon upon us . . . wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy, and a Peaceful New Year!! All the best to each and every one of you!!!

Homemade Eggnog! Forget the Carton!

Considering most of us only enjoy eggnog once a year during Christmas, I wanted to make it homemade and begone with the store bought carton. I am about to make my third batch this year already and I must say people really taste the difference. It is sooooo much better... give it a try . . . the recipe I use is found below!

Happy Holidays!

How to Make Fabulous Eggnog

First, here are the tricks of the trade that will make your homemade eggnog the best ever.

• chill everything, including the bowls and utensils like whisks and spoons and keep your egg yolk, sugar and alcohol mixture in the refrigerator for at least five hours to let the flavors meld before completing your eggnog. Make sure it doesn't get too warmed up sitting in the punchbowl too-- either serve it cup by cup from pitchers replenished from your fridge or make sure your punchbowl is in a cool place.
  
• Use really fresh ingredients. Organic eggs from free range chickens really do taste better and I recommend organic milk and cream too.
• Use light not dark rum and decent brands of bourbon and cognac-- no rotgut for Christmas punch OK?
• Warning-- this is an adults only recipe. It contains lots of alcohol and packs quite a wallop. Give the kiddies fruit punch-- better for them anyway::-)

And now here is the recipe. It is an easy, modern adaptation that should give you a perfect eggnog.

You will need:

• 12 large eggs, separated
• 1 1/2 cups superfine sugar
• 1 quart whole milk
• 1 1/2 quarts heavy cream
• 3 cups bourbon
• 1/2 cup light rum
• 1/2 cup cognac
  
• Freshly grated nutmeg to taste

Directions

• Separate the eggs-- set the whites aside in a large metal bowl.

• In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks with a wire whisk until thick and pale yellow. Gradually add sugar to yolks while continuing to whisk.
• Now, beat in the milk and 1 quart of cream.
• Add bourbon, rum, and cognac, stirring constantly. Put the bowl in the refrigerator to chill and to give the booze a chance to meld with the eggs and milk( at least five hours)
• Just before serving, beat egg whites until stiff. Fold into mixture.
• Whip remaining heavy cream until stiff and fold in. Sprinkle with nutmeg and serve from chilled pitchers or in a beautiful punch bowl. This recipe should serve about two dozen people.

NOTE: It is important that you let the egg yolk ,sugar, and alcohol mixture marinate in the fridge for at least 5 hours. The alcohol kills any harmful bacteria in the raw eggs. As an alternative to this, or to make a non alcoholic version of eggnog, follow the recipe in the video below which shows you how to cook the egg yolk mixture to a custard-like consistency. It is not quite as historically authentic, nor do I like the taste quite as well, but if you are worried about salmonella or prefer an alcohol free eggnog, this is the way to go...

Am I Safe? Talking to Your Kids About the Sandy Hook School Shooting

I know every parent has had to face the reality that it is no longer possible to shield our youngsters from horrific tragedy... now it is even more important to engage our children in conversation and to provide to them comfort and help in understanding what happened so they can begin the healing process too.

Across America, parents are taking a big breath before attempting one of the more difficult conversations they will have with their children: explaining how tragedies such as the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School can happen.

It’s hard to distill the Connecticut tragedy for little kids when it doesn’t even make sense to adults. But at dinnertime, bedtime, during carpool and everywhere in between, children will be turning to mom and dad for reassurance that they are safe.

“Tell them the truth, in their language,” says Emanuel Maidenberg, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA who specializes in anxiety. “Let them know that this is something that doesn’t happen very often and they are safe.”

Experts vary on how proactive parents should be: some recommend against bringing up the subject unless curious or frightened children ask, although most advise parents to initiate a conversation. Either way, the key is to reassure kids and answer their questions without providing information overload. Be honest, keeping in mind your child’s age, adjusting your explanations to your children’s ability to understand. And continue with your family’s regular routine, advises Maidenberg. “Most young kids don’t have the skills to put their feelings into words so encourage them to talk about what they feel and name their emotions,” says Maidenberg.

It’s normal for kids who hear about what happened to feel stressed and anxious, says Kenneth Dodge, director of the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University, especially since the shootings occurred at school. But despite the intense coverage that school shootings receive, schools are, in fact, some of the safest places for young children. The most recent statistics from 2010 show that 17 children were killed in U.S. schools — less than 2% of child homicides that year, according to David Finkelhor of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. The figures are reassuring, to some extent, but the drama of a mass calamity is impossible to ignore.

“You can say to your kids, Just because this happened at one school doesn’t mean it’s going to happen at your school. I’m really comfortable and confident about your school,” says Dodge. “It’s natural to feel anxious, but most kids will get over it on their own.”

Parents can help by curbing any tendency to overshare; save the in-depth discussions for grown-up company. “You don’t want to tell kids too much,” says Rahil Briggs, a child psychologist at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx. Any amount of exposure to scary news about the school shooting can potentially lead to clingy behavior, irritability or loss of appetite. Children also express feelings through play so it wouldn’t be unusual for them to use art or Legos to capture their thoughts. Briggs was a graduate student at New York University on 9/11; in the weeks after the attacks, she visited various schools where she watched children as they sketched images of buildings falling or airplanes on fire. “They would draw picture after picture,” she says.

That’s a healthy way of coping with disaster. Most children will ask some questions about what happened in Connecticut, draw some pictures, inquire about what it means to be dead — and move on. For those who seem fixated on the details and worried about their safety even after several weeks go by, it’s a good idea to seek advice from a pediatrician or psychologist.

It’s also a good idea to empower kids who feel helpless by brainstorming ways to be useful. Have your kids write letters to the students at Sandy Hook (912 Dickinson Dr., Sandy Hook, CT 06482), suggests Dodge. Make signs of support. It will help up shore up morale in Newtown, Conn., and make your kids feel useful, which in turn relieves some of the stress and fear they are feeling.

Kids, of course, aren’t the only ones who need help coping. As a parent of a kindergartener, I dropped by her school after news of the Sandy Hook shooting to give her a kiss and a hug for reasons she did not yet know. While at her school, her teacher — who teared up but quickly regained her composure — handed me a note from the school district’s superintendent reiterating exactly what various experts had emphasized. He encouraged parents to turn off the television news and give “honest, simple, brief” answers to any questions that kids ask. “If children keep asking the same question over and over again it is because they are trying to understand, trying to make sense out of the disruption and confusion in their world,” the superintendent wrote.

As parents, we can only try to help that process along, even if we don’t have the answers.

Egypt’s Constitutional Endgame: Where Confusion Is the Rule

All the chaos going on in the middle east is frightening. . . what does this mean for us, the United States?

Egypt‘s constitutional endgame is upon us. And almost nobody in the country–including the document’s drafters–seems to be truly prepared.

On Nov. 22, when President Mohamed Morsi issued his stunning decree granting himself sweeping powers, one of the least publicized aspects of the declaration gave the country’s Constituent Assembly an extra two months to finish drafting the new constitution–extending the deadline into early 2013.

One week later, Morsi abruptly and mysteriously shifted tactics. Suddenly the constitution was ready for approval and a national referendum on the document is now scheduled for Dec. 15.

What followed was something approaching a live televised political farce. In a marathon Nov. 30 session lasting more than 16 hours and ending after 6 am Cairo time, the assembly’s overwhelmingly male and Islamist members sped through and approved each of the 230 articles as if they were desperately trying to meet a looming deadline.

The final document not only doesn’t represent any sort of national consensus; it doesn’t even seem to have benefited from proper proofreading.  There were words missing and grammatical mistakes. Language suddenly appeared that hadn’t been present in any of the multiple proposed drafts. At one point, one of Morsi’s own legal advisors Fouad Gadallah stood up to object to an apparent mistake in the text and was shouted down by the assembly’s head.

“They weren’t ready,” says Heba Morayef, head of the Human Rights Watch Egypt office, who estimated she watched 13 hours of the session. “They knew this document wasn’t ready and should not have gone forward.”

The approved text contains a number of aspects that alarm critics. The issue of equality for women is qualified by the stipulation that women must balance that with their duties to the home. Laws dealing with women’s rights must not contradict shari’a–Islamic jurisprudence. And Al Azhar, the highest seat of learning in Sunni Islam, now plays a vaguely defined role in vetting any laws that might touch on shari’a– raising the prospect of unelected religious authorities holding sway over democratically elected lawmakers.

On the plus side, there are new and solid protections against arbitrary detention and torture by the police. But a clause outlawing military trials for civilians was mysteriously watered down at the last minute and approved with minimal debate.

The effect of the apparent shotgun approval on Egypt’s already chaotic and unstable political scene has been dramatic. Even before the sudden constitutional stratagem, Tahrir Square had been filled for days with angry demonstrators protesting Morsi’s perceived dictatorial power grab. Egypt’s judges had already been up in arms over the decree–which robbed them of any oversight over the president’s decisions or the status of the constituent assembly.

The already intense street action has been driven up a level, with many protesters openly labeling the controversy the start of the second Egyptian revolution.  Several independent newspapers and satellite television channels went on strike Tuesday, ceasing publication or broadcasting blank screens. As of Tuesday evening in Cairo, several large protest marches from around the city were converging on the presidential palace–at one point fighting through barrages of tear gas fired by police.

Meanwhile the judges seem to be struggling to come to terms with Morsi’s power play. Several judicial districts have gone on strike and the Judges Club–an unofficial body–has sworn that its members will not act as monitors for the upcoming constitutional referendum. However the Supreme Judicial Council has publicly pledged that it would order judges and prosecutors to serve as electoral supervisors–raising the prospect of open fissures within the judiciary and possible disciplinary action for those judges who refuse to supervise the voting. A Dec. 2 session of the Supreme Constitutional Court was effectively sabotaged by crowds of Morsi supporters who surrounded the courthouse and prevented many of the judges from entering the building.

In a way, the constitution-drafting process has gone much the same way as the preceding 23 months since Hosni Mubarak was ousted by power in February 2011: lots of confusion, mixed signals and divisiveness–followed by rapid deadlines that leave no room for debate or consensus building.

That tone was first set back in March 2011 when the Muslim Brotherhood mobilized its cadres to approve a national referendum that set the country toward fast-track parliamentary elections before a constitution could be written. The tactic was immediately decried as a cynical Brotherhood ploy designed to give the Islamist group and its decades-old grassroots machine an electoral advantage over the newer post-revolutionary political forces.

That parliamentary election, one year ago, produced an overwhelming Islamist majority. The Parliament was dissolved in the summer of 2012 on a technicality by the Supreme Constitutional Court–sparking the current war between the Muslim Brotherhood and the judiciary. But the damage had been done, since the Parliament had already selected the members of the constituent assembly–stacking the body with Islamists.

By fast-tracking the constitution, Morsi and his supporters seem to be essentially giving up on the entire idea of national consensus. The constituent assembly had been plagued from the start by mass withdrawals from secularist and Christian members–saying their minority viewpoints were being ignored. Now a decision appears to have been made by the Brotherhood and their Salafist allies to simply forge ahead regardless.

The Islamists had the numbers within the constituent assembly to approve basically anything they wanted. And once the referendum comes, they feel they will be able to marshal more than enough votes to get the document approved. “There’s a sort of confident arrogance that comes with the certainty that they know they can mobilize voters,” said Morayef, of Human Rights Watch.

They might be right. Even Morsi’s most implacable opponents are pessimistic that they’ll be able to defeat this constitution in a national referendum. Morsi’s supporters are already persuasively framing the vote as a question of “chaos vs stability” since a defeat would set the country back to square one and prolong Egypt’s time without a constitution or a parliament.

Amr Darrag, a senior official with the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and secretary general of the constituent assembly, says Morsi has proven he is in a hurry to finish the constitution and elect a new parliament–at which point he will go back to being a normally powered president. “You can’t call a man a dictator when he is trying to give up power,” Darrag says.

With voting for expatriate Egyptians looming on Dec. 8 and the national referendum one week later, the country seems to be careening towards for a chaotic and divisive confrontation. One indication of the fast-rising stakes: Mohammed El Baradei–the longtime reform advocate who generally avoids street politics–has uncharacteristically taken to leading multiple protest marches. In a Dec. 3 editorial in the Financial Times, El Baradei described Egypt’s short-term future in nearly apocalyptic terms. “After 23 months of struggling to bring democracy to Egypt, is this the best we can do? A president claiming dictatorial powers. A parliament packed with Islamists. And a draft constitution, hastily cobbled together without basic protections for women,Christians and all Egyptians,” El Baradei wrote. “And thus we are back in Tahrir Square. The situation is volatile: an Egypt bitterly divided between Islamists and the rest of the country, opening the door for scenarios such as army intervention, a revolt of the poor, or even civil war.”