Merry Christmas

We celebrate the birth of Jesus today by giving each other gifts and well wishes, because God has richly blessed us through the gift of the Savior's birth.  This is a great and blessed country, in part because we have followed the teachings of Jesus.  I sincerely hope you are feeling God's blessing today.

Please enjoy some great Christmas music.

Merry Christmas

Taking the day off from politics and blogging. Merry Christmas from the B-Daddy family. Here is a little Christmas cheer.




Old blue eyes has the best version of this song, but I like Judy Garland's as well, unfortunately, embedding is not available for her video.

Christmas Pancakes

It has been a tradition in our household that I make pancakes on Christmas morning. My sons have always been big fans. When we first started doing this, a simple recipe involving Bisquick sufficed to make them happy. As they grew older, I wanted to keep making improvements, because they were always so giving of their love and appreciation for the effort I put into Christmas breakfast. A wise man told me years ago that having children would change my life for the better. At the time, I didn't see how. I thought of all the things I wasn't going to do and all of the responsibilities I would soon be shouldering. He was wise enough not to try to explain it to me, because I don't think I would have understood.

My boys are in college now, but still live at home, so I still get to make pancakes for them. God richly blesses my life. I don't know how many more Christmases like this we will have. They will soon have careers that may take them far away. So, I want to share my latest Christmas pancake recipe with you, maybe it will inspire someone else's Christmas tradition.

B-Daddy's Beer Pancakes

This recipe makes 12-14 pancakes.

Ingredients:

2 cups less 4 tbsp Organic FlaxPlus Multigrain Pancake Mix
6 tbsp Granulated Sugar
2 packs Instant Oatmeal mix (flavored is fine, I used Maple-Brown Sugar)
1 tsp Baking Powder
4 tbsp Wheat Germ (if you don't have wheat germ, use the whole 2 cups of pancake mix)
2 tbsp Canola Oil
2 tbsp Lemon Juice
3 tbsp Trader's Vic's Macadamia Nut liquer (or your favorite, or use 2 tbsp vanilla extract)
12 oz Shiner Bock beer (or any flavorful malty lager or ale, I don't recommend hoppy ales.)
4 tbsp Butter (for the griddle)

Set up two bowls, wet and dry.
In the dry bowl, stir the Pancake Mix, sugar, oatmeal, baking powder and wheat germ to an even consistency.
In the wet bowl, add, in order, the oil, lemon juice, liqueur and beer.

Now gently pour the contents of the dry bowl into the wet side. There should be considerable foaming from the beer. Very gently, with a fork, stir the ingredients. This will take some time, as you want to break up the clumps of mix that are hiding the dry material inside. At first, the mix will appear too runny. Be patient, the oatmeal takes time to absorb the liquid.

Preheat a griddle on medium low heat, and grease with butter to an even coat. Be careful with the temperature, these pancakes burn easily, even if the bubbles haven't stopped.
Pour a full 1/4 cup per pancake. I usually use a 1/3 cup measuring cup to make sure I can easily get the full 1/4 cup onto the griddle. Flip the pancakes a little earlier than the normal rule of waiting until the bubbles have almost stopped. In about a minute they should be done. Serve with your favorite syrup.



P.S. Those good looking rascals pictured above get their looks from their beautiful Mom.

Weekend Music Chill - Christmas Edition

Merry Christmas, and Happy Hanukkah, which goes from December 20 to 28 this year. Like last weekend, I want to play one modern and one traditional Christmas tune.


Here are The Waitresses with Christmas Wrapping.



Here is a traditional rendering of Good King Wenceslas from York Minster in 1995.

Weekend Music Chill

We may not be blogging next weekend, and its time to get into the spirit of the season, so here is some Christmas music, of two very different styles.




This one is for Nanny.

Christmas Recovery?

Various news articles I have read indicate that retail sales over the holidays are picking up steam, and the economy might be truly recovering. I certainly hope so, because there are a lot of hurting people who could use a job and a lot of business owners who desperately need more sales. My worry is that the nation at large will take this as a sign that we don't have underlying structural issues and monster debts that require near term action. The advantage of the great recession was that it focused the minds of voters on the causes of our travails and they responded rationally, moving the legislatures and the Congress sharply to the right with new members committed to fiscal responsibility.

Even if we do have a recovery, another recession is inevitable, because we have not repealed the laws of economics, and all economies have boom and bust times. Unfortunately, if we don't deal with the underlying deficits, liabilities and out of control spending of federal, state and local government that recession will come sooner than later and will be a depression, not a recession.

Meanwhile, if you are the beneficiary of what might be a temporary improvement in the economy, be careful about preparing for the next down turn. The importance of the Tea Party in focusing on out of control spending and pensions is needed more than ever, if the economy is truly improving.

The other thing to consider is that given the precarious state of the finances of many cities and states, massive default on obligations might precipitate another panic. I hope not, but we should be realistic and prudent about the current situation.

Christmas and the Culture

Merry Christmas. I know that not all of my readers are believers in the divinity of Jesus, as I am. However, even non-believers can acknowledge the historical impact that Jesus' life and teaching and that of his followers have had on the world. We tend to forget that in the time of Jesus' birth, morality had a very different meaning than today. The Romans considered it a mercy to only slaughter a portion of the civilian inhabitants of a conquered nation while making the remaining inhabitants slaves. Women had no rights whatsoever in most cultures. The poor were considered cursed or morally flawed.

Following the rise of Christianity, these attitudes changed, sometimes slowly, but inexorably. Today, much of what we believe in terms of morality has roots in Christian teaching. I acknowledge there are many exceptions, but the broad outline holds.

So why does this matter to the Tea Party and the nation? I think that we are in practice, moving away from those historical moral lodestones. Looking at the financial crisis, we see that it starts with the attitude that lying about mortgage applications doesn't matter (by all parties, by the way). It is exacerbated by the practice of the federal government and federal reserve putting the interests of banks ahead of the general public, a severe injustice. The practice of running up debts at all branches of government, that we know cannot be repaid also violates long standing Christian principles as well. That both union leaders and politicians were involved makes it no less an affront.

Finally, we are raising a generation of fatherless children. This is not directly an issue for the Tea Party, but it has far reaching implications for us. For starters, single parent households are the leading cause of poverty in America, which has a direct budgeting consequence. Further, fatherless children beget more fatherless children exacerbating the same problem as more young women and their babies enter the welfare rolls. Finally, those children become academic underachievers, compared to children with two parents. The lack of education, and more importantly, solid work ethic and other useful social skills harms the economic growth of the nation.

Certainly, these problems would be lessened if we rewarded the bad behavior less, or punished it outright, in some cases. Federal reserve transparency, reducing California welfare generosity, and requiring proper accounting for liabilities (i.e. telling the truth about them) will certainly help. But ultimately there is a cultural component to the issues we face. Today is not the day to fight that fight, but I urge all of us in our private lives to be mindful of advancing an agenda of personal responsibility, truthfulness and accountability. I doubt that I have a reader who would disagree with those moral lodestones, Christian or not.

And Merry Christmas. We live in a great country where the values I cite are alive and strong, even if under attack. Because they reflect eternal truths, I am confident of their ultimate victory.

Merry Christmas

I hope you are enjoying or enjoyed Christmas as you read this. Christmas is a time of anticipation and a time to renew friendships as well. This is only right, because the first Christmas came at a time of anticipation as well. The Jews of the first century were looking for a messiah to usher in an era of Hebrew ascendancy. Signs and prophecies pointed to the coming messiah. But God's plan was not what was expected, he had bigger things in mind. He came to restore the friendship between man and God.

Our gift giving at Christmas is a reflection of God's gift to us in the person of Jesus. Like any gift, it was not earned, but is treasured no less. We are granted a peace and knowledge of the love that God has for us. And that knowledge overcomes the first sin that came into the world, doubting God's goodness. Knowing his goodness, and the plans he has for us, forms the basis for peace in our hearts and ultimately for peace on earth.

God bless you and Merry Christmas.