Tis the season to be jolly, and my favorite time of the year.
I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads my articles and to all my wonderful clients.
Since it’s the holiday season, there will be no real estate talk this month, well maybe just a little tid bit.
MARKET UPDATE
It’s been a great year and has remained a very strong seller’s market. Mesa’s median sales price in November was $270,500, which is an increase of 11.7 percent from January’s median sales price of $242,000.
The shortage of supply continues while demand is increasing. As of Nov. 9, there were 850 active listings in Mesa compared to 1,312 at the same time last year, a decrease of 54 percent. With the continued imbalanced market and little sign of supply increasing substantially, we can expect continued upward moves in the sale price over the next six months and to remain in a strong seller’s market.
If you are thinking of selling and would like to find out the true market value of your home, or when would be the best time for you to list your home, please feel free to contact me to set up an appointment.
Christmas Crackers
Growing up in England, no matter where you went for Christmas dinner – friends, family, hotels, restaurants – the table setting would always include the traditional Christmas crackers. They have been a tradition for the English Christmas dinner since their inception. Even the royal family will have Christmas crackers adorning their Christmas dinner table.
I wanted to carry on the tradition for my family here in America and I used to have to get them shipped in from England, but now they can be found everywhere, from Costco, to World Market and Bed Bath and Beyond, as well as many other stores.
So, what are they? Created by Tom Smith, in 1847, the crackers are cardboard tubes covered in brightly colored twisted paper. When the cracker is pulled by two people, each holding one end of the twisted paper, the friction creates a small pop. The cardboard tube contains a brightly colored paper hat (which I make everyone wear, whether they want to or not), a small gift and a motto or joke.
It’s a standing joke that the mottos or jokes are unfunny, corny and often well known, as the same jokes have been appearing in crackers for decades.
Each person takes the end of the cracker and pulls. Or if there is a group around the table, everyone crosses their arms to pull all the crackers at once. Everyone holds their own cracker in their right hand and pulls their neighbor’s cracker with their free left hand.
The price you pay will depend on the gifts inside. They are usually inexpensive with little trinket gifts, but you can go all out and order extravagant or custom gifts. There are Christmas crackers that have games inside rather than gifts. We did these last year and had so much fun watching our little wind up snowmen race to the finish line.
The Christmas cracker dates back to Victorian times, when in the early 1850s, London confectioner Tom Smith started adding a motto to his sugared almond bon-bons, which he sold wrapped in a twisted paper package. As many of his bon-bons were bought by men to give to women, many of the mottos were simple love poems.
He was inspired to add the bang when he heard the crackle of a log he had just put on the fire. He decided to make a log-shaped package that would produce a surprise bang and inside would be an almond and a motto. Soon the sugared almond was replaced with a small gift. Originally sold as the Cosaque, it soon became known by the public as the cracker.
The paper hat was added to the cracker in the early 1900s by his sons and by the end of the 1930s, the love poems had been replaced by jokes or limericks. The cracker was soon adopted as a traditional festive custom and today virtually every English household has at least one box of crackers to pull over Christmas.
Christmas crackers are a lot of fun the whole family will love. We pull our crackers as soon as we all sit at the table before we eat (watch out for flying gifts), and then go around the table telling the jokes throughout the meal. For us Brits, Christmas just isn’t Christmas without them.
So, next time you are at the store and see these brightly colored crackers, buy a box, and start a new family tradition. I would love to hear from anyone who tries them this year.
Another family tradition is to make the breakfast casserole Christmas Eve, so it’s ready to pop in the oven on Christmas morning and bake while we open presents. This is Rick’s family’s recipe that has been passed down and he is always the one to make it while I just sit and watch (now I know why I like Christmas so much).
Recipe
Breakfast Casserole
- 1/2 pound sausage browned (we use hot Jimmy Dean to add some flavor)
- 9 eggs—lightly beaten
- 3 cups half and half (we use 1/2 skim milk and 1/2 half and half and can’t tell the difference)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 pounds cheddar cheese
- Butter
- 10 slices bread, crusts removed—or enough to cover the bottom of the pan
Butter one side of the bread and put butter side down in 9-by-13 baking dish.
Mix eggs and milk mixture, add salt.
Layer sausage and cheese twice on top of bread. Then, pour eggs and milk mixture over. Top with a layer of cheese.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas.