12/30: 2 traditions

One tradition:  stollen.  Though I don't usually make it, it's something that I grew up with and like.  This year I decided to give it a try, and while I was looking for recipes online, I found one that doesn't use yeast (here's the link).   I didn't make it for Christmas--being under the weather as I was--but I finally felt well enough today to give it a go.  It doesn't quite taste like the stollen of my memories (my mother says that I need to include cardamom next time), but it's really good.

Another (more recent) tradition:  game night by app and phone.  It's been a few years since I've been able to visit my childhood hometown and play cards with my mother and some long-time friends, but occasionally we convene by conference call as we play Skipbo on our phones/computers/iPads.  We try to do it around one another's birthdays.  This year we were too variously busy around my November birthday and my friend's early December one, so we waited until now, which gave the gathering a holiday feel too.