by Noella Noelophile®
(Royalty-free image by Frauke Riether from Pixabay.)
Some of my favorite Christmas memories center around my maternal grandmother at Christmastime.
Whenever we’d go to visit her, she had a pantry full of homemade cookies. Chocolate-chip, spritz and meringue. One year, she made meringue snowball-like cookies, with sparkly sugar on top, which she called “kisses”. They were the best thing I’d ever tasted.
(Royalty-free image by Mikhail Semikin from Pixabay.)
And every morning, she’d listen to the local radio station. Besides the news and farm report, they’d always have the best Christmas music.
Unusual for that time, when Christmas Eve arrived, the station would preempt their regular programming for nonstop Christmas music–old and new.
All of this is decades in the past–but comes to mind every Christmas when Justin Rudd’s nonprofit Community Action Team celebrates Christmas with their “Joy to the World Free Christmas Concert“, along with the “Long Beach Bake-Off and Christmas Cookie Contest for Charities”.
This year’s concert and bake-off are coming up on Sunday, December 14th–and you’re invited!
Photo by Justin Rudd! | www.JustinRudd.com
Concert details
The 90-minute “Joy to the World” Christmas concert starts at 5 pm at Bay Shore church. Featuring 25 professional musicians, from the Southern California Brass Consortium, playing various seasonal selections. (Last year’s program, listed on Justin’s website, ranges from “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” to “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.)
Doors will open at 4:30, and attendees are asked to register online, and be seated by 4:50 pm sharp. All ages and sizes of groups are welcome; children may attend if they are VERY well-behaved and very quiet. Here’s the link for registration.
And each attendee is asked to bring peanut butter, breakfast cereal, boxes of macaroni and cheese, and/or canned fruit that will be donated to a local food bank. You can also bring packs of men’s socks, to be donated to agencies serving the homeless.
OK, that’s the “music” part. Now, about those cookies!
(Royalty-free image by Conger Design from Pixabay.)
A yummy event–for a great cause
Judging for the thirteenth annual “Long Beach Bake-Off and Christmas Cookie Contest for Charities” will be going on as concert attendees are enjoying the music.
And if you love to bake, you’re welcome to enter, for free.
Rules are posted on the website, but in a nutshell (walnut, I assume, if you’re baking chocolate-chip cookies!): all entries must be homemade–not bought. Recipes do not have to be original, and contestants are asked to submit a plate or platter of at least two dozen cookies. Be sure to put a piece of tape or index card on the bottom of the platter you submit, with your name and contact information so it can be returned after the judging and cookie reception following the concert.
(Royalty-free image by Hans from Pixabay.)
Entrants must register online; here’s the link for information.
On the day of the Bake-Off, bring your entry to Bay Shore Church’s Fellowship Hall between 4:00 and 4:45 pm on the 14th. You may enter multiple recipes; just be sure each type is on a separate platter with at least 24 servings.
After the concert, there will be a tasting reception, with awards, in the Fellowship Hall. A donation of $5 is requested, and you get to hear who won!
There will be six winners after the judges have delivered their final “Yum!”–er, verdict–three for the Long Beach Bake-Off and three for the Christmas Cookie Contest. Winners receive bragging rights for a year, and a $50 donation to their favorite charity.
If my grandmother were here today, she’d love to be a part of this.