The Junior Leaguers finally get worn out in December

Cincinnati Celebrates: Cooking and Entertaining for All Seasons (Junior League of Cincinnati, first printing August, 1974, though mine is from the 1980 fifth printing) goes ALL OUT for Christmas. There's a Nature's Noel menu asking kids to make edible treats for the birds. There's a Yuletide Feast letting me know that Pheasant in Port with a Cucumber Mousse (and countless other dishes) constitutes a Junior Leaguer's proper Christmas dinner. There's a Tin Party to serve a bunch of cookies with brandied cheese and to recycle tin cans into invitations and decorations. I decided to go with Wind Down, though, as this menu is dedicated to serving the leftovers, which is one of my favorite themes.

I think the Junior Leaguers were getting sick of the elaborate invitations by this point because they're not even trying anymore.

Just rip the covers off your old Christmas cards with Santa "Clause" themes and write on the backs. And to decorate? The kids are off school, so some of that work can be delegated. Just make the kids a big old wad of Rice-Krispies-treat-style goo, throw in Cheerios for a change...

... and have them shape the mixture into trees, then decorate the "trees" with gumdrop slices and a construction paper star. Easy! And if that's not enough party décor, well, get down that large brandy snifter.

And fill it with soda water and mothballs! Yes, it's a real conversation piece to watch the mothballs "rise and fall animatedly." (Full disclosure: The snifter o' mothballs trick is what really sold me on this menu. I might have mentioned it already, but the Junior Leaguers REALLY seem to be running out of steam at this point.)

As for the menu, the Glogg has enough booze that nobody will care if your idea of decorating is putting out a big snifter full of mothballs on top of trashed wrapping paper and next to lumpy Cheerio trees. Hell, if guests have enough Glogg, they might not even remember those last-minute embellishments.

There are no recipes for Turkey Hash (I guess because everybody was expected to have a favorite hash recipe at the ready back then?) or for Green Beans with Toasted Almonds (presumably because everybody knew how to heat up some canned or frozen beans and throw on some almonds at the last minute). 

The Cranberry Salad could use up that last pound of cranberries, along with any stray nuts that didn't get eaten at the 27 other holiday parties that Junior Leaguers hosted.

And of course, it is a way to add the obligatory can of crushed pineapple. (Sometimes I think families in the '50s through the '70s must have had an entire separate pantry dedicated just to canned crushed pineapple and fruit cocktail.)

The menu doesn't specify what Christmas cookies to set out in the assortment, so I'll leave you with the Holly Wreath Cookies that might have been left over from the Tin Party.

I hope you've had as much fun peeking into the lives of '70s Junior Leaguers as I have! I can't say that they've inspired me to wire faces onto tennis rackets or turn a spatula into a prospective bride's arm, but I could sure go for a snifter full of soda water and mothballs right now. Now I'm off to choose a new book to begin each month in the new year!