Buche de Noel

Samantha and I baked our first Buche de Noel today, amidst watching two incredible and enormous Red-tailed hawks, who looked like Snowy Owls, perched at the top of some very tall, bare oaks above the pines about 4 or 500 feet from our kitchen window.

History of the Buche de Noel probably traces back to the Middle Ages when barbarian tribes waited out the longest night of the year around a huge burning tree (our Yule Log) waiting to see if the sun would be victorious over the darkness. At some point, French citizens began burning a yule log in their fireplaces, but tradition says that Napoleon realized his subjects were losing heat through their large chimneys and ordered them to all be closed. At this point, supposedly, the French began baking a cake shaped and decorated like the yule log -- and thus the Buche de Noel. The Buche de Noel is the traditional Christmas Day desert. We baked ours today for Sam to take to her French class this week.

Traditions are always evolving. So, perhaps, there's one evolving here in our household. Maybe Sam and I will bake a Buche de Noel next year and give to our family as a symbol of Christ's victory over sin.

1 Peter 2:24
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.