Let's Get Christmassy with Catherine Kullmann

We’re getting festive here with some special peeps and today we get Christmassy with Catherine Kullmann

Hello Catherine

Please tell us a little about you and if you are a reader, Blogger or author.

Hi Pauline and thanks for inviting me along. I am all three. I have been an avid reader all my life and always enjoyed writing, both at school and later in my career. I started writing fiction about seven years ago and now have published two novels set in the extended Regency Era—the Murmur of Masks and Perception & Illusion, both which have received a Chill with a Book Award. I love the research that goes with writing historical fiction and blog about historical facts and trivia relating to the Regency in My Scrap Album on 

www.catherinekullmann.com

What is your favourite Christmas memory?

I can’t really pick one out. To me, Christmas is first and foremost the commemoration of Christ’s birth marked by a combination of family togetherness, sacred music and contemplation, excitement and anticipation and family traditions, small and large, Ours are a mix of Irish and German—we have a German Christmas Eve with German carols during present giving followed by a special dinner and an Irish Christmas Day, where Mass is followed by Christmas Dinner.

What is your favourite Christmas food?

It has to be the traditional Christmas Dinner that I have eaten every year of my life, first prepared by my mother and later by me according to her recipes. Turkey with herbed bread stuffing, boiled ham, bread sauce, roast potatoes, braised chicory, carrots and peas. We eat it twice, once on Christmas Day when the turkey is hot and again on St Stephen’s Day (26 December) when the turkey is cold. And every year, as my mother before me, I sigh on that second day and say ‘It always tastes better on Stephen’s Day’. I think it is because this marks the end of my Christmas responsibilities. Now, of course, with an adult family, everyone pitches in but in the past, when I was working fulltime and had a younger family, Christmas was heavy enough going.

What is your favourite Christmas song?

Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful) sung in Latin as it was in my childhood. I love the way the congregation will instinctively build a crescendo on the threefold repetition of ‘Venite adoremus’ (O come, let us adore him) at the end of each verse, starting almost at a whisper and only going full throttle on ‘Dominum’ (Christ the Lord).

What is your favourite Christmas photo? Please tell us why

I have chosen this photo of last year’s Christmas Pudding with a dish of brandy sauce—again, a traditional part of our Irish Christmas. This recipe comes from my mother’s family so it links me with my sister, cousins and their families as well. This is a link to a blog I wrote about it last year that includes the recipe. https://catherinekullmann.weebly.com/my-scrap-album/christmas-or-plum-pudding

You can also find Catherine at all of these…

Thank you.

My website:                      www.catherinekullmann.com/
My Facebook page:           fb.me/catherinekullmannauthor

My Amazon author page    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Catherine-Kullmann/e/B01IW3F4MA/ref

Please come back tomorrow to find out what makes Susi Holliday

 Christmas Christmassy