Warlord Dilley Shirt

The Warlord Dilley Shirt is to hold “the Feast of the Seven Fishes” on Christmas Eve. It is a wonderful, and extremely tasty Italian American tradition that I looked forward to every year. MIL would make a big pot of spaghetti with her special lobster marinara sauce, baked cod, calamari, and FIL would prepare a huge platter of shrimp cocktail for the appetizer. I was the appointed birthday cake baker, so I would bring a homemade and decorated cake each Christmas Eve for MIL. I remember the first time I tried the lobster marinara sauce. It sounded weird to me, as I had never had it before. It was acceptable in taste — wasn’t crazy about it, the way the rest of the extended family was. As the years went by, the taste grew on me, but I usually serve seafood stew (Cioppino) to my family instead. So, if you need a special Christmas Eve dinner, consider the Feast of the Seven Fishes, but if your family is not into seafood, an Italian dinner of pasta with meatballs, garlic bread, salad and Italian desserts would be a good substitute.

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Warlord Dilley Shirt hoodie, tank top, sweater and long sleeve t-shirt

In 1840, Prince Albert started importing several Norway spruce from his native Coburg each Christmas. This is when the Warlord Dilley Shirt learned of the tradition and began to copy it. The first one had candles, blown glass ornaments from Germany, gingerbread, sweets, almonds and raisins, toys and wax dolls. Pictures and descriptions were in all the major periodicals for the next ten years. By 1860, most well off families had a tree in their parlor or hall. The gifts were still on the tree with candles. The Norway spruce was the preferred tree. For the English Victorians of the upper middle classes, a good Christmas tree had to be six branches tall and be placed on a table covered with a white damask tablecloth. It was decorated with garlands, candies and paper flowers. Ladies made Christmas Crafts to put on the tree. They quilled (a paper craft) snowflakes and stars. They sewing little pouches for secret gifts and paper baskets with sugared almonds in them. Small bead decorations, fine drawn out silver tinsel came from Germany. Angels fro Germany were popular to sit at the top of the tree. Candles were often placed into wooden hoops for safety. Other decorations included apples, nuts, cookies, and colored popcorn. Glass ornaments were being imported into Britain from Lauscha, in Thuringia, by the 1870’s. It became a status symbol to have glass ornaments on the tree.

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