Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1890 — Christmas “Bran Pie.” [ARTICLE]

Christmas “Bran Pie.”

Perhaps everybody has heard of “bran pie, ’’butif there is somebody who hasn’t, the description may not come amiss. A tub is to be used for the dish, the size to depend on the probable number of the gifts, and clean bran for the lining and the crust. In other words, the tub may be half filled with the bran; and then the presents neatly covered with brown paper, tied and labeled, placed in the bran, here, there, and everywhere, so as to require as much hunting for hidden treasure as possible, and finally a covering of bran put over the whole. Those who are to be served with this very substantial sort of a Christmas pie surround it in a circle, each in turn drawing out a bundle from the all-envel-oping bran. If the drawer of a prize finds his own name written on the bun; die, he keeps it, but if it is the name of some other member of the party, he returns it to the pie, and waits until his turn to draw comes round again. A good deal of amusement may bo added if an appropriate motto or pr</v----er'> be written on each bundle; for instance,, with an embroidered needle-book, the words, “A stitch in time saves nine.;” with a calendar, “Take time by ths fore- • lock,” and so on.