Weekend Things--Winter Things

This weekend involved a lot of kitchen time.

A few times a year, I take all the dishes down off the open shelves and wash away the months of accumulated dust. Christmastime seems like a good time to do that.

When I put them back, I arranged all the reds and greens on the big center shelves for a festive look. None of the menfolk in my house were impressed. 

Z and I made some concoctions for Christmas presents.

And E helped cut out cookies.

Saturday afternoon we headed over to the pond down the road to skate before the snow came.

About two inches of dry, powdery snow covered most of the pond, which made it kind of easy to skate on (or at least easy to not fall down on).

But the boys preferred racing around a little rink of bare ice at one end.

Sunday morning, the real snow came.

Lucia buns for breakfast.

And fondue for lunch (because Catherine Newman).

E and Z made sled runs and dug tunnels, and in the afternoon, we drove through the snow to The Nutcracker. I read Harry Potter out loud on the drive, both ways, pausing only to look up so I could backseat drive and keep C on the road.

We've had some early and fierce cold already. It's amazing how cold becomes relative. A couple of weeks ago, 27 degrees felt unbearable, but today 15 felt downright balmy after yesterday's negative 13.9.

Also this:

I finally, finally finished my thesis. One-hundred-fifty pages: nine stories and a preface, plus my 90-page third-semester project. Very exciting to see it all printed up and fancy. I haven't mailed it yet because I was still waiting for one last piece, but it should be in the post tomorrow morning and then I will sigh a big sigh of relief.

(Also, I was looking to see if I'd ever posted the Lucia bun recipe I use before, and I found this post from one year ago today, about living life to the fullest because of, well, all the crap that goes on in this world. It's nice to be reminded of this (and not so nice to need to be reminded so often).

Christmas Cookie Countdown

**With this December even nuttier than usual, I'm going to give myself a break and do a few posts that share a little link love with Christmas past. Enjoy!**

Once, when I was in high school, my best friend's mother invited my mom and me to their house for tea and cookies around Christmas time. I remember her tray of cookies must have had two-dozen different varieties. The only ones I remember distinctly had a granular texture and she told us the texture derived from browned butter, and their name translated from German as "sandy moors"  (I've been on the lookout for them ever since--the closest I've found is sevilles). But I do remember being amazed by the array. 

I also remember my own mother making several different kinds of rolled refrigerator cookies and pressed cookies and cutout cookies every Christmas. I'm sure my grandmother made dozens of cookies as well, but what I remember most was the candy tray on her sideboard--fudge and nut clusters and rum balls and peanut butter balls (I believe my grandfather played a role in making the candy).

When C and I first lived together, I would make tins of cookies and candies for his many extended relatives, at the time believing it was easier and or less expensive than buying them all gifts––I soon found out it was neither, and I also found out that it takes an awful lot of cookies and candies to fill one of those tins.

Nowadays, I try to keep things simple and minimal: three kinds of cookies, one batch made per weekend in the month of December and nibbled on throughout the month. If there are any left on Christmas Day, we'll put them out on a plate. If not, no big whoop. And now, instead of tins of sweets for extended (and extensive) in-laws, I give out socks.

Here are my three standard holiday cookies:

Spekulatius. Okay, maybe this cookie doesn't exactly count as simple, but now I've got the technique down, it's not hard, either. I make the dough the night before (as I do with all the cookies), and then I make a few St. Nicholases here and there throughout the day, keeping the cookie trays in the fridge until it's time to bake them (this year I started right after breakfast and took them out of the oven right before bedtime, but in-between, we got the tree and decorated the house).

Chocolate Ginger Bread. This is a Martha Stewart recipe, and while I often find MS recipes a lot of work with kind of meh results, this isn't one of them. It's a tad more work than traditional gingerbread, what with the fresh ginger and all, but oh so worth it.

Sugar Cookies. I know, everyone has their standby, but this recipe is so good, I've used it for 20 years and I love it so.

What are your favorite Christmas cookies (to make or to receive)? And do you have any idea what a sandy moor is?

The Boys' Dormitory

A few years ago, when the boys were four and eight, we graduated them from the queen-sized mattress they all shared to these bunk beds, with M on the top and E and Z sharing the double bottom. This set-up worked fine until sometime last spring, when Z decided he didn't want to share a bed anymore and started sleeping on the futon in our sunroom.

Our house is kind of small, with only two bedrooms (we didn't plan on having three kids when we built it), and while someday we hope to finish off the daylight basement, we needed a faster and cheaper solution before it got too cold for Z to sleep in a room with three walls of windows.

C and I finally agreed that a loft bed offered the best solution, and he finally found time to work on it in November (after I got the room cleaned up enough to bring the bed in, and bought a short dresser to fit under the bed).

Z has been so happily excited to be sleeping up high in his new space, and every morning (when they should be getting ready for school), I find him and E up there, conspiring together over something (so thrilled to finally be allowed up high after being kept off M's top bunk for so many years).

With M moving into his teenage years (gulp), he's probably going to be the next one looking for his own space, at which point we will really have to finish off the basement, but for now, the boys' dormitory (pronounced with an English accent, like Harry Potter) will have to do.

Weekend Things--Getting Merry

Last week was a rough one. I had zillions of appointments, a few deadlines, and a killer sinus infection (which I finally gave up on washing away with a neti pot and attacked with antibiotics mid-week). As a result, I was one tired and cranky Mama, which somehow always becomes a contagious condition. It all culminated Thursday night, after E and Z's holiday concert, with me sitting the three boys down and giving them a lecture on respect, not fighting, good behavior in public, and "shape up or Christmas is going to be cancelled." Not a pretty moment.

Things got better with the weekend. I decided that my season's greeting this year is "No." I said "no" to the holiday bazaar at the local farm store Friday night, "no" to helping at the Make-a-Craft Fair at school, and "no" to taking the boys to said fair (E was quite traumatized by this, due, no doubt, to his anticipation of ingesting several pounds of sugar at the "decorate a cookie" table).

We spent most of Saturday morning cleaning house in preparation of Christmas decorating, and then headed to M's show in the afternoon. Then on Sunday we got down to the business of the holidays. I got E and Z to help with the Christmas cards, which is quite possibly my most brilliant move ever.

And made the first batch of cookies.

Then we headed out into the woods in search of a tree.

This is the second year in a row that there was no snow on the ground when we went tree hunting. It changes the mood, but makes the whole process quite a bit easier.

After wiggling our way through the firs that grow more dense each year, we found the perfect tree right near our trail

The boys took turns cutting it down, and C hefted it home.

And dressed it up for the season.

After we got the house all decorated, it felt like Christmas vacation should start.

But we all had to return to work and school the next morning.

But it was nice to come home to the clean house and bright lights at the end of the day.

Double Jinx

M and his buddy C had another performance this past weekend. It was at a multi-band show that was, unfortunately, poorly attended, but included some pretty sweet sound equipment, lights, and even a fog machine that gave the place that seedy bar feel.

A couple of members of the band that came before them tag-teamed on playing drums for the boys, since they have yet to find a drummer for their band. They played some of their standards--"Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Black Blood" (a Double Jinx original), "Blitzkrieg Bop"--and added in a few that I hadn't heard them play all the way through yet (some that, perhaps, I'd never heard all the way through even on the radio, which didn't stop "Enter Sandman" from running through my mind when I lay wide-awake at four in the morning Sunday night...and no, I did not appreciate the irony).

Every time they play, I'm just astounded by their confidence, poise, and skill. The two of them get together almost every Saturday and learn and practice songs, some of which they have worked on with their teachers, some of which they figure out on their own, and some they write from scratch. It's the ultimate in self-directed learning. Since the beginning of the school year, I had been fretting that middle school wasn't really challenging M, but now I see that it's really a gift for him to have the time free of homework to focus on something he's really passionate about.

After Double Jinx finished their set, we stayed and watched the really loud band that came after (don't worry, he has earplugs on under that hat). Watching M onstage in his hunter orange cap reminded me of this:

He wore that fuzzy orange hat for three winters straight--indoors and out. Despite the hat, I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around those two boys being the same person. How did we get here from there? And will I be looking back at that boy on stage one day, wondering how he got to be the man he will become all too soon?

Christmas Book Countdown

**With this December even nuttier than usual, I'm going to give myself a break and do a few posts that share a little link love with Christmas past. Enjoy!**

Each December for many years now, we've done an Advent calendar in books, or, as my friend Sara dubbed it, the Christmas Book Countdown.

The idea is very simple: wrap up 24 beloved holiday and winter-themed books (saving The Night Before Christmas for #24), put them in a basket for the little ones to open and read each night (fortunately, 24 is beautifully divisible by 2, 3, 4 and even 6 kids. If you have five kids, why not wrap up 25 and count Christmas Day? If you have more than six, goodness, you don't have time for this nonsense. Pour yourself an eggnog with lots of rum and sit back and enjoy the chaos).

I have made the process even easier in recent years by using reusable fabric gift bags (most of which become available for gift-wrapping by the time I need them) and reusable tags, labeled with the day and the kid (although I could not find the tags late Saturday night, so this year, it's a grab-bab, except for that trusty Night Before Christmas).

Any box or basket will do to hold all those books, but a few years ago, I gussied up a milk crate, which turns out to be the exact size and shape needed to hold those 24 books.

I share a more detailed description of our process (including the part about making sure the long books land on the weekends, and the Hanukkah book lands on Hanukkah, etc.), as well as a list of some of our favorite holiday books here.

I give more detailed reviews of our very most favoritest books here:

Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas
A Christmas Nutshell Library
A Jolly Christmas with the Patterprints

What I love most about this tradition is that it doesn't involve brining anything new into our home--little toys or chocolates or even a cardboard calendar that I will be loath to recycle at the end of the season. And it ensures all of our many holiday books get read every year. The boys are getting to be the age where they prefer me reading chapter books (very long, long chapter books) to them, rather than picture books, but the first night E was happy to pick and listen to a book from the basket (provided, of course, that I read HP afterward) and the second night Z read the book to us all as part of his reading log quota.

Even though it's just a tad past December 1, it's not too late to start this tradition in your home!

Weekend Things--The Holidays Begin

Thanksgiving breakfast parfaits (once you do something one time, it becomes a tradition) and our Gratitude Journal.

One of these turkeys flew into our window Thanksgiving morning. Fortunately, it was just a glancing blow, and it gobbled off with the rest of its flock. The boys were disappointed to not have a wild turkey dinner, but I was thankful to not have a turkey-shaped hole in my window.

Some brotherly coexistence (there in the background is Z's new mattress. More on that soon).

The final harvest. 

A bit of weaving.

And knitting.

Ice.

And frost.

Latkes.

And the Yule Log Menorah, with friends this time.

And snow!

The first skate.

Ice forming on the river.

A trip to Morse's Krauthaus and German import store.

I still was not feeling well this weekend, and spent a lot of it lying on the couch. I did get up to help M make an apple-cranberry pie for Thanksgiving dinner (and, of course, went to Thanksgiving dinner), and I dragged myself outside once each day. And I powered through the cleaning and cooking for Hanukkah dinner, and even invited friends to join us, last minute. But the couch-city most of the weekend, which suited the boys just fine--a position from which I could help them with their yarn and read chapter after chapter (after chapter) of Harry Potter to them.

I'm freaking out a little about all the deadlines I have for school in the next month and, you know, Christmas and stuff. I still feel achey and tired all over and want to go to bed at eight (or seven, or four) each night, and not stay up working. But it will all come together, right? It somehow always does. I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving!