recipe for...?
I have merely a second here before I have to run out to Ukrops for cream cheese and milk so I can get started baking cookies. I can't believe I committed to baking cookies for the living nativity at church, knowing how disorganized I have been lately. But I'm set on Danish wedding cookies, which I've been wanting for myself. Kerry and Ollie are out at the Richmond Rumble right now. I wonder how he's doing. His wrestling skills have really improved in the past year--much more aggression and being in the moment, which is an especially critical skill. He has to want it, and last year he didn't seem to have that focus. We took him to the weigh-in last night, where thank goodness they are very attentive to ringworm. It's always, um, interesting to be in a gym full of boys in their underpants getting looked over. I also drool over St. Christopher's whenever we are there. And the neighborhood. I was telling Kerry, "Who cares whether we can afford it or not, we should do it anyway!" I'm always so prudent ;)
We have too much planned for today. There's a Santa party at the swim and racquet club, but I'm not even sure I want to go. Not sure if we could go anyway, since we didn't sign up. We already didn't sign up in time for breakfast with Santa. I need to bake these cookies. And I would really like to go out to the Christmas tree farm today. It's the right kind of day--a little overcast, rather cold, and holiday-like. What's awful is that I want to have the experience of the tree farm, but I don't want to spend tree farm prices. Last year the tree farm closest to us had a fabulous Santa and a great petting zoo that the kids loved, but we didn't end up getting our tree there, or maybe we did and wished we didn't. I looked up tree farms on the web, and it sounded like ours was affordable, but that really wasn't the case last year. Plus they didn't have so many trees, and they were selling some that had been trucked in from elsewhere. I'm quite worried about how we are going to keep Rutledge away from the tree anyway. We don't have a Superyard, I don't have plans to buy one, and I don't think I know anyone who owns one right now. So I'm thinking maybe we could put the tree in the front room and could shut the door when we don't want to worry about it, but that would involve a lot of furniture rearranging.
Once again I'm overwhelmingly irritated by Kerry's hatred of all things having to do with Christmas or any holiday. He hates lights, hates getting trees, hates decorating, hates decorated houses, hates anything outdoors having to do with the holiday, and thinks everything is tacky. It makes it hard for me to decorate because for one, in my family decorating was always one of the most exciting things about the season. Opening our Brach's candy boxes from my Grandpa's drugstore, the ones that stored our decorations and ornaments, and smelling that special smell of cooped up plastic and candles...that was what signalled the coming of the holiday to me. We would spend all day decorating our tree, putting things around the house. Now it feels like a chore to me because I have to listen to all of the negativity. I also need some problem solving help--I'm awful at getting up the wreaths on the windows, and I could use some help there, but Kerry thinks wreaths are tacky, and he digs in his heels and refuses to enable the process in any way. I persist despite him. When he isn't home, I can spend reverent time with the kids to help them feel how special the season is.
Walter was so excited this morning to open the advent calendar box--it's so much fun to see him getting into it!
This morning was one of those bittersweet moments that came when I didn't quite expect it--just like people told me they would when my Mom died. Life would go on, but now and then something will bring her very close again. I was looking for the recipe for the wedding ball cookies, and I got out her recipe boxes. I never did find that recipe, but wow, seeing all those cards in her handwriting over the years, and ones in my Grandma's handwriting, and maybe even her mother's. The funny spellings of things like "shortning" and the "recipe from the kitchen of" authors are one of the few connections I have with the people whose names used to be so familiar to me. There was even a recipe I had written as a kid about honey on whole wheat english muffins. I must have been seven or eight when I wrote it, but it was folded up and tucked in the box, too. Unfortunately, I think I took out my Mom's most popular recipes that I remember from Christmases, since I didn't see those. I wonder where I put them.
We have too much planned for today. There's a Santa party at the swim and racquet club, but I'm not even sure I want to go. Not sure if we could go anyway, since we didn't sign up. We already didn't sign up in time for breakfast with Santa. I need to bake these cookies. And I would really like to go out to the Christmas tree farm today. It's the right kind of day--a little overcast, rather cold, and holiday-like. What's awful is that I want to have the experience of the tree farm, but I don't want to spend tree farm prices. Last year the tree farm closest to us had a fabulous Santa and a great petting zoo that the kids loved, but we didn't end up getting our tree there, or maybe we did and wished we didn't. I looked up tree farms on the web, and it sounded like ours was affordable, but that really wasn't the case last year. Plus they didn't have so many trees, and they were selling some that had been trucked in from elsewhere. I'm quite worried about how we are going to keep Rutledge away from the tree anyway. We don't have a Superyard, I don't have plans to buy one, and I don't think I know anyone who owns one right now. So I'm thinking maybe we could put the tree in the front room and could shut the door when we don't want to worry about it, but that would involve a lot of furniture rearranging.
Once again I'm overwhelmingly irritated by Kerry's hatred of all things having to do with Christmas or any holiday. He hates lights, hates getting trees, hates decorating, hates decorated houses, hates anything outdoors having to do with the holiday, and thinks everything is tacky. It makes it hard for me to decorate because for one, in my family decorating was always one of the most exciting things about the season. Opening our Brach's candy boxes from my Grandpa's drugstore, the ones that stored our decorations and ornaments, and smelling that special smell of cooped up plastic and candles...that was what signalled the coming of the holiday to me. We would spend all day decorating our tree, putting things around the house. Now it feels like a chore to me because I have to listen to all of the negativity. I also need some problem solving help--I'm awful at getting up the wreaths on the windows, and I could use some help there, but Kerry thinks wreaths are tacky, and he digs in his heels and refuses to enable the process in any way. I persist despite him. When he isn't home, I can spend reverent time with the kids to help them feel how special the season is.
Walter was so excited this morning to open the advent calendar box--it's so much fun to see him getting into it!
This morning was one of those bittersweet moments that came when I didn't quite expect it--just like people told me they would when my Mom died. Life would go on, but now and then something will bring her very close again. I was looking for the recipe for the wedding ball cookies, and I got out her recipe boxes. I never did find that recipe, but wow, seeing all those cards in her handwriting over the years, and ones in my Grandma's handwriting, and maybe even her mother's. The funny spellings of things like "shortning" and the "recipe from the kitchen of" authors are one of the few connections I have with the people whose names used to be so familiar to me. There was even a recipe I had written as a kid about honey on whole wheat english muffins. I must have been seven or eight when I wrote it, but it was folded up and tucked in the box, too. Unfortunately, I think I took out my Mom's most popular recipes that I remember from Christmases, since I didn't see those. I wonder where I put them.
posted by Nancy | 7:25 AM
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