We snowshoe!

Snow is lovely. Snowshoeing is a great pleasure here in the suburban Midwest where there's no downhill skiing and few places to cross-country ski (plus, no ski gear.) So we snowshoe!

Today, that involved the following:

1. Find snowboarding pants purchased from junior's section at Target. Put them on. Reflect that even XL juniors do not have post-childbirthing hips.

2. Look for snowshoes in garage. Find none. Think to self, "Hmm, maybe they're in the attic." Look for flashlight in the place where it generally lives. Do not find it. Find other, weaker flashlight. Forge in attic. Find only spouse's snowshoes, and figure they'll work in a pinch. Haul them down from attic while fielding questions about something son is holding that you actually can't see: "Mama? What IS dis? Dis! Dis dat I'm holding!"

3. Pursuade kid that he needs to wear snowpants. Wrangle him into them.

4. Consider downloading photo uploading software onto laptop to work around current softwear FUBAR on desktop computer which precludes downloading from digital camera and thus renders blog less interesting visually. Reject this as not central to the project at hand. Take cellphone instead to document this, the first snowshoeing of the season.

5. Find kid's snowshoes. Debate saving them for Christmas and letting him use big sister's snowshoes; reflect that bigger kid snowshoes have spiky spikes on them. Open kid's spike-lacking snowshoes. Soothe tantrum that results from opening Christmas presents early. [WTH? Whose kid *is* this? Must revisit nature/nurture debate at later point.]

6. Get kid in boots. Get self in boots. Locate mittens. Drag kid, self, two pairs of snowshoes, and snack kid insists on bringing with, plus cellphone, outside. Snack is a small apple and a granola bar. Put snack in coat pocket over kid's protests.

7. Walk across the street to open space near church where showshoing should be fun.

8. Strap kid into snowshoes. Strap self into spouse's snowshoes. Reflect that spouse has some bitching snowshoes. Snap cell phone photo while kid is still happy, a 30-second window.

9. Enjoy 29 more seconds of pleasurable snowshoeing.

10. Pick up wailing, unhappy kid and carry him for about 30 more seconds, marvelling over the fun of snowshoeing and the pure joy of being outdoors in the first snow of the season.

11. Take snowshoes off self and kid. Walk back across street. Go inside, give kid snack, forward pictures to self, blog contentedly.

Midwinter baking, a bit early.

So our holiday baking is slowly getting started... last night Grace and I made chocolate chip cookies, which admittedly are not especially "holiday" but it was a warm-up for making Sankta Lucia cookies for her first grade class and my college students. The first grade version will include a whole Sankta Lucia presentation by yours truly - a story, a demonstration of Grace's costume complete with lighted crown, music, and the distribution of cute non-traditional cookies embellished with a Sankta Lucia cookie stamp. (There's also going to be a preschool presentation, but without any homebaked goods, in accordance with Strict Preschool Rules.)

The college version will not involve the story, music, costume, or enthusiasm on the part of the students, but I'm having a shortened class this week, and promised them cookies as an inducement to show up at all. (My rationale: it's finals week, so why bother assigning reading? and if I'm not assigning reading, why not make it a review session before the final? and if it's a review session, surely it can't take the ordinary 2.5 hours. If I make it sound too unnecessary, no one will come; hence the cookies. They looked a little afraid when I said I was going to bake, which digressed into one of my really bad chalkboard drawings of a pastry I wasn't bringing, which is designed to resemble human eyes, so that the Italian version of Lucia is properly honored - she's the one who carries her eyes around on a plate.)

Peter is getting in on the baking action by demanding "pastreats" for breakfast. Waffles were roundly rejected, and since my spur of the moment weekday pastreat repertoire is somewhat limited, we settled on scones. It was nice: he has a lot of thoughts on blueberries, and sugar, and flour, and measuring cups, and eggs, and milk... and so on. He's now bellowing every thirty seconds, "Mom! The scones are ready! Mom!" although in fact they have a few minutes left to go. I have to say, for three, he does a very nice imitiation of the oven timer.

Peter does a turkey play...

The changing of the china.

Somewhat to Mike's chagrin, we are a Family of Seasonal China. This started innocently enough (doesn't everything?) when I got pretty Christmas china with snowmen on it as a Christmas gift from my in-laws, before Grace was born. The china accumulation really started to snowball (ha!) when I was pregnant with Peter and having all sorts of insomnia. I'd shop online for baby shoes and gradually start to look at vintage dishes... and before I knew it, I started collecting a few (ok, three) patterns of vintage china. I also have one set from each of my grandmothers. So all told, we rotate between those inherited patterns, the Christmas china you see here (which has some silly additions, like the slightly menacing snowman there, as well as napkins, tableclothes, dishtowels, and a beaded trivet), some Easter china, and birthday china. Also a different version of the Easter china, which is a pattern by Anchor Hocking called "Rainbow" that was made from the early forties until the mid-sixties. The Easter dishes are pastel, and the ... summer? dishes are primary colors. The birthday china is a really fun pattern called "Ripple" by Hazel Atlas; the dishes I collect have ruffled edges and are tuquoise and white. It's the same basic vintage as the Rainbow china, but has a more sixties look. Happily, the coordinating pitchers for the Ripple pattern are cheap and plentiful (I have - dear Lord, I think I have three, plus glasses in two sizes). The Rainbow pitchers are quite collectible and I'm just not able to bring myself to pay for one. I did score some very difficult-to-find bowls for the Easter dishes this year, which means I have something like service for twelve in that version of that pattern. (Easter at my house this year!) Grace is a huge help with the changing of the china: she's careful and always has good suggestions for arranging the china in the cabinet. Peter really wants to help, but so far I have politely declined. I'm not sure whether it's comforting on some level or just excessive, but if, say, the apocalypse hits, I could provide dishes to feed the neighborhood. No paper plates for us!

Cranberry sauce!

We have a favorite family recipe for cold, fresh cranberry sauce, and also a newer favorite for cold, cooked cranberrry sauce. Grace helped me put it together: a pound of cranberries, the zest of one orange, the juice of two oranges, one apple, and one cup of sugar. It cooks up very nicely and the end result is in the bowl!

Family photos.

In lieu of an actual extended family gathering, I'm posting a couple of family photos - these are my dad and my aunt Diane when they were kids - about 1944, I think. My dad was born in New Orleans, but they lived in DC within a couple of years. I'm not sure where the picture of the two of them was taken, although palm trees don't really seem like a DC kind of foliage. I love that Wally resembles Peter in these pictures.

Turkey!

Every year since we've moved to Illinois, if we're hosting Thanksgiving we get our turkey from the Hoka turkey farm. It's kind of a trek out there, and it involves encountering turkeys in their big, slightly stupid, more than slightly stinky glory, before getting one that's "processed" and ready for cooking. But we enjoy it, and we have turkey farm photos of the kids from way back. This year Mike took the kids himself since I was in California, and they had a good time.

The video is trademark Peter, complete with the bum-shaking. Edited to add: tragically, I cannot figure out how to rotate the video. Y'all will have to just turn your heads.