Dala horse fun!

So, it turns out that the Cultural Identity of Lindsborg, Kansas is to be Like Sweden, Only With One Main Street. On said main street, there are about a dozen Dala horses (for the uninitiated, they're beloved Swedish cultural symbols, of which we have some in our house that are little and wooden and painted and some that are printed on pajamas from Swedish pajama maker Hanna Andersson). These Lindsborg Dala horses are all painted according to a different theme, and so we had good reason to take pictures with each and every horse. This collection is but a sampling of fun Dala horse posing (caution: do not sit on the Dala horses! They are fragile and expensive!), all of which took place during the lulls in organized Santa Lucia Festival Fun. We were lucky that the day was warmish and sunny, and not really freaking cold as the weather has been basically every day since. Clearly Jesus, via the weather, was tacitly endorsing our Lindsborg pilgrimmage. Or, something like that.

We Lucia!

Yesterday I made the Nth batch of lussekatter, and today we had our home Lucia celebration. Peter was suspicious of his Starboy hat and ditched it pretty early on, but was keen to carry his wand (battery size AAA, requiring special trip to the store) and Daddy's coffee cup. Grace had the lussekatter, and I trailed along carrying the coffee carafe and turning on the CD of the Lucia music.

When I wrapped up some lussekatter for Gracie's playdate friend to take home yesterday, she was enthused (the kids put away a goodly portion right out of the oven) and Peter leaned over to tell her mother in a confidential tone, "We're a lussekatter family."

Next up, some pictures of the kids at various Dala horse locations around Lindsborg, Kansas... they were funny and creative and made for a good little project as we walked around the tiny downtown.

Lucia interrupted; it's shepherd time.

Peter's school nativity play was yesterday, and he totally rocked the shepherd costume. There was the standard Mary/Joseph/innkeeper scenario, and *lots!* of angels and *lots!* of sheep, and Peter and the two other shepherds brought new baby lambs to Jesus as gifts. (Awwww....)

Peter is loving his school, and it was great fun to see him singing enthusiastically along with his classmates, doing the motions, and generally representing the Orange Stars well in his shepherd capacity.

Starboy hat...

Aww, here's our small starboy hat factory in full swing! Peter was delighted with said hat, and had fun doing Lucia with Grace at her school. Because we were in Kansas for the actual Lucia day, and it's been hellishly cold, we haven't yet done the home/neighbor version of Lucia, but now that I'm slightly more caught up on Christmas cards and package shipping maybe we'll do it tomorrow.

In which we are heroically, aggressively Swedish.

It's Lucia Day! Or yesterday was, at any rate. Because I'd read great things about the Lucia festival in ultra-Swedish Lindsborg, Kansas, we went there on a sort of pilgrimage, and it was more fun than you might expect.

We've been doing Lucia-related things all week, mostly involving baking lussekatter, the pastry associated with Lucia. I estimate I've made around 150, with more to come for the neighbors.


We took some to Grace's class, to demonstrate Lucia attire and music and food, which required first making Peter a new Starboy hat (these things tend to get lost over time.) We assembled posterboard, glitter glue, a hot glue gun, construction paper, and eager craftspersons, and our fabulous result... will be in the next installment of the Lucia blogging.

In which we take a breath.

Tonight, Peter and I are on our own. We are batching it. (Baching? Whatever. We are living as bachelors do!) This involves making ourselves pizza not eaten by the others in our family, pizza with pesto *and* blue cheese *and* kalamata olives. It is really, really salty, which is what we like, and we are alone.

Why is that, again? Because Grace is on her first overnight, for a birthday party of one of her classmates, and Mike is somewhere between here and Chicago. So my baby, who seriously just yesterday was an actual infant, being baptized (there was reminiscing this morning with a fellow UC Divinity School Person, of whom I can now count three in Nebraska) and now she's old enough to be totally cool with being left at the house of a classmate for an overnight. I am breathing, but slowly and meditatively and with great care.

At work, one of my students responded to the news that the Rapture is 19th Century fiction and not biblical at all (which, really, you might want to check on that before formulating your whole relationship to God based on it, maybe) by sending this - wildly inflammatory email to the whole student body. And to my department, which remember is me and two other people, if you count the campus pastor. Which we do. So it wasn't an great big state secret whom he might be venting at in said inflammatory email, which reflected a tenuous grasp of the English language among other things. Faculty response has mostly been sympathetic to me and kindly towards the student (the word "immature" has come up, and "ignorant" and the like), but one of our admins was really furious with him and offended and went on a little forwarding spree to us (me, and the two guys in my department) to make sure we knew he was getting an angry/irritated response from his fellow students, the recipents of said spam. It has become a Thing, and I am tired of it already.

Peter and I are making raspberry mocha muffins tomorrow. Come by!

Rabid fox news!

Not even Fox News! But fox news. I find this disturbing, and hilarious, and altogether odd, so I must share:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-ODD-Fox-Attack.html?_r=1&oref=slogin