Arrrgh!!!

Now that Elegante Mother's party is over, it's time to focus on getting ready for Christmas. Today is December 3, so that means we have three weeks to Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve is on a Sunday this year, so my family is planning to meet earlier in the day for our annual celebration. Normally we meet about 5:00 in the afternoon, and have a light supper, swap and open gifts.

The adults have a uni-sex gift exchange which is very entertaining. Each of us brings a gift. Usually the worse or funnier the gift is, the more likely it is to be gorgeously wrapped. We draw numbers, and the person holding number one is the first to choose a gift. If a following number holder happens to like that gift, it can be stolen from you. There are usually some spectacular gifts, some thoughtful gifts and some very odd gifts. Last year, Dear Husband chose a package that had the most current edition of the "Bathroom Reader" plus an assortment of chemicals to clean a bathroom! It turns out that the "Bathroom Reader" is pretty interesting! *G*

Elegante Mother will be invited to make her barbecue, and my nieces will load the table with all sorts of tasty things that will kill my diet! Thank you, God, for holidays!

I still have a lot of decorating to do. We have to decide the question of a live tree or a fake, and choose one. (Dear Husband drags his feet on this issue every year, and we're lucky to get a tree up by Christmas!) I have a little homely fake Sitka spruce that resides in my living room year 'round. It showcases the ornaments that my quilting bee friends have made for me over the years. There are wreaths in place, but I have some roping that needs to go over the mailbox pillar.

I think we might do a laid back Christmas this year. As far as I know, there won't be visitors here for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, so we might relax on some of the traditions. I hope I get a lot of good books as gifts. I can spend the day with my feet up, lost in a good story!

Happy December, everyone!

Edward Scissorhands is our black cat. He adopted us about fourteen years ago, and our best guess is that he is fifteen or sixteen, years old.

Ed is not known as a social butterfly. He has this routine, and God help you if you disrupt it! Normally, he doesn't want to interact with us until the evening, unless he wants you to open the front door or FEED HIM!

I assumed that he would spend the afternoon in the basement during Mother's party, because he's not fond of strangers, and he doesn't care to have to walk through crowds of people who might step on his tail. And he doesn't care for the fact that some people might choose to sit in HIS chair!

I'm sure you get the picture. We're staff.

I was therefore, shocked and amazed to see my cat walking through the visitors, letting them pet him and rub his chin. Normally, we hasten to warn them to watch his body English, or risk having their hand sliced off, but he was charming. What alien has stolen my cat and left this one in exchange??

He's stolen my chair, bathed, and is ready for his afternoon nap. Oh, to have the life of a cat!

Like a lot of the Midwest, we had a lot of winter weather this past week. We went from balmy sunny days, to balmy rainy days, to chilly, rainy days, to SIX INCHES OF SNOW! We actually didn't suffer too much from those six inches, but areas near us got as much as 12 inches, and some got more.

This is not our first snow. In October we had enough snow to measure, but it's been unusually mild since then. I had the best part of a week in mid-November that was warm enough to get most of the ground work done.

I was SO proud of how the gardens looked. Everything was neat and tidy, and not a leaf was out of place. I thought our visitors would be wowed at how glorious the herb garden looked. It's said that "Pride goeth before the fall," and that's a pretty good description of my situation! *G*

So, we have this glorious covering of white on our gardens, and a muddy, icy slash over the driveway where everyone was parking. Dear Husband cleared the drive with his snow plow, and I was muttering about it looking like a WWF mud meet.

The sun was in it's full glory yesterday, with light bouncing off the snow. The north side of the trees, and the shrubs have all been coated with snow. The view was exceptional, just not the one I had envisioned.

The light today is almost blinding! I need to put on my sunglasses, and block my computer screen so I can see what I'm typing.

Cold.....really deep cold is coming, I understand. I plan to return to exercise tomorrow morning, and I better find my heavy coat and gloves!

There are not enough superlatives to describe Elegante Mother's 90th birthday party!

She and I started the day at the salon. We both had our hair done, and her nail technician insisted she stay for a nail touch up, as a gift. *S*

The caterer arrived at 11:30 and proceeded to create an incredible spread of food in the kitchen and dining room. They just sent a final statement, listing what they provided:

A Domestic Cheese display
Ultimate Guacamole
Italian Antipasto
Wood Smoked Salmon
Coastal Crab Cakes
Petite Quiche
Yukon Potato Cups
Walnut Chicken Roulade
Parmesan Artichoke Tartlets
Lemon Bars with Raspberries
Petite Fours
Chocolate dipped Pretzel Rods,

We did coffee, tea, soda pop and wine, and cider for the kids.

They sent the most incredible young man to set things up. He changed into a uniform and saw to it that things were kept warm, and that the chaffing dishes remained full. He circulated when he had free time, to collect empty plates and glasses. He was WONDERFUL! I have to write to our caterer to let them know how pleased we were with his service, and their appetizers!

I have to sit down and do a head count, but I think that perhaps 100 people turned out for EM's party. She was busy, chatting with friends for close to eight hours. I thought we might have to pour her into bed, exhausted, but smiling.

My family pulled together to make this all work, and we owe them a big thanks. I was able to visit with everyone, and know that our guests were entertained and well fed. Thanks go to my sisters for making picture boards, and a memory book, for helping to set up and clear things. Thanks to my niece for helping with the invitations and music, and assisting Dear Husband with bar tending duties, and to her husband for being our party photographer.

It was a bang up way to start the holiday season, and now we're just going to rest on our laurels and the afterglow of a great time! *G*

I've been away for most of the past ten days or so as we prepared our home for Elegante Mother's 90th birthday party. I wish I could have been here, checking to see how you all fared on Thanksgiving, but there just weren't enough hours in the day.

We arranged for the carpets to be cleaned on Monday. My family assured me that it was wiser to leave down the old carpets than to put in new ones in time for the party. They were right! Given the food and drink that was spilled, I'd have been a wreck if the carpet had been new. I enjoyed myself a great deal more, knowing that my guests could do their worst, and we'd still be okay.

I had made an appointment to have the windows and chandelier cleaned on Tuesday morning. When 8:00 a.m. rolled around, it was just starting to rain, so we rescheduled to Friday morning. Of course, on Friday morning, we were not quite at the end of our first major storm for the season. The window washers didn't show, and didn't call. :-( I'll have to see if they plan to work this winter. None of my guests complained about dirty windows. :-) I was beginning to move plants into the garage to keep them from freezing. I cleaned out the mudroom closet, and the front hall closet, and started moving things off the counters in the kitchen.

Wednesday, one of my nieces was scheduled for a biopsy, so Eldest-Sister-the-nurse and I took her to the hospital and camped out in the waiting room. My niece stayed with us Wednesday evening. Party preparations were set aside for the day.

Thursday, I continued finding a place for everything, decorated three wreaths and hung them, and made swags for the carriage lights and hung them with dark red bows. I was working my way through a mountain of laundry. The guest bedroom linens were washed and we remade the bed. We had enough poinsettias gathered in the kitchen to open our own floral shop. My niece directed me, and I deposited the plants around the house. My niece and I headed for the salon, and I had my toes babied, while she did her hair.

Friday, the house was cleaned, and I spent the rest of the day trying to finish up paperwork in the office. I washed the tablecloths for the dining room. Elegante Mother and I went out for dinner with our quilting bee, and the guys "bached" it.

Saturday morning, I got up early to iron table cloths, and finish last minute preparations before we headed to the salon. The house looked very inviting, and seemed to swell to accommodate all our visitors!

Dear Husband laughed at some of the things on my "To Do" list. He wanted to know why I had to clean out the mud room closet. Any fool knows that I needed more space to HIDE THINGS!! Besides, I wanted to find all the boots and determine which needed to be replaced. I think I could do a future entry on "Why do guys question the need to clean??!"

I'm sure if I had been cloned, that I would have found more things to do to prepare for the party, but by the time our first guest crossed the threshold, we were reasonably ready. A great time was had by all!

We took Elegante Mother out to dinner last Monday night. The carpets in the house had been cleaned, and I wanted a little more time for them to dry, so we went to a local country-style place.

We had a great server, who asked why we had come in on a Monday evening. I hesitated and then said that we were starting a week-long celebration of my mother's 90th birthday.

The server gathered all the other waiters. Mother was expecting an off-key rendition of "Happy Birthday." Instead she got a rousing "Yeeeeeeeeeeee Hawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" She talked about it all week! :-)

Cop Car... In answer to your question, when you were visiting my home, and I was heating a pan at the stove...

The red design in the center of the pan turns to a red circle when the pan is hot.

(smiling) I've been thinking about this for a month, and intended to tell you that I'd looked into it. I suspect the engineer in you KNEW what the design was for, and you were just being polite when I disregarded it, and used the pan cold.

Thanks for the mini-lesson! *G*

I had a few moments the other day, and took a quick peek at some blogs. One that caught my attention was Desiree's. Desi was talking about the fact that she is going to change some of her holiday traditions. What she had to say made considerable sense, and got me to thinking about things I might want to do differently.

Other than decorating less, and focusing less on overwhelming gifts, there is one thing I'd like to change: Christmas cards. I've run the gamut of options when it comes to Christmas cards. I've given them to everyone I know, to no one, to just family, to just friends, to family and select friends. I have a problem with the idea of sending out a card with a pre-printed message and just our names at the bottom.

I was thinking at the beginning of November that I would be able to make time to write to people to let them know how thankful I had been for their friendship and help this year. By the time I was addressing Christmas cards (this is a family and friends year), I was really dissatisfied that I didn't have the time to say more to each of them.

I think I know how I want to resolve this issue. Next year, I plan to make a list of family and friends, and each day write a letter to one of them. For every day from the day after Thanksgiving, to New Year's Day, I hope to tell someone that I've been thinking about them, and how important their friendship is to me.

It seems that would be so much more satisfying than a card. Even when you find just the right card, and that's much more difficult in these days of political correctness, it still doesn't convey exactly how you feel. So, this might be the best of all worlds.

I know it will be a busy time. I know that it could be difficult to make the time, but if my goal is to write just ONE letter a day, I think I can accomplish that. And, if I find I have more friends than days, I can always start the project earlier.

What do you think? Are there traditions that you might change?

Thanks, Desi, for getting me to think about this!

Cookie Day for 2006 has been officially canceled.

(sigh)

One of my nieces has been transfered this week, and has to work on Sunday, and another slipped and broke a toe. She can't stand through a day of cooking. Several other ladies have just too much to do to give up a day to bake.

So...I need to look over the list of cookies and plan a strategy for baking a few a day until we have enough to fill our gift boxes.

I have some old favorites, and a few new recipes to try. The favorites include:
Russian Tea Cakes (Mexican Wedding Cakes), Sugar Crisp, Turtle shortbread, Peanut Butter Blossoms, and Raspberry Ribbons.

Here are the new ones I'd like to try:
Choco-Coco Pecan Crisps
Fudge Tarts
Pastry Pillows
Frosted Sour Cream and Chocolate Drops
Apricot Nut Diamonds
Chocolate Mint Thumbprints
Old World Raspberry Bars and
Chocolate Mint Snow-Top Cookies

Since there's some duplication (but who can have too much chocolate?), I'll weed a couple out after I read the instructions again.

I also found an old recipe that my mother made when I was a child, for Kolache. She used to fill them with raspberry or apricot preserves, and sprinkle confectioner's sugar over them. hey were light, and sweet, and a favorite of the entire family.

I had to make a stop at Sur le Table to find the coarse sugar I needed for the Pastry Pillows. That doesn't seem to be a common ingredient in most grocery stores.

And, I may give in and do a recipe of Sugar Cookies that can be iced. We don't tend to do the traditional decorative cookies, so this might be a tip of the hat toward tradition.

This came in my e-mail today. It's titled "White Envelope." I'd be happy to give credit to the author, if anyone knows who wrote it. The message fits in with my quest to change tradtions at Christmas. I think something like this would be a lovely way to remember the son we lost New Years Eve.

It's just a small white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so.

It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas -- oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it -- the overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma -- the gifts given in desperation because you couldn't think of anything else.

Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties, and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way.

Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended. Shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church.

These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler's ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford.

Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat. Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, "I wish just one of them could have won," he said. "They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them." Mike loved kids -- all kids -- and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball, and lacrosse.

That's when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years.

For each Christmas, I followed the tradition -- one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on.

The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning, and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents.

As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn't end there. You see, we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning it was joined by three more.

Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope.

Mike's spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us. May we all remember Christ, who is the reason for the season, and the true Christmas spirit this year and always.

Saturday, as Elegante Mother and I started our errands, we turned east to drive between the two retention ponds that flank the road. I burst out laughing, and pointed to the south pond. The Canada geese were walking on water!

Apparently, it had been cold enough the day before, and through the night, to form a skim of ice on the surface that was strong enough to hold about eight geese. The black surface of the pond looked like still water, rather than ice. Perhaps the upper surface of the ice had started to melt.

By the time we returned, the ice was gone and the geese were swimming at the water's edge. The world was right once more, but not as funny as it had been earlier in the day.

I tried a new Christmas "cookie" this afternoon. I wanted to see if a short-cut cookie might be something to add to our list of favorites.

The recipe used ready-made peanut butter cookie dough. You divide an 18 ounce tube of dough into 24 pieces and bake them in tart-sized muffin tins. During the last two minutes of cooking you press a rounded measuring spoon into the dough to create a well, then continue baking until the dough is golden.

The peanut butter dough makes a tart base that holds a fudge filling.

It seems to me that the tart is a bit thick. It makes quite a substantial cookie, perhaps one that men would like more than women. I know....that's sexist. Don't bother to point it out.

I'm going to freeze the tarts and then add the fudge the day before the cookies are given as gifts. I'll have to see if the combination of the peanut butter base and the fudgy center will draw anyone back for seconds.

I know....most herons are lone. Fishing is better when you don't have a flock of young ones playing around in the pond.

What I meant to say, was that the heron we spoke of in November is STILL HERE! I know that this could be winter range for some of them, but this is the first time we have ever seen a heron this late in this area.

We're having an unusually mild winter so far. We did have those six inches of snow at the start of the month, but it's been gone for a couple of weeks. Our grass is green, and some of my herbs are still growing!

Saturday, as we came home we saw skein after skein of Canada geese flying NORTH. I just don't know enough about goose behavior to know what's going on. We realize that they practice flying in the Vs even this late in the year, and we know that many of them winter over in this area. These were quite large groups of geese, flying fairly high, and all aimed in the same direction. Does anyone have any insight to share on this?

Ed, our cranky, older, black cat asked to go outside today. It was a beautiful day, with lots of sunshine, and I saw no reason to keep him in. He's always been an indoor-outdoor cat, or I might have reconsidered.

I was putting a load of laundry into the washing machine, and looking out the window on the north lawn, when I saw Ed come around the corner. A gray squirrel had discovered the sunflower seed feeder at the back door, and was wrapped around the feeder, filching the seed. When Ed appeared, it startled the squirrel, who went flying, five or six feet across the lawn. Ed skittered and then turned and they both crouched and glared at each other, as if to say, "This is MY territory!" I'm surprised Ed didn't play chicken with the squirrel. Perhaps he's feeling his age, or maybe he wasn't hungry! *G*

I'm here. I just have time to read, but not to post, so I guess that makes me a lurker, or possibly a pseudo-lurker, because I've left comments here and there.

It looks like most of you have had a good Christmas. We had a lovely Christmas, with family from both sides. We went to my family for our traditional Christmas Eve, and to Dear Husband's family for Christmas Day. It was a hoot to watch our granddaughter open her gifts!

Santa was VERY good to me. I received a Canon Cybershot digital camera. I've been spending most of my free time learning to use it. So far, I can take a picture and delete it *G* My stepson is my camera guru. Of course, HIS hands FLY over the buttons, and it's nothing for him to download the pictures. I already have a file of Christmas pictures from 2006. I only hope that I can learn to be as proficient as Janet at using pictures in my blog!

I expect to be tied to my office chair for the next few days, and then I am going to demand time at my sewing machine. I'll grocery shop early, and choose plenty of easy to fix things, and then bury myself in my fabric!

The Christmas cookies were a hit. We gave seven boxes or tins of cookies to the ladies at the salon, and I took two platters to share on Christmas Eve. There was another platter for home, and I think we have enough to last the week.

I didn't get to the Kolache, but I think I may try to do them this weekend. I remember my mother making them when I was a kid, and it would be fun to revisit an old recipe.

In case I don't make it back before the weekend, I hope you all have a great New Years celebration! Happy New Year, y'all!

Some of my newer readers may not know that my youngest sister also blogs, as a part of the RedEagleSpirit group. She has been on hiatus thanks to an incredibly busy year, but she posted yesterday. I hope that you will click on the link for "Just My Opinion" and visit to see what she's been up to.

Sis....I didn't realize that you had been at your school for TWELVE YEARS! Had I been pressed for a guess, I might have said seven or maybe eight. Where has the time gone? Congratulations to you for continuing to take such good care of kids who really need to have someone care about them. Your halo is assured!

Happy New Year!

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?
And here's a hand, my trusty friend
And gie's a hand o' thine
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne