Kismet

Normalcy

I am so glad that after two weeks, this; 

is all gone and I am no longer house-bound. 

Wheeee!!!!

~K!

Merry Christmas

And the angel said unto them, "Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, Which shall be to all people. "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, Lying in a manger. - St. Luke 10-12

Christmas - that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance - a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.  - Augusta E. Rundel

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. - Dr. Seuss

Christmas is here, be of good cheer. May it bring you gifts of love and joy. 

From my family to yours.

Merry Christmas!

~K!

Deep Freeze

Please go and visit DotBlogger and read a post that made me cry. You won't be sorry.

We are in the midst of what the media types are calling an Arctic Blast! It has been highly unusual weather for our normally mild climes. We have nearly a foot of snow on the ground with freezing rain on top of that with daily temperatures hovering in the mid 20s. It is being hailed as the storm of the century. I know you Mid-westerners scoff and laugh but it pretty much paralyzes us because we aren't used to it. We here in the Pacific NW don't plan to shovel our driveways, stock our pantries and wear 3 layers of clothing. So it's fun for the first few days when it happens. The kids miss school and chains go on the cars and everyone complains about how the other guy doesn't know how to drive in the snow. 

But the bad weather has severely put a dent in the Christmas shopping here. I did most of my shopping online but even package delivery has been delayed. I got the majority of it done and what I didn't get I guess we'll just do without.

Except that I think my mother in law will be spending the night with us on Christmas Eve (weather permitting) and I didn't get her gifts bought nor anything for an extra stocking. Since it's only been 2 months since dad died, we don't want mom to be alone and lonely on Christmas morning. I can't imagine what it would be like to spend every holiday for 50 years with the man that I love and then suddenly have every remaining holiday without him. 

We'll see. Things have a way of working themselves out. 

I don't want to tempt the fates but we have been remarkably healthy this season. Until I realized tonight that I kept rubbing the side of my face and tugging on my ear and finally had to admit, I have an earache. I am ignoring it, except for telling you guys, in the hopes that it is nothing and tomorrow it'll be gone. The ache, not the ear. :P

Here is a little Christmas treat for you. 

Merry Christmas. 

~K!

Baking

I gathered up the local granddaughters last Saturday, told my daughter and her husband to go out and spend the day together and headed to my sister's house. Our plan was to decorate gingerbread cookies, build a gingerbread house with graham crackers and make Santa hat cookie bites.

I knew Mason wouldn't last long on the project, especially since his favorite 'big boy' cousin was there. Zoe is 16 and his room holds all kinds of mysterious wonders, including guitars, games for the Gamecube that are off limits at home, a computer, posters, a gaming chair, and lots more. So it was important to get started right away before he lost interest. 

I should have made the frames at home to give them time to dry and harden. We never got back to them cause they wouldn't set up. Each child took home a flimsy skeleton. 

On to the gingerbread. We decorated a whole family, including dogs, stars, trees, Santas, snowmen, and bells.

For the Santa hat cookie bites I did do the prep work at home. The kids had fun dipping them into colored chocolate and sprinkling on the glitter. We lost a few into the chocolate and had to taste test a few but it was worth the effort.

The colors ran a bit but don't they look almost professional? :)

I had brought along a box of  Candy Cane Peppermint Joe-Joes thinking we might dip some of them also if we had time. My sister Tommi had a great idea and stuck one on a stick and dipped it and decorated it. 

Looks just like her!

This is Katie and Yolanta's first Christmas with their new forever family and I hope this might become a new tradition for us. I would love to do this every year. 

 

It was a busy, productive day. One I would live all over again if given the opportunity. 

(Little Katie is kinda hard to see standing there in front of Grammy :)

Merry Christmas and happy baking. 

~K!

Trimming the tree

It took us nearly a week after going out to cut down our tree for us to get it into the house and then a few more days of working on it to get it decorated. But it looks great. Today while I was putting on the finishing touches (putting on the 'rain') Mason was examining some ornaments that he didn't see when we decorated. He clapped his hands and said, 

"Wow, we're rich!"

"We are? How so?"

"These ornaments!"

I looked down to see him on his knees biting a silver little ornament. 

"Mase, what are you doing?"

"I'm checking to see if these are January."

"January?"

"Yes, if they are January gold."

"Oh! I think the word you want is genuine."

He watched me putting some special glass ornaments near the top of the tree and asked me about them. 

When my sister married her husband, Mark in 1990 he began to include us in a tradition he had with his own family. Every year he would purchase exquisite square glass ornaments that were etched with a Christmas theme and the year it was made. It was a gift of love as he has 6 brothers and sisters and had just inherited 2 more sisters. 

This is my first one from 1990, though it is hard to see and this picture doesn't do it justice.

Mark continued to present us with these ornaments and even included my girls when they each married. So now they each have ones starting the year they were married. 

Eventually though the artist had to raise his prices and it just became too much and Mark had to give up buying for so many family members. It was a generous thing to have gone on as long as it did. But I was sad about it. My daughter Julie knew how much I loved them and the following Christmas Eve much to my delight I found a small package with my name on it and inside that year's glass ornament. Julie decided to carry on the tradition for her family and her mother. 

As I hung them on the tree today I explained the significance of each year to Mason. He of course was most interested in the 2000 one as that is the year he was born. We talked about how pretty they are and how the lights on the trees sparkle and dance off the glass. I tried to capture that here. 

They really do sparkle and shine and reflect the lights. I have 17 of them and cherish each and every one. I always try to group them on the tree. One year I had a separate little tree with only the glass ornaments on it. Lovely.

Remember when I told you I am not crafty? It isn't as if I haven't tried, honestly. Years and years ago I saw a Christmas craft in a magazine that I felt confident I could copy. I went to the craft store and bought supplies, dug out a rarely used sewing machine and started cutting. I made a few mistakes along the way but was rather surprised when they actually turned out close to what I was attempting. When David dug out all the Christmas boxes this week he made sure to get every last one cause he wants to consolidate and organize. I dug to the bottom of one and found a pile of that long ago craft project. You can tell that I got better as I went along. There are some funky colors, some weird stitching and the hanger loops are varying sizes. Some have lost their glued on googly eyes. But I was able to hang a half dozen or so on the tree....for prosperity's sake.

This is one of the very first ones I think

That's some fancy stitching. But it got a little better.

Until I for some unknown reason picked this mustard color. I think I was going for Palomino.

But they ultimately got hung on our tree lo those many years ago. And again today. 

Tomorrow we decorate gingerbread cookies, make graham cracker 'gingerbread' houses and attempt these Santa hats. 

What is on your holiday agenda?

~K!

Holiday happenings

I usually include a Christmas letter when I send cards. When I send cards. Here it is getting busier and busier and I still haven't written my letter. I even got smart this year and kept a little note pad on my computer and noted the happenings of the year so I could refer to it when writing my letter. I have a problem remembering back to the previous Jan/Feb/Mar when Dec rolls around and it is time to note the year's events. But even that prompt hasn't seemed to help to motivate me this year. Maybe I should just print my blog. I've heard you can compile your blog into a book. I doubt anyone would read it who hasn't already read the blog.

We went to the tree farm and cut down our tree. We took the local grandgirls. Their family went 'artificial' this year but my daughter wanted the 'new girls' to experience cutting the tree. It was a fun day. I want to have the girls over this weekend to decorate gingerbread cookies and maybe make a surprise. Their mom and dad can have a day off for shopping.

 

Today is my favorite nephew's 15th birthday. Happy Birthday Zoe.

~K!

Ordinary things

My husband and I have an ongoing battle for custody of a 2 pronged meat fork. It is a little thing that is just right for certain tasks in the kitchen. During the summer it is especially hard to keep track of because David steals it for the bar-b-q and has a habit of leaving it outside. 

It is a simple little thing with a rosewood handle that I think I might even have bought at a garage sale but we are both attached to it. Today I went searching for it in my highly disorganized and extremely overcrowded kitchen drawers. Frustrated, I started emptying the drawers, sorting and compiling utensils. Oy! I am a pack-rat to the worst degree. I ask you, how many steak knives does one household need?

And this doesn't include the ones in the knife block! All these knives where jammed in the back of the silverware drawer. None of them match. Some were hand me downs from my mother-in-law when we got married. Some are from long forgotten knife sets and I suppose some might be from different garage sales. I don't even need them, they just seem to multiply.

And then at the back of the drawer I found these

Now, we haven't had an infant living in this house for years. But I just can't seem to part with these baby spoons. They represent time-lines to me, memories, family history. In fact I had my own childhood spoon in my drawer for a long time. I have very few possessions from when I was a child.  But this was one of the first things I passed on to one of my own daughters. My spoon was a silver Yogi the Bear spoon that looks like this one (only mine was much tarnished).

Remember I told you my dad was called Yogi? I guess that is why my spoon was a cartoon character. 

When my 'oldest' daughter, Julie, was pregnant with her oldest daughter I dug out that spoon, got out her own baby spoon and went out and bought a new one. I tied pink ribbons on each spoon and presented them to her at her baby shower along with a card reminding her of the strength of the of women of our family as represented by the three generations of baby spoons. She was about to give birth to a new generation in our family and it was a remarkable event. 

I guess sometimes it's good to hang on to things. 

What ordinary things have you received or passed on that have taken on meaning in your life?

~K!