Holiday Wishes

I took this photo last year during our first snowfall of the season. Christmas here in the woods is very peaceful and I’m never happier than when we’re all home together, warm and snug, while the snow continues to fall. The girls are now on Christmas break, and today they’ll help me with the cooking and neighborhood gift exchange.

Yesterday, I heard Amanda exclaim that she has a “whole week” to read, read, read! A girl after my own heart. I do believe Santa will place a few new books under our tree and that my poor hubby will look at us and wonder how on earth we can sit for hours on end with our noses pressed to the page. He’s more of the ‘get out and do’ type. That’s okay, skiing is high on the list too. Although I’m the only one who doesn’t actually ski, I will brave the cold and watch them sail down the mountain with a lump in my throat and a beating heart that silences my breathing. The girls did not get their daring from me!

In addition to all of the reading I plan to enjoy, I hope to finish a few writing projects as well. And I’ve started something new, something just for me and my family that I thought I’d share. It’s a book about us. This is not a book for public consumption mind you, but a book to pass on to my children should they ever want to know why the heck we moved to New Hampshire, the struggles we faced when we were first married, and our most heart-warming memories of our pasts. It’s actually been quite fun to remember certain things about my own life that I’ve seemed to have completely forgotten. I’m still trying to piece together fragments of time, but I’m hoping lightening will strike and that it will all get recorded onto the page.

Oh, how I wish I had written more when my children were younger. I was so exhausted and so overwhelmed with motherhood at times that I missed capturing some of the most magical moments of my life. If I could do it all over again, I would carry a tape recorder around with me. Baby books and journals I started long ago are filled with blank pages, photo albums have been reduced to boxes of un-marked pictures waiting for a home, and in the last few years, I’ve been collecting memory cards – an ironic name for such an impersonal innovation. I have tried letting myself off the hook. I still have time to print and organize photos, I still have years of memories to record… and this is how the whole idea started in the first place.

Will my children laugh at my stories or wonder why I bothered to write them at all? Will they find our romantic ideas about living in the country sweet or sad? Time will tell. I do know that it’s important for me to write it all down, just in case. Memories are your history. Write them down before you forget – just a word, just a sentence – anything to keep time from blazing forward as the minutes turn to weeks and the weeks turn to years.

So with this note, and as I prepare to spend the next week enjoying time with my family and creating new memories, I leave you with a holiday wish… I wish you all a very, merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year filled with joyous moments you'll want to jot down.

Winter Chill

The snow if finally here! And just in time for Christmas. Last minute holiday preparations are under way and, like you, I have much to do. The shopping is done, the food is put away in the cupboards, but I have lots of wrapping, baking, and cooking yet to tackle. The holiday itself will be rather quiet, but the week following it will be filled with visits and parties I have yet to prepare for. One of those parties will include a Christmas pajama party for daughter #2. Guests will arrive in PJ's (that's the rule), and enjoy a breakfast of cinnamon French toast, sausages, chocolate biscuits, and hot chocolate before opening presents under the tree.

If you plan to host little ones over the holiday (And I include teenage girls in that category), then you might like to make a little keepsake for them to remember you by...

Snowman Stirrers:

Chopsticks

Candy canes

White modeling clay

Whole peppercorns or silver dragess

Cloth or felt scraps for hat and/or scarf

Almonds

Toothpicks

Orange paint

Twigs

You can use chopsticks or candy canes for the stirrers. It all depends on how you want to keep them. Roll out your snowman figure into balls no more that an inch in diameter. Before the clay dries, add peppercorns or dragees for the buttons (and eyes if you'd like). Affix twig arms (you can use pipe cleaners, wire, etc.), then add an almond slice or orange-painted toothpick end for the nose. Clothe Mr. or Ms. Snow with a cone-shaped hat and/or scarf and voila!

Images scanned from Country Home magazine

Dear Santa

I found this letter back in 1995 and it still tugs on my heart-strings. For all the little boys and girls...

Dear Santa,

     My 5-year-old boy scribbled out his Christmas list. It's there by the fireplace. The coke and chocolates are from him, in case you're hungry. You know 5-year-olds these days. The Cheez-Its are from me. Santa, if you don't mind, I thought I'd go ahead and leave my list too. It's long, but do what you can. It's all I want for Christmas.

• Santa, let my little boy grow up still believing that he has the funniest dad in the neighborhood.
• Give him many close friends, both boys and girls. May they fill his days with adventure, security and dirty fingernails.
• Leave his mom and me some magic dust that will keep him just the size he is now. We'd just as soon he stayed 5 years old and 3 feet 4 inches.
• If he must grow up, Santa, make sure he still wants to sit on my lap at bedtime and read The Frog & Toad Together.
• If you can help it, Santa, never let him be sent into war. His mother and I love our country, but we love our 5-year-old boy more.
• While you're at it, give our world leaders a copy of the Killer Angels, Michael Shaara's retelling of the battle of Gettysburg. May it remind them that too many moms and dads have wept at Christmas for soldiers who died in battles that needn't have been fought.
• Let our house always be filled with slamming doors and toilet seats, which are the official sounds of little boys.
• Break it to him gently, Santa, that his dad won't always be able to carry him to bed at night or brush his teeth for him. Teach him courage in the face of such change.
• Let him understand that no matter how nice you are to everyone, the world will sometimes break your heart. As you know, Santa, a child's feelings are as fragile as moth wings.
• Let him become a piano player, a soccer star or a clergyman. Or all three. Anything but a politician.
• Give him a hunger for books. music and geography. May he be the first kid in kindergarten to be able to find Madagascar on a map.
• The kid's a born artist, Santa, so send more crayons. May our kitchen window and refrigerator doors be ever plastered with his sketches of surreal rainbows and horses with big ears.
• Steer him oh so carefully to that little girl destined to be his bride. Let his mother and me still be around when he walks her down the aisle. If there is a just God, let her daddy be obscenely rich.
• Grant him a heart that will cherish what his parents did right, and forgive us for the mistakes we surely will have made over a lifetime of raising him.
• Let him not hold it against us that he was born with my chin and his mother's ears. Time will teach him that these are God's ways of girding him for life's adversities.
• Hold him steady on the day that he learns the truth about you and the Easter Bunny. May he take the news better than I did.
• While you're flying around the heavens, Santa, make sure God has heard our prayer for this child: Lead our little boy not into temptation; deliver him from evil.

Be careful out there, Santa. And close the flue on your way up.

Image scanned from Family Circle magazine. Letter by David V. Chartrand.

What's For Dessert? Chocolate Cake!

There is a reason I keep putting off buying that fabulous Kitchen Aid mixer. Baking! I'm a much better cook. Throwing a little of this, and a little of that together seems more natural to me. But what I am good at is eating all of those delicious baked goods... warm loaves of French bread, baskets of some-what-good and not-so-good for you muffins. I'm not much of a sweet eater, but I've never met a loaf of bread I didn't like! That's when I found this recipe for chocolate cake - not too sweet, easy to make, and not an ounce of butter, even in the frosting. (Add a sprig of Holly and you'll have a delicious holiday treat to serve to your guests.)

Cake:

Vegetable oil or cooking spray

1 cup warm water

1 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup canola oil

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar

Glaze:

2 ounces dark chocolate (preferably at least 70 percent cacao.)

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted

2 tablespoons water

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Coat an 8-inch round cake pan with spray. Whisk water and cocoa in a small bowl until smooth. Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Add cocoa mixture, oil, and vanilla. Whisk until smooth. Whisk in vinegar and then pour into pan. Bake 30-35 minutes and let the cake cool before glazing.

For the glaze: Melt chocolate in a heat-proof bowl set over simmering water. Stir until smooth and let cool slightly. Whisk together sugar and water until smooth and then slowly add melted chocolate to the sugar mixture whisking until thickened, about 1 minute. Immediately pour glaze over cooled cake.

Image via ayankeeinasouthernkitchen.com

Vintage: Bringing Back the Skating Party

Here in the Northeast, you'd better either know how to ski, skate, snowshoe, or enjoy staying indoors. Winters are long here and we make the best of it by enjoying the cold and snow no matter what the temperature outside may read. Friends of ours flood their backyard to create the cutest little ice rink. (Check out these instructions to make your own.) Although our large ponds will indeed freeze, it's always better to be safe and skate on shallower waters. Another friend of ours teaches ice rescue and recommends that the ice should be at least 6 inches thick before you attempt to skate on a lake or a pond. Be careful!

Once you've determined your location, be prepared to build a fire and place several logs or benches nearby for people to sit and rest a bit. Gather branches to roast marshmallows and don't forget a thermos or two of hot chocolate or cider. If you can swing it, take along some battery-operated lights and string them from thick branches that you can set in the snow or the ground, and place them vertically around the rink. And don't forget the music!

Of course you'll want to look your best, so offer a prize for snazziest costume. Girls: layer on the long underwear and leggings and then dress in the swirliest skirt you can find. Boys: hats are your main attraction. Let's see buffalo plaid, Elmer Fudd-style chapeaus!

Images scanned from Victoria magazine

Decorating With Cranberries

Just look at all of the wonderful decorations you can create with cranberries. Growing up, my family would sit and string strand after strand of popcorn (it has to be stale) and cranberry garlands for our tree. But if you're looking for something a little more unique, take a peak below.

1. Insert toothpick halves into each berry and then use the other end to pierce a foam ball for perfect pomades. 2. Freeze berries and water in a bundt pan mold to make a punch bowl ice ring, fill an ice bucket with layers of berries and mint for a luminous ice bucket (as seen above), or simply freeze berries in a regular ice tray for drinks. 3. I use cranberries, instead of stones, to hold my paperwhites. Cranberries are perfect for hiding the stems of any flower arrangement. 4. Fill small bowls with cranberries to place around the table as is, or to hold votives or place cards.

Images scanned from '06 Holiday with Matthew Mead

Ah, The Holiday Season...

With Halloween and Thanksgiving firmly behind us, and Christmas and New Year’s Eve on the horizon (and Hanukkah already here), we'll pile even more on to the “to-do” list and add to our already harried schedules.

The decorating, cooking, shopping, and all of the festivities we plan to attend, can leave us drained and reaching for that holiday ideal that just doesn’t exist. Each year we stress ourselves out, stretch our budgets to the max, and walk the thin line between reality and fantasy that, frankly, leaves us wondering “why?”, or screaming declarations of “never again!”

I’m just as guilty as the next person. I’ve always had great expectations this time of year. I have made promises to myself in the past that this is the year I will fill my home with so much holiday cheer that everyone who enters will be as jolly as an elf. I envision a Norman Rockwell, picture-perfect celebration with hand-made gifts (should have started them in June), tins filled with Christmas cookies and yummy gifts from the kitchen (there are never enough chocolate chips in the house), and the perfectly decorated home – that only takes 3 full days to pull off!

The ghost of Christmas past reminds me of the year the oven door broke – one of my first as host to my husband’s large family – and a stick was needed to keep the door closed. Guests were milling about, while I dodged a wooden dowel firmly planted on the kitchen floor and wedged under the handle. Charming. Our very first Christmas in New Hampshire had me rushing to a friend’s home, 45 minutes away, to pre-cook our meal two days before because the 3rd oven we ordered still had not come back converted correctly for gas cooking. On Christmas day I microwaved turkey and all the trimmings. Or perhaps you’ll chuckle at the time I had 16 for dinner and 16 overnight guests because we all got snowed in. By the next morning, I was ready to run screaming into the woods. And just last year, my youngest daughter and I watched my beloved tree crash into the center of the room destroying several heirloom ornaments. (My tree is now nailed into the floor!) All unique but memorable - one year as imperfect as the other.

So instead of striving for that perfect holiday, keep it simple. If something doesn't get done, or if only half of your decorations are up, so what. Let yourself off the hook. Then start a new tradition this year, and exchange comical stories of holidays past to lighten your mood. The season is not about presents or trees or parties, it's about spending time with family and creating memories that will last a lifetime. And guess what? I’m actually following my own advice for a change. I think this recovering perfectionist might actually have a very, merry Christmas after all.

Image via countryliving.com