Category — Holidays

So. . . are you ready?

Ugh, my pictures have been rare and poor since my point-and-shoot camera broke. I'm really hoping that Santa comes through with a replacement!

I’m doing pretty well, actually. I’ve done all of my shopping except for my last pre-holiday grocery shopping, which will be tomorrow.

We’re mostly ready except that I have to sew a couple of Ewok cloaks. You heard me. No, I’m not kidding.  Remember that I said that J has become interested in Star Wars because of her recent Baby Ewok adoption? Well, Baby Ewok needs a couple of new cloaks, and believe it or not, this is a difficult-to-find item. So I’ve got some lovely patterned felt made out of recycled plastic bottles, and I’m going to have to get crafty. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m trying to work like crazy, crazy, crazy so that I can relax beginning Christmas Eve Eve. Cute W’s taking the day off from work and I have this fantasy that we’ll cuddle up on the couch in front of a fire and watch It’s A Wonderful Life together. I watch it every year and cry like a baby every time. And this makes me sound horrible, but I don’t really like watching movies with my kid. Either I think it’s boring, and I desperately want to get out my little Netbook computer and work on blog stuff but feel like it’s too rude, or it’s a movie that I like, and then I have to stop and answer questions along the way, thus ruining my movie fun. I realize that this makes me a bad, bad person. Also, as long as I’m confessing: it’s just so much more relaxing to eat a meal all by myself with a good book. There. I said it.

But, anyway, I want to check everything off my list so that I can live out this glorious fantasy of sitting around and doing nothing with my husband while my children are in school. If we pull this off without breaking down and doing some last-minute shopping trip or having–I don’t know–a household crisis of some sort, then I’m going to shoot for this to be a new holiday tradition. Meanwhile I’ve completely blown off Christmas cards (hello? I blog practically every day) and the buttermints this year (when both kids ranked them 5th on the Christmas Cookie Favorite list, I lost all motivation).

How’s everyone else doing? Did you blow off any old stressful traditions this year, or are you starting up anything new?

So, I’ve had a somewhat emotionally exhausting day with a teacher conference that I feared would be contentious scheduled for smack dab in the middle of my day. The conference actually turned out quite peaceful and cordial, but my jaw is still sore from night-time stress teeth-grinding for the past two nights. I’d told myself that I’d treat myself to the reward of actually making my dang wreath after the conference. It didn’t happen. Instead, I’d forgotten that I’d promised to proofread something for Cute W’s work, and then J came down with a killer case of writer’s block. She was only supposed to come up with a few spelling sentences, but she imposes excessive demands on herself and wants to come up with clever sentences that  incorporate 3 or 4 of her spelling words in a single sentence. After much moaning, hand-wringing, and (more!) teeth gnashing, I called it after two sentences and wrote the teacher a note instead. Meanwhile I was late for making dinner.

The rest of the evening has melted away in a similar fashion. So, sigh, I’m just not going to get a chance to tell you about another cool giveaway coming up (tomorrow!).

Instead, I’ll share two links with you

I liked this iVillage article with suggestions on how you can prove that Santa exists.

I also recently passed along a local holiday shopping list over on All Over Albany. Alas, Instead of using photographs of the lovely wares, like this one with cool stuff from Divinitea  . . .

Or some of these lovely little trinkets from Northeastern Fine Jewelry. . .

the editors chose to forgo them and instead publish an unbelievably enormous photograph of me. Wow. . . that’s big. Thanks to my friend who took the picture: I would have made sure that you got credit if I’d realized that the picture itself would be so big. And prominent. And also big. Not like it’s a bad picture. You know, it’s a good picture. But also, awfully big.

Click on over  if you want the details on these lovely items and other local holiday gift ideas. But you might want to squint a little bit so I don’t scare you.

So I mentioned that a couple of weekends ago I was helping out with some craftiness at my church. I had organized two crafts:  felt ornaments , which we’ve done before, and wire-wrapped ornaments. I got the idea for a wire-wrapped star from this Family Fun how-to, but it was not as easy as it appeared. Basically, I was supposed to wrap 18-gauge wire around a star cookie cutter, and then kids could use lighter-weight wire to wrap around the star and make it pretty. Wrapping the wire was a pain in the neck, especially since I wanted to make a bunch for lots of kids to do. Cute W helped by putting some nails into a board, which made wrapping a bit easier, but it was still labor-intensive, and the stars weren’t too pretty.  Of course, I was figuring all this out the night before the event. Ugh.

I decided to wing it and go a little bit more free-form with the craft. First, I Googled and found directions for making these awesome and pretty word ornaments.  Luckily I had a variety of wires to use for the craftiness. I ‘d bought the thick, sturdier 18-gauge wire, but I also had 22- and 24-gauge wire. If you’re looking for wire like this, you’ll usually find it near the jewelry-making section at craft stores. Basically, the lower the number, the thicker, sturdier, more difficult to bend, and  usually more expensive the wire will be. Here are some of the ornaments that we made:

For me, the 22-gauge wire was great for just tooling around with shapes, but it probably wouldn’t have been able to have another wire wrap around it–you’d need a thicker “base wire” for that.  It was fun to just play around with it. Like, that little silver shape next to the heart seemed like a pendant for a necklace that I might buy.

A grown-up added beads to make this Christmas-tree-shaped ornament in just a few minutes:

Cute, right?

I had some leftover wire, and since then, the girls have been delving into it some more.  In fact, I had all of my leftovers set aside, because I planned to make a couple of extra-nice ornaments for the blog. But I didn’t share this plan with girls, and before I knew it, they’d commandeered the leftovers for their own craftiness:

Here are a couple that they made all on their own:

M made the musical note with craft wire, and the bird and matryoshka dolls are made from cut-outs that I’d prepped for the crafting event. They came from this unbelievably adorable  book, Fa La La La Felt, which will make you yearn to craft immediately. Many of the crafts are ambitious, but luckily, they can be taken down a notch to accommodate the patience and skills of children. And/or this blogger.

In fact, I feel a bit guilty, because in the book there are these bee-you-tee-ful matryoshka ornaments that are sewn together with a little batting to give them body, and I did a modified version, and then my kids stole the pieces and modified them some more.  Same deal with the bird: in the book, it was a lovely dove with a coordinating floral-patterned wing piece that I’d planned to make, but one of the kids just had a rick-rack and button party all over it. So these are cute, but the ones in the book are gorgeous.  And absolutely do-able, just not do-able for me right now when I’m also working on Christmas shopping and helping kids with homework and  keeping up with the blog. I was sad that there wasn’t one of those “Look Inside!” options so that you could see the Many Splendid Crafts in the book, so I poked around a bit and located the author’s blog, which is going into my Google Reader.

The wire crafts are going to be part of this year’s Crafty Girl Party. The book is on my Christmas list (hint, hint).

We’ve got our Christmas tree. We cut our own at Bob’s Trees this year. This was a departure for us–we’ve been to Ellm’s Family Farm for the past two years. And we do like Ellm’s (here’s the post from last year). But last year the choices seemed a little sparse, so we thought that we’d venture out.

Bob’s is a farther drive away from us than Ellm’s, but not by much. Both places have lovely extras, like reindeer, Santa, and food to buy. All the cut-your-own trees cost $45, while at Ellm’s, prices vary by height, but they’re generally higher.  The selection at Bob’s was better, absolutely, but I’d also say that Bob’s was a bit more challenging. At Ellm’s, you park, and then ride on a trolley through the farm to get close to whatever bunch of trees that you like. They provide saws as well as little drag-your-tree-around carts. You bring your tree back to the trolley stop and the staff remove the trees and bundle them up for your convenience. At Bob’s, you drive in and park so that you’re somewhat closer to trees, but you’re likely to do some hiking in your hunt for the perfect tree. They provide saws, but no carts. So you walk back to your car carrying the tree, then you place your own tree onto the car. Really, you could get help by carrying or driving your tree down to the sort of “base camp” at the bottom of the hill, but that’s not super-convenient. Cute W and I agreed that at Bob’s, it felt more like you were tramping through the woods on your own looking for a tree, which feels more fun and authentic. But that’s because we don’t have little kids anymore. If I had toddlers or preschoolers, it might feel like a death march. And I’d definitely bring a red wagon.

J & M ponder our tree's worthiness.

Oh, but here’s one bittersweet custom that I appreciated at Bob’s. You can claim your tree early: people actually tagged their future Christmas tree and decorated it in some cases. Cross-country skiing is available, so you’re encouraged to scout out next year’s tree. And I say bittersweet because of course the pre-claimed trees were the most awesome trees around. We’d see one, head for it, and then notice that someone had already added tinsel. Dang.

If you’re thinking of cutting your own tree and need a little help on your tree hunt, you can check out the post I wrote last year on All Over Albany or the list available on KidsOutAndAbout.com.

And by “holiday,” I don’t mean Christmas. I mean the next important holiday coming up: Thanksgiving.

Last year I posted about our Thankful Tree. We love the Thankful Tree. For years, it’s been a humble little construction paper-twig tree, like the original idea from Family Fun.

But this year, with that heavy snowfall, we had several branches just lounging all over our front yard. I couldn’t resist an upgrade. And then the twig was so pretty that it seemed a shame to hang those cut-out construction paper leaves, and I remembered that I have one of those fake-leaf garlands. Because while I am not generally a shopper, I am a sucker for a craft store seasonal bargain bin. Voila:

Happy Halloween, everybody!

We ended up skipping out on an after school Halloween party because the girls were freakishly tired. Instead, they stayed home and practiced piano/cello and then vegged out in front of the tv. By early evening the prospect of candy re-invigorated them.

Just as we were going out, M asked for eye make-up. Well, duh, she’s Cleopatra, but as you know, I never think of make-up. I don’t even own eyeliner, so I improvised by dipping a paintbrush into a container of mascara. When M saw me do this she asked, “Is that a paintbrush?!?” with this complete why-am-I-stuck-with-such-an-amateur-for-a-mom tone of voice. But I managed some passable black swoops from each eye and she looked pretty good. J had a cozy Eskimo girl costume, which was perfect for the weather.

I took them out trick-or-treating early, then they came home for a soup dinner and went back out with Cute W. Then, and this is where it gets ridiculous, they went back out, briefly, again. They’d been to a neighbor’s house who’d handed out big candy bars last year and they were disappointed because they got mini-bars. Then a friend dropped by (trick-or-treating) and reported that  he’d received a giant candy bar. So the girls, who had already trick-or-treated at this house once, changed into entirely new outfits (yes, we have an excellent dress-up section in our playroom) and walked up the street again. No dice. Apparently the neighbors were giving the candies selectively and our girls didn’t make the cut. Granted, it’s cheating to go a second time. But they were so cozy and warm at home that I could hardly believe that they were motivated enough to get up, change, and go out again. Behold the power of chocolate.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve found for this week:

Tuesday, November 1st:

• At 1:30 pm, Bethlehem Public Library has On My Own, where 3- to 6-year-olds enjoy a story time while parents stay close-but-not-too-close.

Wednesday, November 2nd:

• From 11-11:30 am, it’s Worldwide Wednesdays International Games for preschoolers at the World Awareness Children’s Museum. Included with museum admission.
• At 1:30 pm, Bethlehem Public Library has On My Own, where 3- to 6-year-olds enjoy a story time while parents stay close-but-not-too-close.
• It’s World Travelers at 1:45 pm at the Children’s Museum at Saratoga.

Thursday, November 3rd:

• Take a family-friendly hike starting at 9:45 am.
• At 1o:30 am, Bethlehem Public Library has On My Own, where 3- to 6-year-olds enjoy a story time while parents stay close-but-not-too-close.
• Elementary-school-aged kids can be After School Adventurers from 3:30-4:30 pm at Albany Pine Bush. $3/person or $5/family.

Friday, November 4th:

• Take a First Friday Hike at noon at Albany Pine Bush. $3/person or $5/family.
• Clifton Park is doing a Stewardship Walk at 1 pm at Veterans’ Memorial Park.
• It’s First Friday in Albany from 5-9 pm.
• Malta Mama is once again doing Kidsgiving at Treepaad in Malta. It’s from 6-8 pm, and it’s $12/child, $8/kids 2 and under, and the money raised goes to impoverished children.
• Go on a Star Watch from 6:30-8 pm at Grafton Lakes State Park.

Here’s a guest post from June, my colleague at Kids Out and About. She occasionally (and it’s very occasionally lately–ahem!) writes a blog called My Name is June. I Like to Cook. She also wrote the post about making pancakes. Thanks, June!

Do you order pizza on Halloween to scarf down while you pass out chocolate to the trick or treaters? Really? Lame. Really lame. If you plan ahead a little, you can make this stew in advance and then just pop it into the pumpkin at the last minute. You still have two weeks to plan and cook it, because since you’re a good parent like me, you have abdicated all responsibility for the young ‘un’s costumes to the young ‘uns. It’s good for them. Makes them use their little noggins to come up with something original using only duct tape and the leftover tulle from their sister’s wedding. Can you say “Mummy”?

So, while the little ones thrash about desperately trying to complete their costumes before sundown on Halloween, pop this fun stew into the oven and you can pull it out just as the first little monsters show up at your door and demand protection money in the form of chocolate. And let’s not even get into those of you who are too cheap to spring for anything better than a mini tootsie roll. Puhleeze. It’s once a year. But then, who am I to judge? We live so far off the beaten path that I have never had a trick or treater darken my door. I have to go sit on a friend’s porch, but not before we eat the traditional Halloween pumpkin stew. Grandma Foodie used to make it every year when I was a kid. But I’ll bring a pumpkin roll and a bottle of wine with me to my friend’s house, so she’ll be happy to see me. I might even bring her a bowl of pumpkin stew.

Pumpkin Stew

3 T vegetable oil
3 cloves minced garlic
2 chopped green peppers
2 chopped onions
2 lbs beef stew meat
2 chopped tomatoes
1 T sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 pkgs frozen corn
3 diced potatoes
3 smallish sweet potatoes, diced
2 C beef bouillon
8 peach halves
1 medium pumpkin (if you can find  a pretty large pie pumpkin, they are sweeter and not stringy)
3 T butter
11/2 tsp salt

In a large dutch oven, brown garlic, peppers, onions, and stew meat in oil. Add tomatoes and salt. Simmer 20 minutes. Add corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, bouillon, and peaches and simmer 40 minutes.

Brush inside of pumpkin with butter and sprinkle with salt. Add stew and put lid on and bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees or until pumpkin is tender.

I think that this concludes the festive string of posts celebrating J’s birthday. This yummy pumpkin cheeseball could work for a grown-up party, too. We got the idea for it from the Southern Living Kids Cookbook, but J wanted to go with our much-loved family recipe for cheeseball. And then I decided that if there was a chance in hell that any kid besides J would eat any of it, I’d have to simplify. So I cut out all the veggies and about half of the spices.

The thing about cheeseball is that you just have to give in and use your hands. ut once you just surrender to the process, it becomes like creating a work of art. J wanted no part of “touching the ickiness.” But I had fun.

First, I sculpted the main shape, with ridges for the pumpkin.

Cheeseball shaped

Then I cut a little rectangular stencil shape and shook on some paprika.

Shaking on Paprika

The stem and leaves are from broccoli. This part, J was willing to do.

J puts on finishing touches

We served it with apple wedges, crackers, and pretzels. The kids admired it, but they didn’t eat much. I mean, come on: it was competing with popcorn balls. So, yeah. I finished it off.

Besides freeze dancing and general running and squealing, we planned two activities for J’s party. Once again, they were both all J’s idea.

First, she came up with Pin the Spider on the Web. We had a witch hat planned to assist in the blindfolding process, but it didn’t really happen. And each spider was labeled with a guest’s name. We had a huge web decoration stretched out onto the wall, and the little spiders had painters tape to stick them onto the web.

They looked cute all ready on a platter. The silver was tarnished which, I reasoned, just made it all seem more Halloweeny.

Here’s J moments before M accused her of cheating. Hmmm. . . .

We saved Bobbing for Apples for last in case people got wet. I expected that some of the girls would be anti-bobbing. I mean, it wasn’t too long ago that many of these kids were afraid to put their faces into the water at the pool. But they were unbelievably enthusiastic. We had J’s and M’s robes on hand to try to keep the girls as dry as possible, but those girls decided to go deep. I mean, seriously deep. And when they’d come up, apple trapped in teeth, they were triumphant.

I guess there’s a reason why Bobbing for Apples is a classic.

J picked out Snack-o’-Lanterns from Family Fun magazine as one of her many Halloween treats. I was skeptical: they looked tough. So I made a test orange jack-o-lantern. Turns out, it wasn’t too bad:

Of course, the whole point is to get the kids involved, so I took a deep breath and handed each of them a paring knife. Generally speaking, I’m in favor of giving kids knives. They tend to be much more careful with them than grown-ups, anyway. Still, it was nerve-wracking.

Careful, honey!

You cut off the top, pull out most of the insides, and cut a face. Then we popped them into the fridge for later. For the party, we filled them with fruit salad.

M loved making these. They were her favorite of all the Halloween treats. J liked it, but she’d get frustrated, too, and so she’d take breaks between o’-lanterns. If I’m honest, I have to admit that she was partly frustrated by me stressing out and saying, “Watch the knife! Keep your fingers higher on the handle! These are sharp!” Once she even said ouch and I freaked completely, but it was just because orange juice had squirted into her eye. Phew!

Anyway, the oranges were cute, and the kids loved them!