Yuletide Arts & Crafts

My father, a man of mathematics, science and logic, who spent the better part of 47 years working in a laboratory testing soil samples and rocks, is not what one would call artistic. In fact, when asked about the aesthetic quality of an item, he's more likely to respond with, "Well, does it make sense and is it useful?" Therefore, it doesn't stand to reason that he would be the parent I would turn to for help with arts and crafts projects. My mother, after all, taught me to sew, knit, embroider, and artfully dollop meringue onto a perfectly baked lemon pie.

However, there are times when a man of precision is just the right person for a craft project. No, I wouldn't dream of asking him to offer advice on whether or not two plaids complement each other or if I should select cream in lieu of ecru. But he comes in awfully handy whenever power tools are in order, or if I need someone to sit down with a paper cutter and meticulously measure and trim cardstock to exact dimensions.

And so when, earlier this year, my dad and brothers cut down my mother's beloved aging birch tree in the front yard – the one she transplanted from her parents' woods – I scrambled to grab manageable-sized branches and small limbs, knowing I'd be putting my dad to work closer to Christmastime.

My plan? I would create my very own Yule log for the Christmas table.

"I need you to drill large holes in a birch branch," I informed him. "And you'll need a saw, too," I added. I explained my vision and he tested me on such things as, "Okay, how are you going to make sure this log sits level and doesn't roll? Have you considered the dripping wax? Are all taper candles of uniform circumference?" Very important questions to consider, indeed!

Before commencing, he carefully measured the spacing of the three holes, announcing they were equidistant from each other and straight as an arrow. (I wasn't worried.) Then he engaged me in a lengthy conversation about the depth of the holes, and how much of the log we should shave off each end.

I stood by him in the garage as he bored candle holes in my soon-to-be Yule log and then tidied up the ends of the log. As sawdust flew, the smell of the wooden shavings reminded me of my childhood and all the home projects he completed, his table saw whirring away as his spot-on measurements were cut and trimmed.

The log prepped and ready, the next stage was decorating. I don't know that my mom has ever used a glue gun. I got those mad skills from my dad, too. Some winter berries and greenery pieces found themselves artfully arranged on the top of the log amid white and red candles. Next, I implemented his advice about using small tacks on the bottom of the log to keep the temperamental log from rolling, flaming candles and all.

Violà! A centerpiece fit for the prettiest of Christmas tables. Happy Yuletide!

Shoe Shopping and Latte Sipping with the Lil' Sis: A Scrumptious Pairing!

Although there are thirteen and one-third years between us, as well as six siblings including another sister, my littlest sister (aka "The Baby") and I gravitate toward one another from time to time. This is probably due to the fact that, when she was little, I was always on hand to take her roller skating, shopping and to movies. Truth be told, she was in kindergarten when my future husband and I met in college, and therefore many of our first dates involved taking her to G-rated movies and other age-appropriate activities. We eventually stopped correcting people when they told us we made a beautiful family. It just wasn't worth the hassle.

But, having traded all of her baby teeth now for perfectly white and orthodontically straightened adult ones, she is in college and is no longer looking for a big sister to deposit her at a play date or supervise her at the swimming pool. Gone is the necessity to "look out for her," however, the instinct is pretty firmly imbedded in my subconscious (thanks to my mother). It's an interesting dichotomy -- she's not my daughter, however she's a half generation too young to really feel like my sister.

I lost track of when, exactly, her feet reached my size 11 in length. It was somewhere around her high school years, I imagine, because I remember slipping into a pair of her chunky, stacked Mary Janes and wondering if you had to be a teenager to pull them off, or if people at the office might find them as cute and creative-looking as I did.

For the first time in my life, I had a sister with whom I could share clothing, even if it only meant shoes. This was going to be nice! It was also around this time that I learned that she too had subverted my mom's abhorrence of all things tasting of coffee, and did indeed enjoy a good latte herself.

And so, we find ourselves standing on common ground (in our size 11s). My free hand stays toasty, wrapped around a large almond latte, as I stroll next to her amid the tables of shoes in the department store. She is enjoying a medium vanilla latte. We pick up shoes, inspecting and price checking, visualizing outfits that would be completed by a quiet yet classic pair of black strappy heels or spruced up with a coquettish pair of dark red patent pumps. We try on boots. We swap boxes. She holds my coffee as I slip on a pair of darling peacock-colored satin heels. I grumble that, although the color is sublime, alas, I have nothing they would go with. “Who cares!” she enthuses. “Sometimes you just have to buy the clothes so you can wear the shoes.”

We spend the afternoon slipping on boots, pumps, flats and fancy heels, finishing our lattes and pausing to wonder if the day is worthy of another java stop. I walk out of the final store with two sensible pairs that I know will wear well with my work wardrobe, and she walks out with a few pair that I’m secretly excited to borrow.

Life marches on and relationships change, grow, and expand. And with each passing year, I am amazed to find shared interests with some of my brothers and sisters I never could have predicted. It’s important to take advantage of these moments with siblings. These are the people with whom we share not only genes, but our history, our memories, our family traditions, and our looks. And in my case, shoe size!

Gingerbread Houses!

 
One Christmas tradition my kids eagerly await each year is the day my husband and I sit down at the kitchen table with them to build gingerbread houses. They each, of course, have to build their very own. So we set aside a weekend afternoon to put our baked good architectural skills to work. These whimsical little houses are utterly cheerful and remind me of a winter CandyLand. What’s not to love about creating a gumdrop path or licorice windows? Plus, this activity allows the kids’ imaginations to run wild. One year, they put a blue rolled fruit snack to use to create a “pond” outside their gingerbread homes.

In many things, I feel taking the easy way out is cheating. However, I’ve agreed to purchase gingerbread house kits in lieu of actually baking the gingerbread myself and then cutting it into cottage-friendly pieces. Perhaps if one of my engineer brothers were to assist with this endeavor, it might be worth the hassle, but I’m perfectly happy to leave the mathematics and measurements of gingerbread walls up to the experts.

The tricky part of this project is that it demands a small amount of patience. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and as we found out last year, neither are gingerbread houses. My kids are always ecstatic when I mix up the icing and their dad lays out the gingerbread pieces, but once we start erecting these little houses, my kids believe the icing should dry immediately, locking the walls, roofs and chimneys firmly in place. It can take a few hours for the icing to harden, and to decorate the houses before the walls are held fast would be to sentence the poor gingerbread house to a condemned state. (Some years, an overnight wait is necessary when roof pieces slip or walls teeter. But well worth the wait, I assure you!

So, with the iced walls of the houses held firmly in place by soup cans, we set them aside and wait. And wait. And drink some hot chocolate. And wait some more.

Long about the time the kids have given up all hope of placing peppermint swirls on roof peaks and positioning Dum-Dum sucker trees around the house, I announce the houses are ready for decorating. Let the madness begin! My daughter hits Play on the Christmas classics CD and Bing Crosby starts crooning about a white Christmas. Family holiday fun time doesn’t get much better than this.

My husband, although an enthusiastic participant, is not what you would call artistic or crafty. However, he can follow a diagram with the best of them. So, with the kit box planted in front of him, he instructs our son on the placement of hard candies as he spreads white icing over the “snow-covered” roof. I take charge of squeezing the icing out of the pastry bag to create snow peaks and drifts, doors and windows.

My daughter – the rule follower – carefully picks out a green, a red and a purple gumdrop (the order shown on the box) to adorn the window. My son, on the other hand, announces that he’d rather use Sixlets left over from Halloween to line the roof. This causes a slight fracas, followed by a discussion about creativity and the box design being merely a suggestion. With the green light to deviate from the plan, the kids search the baking cupboard for jimmies, sprinkles, coconut and anything else that lends itself well to gingerbread house decorating.

After finishing our little candy homes, the kids are thrilled. They feel not only a sense of accomplishment, but that they are productive participants in our yearly Christmas decorating. We set the gingerbread houses atop a snow white blanket of fake snow and savor the faint smell of gingerbread emanating from the china hutch.

And that’s a day’s worth of fun for less than $10.

The First Snowfall: Winter's Official Arrival

Yes, I realize that technically speaking winter doesn't descend upon us until December 22nd. But I've never been one to pin this season to a certain date. In Minnesota, winter plays by its own set of rules and is controlled only by its own whims, not an orderly old calendar. In essence, winter comes when winter wants to come, and you can usually bet that pre-dates the end of December.

Whether you're 5 or 35, there's a certain magic that floats down with the first snowfall. As a child, the very first sign of a snowflake's flutter had us all running to unearth hats, mittens and snowpants that had been stored away sometime in March. Or April, during particularly infuriating Minnesota winters. I would imagine my mother heaved a heavy sigh of "Here we go again" pondering the wet floors and soppy mittens that would soon be a constant in her entryway. But even she anticipated the clean, white snow that would soon cover the ground in a crystalline blanket of lovely winter splendor.

All those years ago, we scooped together bits of that first snowfall and packed snowballs to hurl at one another, happy that a new season had commenced. It heralded the return of sledding and snow forts. It ushered in the months of hot chocolate and the smell of my mother's seasonal baking. It announced Christmas was nigh (even if those first flakes fell in October).

We received nearly two inches of pristine, white snow on Saturday. I dug out mittens and hats, boots and scarves. My kids bundled up and played outside until their cheeks were rosy and their eyelashes were wet and their socks were in need of a warm radiator. "Mommy!" announced my daughter stomping off her snow-covered boots in the entryway. "Winter is HERE!"

Sliding two snowmen mugs onto the table, each filled with hot chocolate and topped with extra marshmallows, I looked at her and winked, remembering my own youthful exuberance over the first snowfall. "You're exactly right, my dear. Winter starts today."

Happy Halloween, M'lady!

When I was young, television and movies portrayed kids trick-or-treating in what I now assume was California. They scurried about in their skin-baring, colorful costumes on bone-dry streets, no coats or mittens hampering their candy-collecting endeavors.

This wasn't really the case for us Minnesota kids. The most elaborate of costumes were usually hidden under puffy parkas or, on a few occasions, full-fledged snowsuits. In fact, the smartest of mothers would actually incorporate winter gear into their kids' homemade costumes. I recall rain, sleet and snow on several occasions, and every once in a very great while, we would have a nice evening, requiring only a light jacket under one's costume.

Therefore, it would seem futile to put a Herculean effort into producing a spectacular, show-stopping costume. However, since sewing my daughter's costume for her dance number to an Annie song when she was three, she has expected me to break out the sewing machine for her Halloween costumes. This was a breeze the year she dressed up as an orphan and then when she convinced me to sew Dorothy's blue and white gingham dress from The Wizard of Oz. But this year, she chose her yearly Halloween costume on our annual trip to the Renaissance Festival. She informed me that I would need to sew a Renaissance princess dress. Oh boy. The upside to this plan? She'd be able to wear it to next year's Renaissance Festival if I made it a skosh larger than necessary.

Now, to be fair, I've never sewn a costume for my son. But he's far happier donning a Star Wars outfit or shimmying into a Power Rangers costume, so I focus my efforts on my daughter's costumes. My first year in college, I worked in the university's theater costume shop sewing Hawaiian shirts for their rendition of South Pacific, fairytale frocks for Into the Woods, and (thankfully now), Elizabethan gowns for Shakespeare's Richard III. I never thought I'd put those skills back into use, but here we are!

Perusing the aisles of the fabric store, we happened upon a brocade woven into a luxurious gold, pale aqua and coral pink tapestry. My daughter's eyes grew wide as she ran her hand across the fabric. It was much more opulent than I would normally be prepared to pay for, but this mom had a 50% off coupon!

It occurred to me a number of times while toiling away at my sewing machine that this costume I was lovingly crafting would be hidden under a large purple coat. But, my daughter awoke each morning and ran downstairs to inspect the progress I'd made the night before on her dress, so I assured myself it was a labor of love.

I finished the gown just in time for Halloween, despite an unplanned round of pneumonia for me – true love, to be sure, to continue basting and hemming while coughing and sneezing. But she was so proud when I finally zipped her up, and the smile on her face as she gracefully lifted her skirts and descended the stairway made it completely and totally worth it.

And, as if the fates knew of my effort, we had an unusually mild Halloween evening. My little Renaissance princess darted from house to house, collecting her candy with her Storm Trooper brother, her costume on full display.

And to think, twenty years earlier, I trudged through the record-breaking 20+ inches of snow with my younger siblings during the great Halloween Blizzard of 1991, my little sister's Snow White gown that I'd sewn stuffed into snowpants and covered with a parka.

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween! Now on to Thanksgiving!

The Last Hurrah

The brilliance has waned from the tree canopies and the vast majority of the leaves have drifted into heaping, crunchy piles on the lawns, sidewalks and streets. Nighttime falls sooner these days, and the evenings reveal each puff of breath, leading the kids to forage for their mittens in the winter accessory basket.

But, clinging onto this majestic season until the last leaf has forfeited hold onto its branch, I'm intent on soaking up the last autumnal traditions. So when a family from the school my children attend opened their home in the country for a fall festival, I was downright mirthful.

It was a beautiful fall day – crisp, autumn air and sunny. This celebration involved not only a hayride through the woods, a scrumptious potluck and a mountain of leaves for the kids to tumble around in, but also old fashioned cider pressing. This was a first for our family, but a fun new tradition, to be sure!

Two large bins heaped full of Red Baron apples awaited. Old apple cider presses stood at the ready. How would these work, exactly? Would the kids be interested in this? The operation looked suspiciously like hard work. Hmmm.

My husband, the brave one who is always up for trying something new, stepped right up to the hand crank. Apples were poured into the hopper at the top of the apparatus and soon the fun began. As he cranked, the apples were ground up into a pulp-like consistency which fell below to a small, wooden, barrel-looking tub. It looked like a fun way to expel any aggression, grinding away and mashing up those apples, and so the kids soon wanted in on this lark.

Once the tub was full, a cover was placed at the top, which was then screwed down, pressing the apple pulp and squeezing out the juice into a catch pan. Fresh apple cider! Voilà!

The kids were mesmerized. Surely, apple cider comes from the grocery store! What’s all this business, they asked. These discussions always lead into a conversation about “back in the olden days” and whether that timeframe was during my childhood or their grandparents’. I fear what they would think of my age if I ever took them to grind flour or hollow out a canoe from a log.

Taking breaks from the apple press, the kids clambered onto the tire swing, rolled in the leaves, and explored the wooded ravine behind the house. Parents continued with the apple pressing, laughing and chatting over hot, mulled cider.

After supper, as evening fell, the kids snuggled into our laps amid the hay bales arranged on the wagon hitched behind the tractor that pulled us through the harvested cornfields and snaked us through the woods.

We wrapped up the night around the bonfire, discussing the many gallons of apple cider we produced earlier that afternoon, and how this would certainly make for a special treat for Thanksgiving.

Yes, the grocery store still sells apple cider, and yes, it’s a lot less work to buy a gallon. But I’ve always been drawn to the old fashioned way of doing things, whether it’s canning jars upon jars of jams and sauces or hand-dipping candles. It’s a bit of history. It hearkens back to a slower, less-hectic time, and affords me a new appreciation for my forefathers and –mothers. And many times, these old ways of doing things bring people together – just as they did years ago.

Amid the cool weather and last breath of fall colors, this was the best cider I’ve ever tasted in my life. I can’t wait for this day next year. A perfect ending to a perfect fall.

A Bag of Apples and a Dash of Courage

Soooo… sometimes I'm reminded that the smaller, less momentous occasions in life need to be celebrated in their own small ways. Take, for example, this past weekend's little to-do our family experienced.

The kids and I awoke to a perfect, sunny, 60° fall day. My husband had already left to run a community football program, so we agreed to meet him for lunch at the apple orchard. Haralsons are in season and the kids were eager to have another go at apple picking.

Ten minutes into our visit to the apple lodge, my daughter left my side at the maple syrup and candy shelves, where I was crouched next to her little brother, to take a peek at the caramel apples. Except that's not where she went. Enticed by the apple sample table, she decided a nice slice of an Empire was in order. I hadn't yet noticed that she had left my side when she rushed up to me, in a panic, clutching her finger. She certainly sliced something – but it wasn't the Empire.

A family fun day trip to the apple orchard shouldn't be capped off with a frenzied drive to the ER. But, life being unpredictable and all, that's exactly where the four of us sat. This was my daughter's first foray into the realm of stitches, and she wanted mom to sit right next to her on the gurney in the exam room. Now, historically, these things make me awfully woozy. But, since it wouldn't do to have both of us crying and cringing, I had no choice but to toughen up a bit.

I don't particularly relish having to physically restrain my kids when they're hurt and scared, but luckily for me, the promise of a new Barbie doll if she was brave and stopped crying did the trick, and she settled down enough for the doctor to proceed with the Novocain. Hey, bribery is certainly not beneath me in these instances, and I do believe anyone who endures having the side of his or her finger sewn back on surely deserves a shiny new toy.

When the ordeal was over, the nurse enthused that she now had "kitty whiskers" in her finger, just like her beloved orange tabby at home. She smiled a bit through her tear-pooled eyes. Once bandaged up, she was eager to stop at the store for her new Barbie. This, of course, had my five-year-old informing me that, "It's not fair! Why should she get a toy? Can't I get one too?" Dad informed him he could absolutely get a new toy – all he had to do was first get a couple shots and then some stitches. Apparently he didn't want Legos quite that badly.

These moments are tough for parents, and make your heart ache for your child. I hate needles and I hate getting stitches even more, but I would have volunteered without a thought if I could have taken her place. But they're important life lessons for kids, too. She made it through her first laceration, and proved to be a brave little girl.

On the drive home, she perked up a bit. "Mommy," she asked, "do you think we could go back to the apple orchard and pick some apples?" Absolutely! A half an hour later, perched atop dad's shoulders, she was reaching for great big red Haralsons high on the boughs.

Among the big things in life – birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, etc. – there are the everyday moments that help shape us and teach us new things about ourselves. Going through a scary and painful "first" and coming out of it brave enough to head back and finish the day – now that's a little life lesson worth celebrating.