Christmas joy, with photos, hopefully, fixed

Christmas Eve was pretty riotous at our house. Jon had to work later in the evening so our time was limited. The meat wasn't "falling off the bone" yet when he and his family arrived, so we opened presents first. My policy has always been that we read the story of Christ's birth before we open presents. This has been met with various degrees of enthusiasm over the years, depending on the ages of the children. This year, I had about 20% cooperation, but after announcing that there would NOT be any presents unless we read about the real meaning of Christmas, things improved somewhat.

Daniel faded fast. The excitement of it also being his birthday celebration proved to be a little too much.

We gave the older grandchildren money for designated classes this year, in an effort to not contribute to their piles of stuff. Here is Thomy opening his envelope. He will take art classes in January. He has incredible fine motor skills, which Jonnie attributes to playing video games. He also has a lot of patience and is painstaking in his colouring and art work, so I think the classes will open his eyes to new ideas.

Daniel got money for basketball or science class, depending on what is offered when the new Park and Rec schedule comes out. Kenzie gets a month of horse riding lessons.

Everyone got cozy fleece pyjama pants from Nana and Papa.

Natalie, showing off her new pants, hairband and purse. The girl has impeccable fashion sense, don't you think?

Let the feast begin. Roast beef with mashed potatoes and corn and peas and killer rolls. Sparkling grape juice. My rolls have been less than marvelous lately but these were divine. Maybe it was all the butter I slathered them with before I rolled them into crescents.

Last Christmas I bought a box of Christmas crackers at Costco. Crackers are an integral part of the Christmas celebration in England, so they bring back sweet memories for me. We've had them a few times with our family, but they weren't always easy to find and even then were expensive. A cracker, if you don't know, consists of a cardboard tube wrapped in pretty foil paper. Inside is a party hat, a prize, and a joke or saying, kind of like a fortune cookie. When you pull it with a partner, it splits unevenly. The split is accompanied by a small bang which is ever so thrilling! The bang is from the effect of friction on a chemically impregnated card strip. Crackers were invented in England in 1847 by a sweet (candy) maker as a promotional gimmick. Thank you Wikipedia.

Chris got the prize he had coveted, a mini tape measure. These were high-quality crackers. Daniel got a metal yo-yo.

Jon and Jenny look less than thrilled with their cracker experience.

Note the quality silver party hats.

If you can get past Bethany's fearsome face.

Jeff, eating his peas and corn. I think that was all he ate.

Jonnie, expounding on the evils of monoculture, specifically potatoes in this instance. Luckily, I had prepared yellow potatoes that were organically grown by Farmer Brown, rather than the ubiquitous russet.

Natalie, at the end of the day and with chocolate face, riding her and Joshie's new rocking horse.

A Happy Christmas to all my friends and readers.

I hope your day is (or was) as merry as mine.

Fearful Symmetry

I have spent almost 54 years not thinking about persimmons.

That's strange, you think to yourself, I think about persimmons quite often.

Forgive me for saying that you are full of:

Tommyrot.

Balderdash.

Poppycock.

A few weeks ago there was a lot of buzz on the Prepare Now Yahoo group about an order of persimmons that was coming to town. I resisted ordering because, don't you know, I have never tasted a persimmon and ergo find it hard to get excited about ordering a 20 pound box of them.

Nevertheless, I must have been pondering the subject in my subconscious because some nights later I had a very vivid dream about the magical fruit. I can still recall the texture of the skin as I peeled the fruit and the smoothness of the inner flesh as I sliced it. The taste was divine, sweet and creamy without being cloying at all.

I awoke in the midst of the dream and thought to myself that perhaps (!) I might actually like persimmons. If you know me at all, you know that I am somewhat of a picky eater. Certain things will never cross my lips because of their smell. I have tried, darn it, to eat salad ingredients but they just taste like grass. Suffice it to say that I am not an adventurous eater. I have attributed that sad state to the fact that I am a bit of a super-taster, which, for you doubters, is an actual scientific state of being. Really. It is.

The persimmon tree species diospyros belongs to the ebony wood family. Diospyros means "the fruit of the Gods" in ancient Greek. Persimmons are high in nutrients but eating too many unripe fruit can cause bezoars that require surgery in most cases. What is a bezoar, you ask? Think hairballs in cats. Same kind of mass in the digestive tract. Yummy! Moral of the story, make sure your persimmons are ripe before you ingest.

So, on with the persimmon story.

Last Saturday my friend Barb and I decided to walk at the local university's track, which is close to her house. It is one of those nice soft tracks and my legs have been hurting lately so we thought we'd give me a break. It was a cold, damp, morning, but we had a great time catching up on all our news and NOT talking about persimmons.

As I was leaving to return home she gave me...

three

perfect

persimmons.

What Nana did today

Walk with Barb. Check.
Get mammogram. Check.
Get blood drawn. Check.
Pick up beef from Janine's freezer and give her some pumpkin bread. Check.
Make Kenzie's Christmas dress. Check.

You can't tell, but the fabric has pink and white polka dots and glitter all over it. Two of Kenzie's favourite things.

P.S. If you click on the photos you can get a nice close-up of the fabric. It's rather pretty and Kenzie has been nagging me for quite a long time to make something for her out of it. I have a new thing in my head, that I should use up the resources I've been accumulating before I buy new stuff. One down, a gazillion to go!

My own personal elf

Guilty Pleasures, Added Upon

Annie wrote in her blog about her enjoyment of drinking hot chocolate this time of year. She melts a minty candy cane in hers to flavour it.
She comes by the habit honestly. Her Nana has long been famous for her hot chocolate habit. Or Milo, as she drinks in New Zealand. All year long. Only one cup a day, she claims, but we all know better!
I am partial to a steaming cup of cocoa in the winter. My guilty pleasure is a splash of flavoured coffee creamer. Yum. The flavour of the moment is "CoffeeHouse Inspirations Caramel Macchiato."
It even SOUNDS sinful.

THAT was not an easy photo to take.

No flash, left-handed, while pouring.

Hence the ever-so-slight blurriness.

What is your guilty pleasure?
And don't try telling me you don't have one!

P.S. This post got me thinking about some defining hot chocolate moments throughout the years at our house. When Jeff and I were first married and had no money at all, one of our big treats was a cup of hot chocolate with a scoop of vanilla ice cream floating on top. It was blissfully delicious. Then we went through a cinnamon-sprinkled-on-top stage. The kids, of course, loved mini-marshmallows the best. Then Costco, in our more affluent years, started selling the Swiss Miss (or maybe it was Nestles) packets of flavoured hot chocolate mix. Raspberry, caramel, hazelnut, French vanilla. I love to heat up a big pot of milk when we have a crowd in the house, adding bits of this and bits of that until I arrive at chocolate Nirvana. It is such a comforting drink, nothing beats it for me.

Coconut gluten-free heaven

When Kenzie was visiting last week, I made Bethany some coconut macaroons. They are gluten free and very delicious. With a slight modification, I made a small dairy-free batch for Joshie.

Ambrosia Macaroons

1/2 c unsalted butter

3/4 c sugar

1/8 tsp salt

2 tsp finely grated orange zest

3 eggs

24 oz sweetened flaked coconut

melted white or dark chocolate

Beat butter and sugar until smooth. Add zest and eggs. Mix in coconut. I used my hands at this stage to mix it more thoroughly. Form balls with hands and flatten on a Silpat or well-greased cookie sheets. You can place them close together because they don't spread. Bake at 325F for 20-25 minutes until golden on the bottoms and browned in spots. Cool on sheets and drizle with melted chocolate, using a fork. I used lemon zest with a bit of juice instead of orange zest and drizzled them with white chocolate.

I substituted condensed coconut cream for butter and drizzled them with dairy-free dark chocolate to make Joshie's cookies.

We all liked them, even the gluten eaters!

"To Do" lists

Kenzie came to stay for a couple of days this week.
We read together, watched Night at the Museum, Battle of the Smithsonian, which is as funny as the first, and made snickerdoodles. On the last day we made a "to do" list and got most of the way through it, except for Make paper airplanes, which was Kenzie's idea.
She is notoriously scatter-brained, so I thought the concept of a list might resonate with her, because she loves to write messages and love notes on pretty paper. Dear Nana, I love you. I hope you are not sick like I am. Love Kenzie. (This note was embellished with googly eyes and a yellow feather.) The list was quite long, so she decided to divide the tasks into two separate lists, one for work and one for fun.

Work list.
Vacuum.
Finish Christmas decorations.
Put away Christmas boxes.
Mail packages to Annie and Charlie.
Clean kitchen.
Clean table.
Put rug back in living room.
(I broke a large water globe the night before, while setting Kenzie's bed up on the couch, and it had created a correspondingly large mess.)

Fun list.
Make snickerdoodles.
Make paper airplanes.
Make cards.

The list idea worked very well, especially for me.

I forgot how motivating a list can be.

And did you notice I figured out how to change my font colour?

I have also started downloading my photos onto the blog using Picasa, which is infinitely more efficient.

Ha! Take that, you 21st century, you!