We've had such a delightful couple of weeks around here that I'm fairly tempted to pinch myself. Sure, there's been the usual frustrations, kid shenanigans, sniffles and forgotten trash days, but in the main we've all been all frolicky and festive and I have to say it's rather nice. I'm not super dogmatic on the point of holiday traditions, but I am finding as the children get older that having a very few provide a nice framework on which they can base their own developing sense of observance.

(By the way, don't hold the red eyes above against me. My kids don't really have the eyes of Satan spawn, merely a mom who can never remember from one shot to the next what to do about them.)

We have the little Advent tree I mentioned in a previous post, where every day one kid (they take turns with some minor scuffling which I now regard as part of tradition) chooses an ornament from a little cabinet and places it on the lighted tree. There are teeny ballet shoes and mittens and wreaths and toy soldiers and it's darling. The last ornament is always a star, and this year the Boy suggested that he and his sister hang it together so they could both have the pleasure of marking Christmas Eve, a proposal that made my heart grow three sizes.

And I do an Advent thing with my vast and varied selection of Christmas books, consisting of everything from A Child's Christmas in Wales to Merry Christmas, Rugrats!" (as yet unread, mercifully). Every night the child who did not choose an ornament for the tree chooses a pre-bedtime story. Among my favorites is The Baker's Dozen, which I (not so) discretely encourage for the night of December 6, St. Nicholas' Day. Even if I don't manage to get my way on this point, it'll come up during the month and I know we'll enjoy the book whenever it's turn arises. Some of our collection belonged to my father in his childhood and I feel honored that my own children enjoy these same stories. It an extraordinary privilege to experience that kind of continuity, one that I hope I am able to encourage them to appreciate.

And then there's the cookie baking. Every year I urge each and every Hot Water Bath visitor to make haste to Christmas Baking and this year will prove no exception. As a bonus you can read, in addition to wonderful recipes for all manner of confection (the recipe for gingerbread is hands-down the finest I have ever used), stories of my Baking Disasters that I have submitted over the years. This year I will attempt zimsterne, cinnamon stars, after being put off forever by Sue's description of the dough as "sticky". This year, I say, is finally the year of the zimsterne.
I adore Christmas cookies and love sharing them with friend, acquaintance and stranger alike. I like the fancy pants fussy kind and the homey ones made with marshmallows or chocolate kisses, the crisp and the chewy, the iced and the plain. I love them all and have yet to meet a cookie that I could not embrace as perfect.



So while many of us here in the northeast U.S. await tomorrow's freezing rain and sleet my heart remains warm.