Lessons in Festive Project Management

Shortly after the Boy was born on a now distant late-September morning, Brainiac startled me with the declaration that our Christmas tree would henceforth be displayed with a train chug-chug-chugging below. Effective immediately. I didn't grow up with trains around the tree and reached adulthood knowing about the concept in theory but never having given any thought to its application in reality. And then my train-appreciating husband became the father to a train-obsessed little boy (I'm pretty sure that this is where train-appreciating men come from in the first place) and so for the last nine Christmases there has been a train 'neath the tree, as directed.

The methodology in years past has been thus: slap down the track, futz with the engine, throw a bit of glittery fake snow about and call it good. Inevitably the uneven floor beneath the track or the glitter or an overzealous cat would interfere with the arrangement and tears would ensue. Then more futzing, trying to locate the little tube of smoke potion stuff, shimming the track, swearing about "today's alleged craftsmanship and my grandfather's engine never would have..." and yet more futzing and then inevitably disillusionment. A few more tears and Brainiac would declare the train off-limits and there it would sit, gathering resentment as much as dust.


Enough. A few weeks ago father and son were informed that my regrettable lack of oversight to the train process is coming to an end and I am ready to take up a position on the side of attractive as well as functional Christmas railroad operations. Not that I have any overblown expectations of museum-quality displays or the type of thing you get when grown men spend too much time in their parent's basements. No, not at all. My thoughts are merely that if we apply a few standard project lifecycle concepts to the affair we'll end up with something to make everyone happy - a working, touchable, seasonally-appropriate, attractive little show of Yuletide tradition. If, along the way, I ended up with some days' worth of teachable moments, so much the better. Taking a page from my workaday world, I've appointed the Boy as project manager (I, of course, am Management) and given him a brief training on Mandatory Project Activities as they pertain to the Christmas train:

- Project Scheduling
- Needs Assessment
- Requirements Gathering
- Gap Analysis
- Budget Review
- System Development
- User Acceptance Testing
- Stakeholder Acceptance ("Mama, what's a stakeholder?" "Me. It means I have to like the plan." "Oh. So I really have to pay attention to this stuff? Man!")
- Deployment

I'll post the results as the work is completed, along with the hoped-for denouement of a lovely, functional Christmas train. Stay tuned, world.

Old and Full of Days

I am tired. Like, seriously tired. I could point to any number of reasons why this is so, but I think I'll bump up the most pleasant right to the top of the list: I am tired because I am having too much darn fun. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. To the rest of the possible reasons for my tiredness (work, stress, money, health, diet, schedule, etc., etc., etc.), thank you for your application but the position has already been filled.

Looking at the calendar I can see not a single moment from now until well after New Year's Day when I cannot tell you right now where I will be and what I'll be doing, more or less. I don't mind this terribly much. Surprises and spontaneity are increasingly unpleasant experiences and I am pleased to be able to look ahead a few weeks and know that I need a box of Legos, a rubber frog, pink glitter, a roasted hunk o' beef, a blue t-shirt, a bottle of chocolate stout, or a football-themed sheet cake, and also precisely on which days these are true. Predictability is the order of the day.

With that in mind, the advanced date reminds me that it's time for my annual rant on gift-giving, homemade-edness and celebrations. Or, we can skip it and go for the following instead, my favorite sources and resources for holiday crafting and gifting fun (please note this SPOILER ALERT in the event that you are related and/or are in a gift giving relationship with me):

- Sew Mama Sew has launched its annual Handmade Holidays series of tutorials gathered from all corners of the web. Wonderful inspiration for homemade gifts for nearly any interest or need of which you can think and for just about any skill level. Don't forget to peruse the archives of previous years' series. My nieces and nephews are (probably; see also having lots of fun and near miss on complaining about the calendar) receiving keyrings made of fabric tied (ha!) to their interests and personalities, a project posted two years ago, I think. I'd like to make them the "Don't Get Out of Bed" pants from this year's collection, but I don't think my skills are up to it (yet).

- I am also making up a number of jars of Cowgirl Cookies, except mine won't be Cowgirl Cookies. Follow? What I mean is that I'm making Buffalo Sabres cookies (blue and yellow candies), Dalmatian cookies (black and white candies), UB Bulls cookies (blue and white candies) and so on. That I have a brand spanking new Wegmans grocery at hand, what with their 99 cent 5-lb. bags of flour and bulk candy section makes this fun, easy and inexpensive. I cannot WAIT for my Sabres-obsessed nephew to open his cookie jar and start bugging my sister to bake 'em up right away. That's the kind of aunt I am.

- I have rediscovered ShrinkyDinks, a craft of my childhood. They're back! Who knew? Well, my five-year old knew and now announces with great regularity that she'd like to "shrink some dinks". For holiday gift giving of the aforementioned cookie mixes or jams or spiced honey or dipping sauce, I'll be making little Shrinky Dink tags that can then be saved or put on a tree or whatever. A small tangible reminder of the consumable gift, you know? A search through Microsoft Powerpoint or via Google Images for whatever key word one seeks (Buffalo Sabres, Dumpling, or Honey, for example) will likely yield an embarrassment of traceable riches for coloring and subsequent shrinking (remember, this method is NOT for commercial application, let's not take food off of designers' plates or run regrettably afoul of licensing laws, yes?). I'm no artist and if my tags work out o.k., I'll post some pictures.*

- For your baking pleasure, please see my friend Susie J at Christmas Baking. Every year I say it but it bears repeating: the gingerbread recipe is super-plus fantastic and should all the seasonal merriment makes you sleepy you could do worse than whip up a batch of mokka in response.

- If, like me, you need a gift-giving back up plan and you'd rather it didn't involve traffic, lines, or, heck, even bothering to dress I recommend Etsy and Artfire. I bought a number of gifts from Etsy last year (and in the time since) and have been pleased with each and every one. It can be hard to find what you need or want, and judicious application of key words goes a long way.

- Finally, don't forget YouTube as a source for wildly inventive tutorials on everything from knitting to making candy wreaths to gingerbread house hacks. Expanding my use of the site from nostalgic explorations of both teen-dream and more recent crushes (!) I can profess a legit educational application the type of which I'd heard about but not quite endorsed. I may set my children to work making smaller candy wreaths for their teachers (or at least as much of the wreaths as they will before a ravenous desire for the candy supplies and/or more complaining than I am willing to tolerate set in).

This weekend is the elementary school fund raising auction. Brainiac is feeling very competitive that our contribution of a Scotch-and-Cigar basket (designed to tempt the men away from the spa outings and girls-night-out packages) raises lots of money. For my part, I'm just looking forward to the first event of the rest of the year. With wine.

* Regular readers know better than to count on this. I'm always promising pictures and rarely deliver. Sorry.

Seeing Stars

Although I posted that I'd be making the White Wine-Sage Mustard next, I've had so many e-mails looking for the spiced honey that I'm going to put that up this week and save the mustard for the the first week in December. I've actually been a little afraid of the honey idea - honey being so sticky and hard to control - and I'm glad that the interest is there to keep me on task. I'm going to make two kinds; one with cinnamon and clove and one with star anise. Both are insanely delicious, really not at all hard to make (stickiness aside) and wonderful to give (or not). Watch for the honey post by the end of the day Thursday.

In the meantime, I've been also trying to finish up some crafty gifts in time for my Thanksgiving trip to Buffalo. The kids and I are heading up for the long weekend and I'm very keen to be able to have all the presents wrapped and ready to go. I'm way more organized this year than in the last few and that makes all the difference between good intentions and actual gift production. Being organized! I'm amazed someone didn't think of it sooner.

We'll be arriving back from the trip up north on the first day of Advent and in the spirit of organization I'm putting together plans for the activities and projects that truly add to our observance and am being very bold about declining to participate in engagements that would diminish our enjoyment of the season. The short list so far includes a nice balance of private reflection and friendly togetherness with people I don't see nearly enough. I've decided this year not to have a big gingerbread house party - we've had a few shindigs this year and I don't think there's harm in skipping just this once (maybe I'll defer that energy to a 2009 Easter egg hunt?). Similarly, Brainiac and I have decided to forego work-related events, instead demonstrating collegiality and all-around fitness for continued employability by sharing the results of what I hope will be marathon and highly pleasurable cookie- and candy-making sessions.

Speaking of cookies, I'd be remiss if I my annual tradition of sending you all to Susie J.'s Christmas Baking site. The Advent Calendar alone will make you weep and Sue makes her own mixed peel for fruitcakes, an activity I wholly and enthusiastically endorse. When I last saw her during a run to Penzey's, I obtained her promise that the site is backed-up thoroughly because I would be lost without several of the recipes (despite being too lazy to actually write them down anywhere), specifically gingerbread, Albertle, Ausstecherle and mokka. In case she needs proof that no good deed goes unpunished, I may just invite myself to her house for a lesson in zimtsterne since I remain in total paralyzing fear of making them on my own.

You know, now that I think of it, zimtsterne and tea sweetened with cinnamon honey would make an excellent winter snack. The combination might be just the thing to bring into our respective offices to promote a little goodwill toward men, not to mention peace on Earth (or at least the Philadelphia suburbs).

Point 1) I just slid a "peppermint" cake (half red velvet, half white, swirled together) into the oven - the proper three layers now possible through the rummage-sale acquisition of a third (and fourth) nine-inch cake pan - and the kids are watching a rapidly failing VHS* copy of Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas**. I ought to be, I don't know, cleaning or something, but instead I'm here while trying to wrap my head around today's marketing list (peanut butter - not the good no preservative kind, it's for cookies - sour cream, graham crackers, frozen spinach, cider and something else that I'm sure to forget.

Point 2) "I need to remember to take a crow bar to church tomorrow," mused Brainiac last night. Now that has got to be one of the funniest things anyone has ever said to me. What on earth?

Point 3) My parents are, as I type this, preparing to attend one of the White House Christmas parties. Now, I'm not what you'd call a fan of the current administration (come to think of it, I can't recall being a fan of any administration but I'm hard to please like that), but I surely would love to take a gander at the gingerbread White House. I saw one being made on Food TV last year and - wow - is that cool. Anyway, this is special for my parents and I'm happy for them. Hope the Secret Service remembers to count the spoons when they leave 'cause my mom has a thing for spoons and who knows what she might hide about her person. Kidding! Kidding! My mom is a very moral and upstanding citizen. Ask anyone. You - with the earpiece - I'm talking to you. Don't touch my mom.

Point 4) I had hoped to make a batch of both jerk sauce and chocolate sauce but have come to realize that my personal sanity and overall well-being hinges closely on waiting until after Christmas. Things like jerk sauce are great winter-time canning projects since they rely much less heavily on warm-season ingredients. And then there's marmalade which can be made with all kind of winter citrus. So if you, like I, have not yet put away the canning kettle there's no real reason to go to the trouble now. Might as well leave it out and make up a batch of something or other when you have a less-than busy moment.

Point 5) My last post shared some of our Advent traditions. What I didn't talk about is one tradition that I've decided to cancel, at least for this year - the new pajamas for Christmas Eve thing. My kids don't need pajamas and buying some anyway would require a shopping trip I don't intend to make. We're a little light on hand-me-down, thrifted and clearance pajamas for warmer weather, though, so maybe I'll revisit this as an, I don't know, Easter tradition or something. Another key part of mothering sanity is, in my opinion, knowing when to let go of something that at first blush seemed unletgoable.
*My parents for years had one of those huge console-type stereos. For most of my childhood the stereo cabinet served as storage for candles, crayons and random household flotsam because the turntable rarely worked, except at Christmas. Yep, our own Christmas miracle. Turns out that my adult household experiences a similar technology-related holiday phenomenon in our VCR, which only works reliably at Christmas to show not only Emmet Otter but also a Finnish production entitled Santa and the Magic Drum which involves a Shaman who wants to be an elf. Those Finns, now they have themselves some Christmas spirit. Shamans! Indeed.

**Did you know there's, like, heated controversy over the DVD offerings of Emmet Otter? It never fails to amaze me the things over which otherwise rational people will argue.

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.

There hasn't been all that much going on lately. A typical case of blogger's block for someone who is even less interested in writing about my atypically quiet life than you are in reading about it. It's all been very workaday around here and, frankly, kind of nice in that regard.

I'm enjoying the calm mostly because I know it will not last. Brainiac is doing a spot of travel next week, the social calendar is filling up in a very agreeable way with lots of Advent, Christmas and New Years fun and there's nothing like a solid month of baking and crafting to put a smile on my face. And then there's the gingerbread party and the church craft fair, the preschool Barnes & Noble night and, my favorite, the Sunday afternoon carols and lessons at church. Lovely stuff, all, but nothing that could ever be described as restful.

A colleague jokingly accused me of undermining the team by responding, when asked, that "[my] shopping" is nearly complete. On the one hand, of course, being "finished her shopping" smacks of rushing the season and focusing on the materialistic. I take a different view that sees the month of December as properly being shopping-free, focusing instead on the actual liturgical and spiritual aspects of both Advent and Christmas. By planning ahead I am now free to focus entirely on the giving as opposed to the buying. Plus, Christmas falls at the same time every year, it's not like one cannot plan, right?

Truthfully, I'm not all that bothered (well, not much - see below) about the whole Christmas present thing. It's the memorial of a birthday and we give presents on birthdays. Makes perfect sense to me. What I don't get is the whole presents for Advent thing. Advent is about waiting and hope and gathering excitement over the wonders that are unfolding. And, if can stretch the birthday idea further, we don't give presents to a kid every day for a month while she waits for her birthday now, do we?

There's not much waiting and gathering excitement when there's a present every day leading up to Christmas. (Aside: I am not meaning to pick on this particular blogger, not at all. Her project has turned out beautifully. She's also just the first link that turned up when I googled "advent boxes" - I'm actually impressed that she made them, when commercial versions are popping up everywhere.) We use both an Advent wreath and a small tree that is dressed one ornament at a time throughout December leading up to Christmas. Neither these are particularly necessary either, of course, although they do certainly add to that feeling of anticipation. I've seen the Advent calendars that reveal a chocolates behind their numbered drawers and one year was badly tempted by Playmobil's Advent Calendar (which, I suppose could technically be used year after year if one doesn't have the kind of child who would abscond with all the pieces to integrate into the Lego space station set up he's built in his bedroom). Anyway. My point is that Christmas is the present and lots of piddly (or not so piddly - jewelry?) presents leading up to the day kind of dilute that meaning.

Ah, well. Since I'm on a tear with my cranky old self I should probably just get off my chest the conviction that anyone who believes that his partner needs to be thrilled by the holiday presentation of expensive sparklies and/or automobiles or she will not be happy - neither with him nor the relationship - needs to have drilled into his brain that said partner will likely not be happy in the presence of those things, either. I mean, they're nice and all, pretty to have around and I'm all for them, generally-speaking, but their happiness-inducing qualities are small and very temporary. I just feel so terribly bad for the male of the species this time of year - the full court press from jewelry and car sellers is just so relentless. Relentless.

I finished a project last night.

Wait. I like the sound of that. Let me repeat myself: I finished a project last night.

That reads beautifully, doesn't it? The project I finished is a tutu long promised to the Girl and worked on only in fits and starts. Yesterday after her grandparents left from a weekend visit and her brother was whisked off to (another) birthday party she asked with such sweetness if I thought perhaps, maybe, just possibly we could work on it, the tutu which had been pinned months ago and languishing in a sideboard cupboard ever since.

In the end, the finishing wasn't that difficult. Produced only of three layers of white tulle covered in two layers of a silky pinky something (bought unmarked from a remnants bin for twenty-five cents), stitched together at the waist and run through with a bit of elastic, I'd say that the total effort - stretched over months, granted - was probably no more than 45 minutes with five minutes of that needed to secure a butterfly to the waist.

The final product could be a bit fluffier and I may well cut the underlying tulle to graduate it into greater overall volume. It's not a professional job, to be sure, but not at all bad for no pattern, I think. The Girl is happy and for that I am even happier.

The next project to complete - grabbing the low-hanging fruit, the things almost done - is an apron intended for my sis-in-law and which has been in its current not-quite-finished state for at least three months. (Aside: Why on earth I get things so close to done and then don't finish them is beyond me. Especially when completion is so satisfying.) And then, I think, a few of some teeny tiny counted cross-stitch Christmas things from Mary Engelbreit. Mary can sometimes a bit too much for my tastes but when it comes to Christmas all bets are off and the more too much I can get, the better.

Susie J will say I need to post pictures. She's right. Forthcoming, tonight, maybe, perhaps, just possibly.

The children, in church several hours before being nestled all snug in their beds under brand-new blankets crocheted by their great-grandmother. I sit here in front of a 6' tree fairly dwarfed by piles of presents, nibbling on Santa's caramel crunch cookie and the reindeers' carrot, sipping the former's frosty bubbly cocktail (what? Santa doesn't get a mimosa at your house?) secure in the knowledge that sugarplums have likely begun dancing in their heads and I may take a moment to blog.

After the 4 p.m. service we drove around a bit, looking at lights and meandering our way to a nearby Chinese place for dinner. The kids were amused by waiters wearing Santa hats and the restuarant's gift to us of a 2007 calendar - cool enough to warrant fighting over and the quick intervention by one waiter in rushing a second to our table. We took a little detour through Brainiac's childhood neighborhood on the way home and were charmed by luminaria in front of most of the houses. He tells me that this has been going on since he was quite young and he became both sad and joyous as we drove, enjoying his children's exclamations from the backseat while also remembering his late father's role in setting up the luminaria that his family displayed. It's an odd place in which we find ourselves, still feeling as if we ought to eat at the kids' table and not yet finished being parented but now also parents ourselves. Christmas seems to make this neither-here-nor-there quality bolder, somehow, more stark.

And now we are home. The carrot and cocktail are gone, the last verses of Barbra Streisand's Ave Maria have faded from my little Pandora set-up, and Brainiac is pouring me a Frangelico. So.

We most definitely did not have a silent night, although in many ways it did feel holy. The gift of the blankets made by my kids' oldest relative, remembering to them a grandfather they never met, eating dumplings together as part of a tradition their father and I started before they were born and now sharing a drink and cigar with Brainiac as we putter away the remaining hours of Christmas Eve...yes, there has been something very holy in the day we shared.

Sleep in heavenly peace.

More Fragments

I have an entry in this week's Carnival of Homeschooling - it's the Nutcracker post from a few days ago. I entered the Carnival with this post specifically because 1) we continue to think through this education business and 2) I liked the lesson I learned from the whole episode, sometimes the kids will take an interest in something I would never have imagined. This is something I need to remember as we think about our next steps.


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You may have noticed the ticker on the right-hand margin counting the numbers of pre-approved credit offers we've received since the end of November. Seriously, there were maybe three or four arriving every day and it was all so ridiculous that I felt the numbers needed to be documented somehow. Of course, within days of posting the arriving offers slowed markedly and I almost took the counter down. I needn't have worried, for their once again filling our mailbox to astonishing levels. Yesterday brought another three. At least we received more Christmas cards than that, or I might have been depressed.


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Thank you for the help and advice regarding our bus driver's gift. I am going with the gift card and note, as originally planned. I do not know why this caused so much angst for me, other than I guess I need to have at least one gift-related freak-out every year or it just isn't Christmas.

Usually the freak-outs are related to my mother, my father or Brainiac. My sisters are fairly easy to buy for (and I'm not just saying that because one of them reads here) - they have a wide variety of interests and don't fuss about bigness or smallness or whatever. I have given my sisters all kind of things, from silly to sentimental, from thrifted to spendy and by and large I think I've done o.k.

Shopping for my mom is hard because she's an world-class shopper of the highest, black-belt order and usually buys herself what see wants almost immediately upon seeing it ("If I wait for a sale, it'll be gone!" is her frequent refrain). Selecting gifts for my dad can be hard because most of the things he'd really enjoy I can't afford (like really old Scotch, vintage golf clubs, greens fees at some fancy-pants club). And Brainiac wants only one thing badly - a pilot's license - but I just can't seem to come up with the many hundreds of dollars monthly that such an endeavor requires. Besides, a pilot's license is kind of like a naked Barbie - pointless and no fun without the further investment of capital in things like actually flying planes/clothes and Dreamhouse.

But this year everyone except the bus drive was covered nicely so I guess my freak-out needed reassignment. And now there's no freak-out at all.

Fragments

Despite my assertion that I would neither read nor acknowledge the Boy Wonder's BMI report, out neighborhood elementary school has proven too wily for to avoid/ignore it as planned. The magic number has been reported on the same piece of paper alongside information I actually do need, like his vision results (as the child of two glasses-wearing parents, with three glasses-wearing aunts/uncles and four glasses-wearing grandparents, we're always on the lookout for the need for corrective lenses). So. There it is. Hm.

And that's really all that needs to be said about that.

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I am breaking up with Target. This has been a long time coming and I really do feel that it's time I see other stores. I'm a little sad, of course, but also hopeful that with time I will be able to see our relationship with a bit more clarity. In the meantime, I am engaging in some retail therapy with several yards of this to be made into little paper-sack type evening bags and an ever-so-small spree at Crane buying New Years cards and perusing the offerings for the household stationery that Brainiac is always saying we should order.

I feel better already.

*********

There remains only one gift to arrange here at the Hot Water Bath estate and that is for the lovely young woman who drives the bus that delivers the Boy Wonder to school every day (how it came to pass that he takes the bus at all is a story in itself but believe me when I say that he is thrilled and I am somewhat less so). Anyway, he is one of three children on this route so it's more that he has this personal transportation service and the Boy tells us how they all sing songs on the way to school and she sings along with them. Nice, no? So I've already written a card expressing our heartfelt thanks that she is so kind to the children and how grateful we are that she keeps them safe and sound in the time they are in her care (not to mention that she is the absolute perfect driver for the parents who were terrified to put their kid on a bus).

I would like to enclose a little something with the card but I can't think of what that little something ought to be. I know nothing about her other than she sings songs and is quite diligent about safety, if the Boy's stories are to be believed. I don't know if she likes wine or cookies (or is even able to enjoy either). I don't know if she likes movies or reading or knitting or even celebrates any given winter gift-giving holiday at all, for that matter. She does wear a handful of silver rings which I see when she waves to me as the bus leaves off. But jewelry? No. Definitely not appropriate.

It flitted through my mind that I might buy a gift card to a local market and add to our note that I hoped she'd buy herself some of her favorite wintertime treats and enjoy them with our thanks, but...is that very icky-ticky-tacky? Or is this a good idea?

Do tell. I'm begging for help here so please share.

Not long ago I was having One of Those Days. The kids were very tightly wound, I was somewhat less so and all efforts at a pleasant family morning were coming to naught. As I do every now and again I announced Quiet Time by saying, "Why don't you guys go see what's on channel 12?!" (Channel 12 is one of the two parentally sanctioned watching options in our house, our local public broadcasting.)

You can imagine my surprise to notice maybe five minutes later the calm that had descended. No more arguing, picking, instigating, throwing, screaming, tattling - it had all stopped. I was almost afraid to go check and see what it was they found on the television in case I would feel compelled to declare it inappropriate viewing and turn it off, with the inevitable result of a return to the morning's chaos. Steeling myself against bitter cathode ray dissapointment, I walked into the play room to find the kids snuggled up on the futon with a fleece blanket, staring rapt at the screen watching...

The Nutcracker.

I sat down to watch with them, remembering well my own girlhood fascination with Gelsey Kirkland and my despair at growing too tall and too, uh, large for ballet (my stature is rather more suited to softball than ballet). I wondered what they'd make of the show, if children more accustomed to animation and Disney spectacle would find The Nutcracker as compelling as so many generations before them.

They did. I provided minimal narration, just enough to help them follow the story and secretly (well, less so now that I'm writing about it on my blog, I guess) was pleased that they displayed such cultah in their attention. It was a distinct pleasure to share with them a holiday tradition that I enjoyed so well at their age.

Of course, when the ballet ended we were right back to craziness, this time with re-enactments of battles with the Mouse King, a part they alternated for maximum hysteria. Ah, so much for culture.

Still, happening upon The Nutcracker seems to have had an effect on them that I doubt it would have had if I had sat them down specifically to watch it, maybe a sense of discovery or ownership rather than something that Mom said was important to do. Both relish telling the story to friends and family, as if it were something that they themselves created and Entropy Girl practices her "steps" daily and asks her brother to play the part of the "guy dancer". The Boy Wonder is amazed to note that the male dancers can jump just as high as football players and thinks it beyond cool that battle scenes are not at all unusual within ballet - jumping with swords! Not to mention, of course, the constant source of amazement in the Christmas tree that grows! On stage! Or that so many dancers can do the same things at the same time, his constant search for synchronicity and symmetry satisfied. I am utterly charmed by their enthusiasm in a way that only a mother could be.

So now I'm on the hunt for Nutcracker-themed activities. I found a few at the Pennsylvania Ballet and, because they are intended for older children, they've inspired me to create a couple of my own - a wordsearch, an I Spy-type page and a bit of time making sugarplums.

It has been a wonderful gift for me to be able to share The Nutcracker with the kids and have them enjoy it so much. Despite knowing that the odds are against them developing a lifelong appreciate for dance, living as we do in the age of Wii, I'd like to think that the memory of this time will stay with them and someday, at least, they'll be able to share a little of the wonder with their own children.

(If you'd like me to send you .PDF copies of our Nutcracker games and activities, e-mail me at hotwaterbath AT gmail DOT com and I'll get them out to you. They're nothing super elaborate, just a bit of holiday fun to take advantage of youthful enthusiasm.)

Among Brainiac's many charms is that he is an ace gift giver. He has given me all kinds of wonderful presents in our 16 years together - a perfectly red lipstick, lovely earrings, books, music, travel and all kinds of other squee-worthy delights. And he doesn't just pick cool things - sometimes things I didn't even know I wanted - but he's into cool presentation, too. After one particularly tough year of living in separate cities and commuting back and forth on weekends, Brainiac gave me a cruise so that we could spend a solid block of relaxing, sun-drenched time together. Under the tree that year I found a child's bathtub boat, little and red, spiffed up with stickers of smiling faces marked "Brainiac" and "Marsha" and a note attached announing our upcoming trip. Last year brought a letter from Santa himself,on North Pole letterhead letting me know that Brainiac had informed him of my exceptional goodness and his desire that Santa should deliver a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. .

Because of the impending move and rather rustic kitchen arrangements awaiting me in the new house, Santa thought it best to hold off on the mixer's actual delivery. In the meantime, Brainiac has installed a dishwasher, replaced the countertop, put in more lighting and just generally improved cooking conditions. And, true to his word, Santa delivered the mixer about a week ago. Yesterday, I used it to mix up cookie dough.

Squee-worthy, indeed.

I made a precious few cookies last year, just the basics without which Christmas would have felt less-than to me. This year, with my brand new (and lightening fast) mixer at the ready, I am feeling a touch more ambitious. Cookie goals for this year include everything from last year as well as tea cakes, peanut butter kisses, regular old peanut butter, oatmeal cranberry (the red of the cranberry is a cool festive change from raisons), shortbread (I use teeny tiny cutters on these so each baking sheet holds scores - very fun), snickerdoodles, rum balls, those coconut and chocolar bar things, linzer torte-type cookies, and probably more. Maybe some fudge? And brownies? And cake? Mama's got a new mixer, after all.