Christmas!

I am very focused right now on my friend's hairbow website, so I'm a full week behind on blogging and checking my bloglines, but I wanted to post some photos from Christmas:

All of the kids opened new pajamas on Christmas Eve, so they're all wearing their new jammies in the pictures. In a tradition dating from my days as a child, everybody has Life Savers Sweet Storybooks in their stockings, although Santa brings our kids the Gummy Savers kind (since they're not as messy); he's kind of considerate that way. I think these girls were swallowing them by the handfuls!

This is a hugely popular item: a dollhouse/bookcase. Can you tell that it had already been decorated for Christmas?

My family has always loved Cabbage Patch Dolls. My 94-year-old great-aunt used to stand in line to get them when they first came out in the early 80s. I took the kids to tour Babyland General last year in December. I had a request last week to please go again soon.

This is my 15-year-old son. Doesn't he look half asleep (he is)? This is a really neat chess, checkers, backgammon set. I was just happy that he wanted a chess set for Christmas. All of my boys play, but I'm embarrassed to say that I never learned how. I just assume it will take a lot of time, so I never get around to it. I've been told that I have to learn, though.

We played a big game of Monopoly with this new set on Christmas night. For those of you with only younger kids, be prepared that one day your children will arise up and whip your rear at Monopoly (just a little something to look forward to).

First Corinthians 13: Christmas Version

If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows,
strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls,
but do not show love to my family,
I'm just another decorator.

If I slave away in the kitchen,
baking dozens of Christmas cookies,
preparing gourmet meals and arranging
a beautifully adorned table at mealtime:
I'm just another cook.

If I work at a soup kitchen,
carol in the nursing home,
and give all that I have to charity;
but do not show love to my family,
it profits me nothing.

If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels
and crocheted snowflakes,
attend a myriad of holiday parties
and sing in the choir's cantata
but do not focus on Christ,
I have missed the point.

Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the spouse.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love does not envy another's home
that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.

Love does not yell at the kids to get out of the way,
but is thankful they are there to be in the way.
Love does not give only to those who are able
to give in return; but rejoices in giving
to those who cannot.

Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things, and endures all things.
Love never fails.

Video games will break,
pearl necklaces will be lost,
golf clubs will rust,
but giving the gift of love will endure.

--Sharon Jaynes

Memory Upon Memory

I know I haven't finished posting about the birthday tea - and I will - but tonight my heart is so full I just need to write it all down. My dad, aunt, cousin, and our oldest son were here tonight for an early Christmas family celebration. My aunt, great-aunt, and cousin will be in Tennessee at Christmas, so this was our time together with them. See, growing up in Arkansas we all lived within a three-mile radius, saw each other on a daily basis, spent all of our holidays together. Time has moved on and we live a little further apart, and many of our dearly beloved have passed on from this life: my mother, all four of my grandparents, all but one of my great-aunts (who is nearly ninety-five).

I posted earlier about memories from my grandparents' home on Christmas Eve. I read a recipe here last month for chocolate-covered cherries, which my grandmother always made from scratch on Christmas Eve; I knew then that making those and the homemade hot cocoa were things I wanted to do when my family got together for Christmas.

Memories from my grandparents' home are very sentimental, especially after my grandmother passed on in August. I had made the fondant center for the cherries, which was in the fridge cooling when everyone arrived, and I'd made the homemade hot cocoa, too. My cousin and I made the rest of the chocolate-covered cherries together, which was just as emotional an experience for her, too. Every step of the way I kept thinking, "This is what my grandmother did." My oldest daughter, who celebrated her tenth birthday last week, was born when I was the same age as my grandmother was when she gave birth to my mother, so she had a ten-year-old daughter at my age, too. Thoughts like this filled my mind all evening.


My dad, who is simply the greatest, gave my husband and me this wonderful record/CD/tape player with AM/FM radio! Growing up, my mother did most of the Christmas shopping; but there was always one day when my dad did his shopping. It was just one gift, but it was always the best. My mom was very practical, even as a grandmother; she hated to see money blown on too many toys or junk. She liked to get clothes, shoes, coats - necessary things. But my dad's gifts were just plain fun; the ones we couldn't wait to open.

Isn't it beautiful?

The presence of the record player meant one thing: bringing up my stash of old albums from the basement.


Would you look at this stash of Elvis albums? I even have the Moody Blue "blue" album and the four-record set of #1 hits.

Do you recognize any of these? I'm betting some of you had them, too.

So that's how I find myself up late at night, blogging and listening to Journey's Escape which I haven't heard in more years than I care to count. And missing my mother and my grandmother. I am so, so thankful for the precious family that surrounded me this evening. I don't know what memories will be special for my kids, but I hope to instill in them a love for home and family, like my parents did for me.

For the Kids! (who will appreciate these lyrics)

You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

Author: Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch.
You really are a heel.
You're as cuddly as a cactus,
You're as charming as an eel.
Mr. Grinch.

You're a bad banana
With a greasy black peel.

You're a monster, Mr. Grinch.
Your heart's an empty hole.
Your brain is full of spiders,
You've got garlic in your soul.
Mr. Grinch.

I wouldn't touch you, with a
thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole.

You're a vile one, Mr. Grinch.
You have termites in your smile.
You have all the tender sweetness
Of a seasick crocodile.
Mr. Grinch.

Given the choice between the two of you
I'd take the seasick crocodile.

You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch.
You're a nasty, wasty skunk.
Your heart is full of unwashed socks
Your soul is full of gunk.
Mr. Grinch.

The three words that best describe you,
are, and I quote: "Stink. Stank. Stunk."

You're a rotter, Mr. Grinch.
You're the king of sinful sots.
Your heart's a dead tomato splot
With moldy purple spots,
Mr. Grinch.

Your soul is an apalling dump heap overflowing
with the most disgraceful assortment of deplorable rubbish imaginable,
Mangled up in tangled up knots.

You nauseate me, Mr. Grinch.
With a nauseaus super-naus.
You're a crooked jerky jockey
And you drive a crooked horse.
Mr. Grinch.

You're a three decker saurkraut and toadstool sandwich
With arsenic sauce.

Copyright © 1957, Dr. Seuss.

Christmas Tour of Homes, Y'all!

Welcome to my home as part of BooMama's Christmas Tour of Homes!

This is part of a Christmas village my in-laws gave us many years ago. I think this is where any similarity to the North Pole ends - we're expecting 68 degrees tomorrow!

This cute little count-down Santa has been part of the family for many years.

There's a daily race to see who will update him - today he's mine!

Here's the tree...

and the new ornament I got at my church sisters' ornament exchange/Christmas party!

The house smells like cinnamon because I've been baking snickerdoodles. Won't you try one?

We have a true Southern wreath, decked with magnolia blossoms. I saw a pricey one like this years ago at T.J. Maxx and decided to try it myself, which was one of my extremely rare forays into the world of crafts. Before we moved, the heat in our attic would bake the flowers every summer and I would make an annual trip to Hobby Lobby to replace them. I'm sure I could have bought that expensive wreath for what I've spent over the years replacing magnolia blossoms, but maybe the fancy ones would have baked, too.

My daughter picked up this quirky sunbathing Santa in his hammock this year. I think we'll have the weather for him!

Our nativity scene is nothing special in the worldly sense - certainly not very fancy; but I like its simplicity and not having to be afraid for the kids to play with it.

Following are more pictures of our Christmas village, which I am afraid for the kids to touch - not that it hasn't happened over the years. The elf who is supposed to be hanging a wreath on the side of the reindeer barn no longer has any arms, which means he isn't even holding the wreath anymore. It's in the box. Oh, well - I'd rather have eight kids than a perfect Christmas village (which is a really good thing since the village hasn't been perfect for a long time). There used to be little flocked trees that lit up, too, but I'm not sure what happened to them.

Be sure to visit BooMama for the Christmas tour!

Gift Ideas

If you're looking for inexpensive, last-minute gift ideas for a little girl this Christmas, I recommend the Graco line of doll accessories. Graco makes products for baby dolls which are modeled after their real baby products. Two of my girls have birthdays this week, so we made a trip to Wal-Mart yesterday so they could spend their birthday $. My ten-year-old bought the pack 'n' play pictured above for $9.22! Last Christmas the three oldest girls got strollers for their baby dolls. Lily is always stealing someone's doll stroller, so we got her one which matches the pack 'n' play for $7.87! If you've done much toy shopping, you probably know that you can't find many things for under $10 that won't be broken in less than a week; however, our doll strollers from last Christmas are still in use.

I like to see toys which encourage little girls to play like little girls (which in this case means playing like little mommies) rather than toys which promote negative, inappropriate dress and behavior for our daughters. I'm not sure how you can create a "baby" line of toys where the dolls look like streetwalkers, but MGA Entertainment managed. I don't even understand what this tagline is supposed to mean:

All nine Bratz Babyz™ know how to flaunt it, and they’re keepin’ it real in the crib!

Huh?

And check out this "manufacturing error." Obviously I'm not the only parent out there who is offended by this trash. I think this post is doing double duty: gift ideas and "what not to buy."

We're only two days away from the big tea party! I have found some fascinating teapot cake ideas at coolest-birthday-cakes.com.

Why are they smiling?

Your child can go to 1-800-972-6242 to hear Santa! By the way, after he reminds them to send in their list, he encourages cleaning up after yourself, eating your veggies, and telling your parents and grandparents that you love them!

Christmas Memories

MomRN2 at My Quiet Corner is hosting Christmas Memories today. The memories that I would like to share are from my grandparents' house. Our family was blessed to live about three miles from my grandparents (my mom's parents) and my great-aunts, who lived across the street from them. We opened presents at my grandparents' house on Christmas Eve. My uncle worked for UPS, which meant he was the last person on the face of the earth to finish working on Christmas Eve. At least that's how it felt to us four grandkids. I remember it being an almost physically painful experience each year as we waited for him to arrive so that we could "get down to business."

My grandmother, who passed away this summer at the age of 90, was a pastor's wife whose mission in life was to feed the world. She was a wonderful cook, and you never left her house with an empty stomach (my husband learned when we were dating that he'd better have an appetite when he got there, because she was going to feed him whether he was hungry or not). Some of her Christmas Eve specialties were real, homemade hot cocoa, homemade chocolate-covered cherries, and lots of chocolate chip cookies. There was always a huge pot of cocoa simmering on the stove, milky and steaming. The chocolate-covered cherries were laid out on wax paper.

If we'd been able to open our presents immediately, I'm sure the evening's culinary offerings would have been largely overlooked by the kids. As it was, they were something to savor and enjoy, a focus for our attention during the endless wait. It's not the presents that I remember fondly, but Grandmother's cozy kitchen and those special Christmas Eve delights.

Because a Mr. Linky is a terrible thing to waste...

No Cool Story has a Mr. Linky up for posting pictures of your CHRISTMAS tree ornaments (take that, politcally correct retailers - they're not HOLIDAY ornaments). The first time I tried a Mr. Linky, I didn't get any links and actually deleted the entire post.
It was one of my saddest bloggy moments.

I asked the kids to show me some of their favorite ornaments. They thought it was way cool that I actually took pictures of them, and no one even said, "Please tell me this isn't for The Blog!"
(They just didn't think of it, bless their hearts.)

Please Barb, don't be offended by the white wires on my icicle lights. We had TONS of these lights that we hung on the outside of our old house. We had three levels of decks and they were all decked out with lights every year (pun intended). I'm just way too frugal to go buy new ones with green wires for the tree when we have so many of these.

I like this little guy, not that we ever really get much snow (although hubby says the almanac predicts it this year). I'm attending a Christmas party/ornament swap with my church sisters Saturday night and I hope to return with an awesome new addition for the tree!

 

Giving Thanks

The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers

The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tossed;

And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and water o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came:
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear, -
They shook the depths of the desert's gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!

The ocean-eagle soared
From his nest by the white wave's foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared;
This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band:
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of the seas? the spoils of war? -
They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Aye, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod!
They have left unstained what there they found -
Freedom to worship God!

-- Felicia Dorothea Hemans

 

Works-for-Me Wednesday: Crescent-Wrapped Gouda with Red Pepper Jelly

For the Christmas edition of Works-for-Me Wednesday, I thought I would share a simple yet elegant appetizer for all of those holiday get-togethers.

Crescent-Wrapped Gouda with Red Pepper Jelly

1 (7-oz.) round of Gouda cheese
1 (8-oz.) can refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
1 egg, beaten
fancy crackers
red pepper jelly

Heat oven to 350˚. Cut cheese round in half to form 2 circles; remove wax.

Separate dough into 4 rectangles; firmly press perforations to seal. Press each into a 6x6-inch rectangle. Place 2 rectangles, 3 inches apart, on ungreased cookie sheet. Place 1 cheese circle on center of each rectangle (from experience, I would take a knife and "break-up" the cheese; it will heat through better). If desired, use canape cutter or paring knife to cut 2 to 3 small decorative shapes from the corners of each remaining rectangle; set shapes aside. Place 1 remaining rectangle on top of each cheese round. Press dough around cheese to seal; curl bottom edges over top edges, gently stretching dough to form a ring of dough around cheese, sealing completely. Place decorative shapes on top of each pastry. Brush with beaten egg.

Bake at 350˚ for 18 to 22 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 10 minutes before serving. Place on a decorative plate or platter, surrounded by fancy crackers and topped with red pepper jelly. 8 servings.

Technically, you could omit the red pepper jelly. To me, however, it is the highlight. Once we were invited to a Christmas party where I brought this appetizer. I didn't have any red pepper jelly and asked my husband to please pick some up on his way there from work. He ended up being very late because he had so much trouble finding a store that stocked it. He finally found it at Publix. Our hostess later gave me 3 jars as a Christmas gift. I will be making this on Friday night; if I remember, I'll take a picture and update the post with it.

For more Christmas Works-for-Me Wednesday ideas, visit Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer.

all dressed up

My kids were quite thrilled to perform the yearly ritual of getting all dressed-up and begging for candy trick-or-treating last week.







Sabra loved having her buddy Rachel join us (the tallest girl in pajamas and robe). Our most unfortunate costuming decision was Hayden's pirate tattoos, which he applied with black Sharpie.











Just in case you were wondering what happened to Lily, she was around the corner trying to raid the candy bucket.

Memorial Day 2006

Memorial Day was a blast - lots of fun, friends, and food! Here are some photos of the day (and incidentally, all of the children aren't mine) :

Down time with Miss Fran

Trying to catch the "big one"

Boy, these kids are tired!

Daddy and his baby girl