Are you hungry yet?

I guarantee that you will be after you stop over at Building the Ark and see the fabulous collection of Christmas cookie recipes that Jane has put together! There’s more than a baker’s dozen over there and they all look terrific.

We consider Christmas cookies to be “breakfast of champions.” If it’s good enough for Santa, it’s good enough for us. They’re made with milk, eggs, and flour. Nutritious!

My family is very loyal to our own cookie recipe, but that won’t stop me from trying some of these others during the rest of the year. They’re happy to eat any kind of cookie I bake–except at Christmas, when it must be our traditional cookies.

Sad but True

Jesus Gets Expelled

It’s a great parody, but the truth behind it is just too sad. And it’s one of the reasons why our children do not attend public school.

Yesterday my neighbor The Utz Guy told me that there’s a program on local-access cable chastising our local library for removing Christmas references. Haven’t seen that for myself, since we don’t have cable…but I do know that the library is open until 5 on Christmas Eve. (My family is knee-deep in pierogi by that point in the day).

H/T to The Lady in the Pew for the link.

Mom Logic

“If you go around hitting people with your T-shirt, don’t complain when it gets ripped.”

True Love

You know it’s true love when your husband, who worked late and is tired and has to prepare for a business trip tomorrow, willingly and cheerfully goes out after dinner because you beg him to buy you some “designer Advil” since the generic kind you usually buy doesn’t seem to be doing the trick.

Little things mean a lot.

A Must-Read for Parents Regarding Media and Books for Children

Patricia Gohn’s column on helping your children make good choices regarding media and books is up at CatholicMom.

It’s a long, but very worthwhile, column. I like that she deals with different ages in different ways. With my spread-out age range, I have children in 3 of the 4 groups she mentions. I found the article encouraging and very helpful.

Anticipation

We’re getting closer to the great season of Anticipation–Advent!

Usually I seriously dread this time of year. Too much to do, too little time, and too much Christmas already in the mix.

Well, it’s not even Advent yet and there’s plenty of Christmas–the All Christmas All the Time Radio Station has gotten started, my neighbor’s house is fully decorated and lit up every night, and the school has opened its Santa’s Secret Shop. Usually I hate Santa’s Shop but I volunteered there yesterday and it was not all that bad. It was actually kind of fun, and I met some nice moms I had never met before. We listened to the Christmas radio station and sang along a little bit. So on the way home I turned on the Christmas tunes on XM (5 stations, no waiting for a good song), stopped to buy Christmas cards, and before I knew it I was in a great mood.

Hopefully this will bode well for the upcoming season. I hope that I can take all of Advent in the same happy spirit. I don’t want to spend it frazzled and flustered and yelling at my family. I want to enjoy the steps I take toward Christmas.

Today’s music for Mass

One thing I really miss, now that I am no longer a choir leader, is choosing music for Mass. It was a responsibility I always took seriously, as the music helps set the tone for worship.

Occasionally I do get to choose the music, and today is one of those days. The choir leader is traveling with her family so I will stand in. We’re a mixed-voice group accompanied by guitar.

So what will you hear if you show up at Mass at our church this noon?
Glory in the Cross
Taste and See (Hurd) for the psalm, done by our wonderful young cantor
Shepherd Me, O God
Jesus the Lord
Alleluia! Sing to Jesus

Mass of Creation acclamations
Celtic Alleluia

Short-Term Memory Loss

I try very hard not to “rat out” TheDad here on the blog. I don’t think our world needs any more husband-bashing or dad-bashing. We get enough of that on TV and in the movies. It’s why I had to stop watching “Everybody Loves Raymond” even though TheDad enjoyed watching it with me–but I found that the more I watched, the more I became like “Debra” with never a good word to say about my husband, but way too many sarcastic ones.

However, I found this funny and I know he won’t mind if I say it. You need to know that he is not good about remembering where he puts things, or remembering to bring things when he goes somewhere. This morning as he prepared to take Big Brother to the Homecoming 5K race, I asked Big Brother if he had his registration form. “Wait a minute, I think I put it down…somewhere…”

TheDad laughed. “He’s got my genes! They all do! Barb, you’re going to have to die last out of all of us, or none of us will know where to find anything.”

That’s a lot of pressure to put on a person, by the way.

This afternoon TheDad took Middle Sister and Little Brother up north to go to a movie with his brother and the 3 Girl Cousins. This gets him big-time brownie points with the kids and with me, as I’ve got some peace and quiet except when I’m chauffeuring Big Brother to miscellaneous Homecoming Events this afternoon and evening. I used some of the time to start rummaging in the basement and moving things around in preparation for next weekend’s annual “Find the Advent Wreath at the Bottom of the Christmas Closet” ritual. First you have to move all the stuff that’s in front of the Christmas Closet; you know the drill.

In the course of my rummaging and moving I found a nice bag that TheDad got at a computer event in 2002 (the bag is dated with the event logo and year). He always gives me first shot at these bags, and I was recently looking for a new one as the one I’d used for my choir music had gotten some holes in it. So TheDad gave me the bag from this year’s workshop, but it wasn’t quite The Right Bag. I lived with it, but it just wasn’t quite right. And then I found this nice bag.

So I went to empty out the little bit of stuff I found inside. Receipts, workshop notes, a name tag, a 3-1/2″ diskette, a CD, a highlighter, a Boy Scout item–nothing out of the ordinary there. Judging from the dates on the papers I found, this bag has not been used in about 4 years.

I also found a fork. Not a plastic fork, but a real fork from our kitchen silverware. Into the dishwasher! And there was a tie that has been missing for–oh, about 4 years now.

And the bag was still a little heavier than it should have been. I opened a pocket flap and found–a 3-1/2″ disk drive! (He and his dad often swap discarded computer parts so they can rebuild PCs.)

How do you forget that you have one of those in your bag?

It sure beats some of the weird stuff I’ve found in my purse!

I Love Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, and the fall-leaves-turning-color, are the two reasons that fall is my favorite season (It’s certainly NOT because the weather turns colder, that’s for sure!)

The other night I was on the phone with TheDad’s cousin, whom the kids call “Aunt S,” who wanted to invite us all to her home for next Thanksgiving. We both agreed that we love to cook Thanksgiving dinner, and that the holiday is a favorite of ours. And she explained why she feels this way: “You don’t have to worry about any gifts, or any decorations, or anything like that. It’s just about family and the people you love, and getting together. You can be thankful for each other and just enjoy the day and a nice meal together.”

Aunt S has it right. So even though I hate to give up my every-other-year chance to indulge in my time of Food Nostalgia, we will enjoy Thanksgiving with her and Uncle D next year.

There’s got to be some other time that I can cook a turkey and make all the special dishes that I need to put along with it. Maybe in February, when things get slow….

An Early-Morning Thanksgiving Tradition

My sister cooks Thanksgiving dinner at her home every year. My family attends every other year, and in the off years we spend the holiday with TheDad’s side of the family. Usually I cook, and they all come here–though there have been exceptions, like the time Pop was in the hospital. That year I cooked it all and brought it to my brother-in-law’s house and finished making the dinner there, since they lived closer to the hospital, and the adults visited Pop in shifts throughout the day.

When you cook Thanksgiving dinner you have to get up early. There are a lot of details to take care of, and a big turkey does take a while to stuff and cook. So my sister and I have developed our own little tradition. Whether it’s our year to visit her home, or the “bye year” as she calls it, we spend part of the early hours of the morning on the phone. Even if we’re at her house, she’s got so many guests and is so busy that we don’t get to talk much. So we enjoy our Thanksgiving phone call.

I’ve got nothing to cook this year but I’m up early anyway. The coffee is brewing, and I just got an email from my sister telling me that she’s awake, and that those participating in the annual Great Pheasant Hunt will be leaving at 5:45, so I’m welcome to call anytime after that.

It may be a while before I get to cook Thanksgiving dinner again, as TheDad’s cousin has just extended us a standing invitation for the “bye years.” I’ll have to find another time to do a turkey dinner, I guess.

But the early-morning phone call will stand as our tradition.