I am feeling incredibly grateful today. I am comfortably ensconced on my son’s sofa. I am listening to my 6 year old grandson read aloud. It is amazing how his reading has taken off since September. Our 8 hour trip yesterday had some of the worst driving conditions I have dealt with for a very long time. I am so grateful we didn’t crash, we didn’t end up in the ditch, and we don’t have to go anywhere until we choose to. We made it here about 6:00 pm last evening.
Son bought a standing rib roast that we will cook and eat today. We will go to church tonight for the late service, and we will open presents after church. Life is good.
How are you spending Christmas Eve? What are you grateful for?
Well, we finally got measurable snow. Maybe 5” for us on Thursday. One benefit to it being so cold before it snowed is that the ground is frozen hard and I’m not ripping up quite as much sod as I generally do. Oh, I can still rip some up if I do it right, but certainly not as much as I would if it the ground wasn’t frozen before it snowed.
Bailey, my tractor buddy and I, spent an hour re-learning how to blade snow off the road and clear the yard.
I realized I forgot to put markers at the corners of the shop concrete, and I haven’t gotten the snowblower in the shed yet, but really, I don’t know where I’d put it anyway. I still gotta get the four wheeler in the shed, and the trailer for the lift I’m borrowing (and that I also don’t know quite where to put). Once the shop project is fully finished, I’ll have a bit more room; right now I’ve still got 14’ sheets of pole barn steel laying in the way. And once I get the tools and extra crap sorted out, then I can rearrange better for next winter. Heck, maybe by next winter I’ll have the lean too done on the back side and some of this stuff can go in there.
As I write this on Friday, my car is getting an oil change and tire rotation and I’m watching the snow melt and drip off. What a yucky job for the techs. Everybody has to start somewhere and presumably that’s doing the sloppy messy jobs.
We’ll be having the longest night, and shortest day this weekend. The days get longer from here on out and there’s light at the end of the tunnel!
The other morning as daughter and I were headed into town during the snow, we saw a box truck struggling and I commented that those kinda vehicles have terrible traction and don’t do well in this kind of weather. I was about to launch into a chronicle of rear wheel drive vs front wheel drive, and wheel base length, and how those things impact winter driving, but I stopped myself, and I asked, “Do you want me to keep talking about this or should I stop?” She gave it some serious thought and finally said “Naw”.
I’ve always appreciated her brutal honesty.
Do you all have that magic ten minutes in the morning? As we’re trying to get going in the mornings, I think we’re just about to leave and suddenly it’s ten minutes later and she doesn’t have her shoes on yet. I don’t get it. Where does that ten minutes go? This has been a thing since the kids were small. We’re almost ready to go and then it’s ten minutes later and now we’re late. It’s a magic ‘time hole’.
I hope you all have magical Christmas’ or Solstice events. Remember to spend a little time being grateful for what you have one way or another. Take some time to ponder.
While my parents have predominantly British and German ancestry, you wouldn’t know it from my upbringing. No culturally relevant foods, no traditions, no nothing. It wasn’t a void that I ever looked to fill, but it does mean I’m a bit of a tabula rasa where culture and tradition are concerned.
There are just a few things that I’ve carried from my childhood to my adulthood; most of the traditions that YA and I observe are things we made the decision to do, not things that I did growing up. I was going to list a bunch, but the list is too long!
I’ve lived in the heart of Scandinavian culture here in the Twin Cities for 44 years. I’ve taught myself how to make aebleskivers and Swedish pancakes, visited the Swedish American institute. One year we did a Saint Lucia observation at our church (UU); I made YA a white dress and we fashioned the candle wreath for her head, although none of the kids actually had their candles lit (phew!). We have a nisse watching out over our garden and I have a few heavy Scandinavian sweaters.
But for some reason, I have never gotten around to making a kransekake, the stunning tower of cake/cookie rings that you see on the covers of many Scandinavian cookbooks. It’s called a crown cake and sometimes a wreath cake as well. Well, this turned out to be the year. I knew our Anna had the rings/pans that you need to make the individual rings/wreaths and she graciously offered to let me borrow them. I found several recipes and decided on one that I could pipe out of a bag rather than roll out the dough in log forms. It turned out to be ridiculously easy… truly the hardest part was figuring out which of the two largest pans was actually the biggest one. My recipe made way more dough than I needed… next time I attempt this, I’ll have a plan for this. Maybe save it until after the first batch is baked and make a smaller tower. I know purists would not have added sprinkles but I just had to.
It made a lovely party centerpiece and if I do say so myself, tasted really good. The only problem is that people were afraid to mess with it. I’ve had this problem before with pretty cakes or rice krispy trees; I usually end up cutting them up so they don’t look too daunting. I did this with the kransekake as well. About ½ of it got eaten at the party and I’ve been nibbling away at it since then. This turned out to be a fun attempt for me; it may get added to my stable of traditions.
When was the last time you pushed yourself to try something new? How did it turn out?
Our scale is broken. It doesn’t show the weight we want it to show. Especially after a day of wandering around the shop trying to find my tools. And swearing. Evidently swearing isn’t an aerobic activity no matter how loud or flowery I get with it. Humph. Who knew?
How many rings have you got? They weren’t always a big deal. 1886 is when Tiffany and Co introduced the popular diamond setting, then after WWII, De Beers created the ‘Diamonds are Forever’ slogan and now I have 4 silicone rings. My everyday ring, two middle ground rings, and the dress ring that Kelly gave me which says “Adventure is Out There”. Sometimes I wear it so you can read it, sometimes so I can read it. Depends how I’m feeling. When we got married in 1990, we had the real gold bands with diamonds. Kelly had the engagement ring plus wedding band. I have a silver band with tiny diamonds in it, but I wouldn’t wear it farming. So, then I got a plain silver band. And I wore it for a lot of years, and I put it in my pocket one day while working on some machinery and trying to fit my hand up in a tight spot and I didn’t want to get my hand stuck up in there by my ring. And then I forgot about it for a few days and then it wasn’t in my pocket anymore.
I’m still hoping to find it someday.
My brother-in -law wore his ring on his pinky, snagged it on a railing when jumping off something, ‘degloved’ his pinky (peeled the skin off, right down to the bone) and then had to get his pinky amputated. And that’s why we wear silicon rings now. Plus, they’re cheap and come in fun designs. Kelly has several as well.
HOW MANY TIMES DOES / DID YOUR PHONE RING BEFORE THE MACHINE ANSWERED? DID YOU DO FUNNY MESSAGES?
My mother told me more than once when I was young that I shouldn’t get married until after I was 19. She was likely to say that after my father did something exasperating. It was no secret that she was 19 when she married my father. They were married for more than 70 years and were very happy together, but I took her words to heart and waited until I was 25.
Husband stands by his assertion that if we are going to do much traveling in the fall, we better have it done by Veterans Day, because you can’t depend on the weather after that. He is usually correct.
I stand by the assertions that lefse needs to finished and in the freezer by Christ the King Sunday, that pepper seeds should be started by March 15th, don’t plant your garden here until after Memorial Day , and Montana is not a sane or reasonable place to live, so don’t even think about moving there.
What are your words to live by? Any words of wisdom that you remember from your parents? What words of wisdom would you like to impart on young persons?
Today is our agency Holiday party. I wrote last year about the festivities and “planned” fun. This year the powers that be had the sense to scrap the door decorating contest, opting for a noon potluck, trivia game, and white elephant gift exchange. I am bringing cookies, and cranberry-orange glazed chicken thighs.
I am too burned out to come up with a white elephant gift. We found out yesterday that a beloved extended family member is probably going to be placed in Hospice care, which makes holiday festivities seem somewhat more frivolous than usual. I see, though, that the weather may be good when we travel Monday to Brookings, SD. It will be healing to be with family members.
My mother always had a hard time at Christmas, having lost a 7 month pregnancy in 1949 when her appendix ruptured. She did her best to keep Christmas cheerful, but it was hard. Tragedies are bad enough, but seem worse during the holidays.
What would you try to get rid of at a white elephant gift exchange? What holiday tragedies, frivolous or serious, have you had to contend with?
When I was growing up, we were not a poinsettia household. I think a lot of it stems from money; my dad didn’t really come into his own, career-wise until I was almost out of elementary school. There are plenty of memories of my mom saying “don’t ask for that in front of your father” kinds of things. We weren’t destitute by any means, but there wasn’t a lot of disposable income for seasonal house decorations. We always had a tree and a wreath on the door, but no little villages, no strings of lights on trees in the yard, no dishes of holiday candy and no poinsettias.
I’ll admit I’ve gone a little overboard in the other direction, but I never thought much about poinsettias until I was working in the bookstore and came across The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola. This book became the first in my collection of children’s holiday books.
When YA was little, I would bring them all down and we read at least one a night during December. And it was then that I first added poinsettias to my holiday décor.
But red is really the only color for poinsettias in my book. I have a close friend who adores all things pink and she would always have a pink poinsettia on her desk during the holidays. Bleech. I do own a silk white poinsettia; I probably got it back when I had quite a few silk plants – a very silly phase I admit. I still put it out although YA doesn’t like it and it’s not my favorite either.
We usually get two big poinsettias for the mantel. Some years, if the spirit moves us, we get another one for in the dining room. AND for many years we got a teeny one for Nimue. She would happily munch her little one and leave the big ones alone. Not sure why. (I DID THE RESEARCH… a cat would have to eat hundreds of poinsettias to be affected by the toxin. We’d ALL have to eat hundreds.) This year, since Nimue has slowed down a bit as she ages, she no longer jumps up on the mantel. Since the big plants are safe, we skipped the kitty-poinsettia. She gets enough treats.
Poinsettia shopping happened at Gertens this year; YA has decided she really likes Gertens. As we were walking through the greenhouse, we came upon some truly hideous specimens. Purples, pinks, turquoise, blue. And glitter. Ick. YA knows I don’t like these so she has to tease me. This year she suggested we get one of each color to “celebrate the rainbow”. I’d have to be sedated every time I came into the room!
Poinsettias? Yes or no? Red? White? Pink? Colors of the rainbow? Glitter (I promise I won’t judge)?
I can’t remember the last time I set out of the house to go shopping for Christmas presents for our family and loved ones. I spent much of my morning yesterday scrolling through the Amazon lists and other lists of things our son, daughter, and daughter in law wanted and conveniently sent to us. A few clicks, and their gifts were on the way. Later this week I will fill the treat boxes for our far flung friends and family and get them to UPS to deliver.
Husband and I told the kids we didn’t want any presents this year as we don’t want more possessions that we will have to move. I don’t think either of them listened to us, and we will get books at a minimum. I also told daughter that bubble bath and toiletries were good options for me if she really wanted to get me something.
Right now I don’t have the time or the energy to go physically from store to store in a mall or in a big box store shopping for people. Is that a sad commentary on our current state of affairs, or something to rejoice over? I am not sure.
How does your family gift one another? What are you hoping for this Christmas?
Only getting about three to five eggs a day lately. Not sure what’s up with that. Might be because I ordered roosters this spring, I’m not sure. I’ve got the chickens heated water bucket going, I’ve got the tank heater going down by the barn, and I’ve got the heat running in the shop, the wellhouse heater is on for the really cold nights, plus a heat lamp over a water bucket for Bailey. And I plugged a tractor in. This time of the year I go out and do chicken chores before I go to work, rather than doing them in the afternoon when I come home. I give the chickens fresh water, (I don’t know how many chickens we have these days. Maybe 40 or 50 and they drink about two gallons a day). I throw out a bucket of corn in the morning. If I throw it out in the afternoon or evening, the deer eat it overnight before the chickens ever get to it. Coming down our driveway at dusk, there are deer all over! One night when it was fairly pleasant out, I bet I counted 35 deer in different spots- and that’s all in a mile just on our property! And most of those are does. Stupid deer.
A lot of years, the weekend after Thanksgiving, Kelly and I put up the snow fence. This year the weather wasn’t conducive to that so our plan is to do it this weekend as it’s supposed to be in the 40s. It will be complicated a little bit by the tall grass in there, because my cow people never ran their cattle in this pasture and I didn’t have the brush mower. I tried mowing it down with the lawnmower, but the grass was just too tall and thick. The brush mower has been repaired now and I’ll pick it up next week. They fixed a lot of extra cracks and honestly it should be better than new. It wasn’t cheap, but it cost less than a new mower.
I’ve started filling our birdfeeders again: an ear of corn, a suet block, a log with the holes drilled in it for the suet pegs, and then one feeder for sunflower seeds, and one feeder for a mix. In the fall after combining, and while I’m chisel plowing, I will pick up ears of corn that I see in the fields and bring them home and put in a bucket and that’s what I use for the birds. This fall as I was picking up corn I was thinking to myself that I thought there was a place on the tractor to I put these 20 or 30 ears so they weren’t rolling around in the cab with me. And then I remembered, under one of the steps there’s a little storage area and when I opened it up, it was full of cobs from last year. Mice had gotten into it and eaten all the kernels. I chuckled to myself as I sort of remember thinking last year to remember to go get that corn, which evidently I never did. This year they were probably in the tractor a week before I remembered to go get them, and was surprised to discover the mice had already found them and cleaned off a couple ears.
My summer Padawan came out the other night with a friend of his and they wanted to work on a car in the shop.
I told him they couldn’t get into the heated part yet, but they could use the other part of the shed. And it was gonna be cold in there. He was fine with that and said it wouldn’t be a problem. It was Wednesday night when it was 8° out and the wind blowing like crazy. The thermometer in the shed said 20 degrees and here he is in shorts, because that young man does not own a pair of pants. He picked up a different car recently and he’s fixing it up by adding things I don’t understand, but things to improve the performance: custom air filters, something called an air dump, performance spark plugs, and he’s got a chip coming for it to boost engine performance. It’s a pretty slick looking car in the first place (a Kia something) I have to admit, and he is learning a lot, and this is keeping him out of trouble. He certainly had more willpower and stamina than I did at 18, I don’t think I would’ve worked in a 20° shop in shorts. For three hours. I offered him sweatpants but he wouldn’t take them. He did ask for gloves once, but I didn’t have any that fit, and I gave him some of the nitril work gloves that I wear, and they keep your hands very warm, but the next time I went out he didn’t have those on either. He said they had gotten in the way. I offered help as needed, and I helped them find the right tools, and really, he was focused and determined. His buddy didn’t quite know what they would be doing that night. He thought they were just gonna hang out and at the last minute Padawan said ‘I know a guy with a shed, let’s go work on the car.’ They’d come into the shop area to warm up as needed, and by 10:15 PM they had the car running again and they headed for home. And again, more power to them I guess. The second kid was a very nice young man. He and his family had lived in the UAE for a couple years because his mom was working over there. He builds computers for people. It was fun talking to him. The next night, Padawan and my other summer helper came out. One still in shorts, and the other without a jacket. But he had just left it somewhere and gladly accepted my jacket. Padawan was back the third night IN SWEATPANTS!
I’m making progress on the shop. Just a couple pieces of steel yet in a corner of the inside, and all the steel on the outside wall. But that will go quick.
PHOTO
Just got AC installed, mostly to help with humidity in the summer. It’s not a ‘Man-cave’ I keep telling Kelly!
PHOTO
This was a used unit I brought home from one of the theaters and I didn’t want it sitting open all winter.
Kelly, daughter, and I saw ‘Les Mis’ at the Orpheum last week and that was as good as I remembered.
Next week is ‘Book of Mormon’, but we decided daughter didn’t need to see that one. Too many things I didn’t want to explain yet.
Sometimes I surprise even myself. I would have thought that I would go to my grave as a “real” tree person. There have been real Christmas trees every year of my life, even the two years living in a teeny apartment (we had a very small table top tree that we placed on the piano). For many years, including up until YA was in high school, the tree was chopped down at one of the many tree farms around the Twin Cities then dragged back to the house atop the car. One year I borrowed a friends pick-up truck; that made it easy – just tossed the tree into the bed of the truck and off we went. Once YA didn’t want to make a day-long ordeal of getting a tree, we moved to the two-minute-drive-to-Bachmans selection process.
YA has been talking about an artificial tree for a couple of years now. She doesn’t like getting sap on her hands and she really doesn’t like the needles on the floor. Since we usually have the tree up from the day after Thanksgiving until New Years, there are always needles. Every time she mentioned these problems, I completely blew her off. Until last year.
For many years Bachmans offered a nice discount to fresh trees on Black Friday. This ended during pandemic, so my wallet had felt that pinch already. Then last year, when we trundled down to see the trees, the sticker shock just about knocked me off my feet. And the selection was pretty sparse as well. It was do bad in fact, that we were actually about to leave to go look for a Boy Scout or Church lot. We found the white pines outside on the lot – sitting on their own. I love white pine but YA does not; they are harder to decorate as they are so thick and the branches are not strong. But the pricing was much better, so we chose one and headed home.
I spent months thinking about YAs arguments in favor of an artificial tree and was finally swayed to “think about it” when she offered to cover at least half of the cost. I had seen the space allotted to artificial trees at Gertens. It was huge, so in October, when we saw the first holiday sale, we headed on over. Honestly I didn’t think this was going to end well. I figured we wander around for about 20 minutes, have a fight and then go home.
I’ve always had lights that fade on and off; I was expecting to be sad that I was losing this option with a fake tree. YA wanted a tree that looked real. I was worried about the whole “fluffing” thing that I’ve heard people talk about. YA was worried about plugging everything in.
Then we met Bonnie. She works the artificial tree lot at Gertens and boy, is she good at her job. She knew EVERYTHING about all the trees but was very good at parsing out her knowledge as you asked and didn’t overwhelm us. We learned quite a bit. First off, many of the trees have rubber tips, so they look quite authentic (just the tips though, the inside branches are paper needles, otherwise the tree would weigh a ton). Many trees now have power poles; you don’t have to mess with plugs. You attach each section and the tree figures it out. AND… although when you look at the trees sitting on display, they all have either white lights or multi-colored lights, it turns out that most trees these days have multiple options. The tree that we liked has six setting. None of them are fade on/fade off, but there are three twinkle settings.
YA wanted one particular tree a lot – enough that she decided she could cover even more than half of the cost. So despite my expectations that we wouldn’t find anything we both liked, we ended up coming home with my first artificial tree. It takes about 8 minutes to put up, from start to finish. I don’t have to put on the lights, we don’t have to water it. Six settings of lights, as I mentioned. And I think it’s lovely.
We had friends over last night to trim the tree and it was easy to decorate and the branches are all strong enough to even the heaviest of our ornaments (a little torito from Peru). I’m really happy with the new tree. Guess you can teach old dogs new tricks every now and then.
Have you ever surprised yourself by changing your mind?
Trail Baboon 