Category Archives: holidays

2023, holidays, Uncategorized, work

Forced Jollity

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Christmas parties at my behavioral health agency have always been somewhat controversial. Back in the days of the “good ol’ boys” administrators they were boozy and pretty wild evening affairs at the local Elks Club or Knights of Columbus. People brought their spouses or significant others. Husband and I once played harmonica and bass guitar, respectively, in a employee blues band that had our LDS (Mormon) psychiatrist standing on her chair and clapping and shouting. The occasional employee invariably had too much to drink and had to be talked to the next work day about their behavior. We now have far different administrators who are female and more concerned with team building. Our Christmas parties take place in our building during work hours, there is no alcohol, and only employees attend.

Our workplace has been pretty stressful this past year, and many of us are getting burned out. Our head administrator and new clinical director were intent that this year’s party was going to be fun and healing if it killed us. We had our Christmas party on Wednesday. There were about 35 of us. The party was from noon until 4:00. It was considered a staff meeting, so everyone was expected to attend. We had been randomly divided into four teams the end of November and each team had given the assignment to decorate one of the doors in the waiting rooms. They had to be decorated by December 10th. This was a team building exercise. We had to vote on which door was the best. The teams were also assigned various categories of foods to bring for the potluck meal. My team was assigned main dishes and sides. We were encouraged to bring “ethnic” foods. I brought butter chicken, North Indian mixed vegetables, homemade chapati, and basmati rice. (One of our new crisis workers is from India and got tearful eating the vegetables because it tasted like the vegetables her mother makes.) Our Filipina psychiatric nurse brought Lumpia and a chicken dish. Our Ukrainian Crisis Team lead brought cabbage rolls. There were lots of pasta salads, barbecue, snack chips, dips, and desserts.

We then had team competitions playing multiple rounds of Family Feud. My team won. We had a white elephant gift exchange. I got a Willie Nelson chia pet planter kit. I gave a 3-D model of the brain that we had in the basement.

I was pretty exhausted by 4:00 with all the socializing and snacking. (I had got up at 5:00 AM to fry the chapati.) Was the party fun? Yes and no. I don’t think forced jollity works real well, but it was nice to be at work and be able to talk to coworkers and not worry about productivity. Our administrators are already thinking of next December’s team building exercises. 

What do you think would make a good team building exercise for a work place? What are the best and worst work parties you had to attend?

2023, holidays, Media, Music, Uncategorized

Tchaikovskied Out

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Winnipeg has a rather renowned ballet company as well as a wonderful symphony orchestra. One December when we lived there we attended a production of The Nutcracker with some friends. These friends were good friends with two of the musicians, a cellist and a French horn player who were a couple, and who played in the Winnipeg Symphony as well as the orchestra for the ballet.

We all went back to our house after the performance. I was excited to play a new recording of some classical piece I had purchased, but the musicians pleaded with me to put on some jazz instead. They explained that they had played so many performances of The Nutcracker for Christmas that it felt like they had been eating nothing but sugar for weeks.

I confess I am getting tired of all the Tchaikovsky on the radio stream. I could also be happy if I didn’t hear John Rutter’s choral piece about the donkey for the rest of the season.

What is too much of a good thing ? What Christmas music are you getting tired of?

2023, Gatherings, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized, Words

Reading Aloud

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Thank the Lord! We are done with all our Christmas church performances for the year! Being a church musician can really be exhausting in December. Yesterday we played bells for two morning services and then sang, played bells, and read various things in a Lessons and Carols service in the afternoon. We had a great time, but are so relieved it is over.

I love reading lessons and scripture verses in church. I know how to pronounce some of the more difficult names, and I understand what I am reading so I think I can communicate the meaning of what is being read to the listeners. The words from the King’s College Bidding prayer are almost poetical and I was so happy to read them. Last night, several Grade 5 and 6 students read some of the Lessons, too, and they did a really good job.

I have always secretly wanted to narrate things like the public narrations of Joyce’s Ulysses that you can hear on public radio. I know that reading in public is torture for some. I love having wonderful words crafted by someone else to let others know about. 

How do you feel about reading in public? What would you like to narrate and read to others?

2023, Family, Gatherings, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized

The Choir Sees All

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One benefit of singing in our church choir is that we sit in the front of the church and get to watch the antics of the children in the pews during the service. Our congregation is pretty tolerant of noisy children in church. Parents of the most rambunctious children sit in the balcony so they don’t make too much of a ruckus.

The other Sunday our backyard neighbor was in the balcony with her two boys, ages 5 and 3. They are very active boys. Once, this summer we heard the mom in the backyard yell at the oldest one “Don’t you put that rope around your brother’s neck!” Neither boy would sit still in church, choosing to instead run around in the balcony and not listen to their mom. She tried her best to get them to sit quietly, but it was a losing battle, and she eventually left and went home before the sermon. 

What do you think about the Elf on the Shelf? Who were the naughtiest children in your neighborhood when you were growing up?

2023, Family, Food, History, holidays, Uncategorized

Ich Mache Engelsplatschen (nicht)

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I make a variety of cookies for Christmas that I send to friends and relatives. This year our son asked me to make some marzipan cookies called Engelsplatschen, or angel cookies. He provided the recipe. One of our daughter’s friends, a young woman originally from Stuttgart, also was interested in them, as she is having problems with gluten intolerance, and these only had two teaspoons of flour in them. The only other ingredients were marzipan, almonds, powdered sugar, and an egg.

I have never cooked with marzipan before. My Aunt Leona made marzipan fruits that she painted with food coloring. She learned how to make them from her mother, who was a professional cook in Hamburg. I expected the cookies to stay in the round balls I rolled them in, just like her fruits. Well, they spread out all over, ran into each other, and burned.

I did some research, found a better recipe, and ordered more marzipan. My new recipe has quite a bit of almond flour. They will still flatten out, but will have more substance. Live and learn.

What are your favorite Christmas cookies? What new things have you been learning about or learning to do?

2023, Family, holidays, home, Uncategorized

Lit Up

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When we first moved to our house in 1988, people referred to our street, in December, as Santa Claus Lane because about four houses at the end of the street had elaborate, wooden, hand made, moving Christmas decorations in the front yard. One, the home of a piano teacher, had the swaying figure of an organist that looked like the teacher herself seated at a pipe organ, with choir boys standing along side in a row. The boys looked like the teacher’s three sons.

As the owners of the elaborate decorations aged and/or died, the decorations have been given to other residents on the street, but the decorations have aged, too, and no longer move. Most other residents opt for strings of lights on the trees and houses. All we have are four, year round LED lanterns stuck in the ground lining the edge of the front peony bed.

Our front yard isn’t conducive to light displays because of the awkward placement of the only electrical outlet on the front of the house being between the double garage doors. We would have to drive over electrical cords. I am fine with no lights. Something in me rebels about the falderal, and really, all that just takes up space in the basement 11 months of the year. Husband is even more ascetic than I am, but confessed last weekend while we were running errands to strange urges to get lights and hang the all over the front of the house. I don’t know what got into him, but I got him home as soon as I could and poured a glass of German brandy for him. that is something we usually only have around this time of year, since I need it for Stollen.

How do you decorate the outside of your house for the holidays? What is your favorite holiday beverage?

Automotive, holidays, Kids, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Driving Me Crazy

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When YA was first driving, I asked a good friend of mine, who had two daughters older than YA, “when will I be able to get in a car with her while she’s driving, and not fear for my life.”   Without even a blink, Lori said “when you stop getting a car with her.”  I laughed at the time but 13 years later, I realize she was absolutely right.

YA wanted to drive on Thanksgiving.  She said it was to see if she could get better mileage on her new car (she bought it in July) but I think it was really to show it off to the Thanksgiving crowd.  She drives closer to other cars than I do and it makes me nervous.  I put my foot out a couple of times as if I could brake.  YA thought this was pretty funny.

She did NOT think it was funny on the way home.  It was dark and a couple of times she pulled into a lane with very little space between us and the car in front.  I tell myself that she actually drives more these days than I do and she hasn’t had an accident yet.  But I’ll admit that at one point I gasped and threw my hands out in front of me.  It was involuntary.  She gave me a stern warning and I sat on my hands the rest of the way home.

I don’t have these kind of issues when I’m riding with other folks.  I went all over Nashville two weeks ago with my friend Pat driving and never flinched once!

Do prefer to be the driver or the passenger?

2023, Gatherings, holidays, Music, Songs, Uncategorized

Sitting Next to Eileen

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I have been a member of our church choir for about 20 years, most of them seated next to Eileen, a retired college librarian. She and I are both Altos, and are used to following one another through the music for pitch and rhythm.

For Christmas this year we are singing Morten Lauridsen’s Oh Magnum Mysterium, a beautiful piece that has parts for Soprano I and II, Alto I and II, Tenor I and II, as well as Baritone and Bass. Here is a recording of it>

Our choir is small right now, with only two tenors and two basses. We have four altos. The Tenor I part in the piece is quite high, so I and one other low Alto are singing Tenor I. Both Tenors will sing Tenor II, and the two basses will split the low men’s parts. Eileen will stay as a First Alto. Eileen and I decided after rehearsal of the piece last week that we just can’t sit next to each other while learning the Lauridsen piece because I was following her and she was following me and neither of us was getting our parts right. Neither of us realized how much we depended on one another. It will be better being in the row with the Tenors.

Who are your favorite choral composers? Who have you led astray?

2023, animals, Family, holidays, home, Mysteries

Pumpkin Eaters!

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Today’s post is inspired by Anna’s “I went for a walk in my neighborhood” posts.

I normally wait until right before Halloween to buy pumpkins for our front steps, with the hope that they’ll last until Thanksgiving.  This is a fool’s errand, as it usually only takes my neighborhood squirrels about a week to figure out there are good eats on the front steps.  I almost always get the pumpkins from Mt. Olivet near my house.  The prices are in line with other pumpkin vendors and the money always goes to one of the youth groups. 

This year YA went with me to choose the three pumpkins that would grace our front steps – normally she leaves this to me.  While I always choose standard orange pumpkins, usually all about the same size, YA wanted a big pink variety this year.  After she had decided on the big pink one, she let me choose the other two.  I stuck with my orange tradition.

As other years, it took several days before I noticed the first teeth marks on the pink pumpkin.  By Halloween, it had a good hole so I just turned that side to the back.  As the days have gone by, more and more of the pumpkin has been eaten up – as of yesterday, it looks like a shallow bowl filled with seeds.  I’m happy that critters get good meals out of the decorations – I hate to think of them just going into landfill somewhere.

What I don’t understand is why they are only eating the pink one?  Is this a squirrel mania, like eating one course of your meal at a time?  Will the pink one have to be completely gone before they start in on the orange ones?

Are you feeding any wild critters these days? t

2023, Business, Food, holidays, Weather

Advent Calendar Day

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I’m finally warmed up.  This time yesterday morning I was sitting in my stadium chair outside the Aldis in River Falls.  That’s right, the annual advent calendar day at Aldis. 

Even arriving at 6 a.m. (store opens at 9), there were already two gals there – they have been the first in line for three years straight now.  So I set up my chair in the #3 spot and since it was 22°, I retreated to my car and the heater.  I was in good company – for awhile it was only carts holding spaces.

 I got stiff and tired of sitting in the car so I settled into my chair with my blanket and big mittens at 7:45 a.m.  At that point, the other four women and the man in the #6 position came out as well.  I brought cookies this year and shared them around.

Aldis corporate made changes this year (because of course since it wasn’t broke, they tried to fix it).  No tickets to guarantee an alcohol advent calendar and no limit on quantities per customer.  The manager did come out at 8:30 and explain the changes and he repeatedly suggested that everybody have a little consideration for those further back in the line.  You know that didn’t happen; the picture above was taken at 9:03.  The two women in front of me were particularly piggy. 

But I got the one I wanted as well as the cheese advent calendar so I’m happy.  Can’t wait to get started on December 1!

Have you gotten your winter coat out yet?