December is here! The Christmas countdown is on. I'm still a kid about Christmas. I love it. My family has always made a big deal about it, we "kids" leaving cookies out for "Santa" long after we stopped believing (though one year when we were teenagers we left him "space cabbage" which was really cauliflower dyed with food coloring. Santa did not eat it.). I think that when we did figure out the hoax we kept quiet about it, seeing no possible good that could come from not believing in Santa. Now we are all in our 30s and we still spend every Christmas day at my parents' house (last year was my first one away, spent with Jim's family); we still hang our stockings, though now we are the "elves" who help stuff them for each other, and my sister, the "baby" of the family, still wakes up at the crack of dawn and yells "Santa came!" to wake the house.
Stockings are my favorite. My mom has several times broached the subject of turning the stocking responsibility over to our spouses, but my sister and I have retaliated by saying if she does, we will leave hers to our father's shopping devices, and that ends that discussion! We have agreed that all other gift-giving would go away sooner than stockings would.
Since I love December so much, and all the preparations for Christmas, I thought I would post a little bit about it every day. Pictured above is the most spectacular white pointsettia ever. You can't really tell, but it's about waist-high and just magnificent. We also got our tree yesterday, a noble fir which is gorgeous but turns out to have NO fragrance. Bummer. We're going to decorate it tonight. I've also begun baking -- I made shortbread in the adorable new shortbread pan my mother gave me, which imprints delicate snowflakes on the top of each piece. More cookies are soon to follow. Between us we made 18 kinds last year. Totally over the top, but we give most of them away. (Though the time before that happens, when the freezer is crammed with tupperware, is a very dangerous time.)
Happy December!
3 comments:
Looking forward reading the christmas posts :)
Happy december to you too!!
Space cabbage? That sounds very tasty!I feel like an honorary Christmas student when around you and your mom at this time of year. The way the two of you approach the holidays is so extraordinarily filled with enthusiasm and creativity that its simply contagious and wondrous and I wish someone would do a feature on the two of you between all her rituals and all your baking and the decorating and the good cheer and the birds and the toy chest and ornaments strewn everywhere. Its out of control and superbly dynamo and excrutiatingly fun!
There has GOT to be a story behind the inspiration for that space cabbage. I am getting close to feeling ready for Christmas...how's that for enthusiasm? In another week, I'm "done" teaching--that's when the Santa-spirit will hit me full-force.
--D.--
Post a Comment