Chestnuts roasting and all that jazz

It’s the Christmas season and I’m trying to make sure that for Sam, it’s driven by something other than retail outlets and sugar. As we’ve been wandering the non-frozen Vermont tundra on our various errands and activities I’ve been making a point of giving Sam money to put in the Salvation Army kettles scattered around the area while telling him that this is the giving season. I think the kettle ended up with my backup $20 because I grabbed the wrong wad o’cash to give to Sam. It looked a little thicker than I expected. I hope that made the bell ringer’s day if they get to check their earnings.

We don’t do a lot of gift exchanging in our family because we’ve all agreed to simplify, in some cases do charitable donations in place of gifts, and it’s amazing what that does for my Christmas state of mind. We’re all scattered everywhere and we never know what anyone wants and this is just so much more civilized.

We’ve been counting down the days on an advent calendar although Sam doesn’t quite understand the concept and wants to open every drawer and eat the candy. The advent calendar is refillable and I predict that next year it will have some candy-free days. Gee, I guess I could even do that this year if I did a little planning, couldn’t I?

Our preparations have also included a Christmas bazaar at my in-law’s church where we let Sam pick out a wreath. He picked out the wreath with the most possible “shiny” because that is the way of the Sam. He gets that from his Dad who tries to maximize “shiny” on his motorcycle. He also spent some time making bead candy canes. Guess which of these three he didn’t do?

And Christmas wouldn’t be complete without projects. I’m trying to pace myself though so we’ve just made orange and clove pomanders so far. I just looked up “pomanders” to check my spelling and it says that they’re used to mask odors. Perhaps I should put them in the bathroom….

We tried to make gingerbread cookies with friends but after three of the five kids there had meltdowns we aborted the project completely. There will be time for this when they’re older. But the cookie idea isn’t gone forever; we’ll be making cinnamon ornament cookies one day in the near future. Just think how nice they’ll smell with the pomanders. And of course there will be spritz because they’re my favorite Christmas cookies.

I’ve got an idea for Christmas presents Sam can make but I’m not writing about that here. If anyone has a great idea for a project for a not quite three-year-old I’m all ears.

We’ve not gotten very far with our decorations but we have Christmas lights! I put them up on Sunday while Ben watched TV at maximum volume, the better to drown out the sound of Sam. Wait, does that indicate that I might have been a bit irritated with his participation level? However, I did make him fetch and carry because he’s got all the tools scattered about the house where I can’t find them. He earned his fetchee position. And with Sam’s help I managed to break two lightbulbs. Amazing what I can accomplish with Sam around. But this year the lights are retro lights where last year I called them white trash lights because my installation method was a tad more sophisticated this time around. Sagging has been minimized.

Of course Christmas food has already become part of the landscape. Today at work someone sent the office a bunch of cashews (I ate tons of them since Sam’s allergic and we don’t ever have them at home!), some cookies and chocolate. And of course everyone is baking, including me. I’ll be making a dessert for a party on Friday night – I think baklava because everyone thinks it’s really hard when it’s not. Sam and I made bars for dessert the other day and those were gone in an instant.

I think I’ll eat my weight in Christmas goodies this year.

I’m definitely getting into the Christmas spirit but the one thing we’re missing is snow! Come on Mother Nature, do your part!

Oh, and to leave you with evidence of Ramone’s and a quick mention of our other on-going project around here, here are Sam’s big boy underpants!