Merry Happy

Gifts

Tonight, for the ninth year in a row, I made the amazing candied pecan recipe I got from one of my favorite people in the world, Danielle Villalpando.

This was the first Christmas that I can remember that we didn't get together with our beloved Villalpando family (Danielle's husband, Dan, is Josh's oldest friend in the world & I've adopted them as my own). Schedules and distance and time got between us this year. But every single time I make her pecans, I remember how much I adore them and their beautiful family. Hopefully some of that love goes into the pecans and the receivers feel some of the affection I feel when I make them.

Merry Christmas, Villalpandos. Merry Christmas, all.

Pecans for our sweet mail carrier, Rosa.

Solstice

I've been compelled to come up with a ritual to help us celebrate the Winter holidays since Dash was born. We do light the candles at Hanukkah, and we deck the halls like motherfuckers, but we don't practice any religion (we're ethnic Jews, but we don't go to temple), so the narrative of Jesus' birth doesn't really play in the Engel house. I've always known that Christmas had its roots in the Solstice, but I didn't know where to start in our celebrations.

Well, this year I took the bull by the horns & just made it up as I went along. We invited our most beloved & (over)fed them on brisket and latkes, and then we did some serious hippie shit and it was the most perfect thing ever. Testify:

The first project I came up with for the kiddos was to make bird feeders from found pine cones. I wrapped a bit of raffia around them for hanging and then let the kids at them.

I set out paper trays of peanut butter & bird seed. The kids smeared the pb on the pine cones & then rolled them in the seeds.

Voila! A Winter snack for our winged friends.

Our next project was a Solstice candle holder. We talked a little bit about the short days of winter and how lighting the candles was a symbol of hope for the coming longer days. Each small guest was invited to light a candle and make a wish.

(I made the candle holder with a slice of wood & some painted doo-dads from the craft store. I love it in a weird way.)

I also took the opportunity to tie the idea of "lights" into the Hanukkah and Christmas traditions of lighting candles. I'm hoping the more religious of our guests weren't pissed at my hippie ramblings.

Our next craft was the making of the ornaments. I bought some clear ornaments and colored glitter from the craft store. I prepped some strips of colored paper and invited the smalls to write their wishes for the coming year on them. 

We then rolled up the papers, inserted them into the ornaments and filled them with enough glitter to choke a reindeer. We can open them next year to see if our wishes came true!

Our last craft of the night was the making of bell wreaths from pipe cleaners & jingle bells. The olds from before used to ring bells to scare away the dark spirits, so we did, too!

And, finally, for part of the gifts, I settled on the idea of Solstice jammies for Dash & his besties. I got them matching Ts & bottoms & appliqued their initials on them. I love the idea of all three of them (not pictured: Ben) waking up on Christmas morning in matching jams.

Andre

How to make your wife pee her pants a little bit first thing in the morning even though you discussed putting him there the night before:

Crazy Town

After a false start on Sunday...

Liz: "Pose for a picture, boys!"
Josh & Dash: "Dun wanna, bleh."
Liz: weeps, "I'm trying to make MEMORIES here, assholes!" storms home on foot. *Fin*

 ...we had our annual review of the Christmas crazy last night. And WHOO BOY, it was a doozy. Since we moved house late last year, we had to find a new neighborhood to tour and, if I may say so, we found the best one in all the land.

See if you don't agree:

Um, excuse me? I think Christmas threw up on your house.

You can't really see much here, but each house on the street has a stanza from "Twas the Night Before Christmas" 

I honestly wonder if agreeing to string lights between your house & your neighbor's is in the HOA agreement.

They were collecting money for the local homeless shelter. Josh just took a couple bucks for mad money. That's allowed, right?

Brrr, it's cold here in the fake North Pole!

LAKERS!

Yo, Baby Jesus, I'm really happy for you & I'ma let you finish, but last year's Santa Kneeling Before the Baby Jesus was the best Nativity of all time!

This house has a whole penguin thing going on. Magical!

Poor Santa can't get no respec'. First he's all hanging from the lights and people are just ignoring him like, "hey, it's not MY problem that Santa got wasted & tried to tightrope walk between houses."

And then Josh & Dash won't even let him dunk in peace.

It all worked out later, though. He had a little nap & then tore it up on the ones & twos.

Even the Jews own it in this neighborhood!

Of course they also had to be all topical with their liberal Jewish agenda! (I kid, I kid! I also have a liberal Jewish agenda! Ask how many briskets I'm making this year! THREE!)

Santa is the 99%!

Represent!

Bye Wakefield Winter Wonderland! You win at Christmas!

December 18, 2011

Yes, shorts, bare feet and a water gun fight. Seriously.

Wait!

Speaking of Made! Lookit what Dash made for his teacher for Christmas (in addition to the class gift and a gift card from our family):

An illustrated coffee cup! When I handed him the porcelain markers for this project I was 90% sure his teacher would end up with a mug full of zombie brains & illustrated farts. But instead he made Rapunzel, with accompanying lizard. I mean. I just can't with this.

(We used Porcelaine pens for and baked at 300 degrees for 35 minutes to make the mug washable. I read somewhere that if you preheated the mug with the oven & then also cooled it in there after baking that the illustration would be more wash resistant, so that's what I did. I have no idea if it will make any difference at all).