mathmom's blog

We're finally taking down the Christmas decorations. There are a few other die hards in our neighborhood with their lights still up, but we're one of the last. This year I didn't have to decorate the tree at all---thanks to having a shorter tree, the kids took care of it after Michael put the lights up. Each child put their favorite ornaments in their designated area---the glass ones were all up high, the preschool made ornaments with pictures were all down low. When I took the ornaments down today, I found a number of interesting decorations: spun fiberfill a toy car a necklace rocks scraps of paper shoelaces branches from outdoor pine trees I'm glad we have an eclectic tree---I never noticed.

When we were younger, our family would get together with another family and make gingerbread houses. I had a lot of fun, especially exploring the house of the other family, and playing with her Fisher Price record player. My father, being an engineer, took the entire enterprise very seriously. We didn't have "royal icing", we had "mortar". We didn't merely make gingerbread houses, we constructed them. Dad had all sorts of techniques to bring his houses to a higher standard: Instead of cutting out pieces on the counter and moving them to the cookie sheet (which can warp the pieces) or even cutting out the pieces on the cookie sheet, we would bake a big sheet of dough and then cut out the pieces when the dough was still soft and warm. Of course the pieces had been arranged so as to waste the smallest possible amount of dough. We always used a pizza cutter to cut out the pieces and make nice straight cuts. When assembling the house, use paper "hinges...

The other day we went to Historic Oak View County park (all of my local readers should go there, by the way) for their sleigh ride and cider celebration. They had storytelling, a band, hammered dulcimer, and the house was decorated for Christmas. They also had Santa Claus, and since we got there early we were able to go see him before there was any line. Unfortunately, it was also before I was able to prepare my kids. We really don't talk very much about Santa around here---the closest we get is watching the Phineas and Ferb Christmas special. So Amanda and Luke were left without very much context. Amanda went first, and when Santa asked her what she wanted for Christmas she said, "Nothing." He asked if she was sure, and I mentioned that she had wanted a pony and we talked about that for a while. He asked again if there was anything she wanted and she saw the big basket of mini candy canes on the floor, for giving out to kids. "I'd like a huge basket of...

Yesterday we went to the "Raleigh on Ice" outdoor ice skating rink. In case you hadn't noticed, it is usually above freezing in NC, so a rink either has to be indoors or have massive refrigeration. Except in this case, it is made of "green" plastic (no huge energy expenditure for freezing it, so I guess it's green...) Eleanor was completely convinced that the whole experience would be horrible, before we even set out. I had a hard time convincing her that while it might be horrible, we had to try it first. It turns out that she was more right than wrong. Skating on a plastic sheet is more slippery than ice, so your feet slide out from under you. It is also bumpy, since the "rink" is made by 3x5 (or so) sheets of plastic. These combined made for some spectacular falls. Luke actually did fine, despite having boots that were 2 sizes too big for him. He gamely walked ans slid around the outside of the rink. I was supposed to have skates on, b...