Christmas Carols

Today the boys and I were riding around in the car, listening to the Christmas music on the radio. When Rudolph the red nosed reindeer came on I entertained myself by ad libbing “like a light bulb” at the end of every line. No, I don’t mean I added the usual comment appropriate to each line LIKE “like a light bulb” I mean I sang those exact words at the end of each line. The boys were horrified “NO PAPA you are RUINING the song!!” For the record, I was not aware it was possible to ruin Rudolph the red nose reindeer.

The next song that came on was Christmas Shoes by New Song. So I sang “like a light bulb” at the end of each line of that song too. I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard. Have you heard that song? About some kid buying his mom hooker shoes the night she is dying? What the What is that about? Where is social services? Where is this kid’s dad when he is begging for cash from strangers to buy shoes on Christmas Eve? Shudder. What do my boys think of my creativity? Matthew had his hands over his ears and Paul was shaking his head like he could not believe we were related.

When I was in High School I would spend Christmas break in Tucson with my mom. Her church, First Christian had a tradition to go sing carols to the shut in church members. It was a nice tradition, and some years a pretty good group went. My mom, being who she was, often invited her friends who were not church members to come along and sing. I remember that at every single house, after we sang a few carols they would ask the person we were signing for if they had a favorite carol, and about half the time the request was for “Joy to the world”. Every single time before anyone could start my Mom would belt out “Joy to the World, All the boys and girls, Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, Joy to you and me” and then there would either be an awkward pause, or everyone else would join in on the three dog night version.

Someday I hope my boys are singing the wrong words to christmas carols loudly and horrifying their own children.

Joy to fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me . . . like a light bulb!

Good Shepherd.

The church my family belongs to has the Good Shepherd ministry. This is a ministry designed to help the homeless and less fortunate in our community. Throughout the year the children of the church are involved in several fundraisers, the big one being a dinner and basketball game against the youth. Every time the children score a basket the fans throw cash on the floor of the court and the younger kids scoop up the money.

In November and December Good Shepherd ministry packages up food baskets for Thanksgiving meal and Christmas Dinner for families or individuals that need help. A few years ago the children’s minister thought that maybe the Wednesday night children’s mission classes might like to help with that process. This may have been the best idea of her ministry, (not to downplay other decisions in any way). The kids LOVE this. This year I missed the night they did the thanksgiving baskets, but both boys reported to me about it on the phone.

Paul says it is the best night of Frog (Fully Rely on God, the name of the children’s mission class) of the whole year, and that this year he was a checker with Ushyra making sure the younger kids were not leaving anything out. He reported that the kids were going so fast it was hard to keep up with the pace. Matthew reported that there were some kids that had not had the opportunity to help before, and that maybe they thought it would be boring, but of course they were very wrong, as it was the most fun ever. When it was announced that the church had been able to supply 110 families with Thanksgiving baskets the boys were so proud. However, both boys assure me that they can do more at Christmas.

In the past I have been there when parents come looking for their children after service, and seen the children tell their parents, “I cannot leave yet, we are not done, do you see all those cans left?” They take it so seriously. Those children cannot leave until the last basket is packed, because there are real people in the community that will get those baskets, real people who need those baskets, there are names on the baskets, and those names are for real people, some they may know and some they may not, and this group of children takes ownership of that task. So, even though they can’t always behave in choir, and they run in the halls after Sunday school, and the 6th graders roll their eyes and wish they were youth, I love that mess of kids and love that I belong to a church that encourages them to take part in missions, and to reach out to the community they live in.

Cookie Of The Month

For the record I do not hate Martha Stewart. I think that she is a genius of self promotion. Sell ads for your products in your magazine that promotes the use of your products? Genuis. Plus the whole single mom, doing it herself, making a fortune. . . I support that. Plus I loved her Ray of Light album . . . Ok, that may be Madonna, but I digress.

I heard Martha Stewart had a cookie of the month thing, and rolled it into a cookbook. Really? Like that is soooooo hard? There are only 12 months people. 12 recipes for a whole cookbook? I bet there are lots of ads in that cookbook. I am just saying.

So here, for the 12th day of Christmas, just to show you how NOT hard it is, this is my 12 months of Christmas cookies.

1. January Oreos
2. February Chips ahoy chocolate chip cookies
3. March, grasshoppers, an oddly named oreo with mint filling.
4. April, Samoas, the girlscout cookie
5. May, Thin mints, another girl scout cookie
6. June, nilla wafers
7. July, animal crackers, very 4th of july.
8. August, Mint Milano cookies.
9. September, Pecan shortbreads sandies
10. October, Oatmeal raisin, I like the ones made by elves.
11. November, lemon sandwich cookies.
12. December, my favorites, the mint jojo’s from trader joes.

See what I mean? No big deal. Random house book deal here I come!

Party Menu

Every year for our party we have a plan. An actual menu where we plan out in advance what goodies we will serve. It starts off as a balanced menu of sweet and savory so that there is something to satisfy everyone. The plan is always in place to not attempt anything too over the top, or too labor intensive, and to be sure that there is enough food, but not so much that people are overwhelmed. Well the plan starts that way. I swear it does.

Last year we started the menu in October. What was good the year before? What did no one eat? What was too complicated? What should have been warm but was cold, what needed to be cold but got warm? What looked gross at the end of the night? We came up with a well balanced, achievable menu.

Then we had cookie day at Kristin’s, and someone made these key lime crescent cookies. Now the crescent part was really hard, but the cookies were delicious. I thought maybe balls would be easier than crescents. So that was added to the menu. It was just one more thing.

Kat saw a shrimp ring at a work event and thought how easy that would be. I mean, really? It’s just shrimp, and cocktail sauce. People love it. So that was a second thing.

Paul was sitting on the couch and noticed the list. “Is this the party menu?” He sat down and went through it. “I don’t think there is enough food for a big crowd. We should serve a ham. Ham is very festive for a party”. So Paul added ham to the menu.

Matthew took his turn with the list. “I am sure that there is not enough food Mama, did you forget the tiny tomatoes with cheese and the basil? Gramma still has fresh basil! That is a good one Mama, people love it.” So Matthew added this to the list.

And one thing led to another, and the next thing you know there is 2 hours of setting out food, and not enough table space for all of it. I had to set out trays of cookies on the coffee table to make room for the food on the table

No one goes home hungry at our house!

This year, however, we have really pared the menu down and things will be under control. I mean 16 flavors of fudge is control right? 2 kinds of mice? Maybe only 3 (or 4) kinds of cookies? Definitely under control.

Rosemead Christmas

As I am sitting in the Denver Airport waiting to board my flight home to Oklahoma City I am reminded of the very first time I ever flew on a plane when I was in the third grade. We were living in Tucson Arizona with my mom. For Christmas Jenni and I flew to LAX, all by ourselves, to spend Christmas with my Dad, Rebecca and her whole family. I am sure that we must have spent time with the Kinkade family in CA, but I don’t remember that. What I remember, what stands out most about that year, was the Casares Christmas in the house on Guess Street in Rosemead.

I think that may have been one of Grampa Roy’s last Christmases, or maybe everyone always showed up for Christmas? All the cousins were there, Amber, Anna, Diana, little Mike, Laura and even Uncle Rick’s girlfriend (ex-wife?) was there with baby Jeremy. I think Uncle Roy was working for a radio station at that time, because all the kids got ball caps with the radio call sign on them. Rebecca had waited until we were there to do the Christmas shopping for the cousins, (what was she thinking?), so we went with her to the mall. Jenni and I paid careful attention as Dad and Rebecca made their purchases.

As soon as we got back to the Rosemead house the very first thing we did was blurt out what everyone was getting for Christmas. DOH! I can’t imagine that anyone was too pleased. When we opened presents Christmas day I was surprised as everyone else that ‘Santa’ had given what I thought was little Mike’s gift to Diana, Amber’s gift to Anna, Laura’s gift to little Mike, etc. Someone got a set of jacks, and Rebecca and Aunt Nancy showed us kids how it was done. I had never seen adults play jacks before, but they had some serious skills.

After presents there was an amazing Christmas meal. Gramma Lucy had made a ham and all the fixing, plus red chile, rice and beans. A first for me. I’d like to say I loved the red chile, but I did not have the taste for spicy foods as a child that my boys do now. Other things I remember, endless games of tag (man could Diana run FAST), and hide & seek (NOT IN THE HOUSE), and in general the kind of family fun Christmas you would want for a child to experience.

Party Day Memories

Last year I made the comment that I would tell the story of the one year someone brought something not up to party standards. I did not because Kat suggested that someone would take it as a challenge and we would have to deal with that again. I know that people suspect that it is all me with the silver platters and the pretty cookies and the plan of what food goes where. Ok, so it is me mostly, but Kat started it.

So yes, one year a friend brought tuna fish sandwiches on a paper plate. “Wow!” was the only thing I could think to say, and Kat followed up with “You shouldn’t have”. And really, it would have been better if they hadn’t. But worse than the paper plate on Kat’s table of delicious goodies, was that people ate them. Toddler year old Paul helped himself to one, but spit it out.

Other food mishaps are the years that we discover after the party is over that we neglected to put out food we had prepared. The first year Kat made tapenade it never made it to the table. The same is true of the feta red pepper artichoke dip. Last year we made a sharp cheddar chasse ball that was to be served with the green chile pineapple jelly, but Kat put the jelly on cream cheese instead. The cheese ball did NOT melt into queso very well at new years.

Do you like apple cider? Do you really? I ask because in 2001 no one drank it. But that may be because someone neglected to put a ladle in the crock pot of cider to serve it with. Likewise, no one will eat summer sausage if there is not a knife to slice it with. 1998.

Sometimes people ask how long it takes to clean up afterwards. That question has different answers. In recent years our family; Ann, Christi, Nolen & Elisa plus others have made a real effort to help us clean as we go, so that by the time the party is over and the food is away, much of the cleaning is done. Of course some years it is Valentine’s Day before the clean party dishes are returned to where they spend most the year. And this year, in July, when we were rearranging furniture in the office I found a punch cup. In my defense, it was on the floor between the two trunks I had made a makeshift table from for the Christmas train. I choose to believe that a child left it there, and not an adult who thought it would be interesting to see how long before we found it.

Day something

Grrrrr…. I am having a really hard time coming up with something memorable to write about. I am Yule blocked or something. This is the fourth attempt to come up with something good. The other two ended in disaster. I got so bored writing the first one I almost fell asleep, and the second one got really depressing. Really, really depressing. Attempt four came off like a preachy Sunday school lesson. Sigh.

I confess I have internet friends that I do not actually know in real life and have not met in person. Don’t judge. They are sort of like the neighbor Wilson on the sitcom Home Improvement, sort of there, but you never see the face? Some of my friends like Roland or Billy are so funny they make me smile just thinking about them and some of the things they have done or said.

Then there is Texas Jay. I call him that because he lives in Texas, and because when we became friends I was working with another Jay, and have a former roommate named Jay, and I would start these stories and Kat would stop me and say “which Jay?” so the nickname Texas Jay was born and sort of stuck. What can I say about Texas Jay? Kat calls him the tall small man. For a while he had a blog and the tagline was “one of life’s little pleasures”. On occasion he has called me up on the phone to talk for hours about the Rolex watch his godfather gave him. I am not kidding, hours. On more than one occasion. I suspect that something in the description is going to make him sound dull, and he isn’t. And no, I don’t really care about the Rolex watch, but there is a whole entertainment factor in the consumerism that I do not have the skills to describe. When Kat was home on maternity leave after Matthew Jay would call at night while I was at work. Kat and Jay would watch food TV and he would chat inanely about Tyler Florence, Ina Garten and Sara Moulton.

Texas Jay lives in McAllen Texas, which is according to him, basically Mexico. Probably the last place you would ever have a white Christmas, (in case you were starting to wonder if I was ever going to get to Christmas?). On Christmas day 2002 McAllen had a white Christmas. The first one my friend had ever experienced in his lifetime. He called the house Christmas morning as giddy as a child. I don’t think 4 year old Paul could have been as excited about a white Christmas as Texas Jay was that year.

Then he called back later, with the cell phone “I am outside in the snow”, “who knew it was so cold?”, “how do I make a snowball?”, “is it safe to eat?” Kat and I took turns answering his questions and laughing at his enthusiasm. The lesson I learned from Texas Jay that Christmas is twofold; #1 that when you decorate for Christmas instead of red and green you can use white, gold and silver to exude a wintery elegance, and #2 that there is no age limit on the joy and excitement that a white Christmas can bring.