Fun with Thank You's

Chers Amis,
I am sure that many of my family and friends giggled, or at least puzzled, over my choice of blog name as I am a terrible letter writer. I have boxes of letters, written, but never sent.
Maybe it is the long walk to the mailbox (1 min.), the high cost of postage, or fear of the postman? I actually - stop the presses - sent some (not many) Christmas Cards and a Christmas letter this year. The next logical step - thank you notes.

I try to have the kids write thank you notes every year, but sometimes they disappear, get lost in my desk, or are not finished. This year we have tried something new that is easy if you have a scanner or color printer.
Each child designed their own card images that I scanned in the computer. In Word, I inserted the pictures and enlarged or shrunk them to fit on a piece of landscape card stock as a basic template. The kids then either typed or narrated their letter as a text box. Using the text box we could move the msg around easily. They enjoyed drawing their own cover art and choosing different fonts and colors for each card. We still have to put them in envelopes, stamp them and actually get them in the mailbox. That will be the hard part! Wish me luck.

--Marjorie

Rainy Day baking for the New Year

(written on New Years Eve)

Chers Amis,

It is a rainy day in Georgia. The trunks of the trees are black, accented by a bright lichen green that seems to glow in the gloom. The forest floor is rusty with pine straw and forgotten leaves. It ha been pouring all day and the back of our property is puddling into several small lakes. The run off fills a tiny stream bed that winds down to the creek. It is a warm 58 degrees so what are two outdoor girls to do but change their church clothes, run outside to splash in the mud, and "work" to clear the stream of fallen leaves so the water can hurry on its way. I wish they looked this happy when I asked them to clean their bedroom! Soaking wet and chilled to the bone they returned to the house where a dip in Dad's hot tub awaited them. (He is the best! He even put beach towels and their bathrobe in the dryer for apres le tub!)

I love a grey day! It is the perfect time to make a pot of soup and preheat the oven for a little baking. In the south on New Years that means just one thing - black eyed peas for good luck! I just put my dried peas in to soak overnight and dug out my recipe for Hoppin' John with kielbasa. There are many explanations of the name, one that it is a derivation of a French Creole term for black-eyed peas: pois pigeons (pronounced: "pwah pee-JON"). Whatever the etymology, they are a southern tradition and a delicious one at that!

While the girls - and Pippin - were in the hot tub, I pulled out my stained recipe card for a special belated birthday cake for Jesus - a chocolate Buche de Noel - a cake roll. My mil gave me a copy of the recipe and I make it twice a year - once for my husband's birthday, and again for Christmas, or in this case New Years. I am not a baker, but over the years I have learned to make this cake quite well, much to my husband's delight. It is not difficult and the presentation is gorgeous with a simple coulis de frambois (raspberries). Logs are supposed to look rustique, right? Pas de probleme. Mine of course will not look nearly as nice and I forgot to buy marzipan for the mushrooms, but my dh will LOVE it. Here is the recipe - I don't think it is a secret because it came from an old book. The frosting and assembly instructions come from here.

Chocolate Roll (Buche de Noel - Yule log cake)
Preheat oven to 325 F

In a large bowl:
Beat until stiff (hold a point) ---- 6 egg whites and 1/2 tsp. cream of tarter
Beat in gradually (until glossy) -- 1/2 cup sugar
In a separate bowl:
Beat until thick and lemon-colored ----6 egg yokes
Beat in ---1/2 cup sugar
Sift together and beat into yolk mixture --4 Tbsp. cocoa, 4 Tbsp. sifted flour, 1/4 tsp. salt
Stir in -- 1 tsp. vanilla

Carefully fold chocolate/yolk into egg white mixture. (Note - add @ 1/4 of the white to the chocolate and fold first. This will lighten the chocolate mix)
Spread 1/2 thick in shallow 15 1/2 x 100 1/2 pan lined with well greased paper. Bake until surface springs back when touched lightly with finger (20-25 min.)
Immediately turn upside down onto towel sprinkled with confectioner's sugar.
Immediately remove paper from cake, and roll up beginning at side. Note: If a thick, shorter cake is desired (more circles of cake), begin to roll at short end.

After the cake has cooled you can fill it with whipping cream.
Whip 1 cup of cold whipping cream until stiff. Beat in 1/4 cup sifted powdered sugar.
(Note: I like to add a small amount of liqueur for flavor preferably Chambord)
Unroll cooled cake and frost heavily with whipping cream. Re roll carefully and place seam down. Refrigerate until ready to frost.

Frosting
3/4 cup whipping cream
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped
4 ounces milk chocolate, chopped For frosting: Bring cream and butter to boil in medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring to melt butter. Remove from heat. Add both chocolates; whisk until melted. Transfer to medium bowl. Let cool at room temperature until thick enough to spread, about 1 hour.

Assembly: "Starting 1 inch in from each end of cake, cut on diagonal to remove one 3-inch-long piece of cake from each end. Attach 1 cake piece at sides of cake near each end. Spread frosting over top and sides of cake and pieces. Using tines of fork, draw concentric circles on cake ends to resemble tree rings. Draw fork along length of cake to form bark design. Garnish with Marzipan Mushrooms."

I like to make a simple raspberry sauce - simmer frozen raspberries w/a little sugar to taste and a little water so they don't stick. When they have fallen apart, pour through fine sieve, pressing on solids to extract juice - not too hard or the seeds will pop through!

It is a fun dessert. You can make it anytime, just omit the bark design and "branch".

I hope you all have a wonderful New Years Celebration!
-- Marjorie

PS - We must have a beaver at the mill because I found "bark and wood" missing from the cake before dinner! Pippin did have a guilty chocolate smile.

On the Second Day of Christmas . . .

"One the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree."

Chers Amis,

Christmas is an unhurried, multi-day celebration a notre moulin, arriving with the Sunday vigil mass and lingering sweetly until Epiphany. We have never celebrated the holiday all in one day. Rather, we draw the festivities out over the 12 days of Christmastide with one gift a day until they are all gone or we hit gratitude saturation. Many a gift has been put away for a coming birthday! While a bit quirky from the outside, this has been a wonderful, stress-reducing tradition chez nous. There is no rush to the mall to buy last minute presents and when Granpa's reindeer become fatigued over St. Louis and must stop for a few days of respite, all is well. Of course we can do this because all our family is either up north or out west and it is just us non-conformist chickadees au moulin. So today still feels very Christmasy, there is just more room in the fridge :-)

We did have a lovely relaxing First day of Christmas. The girls' choir sang at the 7 pm Christmas Vigil mass on Sunday and dh took a slow, winding way home for maximum Christmas light viewing. Once jammies were donned, each of the eager faces got to open one special present - cozy full-length bathrobes. Pippin had spent much of the last week palpating a large, strangely-shaped package from his Gramma. We let him open it. Such joy. Soon, "The Force is with you," and "Your powers are weak" drowned out "The Holly and the Ivy." Note for next year - no gifts with microphones.

Surprise, all three kids slept well and we didn't traipse downstairs until 7 AM for cocoa and coffee. Stockings are a must, followed by the Chocolate Chip Scones (I wanted to change to cranberry orange but was vetoed). Note for next year - if you use powdered buttermilk, do not assume the liquid measurements will be the same. Splurge and buy buttermilk. Tummies full and excitement brimming, we took turns opening one present each with lightning and thunder crashing outside! Only one gift sounds brutal, but it's not! The kids - and parents - have time to really appreciate and play with each gift. Caddie, having handled and jiggled most of her presents, choose the loudest - a bag of assorted buttons. ($4.99 at Michaels - a 40% coupon). You would have thought it was a bag of gold coins. She asks for buttons every year and spends hours examining each one, sorting them and placing them in her button collection. Scarlett opened a gift from Gramma. A crazy mask with interchangeable eyes, antennae, noses and mouths - with a MICROPHONE. Note for next year - no gifts with microphones.
The kids took turns wearing the mask and pretending to be: undersea divers, traffic reporters, pilots, singers, radio personalities and myriad of other characters. This of course morphed into a duel between "Marsupial Man"?? and Darth Vader. Did I mention that too much auditory input drives me wacko? Add to that, I bought dh an MP3 player. HA!

I opened a gift basket of bath gel/lotion and a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble. (Is my MIL great or what!), grabbed the new potions and hid - luxuriated - in the tub while dh helped an enraptured Pippin put together his Star Wars Legos ship. The rest of the day was loud :-) but relaxed: Cheddar vegetable strata for lunch, more playing, phone calls to family, misty eyes talking to distant family, a hour figuring out the how-to of MP3 players, more playing, dinner, and an early bedtime. Today we spent most of the morning trying to clean up and finish making Pippins ship - which promptly fell apart in sections. Note to self - next year use superglue when assembling Legos. Now what did I do with those Turtle doves?

-- Marjorie

PS - As you can see I have spent some of my time playing with my colors. I still don't have it the way I want it so bear with me. Shh! I might try out Typepad for the free month to see if it is worth it.

A Christmas Lullaby

... Then, to a chorus of moos, baas, and peeps, the cat and her kittens purred Him to sleep.
-- Nancy Jewell from Christmas Lullaby


Merry Christmas et Joyeux Noel from our house to yours.

-- Marjorie and Co.

The Magic of a Make-Ahead Christmas

Chers Amis,

Pippin asks me constantly, "How many days until Christmas, Mom? What day is it today? When will Christmas be tomorrow? Oh, and what is for lunch?"

He is my personal reminder that some things are closer than they appear and they usually entail food - and shopping. Luckily, I love to cook, especially at the holidays. I am my holiday happiest in my thread-bare William Sonoma apron, lightly-dusted with flour, chocolate smears on my cheeks, and warm promises of buttery decadence wafting from the oven. Oh, yeah, there is also my non-existent counter space towering with batter encrusted bowls. Hmm, I don't really like the clean-up part, but preparation is fun :-)

This afternoon, the kids and I will be trekking over to Kroger for (hopefully) our last grocery run before the Red and the Green. Shopping is always an adventure. Pippin wanders constantly and I have to threaten to take away his Lego.com time every minute or two. He rarely returns home with any Internet "credits" to his name. Stopping in the tiny toy section across from the coffee display is de rigeur for all three. They each make a selection that they shlep around the store for the next 45 mins before depositing them cheerfully at the register to be returned to the shelves. Usually it is a mini-Etch-a-Sketch or a stretchy lizard. The worst are the squeaky dog toys and Pippin's favorite - the whoopie cushion. We are not the quietest shoppers - but the kidlets are happy!

So, what are you all serving Christmas day? What's for breakfast chez vous? Over the years I have found that the more I can make ahead, the more magical the morning. This is what I have planned as of now:
Breakfast:
Coffee, cocoa (Ovaltine), assorted juices
Chocolate Chip Scones
and
Cheddar, Vegetable and Sausage Strata

We also love Blueberry and Pecan French Toast. All three can be made totally ahead of time, stowed in the fridge so all I have to do that bleary-eyed morning is pop it in the oven and enjoy the aroma. My kind of breakfast!

Instead of having a big diner a la dinde (turkey) or ham, we have opted for heavy hors d'oeuvres:
cheese, fruit, nuts, crackers
herb bread rolls
Lemon-Rosemary Chicken Skewers
Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms
deviled eggs
turkey and ham wrap pinwheels
assorted cookies
chocolates
good wine

Most of this can be made Sunday so Christmas will be tasty and relatively care free. Bon Appetit! We are off to shop. Wish me luck!

-- Marjorie

It's Begining to look a lot like Christmas

Chers Amis,

It is starting to look like Christmas around here - even if was a balmy 73 degrees and sunny this afternoon. Yesterday morning we got up early and went looking for a Christmas tree. For the past three years we have gone to a small local tree farm called the Lazy J. The kids adore running through the fields hugging the trees until they find just the right one. Daddy does the cutting, although he did let Pippin carry the saw yesterday and a few small trees may be missing limbs as a result. Big sigh. Once the tree is cut, the owner loads le sapin vert into his wagon and three happy children pile in for a bumpy ride back to the parking lot where there is hot cocoa and cider. The children's favorite part of the tradition is feeding the Lazy J's goats while the tree is trimmed and wrapped for the pilgrimage home.

This year was totally different. Blame it on global warming or a late start tree hunting. It was so warm it felt like early October and the Eastern bluebirds were flitting through the meadow from tree to tree. Definitely not Christmas-like. The girls found a tree with the right "hug," but it was a Leland cypress - not a good match for heavy ornaments and dh's beloved bubble lights. The farm only had a few cut Frazier firs and they were overpriced, too tall and shedding heavily. I would like to say the girls took the news that we would have to go elsewhere to find a tree gracefully, but they didn't. Many tears, tree-clinging and pitched negotiations. We tried another farm to no avail. More tears. More cypresses. No tree. More sighs. Finally, on the way home we passed an old fashioned farmers market where "Mr. Jim" had the perfect fir waiting for us next to the pyramids of hot house tomatoes. Hallelujah!

While the tree enjoyed a long overnight soaking, dh searched the basement and attic for the various and sundry boxes of lights, linens, garland, ornaments, hangings and creches. Five minutes later the entire house was covered with packing materials and decorations. A holiday tornado with little warning. My head hurt and I had to retreat to the kitchen. I do NOT do well with total visual chaos added to the cacophony of loud holiday singing paired with the demo mix from Pippins plastic piano. A few hours and a glass of white wine later, some peace and holiday cheer had settled over the house. A happy sigh.

Tonight we brought the tree in, turned on the Sounds of the Season and later "A Charlie Brown Christmas, " made a pot of Barnie's Santa's White Christmas coffee, opened a box of Godiva chocolate biscuits (from a gift basket) and decorated the tree. It was so lovely that I could almost forget that we had the windows open in December!

-- Marjorie

If I were a Christmas Movie. . . .

Your Christmas is Most Like: The Muppet Christmas Carol

You tend to reflect on Christmas past, present, and future... And you also do a little singing.

What Movie Is Your Christmas Most Like?

Hat tip to Angel

Its Advent, Charlie Brown

Chers Amis,

I can be a bit of a Scrooge - or a Charlie Brown around the holidays. I am not materialistic by nature and sometimes it seems Lucy Van Pelt is right when she says, "Look, Charlie, let's face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know." It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the barrage of circulars and advertisements, weighed down by society's Sally Brown attitude of,"All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share." To quote Snoopy after kissing Lucy[sticking his tongue out], "BLAHHHH!" Humbug.

But this year I am not humbuggy. I am in the spirit and excited about Advent, so full of expectation and promise. Why? In large part because I started preparing early this year, focusing on the true meaning of the season. Is all my shopping done? Have I mailed a single Christmas card? Have I decorated the house? No, no and no. But what I have done, made a few fun gifts, shopped online, bought fabric for next week's place mat project, scrounged the house for tins and empty cans for ornaments and luminaries, reserved books on St. Nicholas, and selected tags from the parish Giving Tree , I have done with an attitude of love. Love and peace with imperfection and the half-finished.

So often in the past I have gotten caught up in doing everything 100% and have felt like a failure when, of course, I couldn't meet my own expectations. Does this sound familiar? Blessings to all the ladies at O Night Divine, the 4RealLearning Forums and in the various Loveliness Fairs. Not only for your ideas and inspirations, but for your humor, for sharing when things didn't work out, for being human and humble and real. Isn't that what this season is all about? Even our Lord came to us as such - human, humble and real. Lucy and Sally's Christmas may be showy and bright and worthy of Martha Stewart, but I'm more comfortable in the stable. It's warm and true - and only a few weeks away.

-- Marjorie


PS - Leonie had this quote by Fr. Andrew Greeley on her Loveliness of Advent post and it really spoke to me:

"It might be easy to run away to a monastery, away from the commercialization, the hectic hustle, the demanding family responsibilities of Christmas-time. Then we would have a holy Christmas. But we would forget the lesson of the Incarnation, of the enfleshing of God—the lesson that we who are followers of Jesus do not run from the secular; rather we try to transform it. It is our mission to make holy the secular aspects of Christmas just as the early Christians baptized the Christmas tree. And we do this by being holy people—kind, patient, generous, loving, laughing people—no matter how maddening is the Christmas rush…"

Fait a la Main

Chers Amis,

Handmade gifts hold a special place in my heart. Inspired by my Mama and Papa, I am making more gifts this year. Nothing as intricate and splendid as their work, but simple and from the heart. If you are on my Christmas list and want to be surprised (oui, je te parle Mme. O:-), please stop reading now . . . cliquez on another link, please, go check your e-mail. Au Revoir, a bientot . Farewell. . . Okay. Where was I? . . . Homemade gifts. In years past I have mostly used needle and thread - quilting & applique work. This year les cadeux faits a la main from my moulin are much simpler and are mostly edible. (So far.) I love to cook and everyone loves to eat, so this week I have been concocting and packaging batches of three tasty spice rubs to include in various themed gift baskets as well as a few special holiday crunchables. I picked a trio of spirce rubs that we have personally used and enjoyed: Cajun, Mediterranean and Cocoa-Cumin-Allspice. Each marries well with at least one of several meats - chicken, fish, lamb or steak. Last night we had tilapia with the Cajun rub - yum!

1. First, I wrote down the recipes for each of the rubs, scanned the pantry and the spice rack and purchased the necessary ingredients. (I can't post the full recipes here do to copyright laws :-( but you can find many excellent recipes online.
2. I found these small bottles at at a craft store that would hold 1/3 to 1/2 cup. The perfect amount. Wash and dry well
3. Mix up the various rubs and pour in prepared bottles. Make sure you know which rub is in which bottle!
4. I had great fun making holiday lables using MSWord, scrapbooking supplies and Avery full sheet lables. After I formatted my shape and added the text in the font that I liked (that fit) , I found a nice scroll clip art image here and pasted it into my design. Then I printed the lables on some lovely two-tone paper, cut it out, glued it to a holiday paper with a holly motif, cut it out with "torn-edge" scissors to add a frame, color copied it onto the lable sheets, cut out and voila! I saved my master copies in a special envelope so I can use them again. Appy lables and a bit of ribbon and they look quite nice.

Using the same fonts and motifs, I made a card describing the rubs and how to use them. I used this same technique to lable spiced pumpkin bread mix, mixed nuts, holiday biscotti, double chocolate biscotti . I still have a few more additions up my sleeve, but I don't want to give it all away yet, lest some people are still reading :-) Well, my kitchen is chocolate-cumin-cajun-sprinkle encrusted, and we are going out of town for Turkey day, so I had better get cleaning. Bon Appetit!

-- Marjorie

O Night Divine - Advent approaches

Chers Amis,

Advent is just around the corner, over there, behind the turkey. See? If the Loveliness Fair has whetted your holiday spirit, you must visit
O Night Divine: A blog devoted to the celebration of Christmas - and Advent! The creativity displayed is so inspiring. Don't miss Alice's Advent blocks. Fantastic. I am so glad they just opened a Michaels 5 min from the house. For more ideas Catholic Culture is a liturgical treasure box year round. Remember, the holidays are just a pumpkin pie or two away!

-- Marjorie

A Gift to Love and Remember

Chers Amis,

Everyone has that special gift that fulfilled a dream or ignited their imaginations. A gift you never forget and just recalling it brings the child in you rushing to the surface in a bubble of joy and elation. The very best of these gifts are made by the hands of someone who loves you.

When I was a little girl, my Mama and Papa (gramma and granpa) made my sisters and I the most beautiful handmade gifts you can imagine. Mama was an artist who designed crafts for major ladies magazines in the 50's an 60's. She was a veritable Martha Stewart of her day and Papa was a retired doctor who loved to woodwork. Together, they were Santa's North American elves and their handiwork, extrodinary. There were wooden puzzles, pull- along camel's and horses with a real fur manes, jointed, painted wooden dolls in matching outfits, a fully-furnished Barbie doll house with a bathtub that drained, custom cabinets, upholstered couch, and even mini framed artwork on the walls. One year they lead us blindfolded into a tiny oak grove on the hillside where we found a wooden deer with leather ears and a tiny tea table and chairs shaped from old logs for outdoor parties. It was amazing.

My very favorite Christmas gift came in a pink cardboard carton. It was a box of dress-up clothes, marvelous, ridiculous, fabulous clothes that Mama had carefully selected, sewn, hemmed, tightened, clipped and fitted for my sister and me. I can't even remember if I was 7 or 8 when we received them because they were used for so many years of fantasy and play of all sorts. Here are some of the things she included:

• long calico wrap-around aprons with matching sun bonnets
• bouquets of plastic flowers
• a bridal veil
• a white dress
• petticoats and crinolins
• a shawl
• a mink stole - with a head!
• a fur cape
• a purse
• gloves - white, long purple, mittens
• high heel shoes - probably size 4 or 5
• a dressing robe
• a blazer
• dresses
• bracelets and necklaces, pins
  
• a lei
• wigs
  
• hats for tea parties
• assorted blouses and skirts
• glasses
  

If you have little ones who love to play dress up and act out scenes from their favorite books, this is one gift that they will treasure and that will hold a special place in their memories. The key is to tailor the pieces to their size and to include a variety of items that will allow them to become a whole host of magical personalities.

1. Make a list of themes/characters/books that they would like to explore and list clothing items or accessories that would bring it to life. This is your consignment store, Salvation Army, garage sale shopping list.
   
2. Measure the arm and leg lengths and waist measurements of their current size. Keep these measurements with you as you shop so you can determine if a piece can be resized easily.
   
3. Go shopping. Have fun and never rule out a funky item if the size and price is right. Look for props too - a cracked tea cup and saucer, plastic house plants, gardening gloves, rope, lunch boxes, lace curtains, etc.
   
4. The hard part - hem sleeves and skirts to a comfortable length allowing a wide hem that can be let out as they grow. Adding velcro or hook and eye clasps in place of broken zippers can make them easier to get in an out of which can be very important to Moms. This does not have to be expert sewing, Ladies.
   
5. Collect the sundries that make play convincing - old monopoly money in a worn wallet, a small spiral notebook and pen, broken calculator or camera in a bag can help a reporter or business person. Old place mats or table cloths and a votive candle, a restaurant make. Be creative!
   
6. Fold and arrange the pieces in a durable box that will survive the adventures.
   

Voila! A handmade gift to love and remember.

-- Marjorie

PS - I will be sharing more homemade gift ideas later this week, check back.