Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns
If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken. These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s…
I am nesting. On Saturday I emptied the refrigerator. Last summer’s homemade pickles in their jars. The bread ends that seem to multiply on every shelf. The eggs. The milk. The fruit and veggies. All of it sat on the floor or the counter as I carefully removed the shelves and wiped them down with…
I’ve heard that life is like a highway. And it definitely seems like that sometimes. The pace of life swirls around me at dizzying speeds. We’re all so busy. In such a hurry. Always somewhere to be, something else to do. I’m a get-to-the-point, get-there-quick kind of girl. I don’t like to waste time on…
Who knew that putting up the Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving could be a mood changer? There’s something about the lights and the change in decor. And the candles. It all just says “home” to me. And “special.” It’s a special time of year, and even though we lost a good chunk of ornaments when our basement flooded in September, we still have the important ones. The ones that tell a story.
Decorating for Christmas — that makes me smile. Especially when the kids are excited and want to help.
They got their own decorations this year. Well, actually, they got them last year but this is the first time we’ve had them out.
It’s three Little People nativity sets — the classic manger scene, the inn of Bethlehem and the three wise men. The kids are having a blast playing with all the characters. Isabelle was even telling Bible-themed, theologically sound stories with them today. (She can’t help it, really. Her dad is in seminary and sometimes reads from his texts to her to see if she’ll take a nap.)
Even rearranging the living room and other parts of the house to make room for Christmas makes me smile. Sometimes, change is good.
Taking the time to enjoy a special meal. That’s another reason to smile.
And setting the table with the “nice” dinnerware, placemats, a tablecloth and cloth napkins. Even though it didn’t feel like much of a holiday to us, the little things made it more meaningful. Also, the kids added this touch to the table.
A Little People Thanksgiving set they received in the mail earlier in the week. Yes, our house is overrun by Little People, in more ways than one.
Then, there was the parade, an annual Myerstown event that lines up in front of our house. The entries we see out our window are always about a third or halfway through the lineup, so we walk to church to watch it all the way through.
This year, the kids really got into it. Okay, I know that doesn’t look like Corban’s into it, but he was locked in, taking it all in.
When a miniature car beeped its horn, he jumped like 6 inches in the air. He was startled but he hung in there. He needed my lap later, but watching the parade with my kids was a big smile-maker for me. Especially since Phil had to work and I was on my own. I survived another on-my-own parenting adventure. Woohoo!
Later, everyone loosened up a bit.
This just makes me smile. She’s such a ham. And she loves it. Being the Statue of Liberty is her dream job, I think. That or fairy princess. Or pirate. Or artist.
I’ll let you guess what he’s pointing at. It’s not horses. Or tractors. Or animals. It’s a football on a banner for the town’s league. I motioned to one of the nice young men handing out candy that Corban was a future football player, and he gave Corban two lollipops. (I say he’s a future football player because he seems to have a knack for hitting things with his head.)
Yeah, there’s a lot of kid smiles this week.
Like this moment when they were sharing and playing nicely together.
If we colored one of these pictures this week, we colored half a dozen. They love to color. And that makes me smile.
I cooked a Thanksgiving dinner, mostly by myself, and my kitchen is not the worse for it. In fact, it looks better than it does in a normal week of cooking.
My husband came to our rescue, unexpectedly, while the kids and I were at the tree lighting ceremony in town. Corban had almost fallen out of the wagon on his head (I was literally holding him by the zipper on his sweatshirt) and I was ready to pack it in before the tree lit up when my handsome husband came striding up the street. It was almost like a movie.
A man at church said the molasses cookies I made for the potluck were “just like my mom used to make.” A HUGE compliment of my baking. I’ve found another go-to recipe for gifts.
My best friend said, “I can tell you these things because you won’t think I’m crazy.” And that makes me smile, too. Because that’s a great measure of friendship. Crazy, off-the-wall, hair-brained ideas, and friends say, “Go for it!” (She’s that kind of friend to me, too.)
I had plenty of lows this week, but man, when I look back on the highs, I’m so glad they come to mind more easily and stick in my head more definitively than the lows.
Here’s hoping you have plenty of smiles in the weeks to come!
Maybe “secret” is the wrong word. Closely guarded. Unpublished. Passed down.
Whatever you call it, it poses a problem. Especially for someone who married into the family and lives 700 miles away from the motherland.
We were on our own for Thanksgiving this year, and by “on our own” I mean totally on our own. The past three years, since we’ve lived in Pennsylvania, we’ve done the shopping and the planning, but we’ve had family in to help with the actual cooking part.
This year, it was mostly me, a 3-year-old and a 2-year-old. So, mostly me. (Actually, my husband is a HUGE help, even though he has to work on Thanksgiving. Without him, there would be no turkey carving, and I would be in the fetal position in the kitchen.)
What frightened me the most was not the turkey — we have a good cooking method for that — but the rolls.
The infamous must-have at every Kant (my husband’s mother’s side) family gathering.
When we’ve made them in years past, my mother-in-law (whose sister holds the coveted recipe in her mind) has been around to help navigate the waters of yeast bread cooking. I have little experience with this particular type of cooking, so when I read that I’m to add “7 cups of flour, maybe 8, until the dough is sticky but not too sticky,” I’m left dumbfounded in the kitchen in a heaping mess of flour.
When you just KNOW how to make the recipe because you’ve been making it for years, having to write it down for someone is tricky. Here are more ACTUAL instructions from the roll recipe.
“Fill the green cup three times.” There’s a specific cup. Not a regular measuring cup, mind you, but a specific cup. One year my mother-in-law brought it with her. I didn’t bother tracking down THE cup. I used a measuring cup.
“Use the ice cream scoop to stir.” THE ice cream scoop is a wooden-handled spoon from Alaska. We have our own now. We don’t have to borrow. I’m not sure what the secret of the spoon is, but I’m not about to mess with tradition.
On the plus side, if there’s no one around to tell me if I’m doing it right, there’s no one around to tell me if I’m doing it wrong.
Thank God for technology, though. When the dough was turning sticky, I had to phone a friend, or in this case my mother-in-law.
“See, MeeMaw? The dough is sticky.” (And yes my daughter is covered in flour and not wearing pants. Your point?)
So, the rolls. Here they are before the second time rising. Terribly un-roll shaped.
And out of the oven.
They are supposed to look like cloverleafs, not muffin tops. 
Sigh. At least they tasted good.
And we had fun, especially when we used the rest of the dough to make these German doughnut-type treats for breakfast. They’re called kuchelas. (Kewk-uh-luh. Nobody knows how to spell it, but my husband’s family has been making them on Thanksgiving morning for years.)
MMM … doughnuts. We sort of go all Homer Simpson on these things. Here’s the boy licking sugar off of his hands.
And the girl with a mouthful of doughnut. She’s chewing, I promise, though I love that she looks like she’s savoring every bite.
We may not have “won” this round with the rolls, but when it comes to trying to replicate family Thanksgiving traditions, we consider ourselves winners.
Next up: Christmas cookies. But I’ve got that one in the bag. When it comes to my grandma’s sugar cookie recipe, I got the genes for making them just right.
Do you have any family recipes that are MUST-HAVES at your get-togethers? Who makes them? How have they been passed from generation to generation?
Happy holidays! And happy cooking!