Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas, and the three gifts turned out great!  Here are the kids “trapped” in their rooms so there would be no peeking, another one of our family traditions.  The rule was no waking up Mom and Dad until the sun is up.  I heard excited voices around 6:00 am, but didn’t get the wake up call until 6:30.

Mint Jelly Cookies

These are my all time favorite cookies for Christmas time. You may know them as thumb print cookies. I haven’t had the time yet to make them, and will finally be making them today. The recipe is from my great grandmother- my mother’s dad’s mother. Yum!

1/2 lb. butter

1/2 C. sugar

3 egg yolks

2 1/4 C. flour

1 drop vanilla

dash salt

Combine all ingredients except flour and mix well. Add flour and mix. Form dough into small balls and using your finger or a wooden spoon handle dipped in water make a well. Add mint green apple jelly (or any red jelly) to fill well to 3/4 full. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. They don’t brown, but will look firm and dry when done.

Christmas Eve Tradition

About seven years ago, we were introduced to the work of a talented new LDS artist, Joseph Brickey. Our friends, Peter and Ann, knew his family well and told us to check out his paintings. Shortly afterwards I came across this book, When Jesus was Born in Bethlehem that is a collection of his paintings that accompany the Scriptural Christmas story. I loved the detail and emotion in the paintings, and bought several copies of it to give as gifts- and one for us too. We read it that year on Christmas Eve as a family, and it brings such a peaceful spirit that we have read it every year since. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Socks

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etUq95XKGiw

When I was a kid my Dad got a hold of this Mr. Bean Christmas special and we watched it every year during the holidays. This was way before the Mr. Bean movies, that for some reason I have never seen.  There is always some time on Christmas day where someone in the family would make reference to “Christmas socks” so there is a crazy sentimentality that comes from this clip for me.

Amy’s Epiphany

The other day, Amy called me at work a little after lunchtime. She was telling me about her lunch with the kids. She made them bologna and cheese sandwiches and was a bit surprised about how much the kids liked them. She said she was thinking about why kids seem to like bologna so much when it came to her that “bologna is just flat hot dogs.”

This realization of Amy’s really made me laugh. It also made me want to have a bologna sandwich. I think it would make a great ad campaign for Oscar Mayer, “Bologna – It’s Just Flat Hot Dogs.”

Homeschool, Are You Crazy?

I just finished having a great conversation with my friend Tonya who is starting to homeschool her kids. She kept saying things that piqued my interest in it once again. Several years ago I did a little reading on the subject and thought it would be impossible for me to pull off. It seems so daunting trying to take the education of your children completely on your own. But there is funding for it, and groups to join, and education counselors… maybe it wouldn’t be so hard. Everyone I talk to that has done it loves it, and it seems appealing to integrate chores, and music lessons, and road trips into your curriculum. I have been increasingly frustrated by the amount of time that school takes. They are there for 6 hours and then come home and spend all afternoon on homework, and there is barely time to do the basics like chores and a few extra activities such as scouts or dance. I may get this book that Tonya recommended, 100 Top Picks For Homeschool Curriculum to see what the options are. This is supposed to be a great resource for finding the teaching strategies that best suit your goals. What are your thoughts?

My Cards May Come Late, But 93 Years?

By Associated Press
Updated: 12/17/2007

OBERLIN, Kan.

A postcard featuring a color drawing of Santa Claus and a young girl was mailed in 1914, but its journey was slower than Christmas. It just arrived in northwest Kansas.

The Christmas card was dated Dec. 23, 1914, and mailed to Ethel Martin of Oberlin, apparently from her cousins in Alma, Neb.

It’s a mystery where it spent most of the last century, Oberlin Postmaster Steve Schultz said. ”It’s surprising that it never got thrown away,” he said. ”How someone found it, I don’t know.”

Ethel Martin is deceased, but Schultz said the post office wanted to get the card to a relative.

That’s how the 93-year-old relic ended up with Bernice Martin, Ethel’s sister-in-law. She said she believed the card had been found somewhere in Illinois.

”That’s all we know,” she said. ”But it is kind of curious. We’d like to know how it got down there.”

The card was placed inside another envelope with modern postage for the trip to Oberlin — the one-cent postage of the early 20th century wouldn’t have covered it, Martin said.

”We don’t know much about it,” she said. ”But wherever they kept it, it was in perfect shape.”

(Image found by me, not actual postcard)