Merry Christmas

I am posting on Christmas Day because I am sick and confined to my room while the rest of the family celebrates and I keep my germs to myself. It is a bit of a bummer, because I really enjoy Christmas. Everyone sounds like they are having a good time, and I'm sure the dinner smells good. I can't smell much of anything.

I completed the traditional Christmas Eve pyjamas on time and the children (my two and my sister's two) opened them last night and put them on with grand flourish. I seem to have forgotten my camera patch cord and will be unable to post pictures until I return to Portland. I have apparently packed 3 sets of patch cords for my iPhone... so no danger of not being able to plug that in.

We did watch Mark Morris' The Hard Nut last night on TV. It was amazing and creative and a great interpretation of the classic Nutcracker.
Scene from Act 1....

.... not your traditional Victorian family. Love the graphic patterns on everything.

The snowflakes actually snowed by throwing snow from their hands.

Gingerbread Men

Miss Elsie wanted to make gingerbread men, and the spouse is gearing up to construct a house out of gingerbread as well. So last night, we made a few men.... careful not to open the oven door in case one got away.



We are using the magazines to control the thickness of the dough. I know you can buy those doughnuts that slip onto your rolling pin which do the same thing... but we didn't have them... and the magazines are about 1/4" thick and work just as well... as long as your 3 year old doesn't try to unwrap them partway through the rolling process.





Of course while the cookies baked, there was a lot of munching on the candies decorating the men. You do have to sample all the components.



I melted some colored white chocolate used for candy making for the decorating. It was late, and I didn't have time to make a batch of frosting and Miss Elsie wanted to give her teacher a couple of the Gingerbread Men for Christmas. Thank goodness for candy making supplies and a microwave. They white chocolate melted in a few minutes and piped out really well from the pastry bag.... well enough that one of the men has eyebrows.

The rest of the men are baking today and will be decorated this afternoon. The house will be under construction soon.

It's Christmastime!!!

I seem to be firmly in the one post per month realm. I really want to break out of that trend and blog more.

We put up one of our amazingly retro aluminum Christmas trees last week.


Of course if you have an aluminum tree you MUST have the rotating light.



Which spends the rest of the year inside it's vintage box.



I did take some great pictures of all the vintage glass balls on the tree. I'm trying to figure out a way to make one grid of pictures with all the images. It's a lot of pictures.