it's beginning to look a lot like ...

... well a tree is up, so like it or not, the holiday season seems to be starting here.


Even if it is 80 degrees outside.

my favorite xmas gift this year

A handmade card and poem from the kid.

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• the kid's new fave xmas song

it's beginning to look a lot like ...

... Oh, you know.

Thanksgiving may be less than a week away, but the kid has gone full steam ahead towards Christmas. She has already drafted a list to Santa and scoped out our home for optimum tree placement. She has also been urging me to start putting up decorations. I am trying to resist, but her excitement is kind of contagious. And adorable.

We will be having family here for Thanksgiving, folks we won't be seeing over the Xmas holidays, so putting up the tree right before, or while they are here might actually be fun. The only question is, how long will I be able to hold out until she has me trimming the tree and decking the halls? Stay tuned. Holiday decoration posts are probably in my near future.

She's gotten a little too big for that pony.

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• push back the season

merry xmas!

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.Waiting for Santa, Xmas loot, Parfaits are the best damn thing on the planet, New toys, Yorkshire pudding and potatoes, onions and radishes, cookies, roast beast, gingerbread house, camel, trees, putti, two front teeth, lights, family, ocean, cats in a Xmas tree, donkey, angel wings ... merry Xmas!

xmas cookies ...

... and BRAINS!






Note: No zombie was harmed in the making of these cookies.

oh deer ...

Here's an interesting photo.

I think it was taken around the holidays, as that is when my mom would go to visit her Uncle and Aunt in Wisconsin. She is in the red coat, looking more than a little uncomfortable standing next to the ex-deer. Is she smiling or gritting her teeth?

Her half-sister Tania doesn't look uncomfortable at all ...

Happy first day of winter!

L-R: Mariette (my grandmother), Aunt Grace, Tania, Mary Elizabeth (mom) & Uncle Gydie.

xmas memories

My mom, on Christmas, c.1936.

scenes from a Christmas

Cookies for Santa (my personal fave is decapitated alien Teddy.)

O Christmas tree...

Let there be light.

And he, he himself—the Grinch—carved the roast beast.

My yorkshire pudding.

Aunt Paula's biscuit tortoni.

Merry Christmas!

santa magic

A recent post by my friend Steven prompted me to write, a la the famous New York Sun editorial response to Virginia, that there is indeed a Santa Claus.



Steven opined that the world is magical enough in a child's eyes that they don't need fictions like Santa to interfere.

The whole world is magical to kids. They want to believe in Santa, Rudolph, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc. Kids don't live in a bubble. At five my daughter and her friends are already deeply discussing whether Santa, etc. exists. Some are trying to convince her otherwise, like kids tried back in 1897 to Virginia O'Hanlon. I'm in the he's real camp until she shows signs of not wanting to believe anymore. Kids can be cruel and just plain silly, but the "there is no Santa" schoolyard discussions seem to me less an attempt to blow a hole in the magic bubble, but an attempt to appear smarter, more knowledgeable of the oh-so-attractive grown-up world. Kids, if you only had the merest glimpse of the mundanity of many aspects of what it is to be "grown-up," you'd relax and settle back and bask in fantasies like Santa as long as possible.

I remember coming down on Christmas morning when I was about five and finding a deluxe crayon set in a long flat box with hundreds of crayons in it. It was amazing. The tag said "From Santa" - in my mom's handwriting. I showed it to her and she just smiled back at me. I remember feeling a moment of betrayal, but then it passed. Christmas was still wonderful, as were the crayons. And I wasn't going to blow it for my younger brother, who was glowing as he climbed into the red fire engine that Santa brought him.


Not sure when my brother figured it out. I do remember years later the two of us asking to sleep in the same room on Xmas Eve. My mom said sure. Our master plan was to stay up and either catch Santa (or most likely) my mom in the act of putting out the presents. We were going to bust the myth wide open. We had been searching the house all week for hidden presents and never found any. We fell asleep eventually of course, and the presents were magically there in the morning. Still not sure how mom pulled that one off. It has been suggested that the presents were in the trunk of the car all the time. Very likely. Or that my dad, a notorious Xmas Eve shopper, rolled in with most of the stuff much later that evening. But it's also fun to keep the magic my mom was trying to wield alive, too.

Santa was never used as a serious threat in our house to get good behavior. Folks are kidding themselves if they think that will work. Coal in the stocking? You better watch out—not.

Kids, when they're young, need to compare notes, "fit in" with each other and the world. They get the reality of the dangers of the real world thrown at them constantly through all the rules they have to absorb to learn how to move safely through it. Santa and the few other child fantasy figures are there to add a little extra magic.

And maybe adults perpetuate such stories because they wish they still had some fun things like Rudolph to believe in.

p.s. I'm happy to report that one of my favorite writers, Alexander McCall Smith, also believes in perpetuating myths, as he so wonderfully wrote in the December 13 Parade magazine:

There is a moment in J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan when the audience is invited to revive the dying fairy Tinkerbell and told, “If you believe in fairies, clap your hands.” And every time, the theater breaks into sustained applause. That is not to suggest there are theaters full of seriously deluded people. What it does tell us is that there are times when we need to pretend to believe in things we know not to be true. We know that the world is a place of suffering and hardship, and we know, too, that justice and kindness and love and such things will not always prevail against these hard realities. Myths help us to get by. The day they all die and we tell our children exactly how things are, the world will be a poorer, less enchanted place. So don’t be ashamed to clap your hands at Peter Pan or act as if Santa exists. He stands for kindness and generosity, and those things are alive and will continue to be alive—as long as we believe in them.

Merry Christmas!

dino does rudy

Does anyone have a lazier, more delightful inflection than Dean Martin?



"Poor Rudy"

"Rudy the red-beaked reindeer"

fa la la la la, la la la la

Tis the season for holiday music, or I should say, the local station that plays holiday music nonstop. Before you sigh or cringe, remember I'm the mother of an almost six year old and this station is actually occasionally a bright spot in what has been a dark few months.

I'm no fan of the "sappier" holiday songs—take Josh Groban and Celine Dion (they are interchangeable to me), please. What has been the most fun thing about the station this year is how my daughter is listening to the music. Last year whenever Frosty the Snowman or Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer or the Sleighbell Song would play she would get excited and bop along to the music. This year she is singing along, in key, and she knows almost all the words. She gets excited if I tell her that Elvis is singing (bless her!).

I couldn't have been prouder the other day when she launched independently into my preferred version of Jingle Bells from my childhood:

Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg
Batmobile lost a wheel and Joker got away!

(alternate verse: and Commissioner broke his leg!)

Fa la la la la, la la la la

because we need a little Xmas, right this very minute

Yesterday the kid asked if we could put up the Xmas tree. I couldn't come up with any reason to refuse. Lately it has felt as if the world could use a bit more light.

By the way, sorry for the earworm. I actually loathe the referenced song, but like a genre I never listen to, country music, which sounds unbelievably profound when you are broken-hearted, the sentiment of this particular holiday ditty seems especially apt at present. As a friend opined earlier today, the world can always use a little more joy. So, joy to the world my friends.

dad and the star

One Christmas Eve, when I was about four and my brother was two, we sat patiently (as patiently as two young kids can) after dinner as we watched Mom and Dad trim the tree. Dad had brought the tree in that evening. Yes, he was one of those who does his Christmas shopping and tree-buying on the Eve.

I remember squirming with excitement as we watched him attach the lights and fuss with them until they all lit up (yay!) And then watched Mom and Dad unwrap, one by one, beautiful glass-blown ornaments, with sparkly, glittery frosting in spots and hang each delicate decoration on the tree. Some came from Dad's family, some from my Mom's. I doubt if we were allowed to even get near them. We were told they were VERY fragile.

Finally, the box was empty, the tinsel was on (we probably got to throw that on) and the tree was done. But wait a minute - where was the star? I remember my mom quietly expressing that maybe we should just skip it, or to be careful, but my dad was going to put the star at the top of the tree no matter what.

He climbed up on a chair. It was a tall tree, our Victorian-era house had high ceilings. He leaned over. He put the star on top. And then. BAM. The whole thing went crashing over, beautiful ornaments shattered, colorful, glittering shards all over the floor.

My brother and I started wailing. Dad and Mom looked at each other, silently. Then he climbed down, went to get his coat and headed out into the night. I think the only shop open after 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve was Woolworth's. He came back in, put the tree back up, more securely this time. Mom swept away the broken ornaments. We all put on the new ornaments, and also what few had survived the crash.

I still have one or two of those Woolworth's treasures left. I also have the same star. I always put it on first, at the very top of the tree and smile and think of Dad.

a marshmallow world

When you have a kid, you've got to shed some of your coolness factor and embrace the all-day, all-night Xmas music station. At least now that she's old enough to want to hear the music. Don't worry, I'm also passing on my misspent youth - she likes to sing along to Should I Stay or Should I Go.

I have to admit that I am actually enjoying listening to the station this year (but only in the car, not at home - I'm not completely mental.) Most of the fun comes from watching my daughter light up when Rudolph or Frosty plays, or learning what other holiday ditties float her boat, like Jingle Bell Rock. I am also relieved that she can't stand Mannheim Steamroller or the Trans-Siberian Orchestra ("Too sad - I don't like it!") I'm right there with you kid. I think it's sort of creepy music, actually. I prefer vocals. Always.

What I enjoy is not the umpteenth time that White Christmas is played, although it's definitely a classic, but when they play some obscure version of either a traditional song or some weird, forced holiday tune, like Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by the Pretenders - I had to use Shazam on my iPhone to find out who was strangling the cat. Unbelievably painful. What was Chrissie Hynde drinking that day? I actually like the song, and the best version is by Judy Garland from the film Meet Me in St. Louis, but James Taylor does a pretty good one, too.The song actually captures what it's like to be away from your loved ones at the holidays and has a poignant wartime reference, whether originally in post-war 1944 or today.

Sometimes I end up liking holiday songs by an artist that I don't like when they do their own material. I find Sarah McLachlan too twee most of the time, but I like the version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen she does with Barenaked Ladies.


While I was sipping hot cocoa at lunch this afternoon with the ubiquitous holiday music playing in the background, I was treated to a Rat Pack Christmas. Most of it was pretty awful, especially from Sinatra, with his "hey youse guys, I can style any song you can trow at me!" delivery. And don't even challenge me on this. I'm from Joisey. But I do have to 'fess up to a fondness for Dino's version of Rudy...

holly jolly

Our tree is still in process, but I am very impressed with my daughter's holiday scene/rampage, featuring Shrek, Rudolph and just about anyone else willing to take part in the holiday mayhem (with our recently acquisition, the Metropolitan Museum of Art advent calendar, as a backdrop.)

Ho ho ho!

Look out, Burl Ives's snowman is on the move!