The house is ready for guests! It has been a delightful couple of weeks, with Christmas
traditions reaching full force.
Last week the boys had two friends over to make our traditional candy
house. This is a tradition that I
adopted from Emily, our neighbor, who figured out that making gingerbread
houses is just too much work.
Baking gingerbread and trying to assemble it into a house is difficult
enough. After a couple of weeks no
one wants to eat it anyway. Her
mom started making structures out of cardboard and then frosting them. When the boys were little I started
making a cute little house out of cardboard to decorate. Now that they’re full-fledged creative
young installation artists they design and build their own elaborate
structures. I made a quintuple
batch of frosting just to cover this one, then turned it back over to them and
their friends. We had a bunch of
leftover candy from Halloween that ended up back in the mix, plus a few goodies
I picked up for color or textural contrast. I guess I never take off my artist hat!
Along about mid December comes Jim’s birthday, which is
always the marker that we’re allowed to get a Christmas tree. We feasted on the shoebox of brownies
that Grandma always sends Jim for his birthday (three kinds—black forest,
caramel, and seven layer brownies!).
Then we popped out to Bloomingfoods and picked out the biggest tree that
would fit in the living room and keep the star under the roof. We got a delightful, full tree that accommodated
every single ornament we had. The
boys also took it on themselves to put up some outside lights this year, so we
have a really festive house to great our holiday guests. Jim’s brother Tim and his wife Bobi
will be here, as will Jim’s Mom and Aunt Lois. Will there be pies?
You bet! I’m in. And Stollen, of course!!
My artwork generally takes a back seat at Christmas while I
feverishly clean the house for guests and make all the holiday magic happen
behind the scenes. I’ve still been
making peppers, though. Now I’m up
to forty-five. I laid them out on
the piece and calculated that I’ll need seventy, so I’ll be on the pepper
project for a while.
The house waits in excited expectation for the guests that
will arrive in a few hours. The
presents are wrapped, the beds are made, the wine is in the cellar and nice
dishes are washed.
We have snow on
the ground and more on the way. We’re
still hoping for uneventful travels and a full house tonight! And did I say there’ll be fresh bread
this morning and a peach pie tomorrow?
Until next week,
Martina Celerin
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment