We Had Ourselves a Merry Little Christmas

It didn't feel little. Lots of family, lots of great food (pretty sure the Yorkshire pudding oozing in beef drippings and the minced pie with hard sauce threw us all over the gastronomic edge), lots of super-duper presents (trains, planes, automobiles, an enormous Gymbo the Clown doll that Charlotte will not relinquish.)

Our real gift, of course, is the love our family and friends, who have and continue to make us feel so blessed. Not just at Christmas, but every single day. Our cup is so full. And we are so grateful.

Here's wishing all our friends, near and far, a very happy and full New Year.

The Polar Express Arrives in Alexandria

Perhaps the very best part of Christmas morning: coming downstairs to find the Polar Express circling the tree. Thank you Santa.

Cookies Cont....

Well, grandma's Christmas balls rocked, until they cooled. Now I think they're a bit...like rocks, best served with coffee. So it becomes clear to me that her recipes, now that I've located them, will require considerable improvisation.

Aunty Skippy joined us for Round 2 of the cookie marathon this morning and we knocked heads over the direction to "chop" the pecans in grandma's crescent cookies. Clearly chopped meant "pulverize in the Cuisinart" but trust me, it wasn't spelled out. Nevertheless, the kids wildly enjoyed dumping ingredients into the mixer and wasn't Harry thrilled to discover that what he was rolling the crescents in wasn't flour...but confectioners sugar (thanks a ton Skippy). I can hear him bouncing off the walls as I type.

Theresa's Christmas balls

You don't need an advanced degree to understand that chocolate, sugar, flour and walnuts (milk and Karo Syrup too), make a terrific cookie. I found the recipe for Sicilian Christmas Balls in my mother's cooking file, it was one of my grandmother's holiday standards.

So this year, while it may be a slight disaster (grandma's recipe transcriptions, unlike her food, were not the best), I am going to be sharing with friends Theresa's cookies (not Martha Stewart's).

So far, Harry and Charlotte are big fans.

Snow Into It

Oh MAN were we ever ready for the first snow of the year. Our predicted "dusting" put down enough powder to call-in the plows and get every toddler in the Washington area running for hats and mittens.

Whatever reluctance Harry felt last year about the cold apparently evaporated with the first flake. Today he begged from sun-up to go outside and toss snowballs, which we did twice. He never flinched when the woolen mittens got soggy, or complained that his mother inexplicably had him in rain boots instead of snow gear.

We had a planned outing with friends during the afternoon and you'd have thought I'd taken all his trains away when I said we had to get out of the snow and into the car. After we got home (thank you Missy, it was very fun, Harry said so!), we hit the powder again. That white stuff makes for an awesome nap time.

J'adore Daddy

Charlotte is just bonky in love with her father. Have I mentioned that a thousand times?

Last night, as I read the kids A Royal Christmas, Charlotte became fixated on Prince Eric (Ariel's husband), convinced it was her father, who happens to be away this week. Prince Eric is, by all accounts, THE most handsome cartoon man ever drawn. Agreed? According to my daughter, her father has gone tall, dark and chiseled. I will not rest until Harry points to our rail-thin, platinum blond Barbie and says "look, it's mommy!"

An Emmanuel Christmas

This afternoon was the BIG SHOW! at preschool. While Harry had explained to his parents that there would be Christmas songs, he was adamant that he wouldn't be singing "because I don't want to mommy." OK.

So my instructions to Harry on the way to school were simple. "Two things to remember Harry," I said. "Have a lot of fun. And don't put your fingers up your nose." "I'm going to put both my fingers up my nose," giggled harry. OK.

So at 11 a.m. I went back to school with Roxana and Charlotte. We took our seats, a couple cookies and waited. Despite Harry's warnings, we were not disappointed. My little musician (top, far left) kept a steady eye on the conductor, waiting for his cue to use his rhythm sticks (I'm so proud!), you can almost see the tympani before him (imagine with me please). While the kids from the 4 and 5s class did most of the singing, Harry was the picture of decorum, clapping, smiling and calling out to his sister in the back row "hi Charlotte!" even though I'm sure he and the other children were admonished to remain mum. Most of the kids were giving shout-outs to their parents. It was precious.

Note to self...next year, don't arrive a mere half hour early. If you want a seat in the front row, best to camp-out overnight.

The Santa Train

We waited all year for another hop of the Santa Train, which picks you up from the Alexandria Amtrak Station and takes you on a 40-minute journey to Manassas where you detrain, have some cocoa, cookies and hear a story. Then it's back on board (truly the best part) for the ride home. Simple yes? But for a 3-year-old....one obsessed with trains....there is no finer pleasure.

Mom got a non-stop commentary on the track, the points, the couplings, the buffers, the siding and the rolling landscape. He stuffed blue sugar cookies into his maw until he looked like a Keebler elf (they are blue, right?) and got quite huffy when some wayward mother had the audacity to step in front of him during story time "Excuse ME, I'm trying to see the book!" he barked. Can't say as I blamed him.

I am positive that we will be back on the rails next year. In the meantime, dad informs me he has purchased an electric, metal "O-gauge" Polar Express and some track that we'll put around the tree in time for the Christmas morning wake-up. I literally can not WAIT to see Harry's reaction.

Towering Tannenbaum

Our plans to head to the country to buy our tree on our way home from NYC were thwarted by pouring rain and a sick toddler. So...we went to the train station, a block from our home, where the Boy Scout were having their annual tree sale. And there it was, our "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree"...standing all alone, kinda sad, a few dead branches at the bottom.

The tag was red and that meant 6-feet. So we took the soggy kids home and paul came back minutes later with the truck.

Funny thing though...that 6-foot tree was CONSIDERABLY larger when we got it home, about FOUR feet larger, so big in fact that it would not stand in our living room, which has 9.5 foot ceilings. You may be wondering why mom and dad didn't realize this as we posed for a photo in the tree lot. My husband is 5-7....the tree TOWERS over him. But trust me, it was pouring buckets. Logic fell by the wayside. So out came the pruners and the circular saw. We took off more than two feet. And I gotta tell you, it's one tight fit. Our tree topper literally scrapes the ceiling.

But our faith in that scragly tree lot tree paid off. It is actually quite stunning (probably just by virtue of being so frackin' big) and the kids have spent much time decorating (and "accidentally" smashing some of the glass balls).

T-Minus 10 days to Santa. Merry Christmas everyone.

All About the Apple

The kids are still too young for a two-hour production of the Nutcracker at the KenCen, but they are definitely right-aged for the circus. Thus the grandparents invited us to NYC for a weekend punctuated by the Big Apple Circus, which erected its tent in the Lincoln Center square. I had no experience with the BAC, so how surprised was I to find a very intimate single ring with no more than 400 seats, if that. Paba got us ring-side tickets and Zaza threw in some glowing butterfly wands (swords Harry insists, despite the delicate nature of the insect).

The show had something for everyone. Acrobats (whose glittery spandex pants have given me all kinds of Christmas shopping ideas for grandpa and dad), clowns and a slew of dogs, ponies and goats....riding ponies. Very bizarre but very entertaining. Harry was most enchanted by what he calls "the tummies"...that would be the male and female acrobats who spent most of the show with bare midriffs.

He plans to bring his "butterfly sword" to show and tell. I'm not exactly sure how I will explain the bit about the tummies.

Walk the Walk

We adore the Scottish Walk parade (not only is it walking distance from our home, in Old Town Alexandria, but if you dig bagpipes (me! me!), this is the only gig in town. It was also, Paul and I noted, the first time that Harry and Charlotte both enjoyed an event, she's finally reached the age were we're not just bringing her along for the ride.

In fact, it might be safe to say she enjoyed the parade considerably more than Harry....or anyone else for that matter.
Charlotte, as we're quickly discovering, is not one to sit on the sidelines, literally. When a particularly handsome set of bagpipers marched by...so too did Charlotte, edging off the curb and striding down the parade route right after them. Then there was the Virginia Rugby Association. The second she saw the ball, she was off on her feet, in the middle of the road, begging for a throw - and they obliged her! The ball was nearly as big as her.

We were delighted to run into my mother's group and spent the chilly hour with them, oohing and ahhing at the fleet of Scotty dogs and of course debating the collective undergarments of men in skirts. I told Paul, should we ever more to the Highlands, I will gladly take up the pipes.

Hansel & Gretel

Auntie Julie and her mother Norma, a gingerbread house veteran, invited us to try our hand at Christmas architecture. We eagerly obliged, prepared for a few hours of toddler sugar consumption (OK, I ate some too). After plowing through three pastry bags of royal icing and enough chocolate shingles to make Hansel and Gretel proud, we carted our treasure and our totally high children home. We are very proud of Chez Barnes.

A Style All Her Own

Charlotte has been consumed lately with my jewelry, particularly fond of my long chain necklaces. So this afternoon I stole away from my desk and went to Periwinkle where a local jewelry designer I favor was having a trunk sale. And for $16 I bought her for Christmas an adorable child-sized pearl necklace, latched with a pretty ribbon. (Mom got a matching one).

Tonight, however, I was left to wonder how the bauble will look with my daughter's latest accessory of choice - swim goggles adorned with crabs. She had them on for more than an hour, through dinner, to the point where my totally goggle-adverse son was begging to wear them too.

Goggles and pearls. Someone best alert Lady Gaga.

Trumping the Tank Engine

Tonight I received the FINEST compliment I have ever, or will ever, get.

"Mommy," says Harry, as we sip our soup, "Thomas isn't number one. You're number one."

Classically TRAINed

DC's Botanic Garden is generally nice. I'd give it a B-. But come Christmas, well, nothing beats Thomas the Tank engine puffing around the Eiffel Tower and other international points of interest (all crafted from shellacked pine cones and the like).

The annual train display is probably the biggest annual draw (well except maybe for the very rare blooming of the titum arum (AKA the Corpse Flower), the world's grossest flower.

Thomas does not stink.

Santa Cometh

We always relish the first holiday party of the year, given by our friends Shawn and Cassie McLaughlin. They have four children (count em....four) and know, deep in their souls, what makes kids happy.

Each year Santa arrives rattling sleigh bells and singing Christmas Carols (you may recognize him from the Santa Train!). And he sits patiently while no less than 40 kids hop on his lap and reveal their deepest Christmas wishes. Harry, for his part, wants a "Diesel Ten." Charlotte, who last year cried and cried when Santa appeared, was the second in line, storming up to Santa's lap for her goody bag, filled to the top with stuffed anim

als and toys. Mom and Dad also have a great time, consumed as we were with the enormous spread of catered food and spirits and the steaming coffee bar.

Shawn and Cassie....you rock. Let the party season begin!

Big Daddy

There is no greater bond than that between a girl and her daddy. I know. My father was the moon and the stars: the handsomest, the cleverest, the bestest father...to me. So it is no surprise...to me...that Charlotte is just gaga about her daddy. Totally. Completely. Besotted.

And so it goes. As I snuggle with her on the sofa, my nose buried in her beautiful strawberry blond hair, I declare my affection:

"I love you Charlotte," I whisper.
And she considers this for a moment.
"I love my daddy," she coos dreamily.

And I remember how much I loved my daddy. And it makes me happy.

Giving Thanks

We have so much to be grateful for: healthy, happy children who give us joy every single day, loving family and wonderful friends-- too many things to name. We celebrated our good fortune on Thursday with turkey and good cheer at my godmother's home. We brought the stuffing and she made the rest of the fabulous meal.

While we did not trot with the turkeys Thanksgiving morning, we went outside and bashed pots and pans to cheer them on.

Stuck a Feather in His Cap and Called It......

I wonder what the Indians think of replica Native American jewelry made of colored macaroni.

Harry brought home from preschool a very cute headdress and a necklace that was immediately confiscated by his sister. She wore the string of penne and tri-colored wagon-wheel pasta for the two days leading up to Thanksgiving. I remain grateful she has not tried to eat it.

Block Head

We are really enjoying the heavy wooden blocks loaned to us by Uncle Doug and Aunt Bonnie. They are perfect for designing skyscrapers (and toppling skyscrapers, requiring a call to the imaginary rescue squad).

GobbleGobbleGobble

I'm flashing the bird to working motherhood this morning and baking cookies for Harry's preschool Thanksgiving feast, which is tomorrow. I was excited to be a designated cookie provider. And even more excited when Aunty Skippy found me the very elusive turkey cookie cutter I had been long searching for (um, Williams-Sonoma...what's your problem? Seriously, no turkeys? Blasphemy).

A little flour, a little royal icing and voila! I give you my turkey prototype. Harry about lost his marbles when Charlotte tried to touch one. "No!!!!" he screamed at her in big-brothers tones. "that's for preschool!"

Wishing everyone a very happy Thanksgiving.

Picture Day

I'm not going to spoil the Christmas card unveil, but a sneak-peak is warranted, given the terrific work of our friend Nancy Ho Foster, a member of my mothers' group and a super-talented photographer. Nancy, you rock. An additional thank you to my mother-in-law who helped out with some precious holiday togs.

Winter in the Air

Yes, yes, enough daydreaming about the beach. It's nearly Thanksgiving and we are embracing the fall, what's left of it, with bonfires in the backyard and roasted, toasted marshmallows. Nothing says fall like a squashy blob of melted sugar on a stick.