Christmas Cookies

If my hands hadn't been full of cookie dough, I would have taken a photo of our Christmas cookie factory on Sunday. One of my favorite Christmas-time activities has always been baking cookies. Growing up, my Mom made dozens and dozens of cookies and candies, in a huge variety. Sugar cookies, spritz, date-filled cookies, refrigerator cookies, date rice krispy balls rolled in coconut, Mexican wedding cakes (aka Russian teacakes), baby potica, fudge, divinity, English toffee, ginger snaps, and peanut brittle. As an adult, my mom and sisters and I had a cookie exchange every year, and the church we belonged to had a "cookie walk" every December. It was like a cookie exchange except members donated cookies and then paid for the privilege of filling up a small bakery box with cookies. I learned after the first year that if you didn't hustle to get in line after the worship service, you were likely to end up with a box of chocolate chip cookies that had obviously been made from store-bought cookie dough. After spending hours rolling dozens and dozens of Russian teacakes in powdered sugar, that was a bit of a disappointment. I had to console myself by saying it was all for a good cause, and I was better off diet-wise because I brought the choc. chip cookies to the office for the 20-somethings to devour.
Mia loves to help me bake, so on Sunday I made dough for sugar cookies and spritz cookies. After chilling the dough, the real fun began. I rolled the dough and let Mia cut out a few sugar cookies, until I realized that was going to be quite difficult for her. I took over the cutting and Mia was happy to man the decorating station, sprinkling lots of colored sugars. We have Christmas trees of every color, but to be honest most of them are pink. If Jeff hadn't encouraged her to try some different colors, it would have been a pink Christmas here. Pink trees, pink reindeer, pink angels, pink stars...
The spritz cookies didn't work. I'd never made them myself, but I knew it was pretty easy. Just like the Salad Shooter, I thought. I was working with an old cookie press that I picked up at a garage sale or something. The handle was so hard to turn that I had to have Jeff do it. The dough squished out in all the wrong places, so we made a total of 3 wreaths and 2 candy canes before abandoning the effort.
Despite the failed spritz cookies, I felt a great sense of satisfaction. As the three of us made our cookies, I realized this was one of those moments that you dream of, when you decide start a family.

Lost and Found

When Mia started sleeping in her big-girl bed, Jeff and I worried that she'd get up during the night and wander around. We took to latching the toddler gates at the top of the stairs so that she couldn't take a wrong turn and tumble downward. To our relief, this has not been an issue. Mia is such a sound sleeper that most of the time we have to wake her up to get ready for school. Her afternoon nap can sometimes run from 3 pm to 6 pm. On those occasions when Mia wakes up on her own, she usually calls for Mom or Dad rather than getting out of bed.
But, the times they are a changin'. In the past several weeks, Mia has surprised us by taking a short nap and getting up on her own. Imagine me sitting in my office, working, when I hear the sound of little feet running down the hallway. Mia bursts into my office saying with glee, "I found you!!!" She then stamps her feet and laughs as if she'd just prevailed in a game of hide and seek. The other day during her scheduled naptime she ran down to the kitchen and startled the housekeeper by yelling, "I found you!!!" While I'd rather she continued those lovely long naps, it is pretty adorable to be greeted by my gleeful little diaper-clad gal.

Santa Baby

Last year, Mia didn't really understand Christmas, and we didn't try very hard to explain either the religious or secular significance. We didn't even try to get a photo on Santa's lap, as we were pretty sure that would have been traumatizing. Now that Mia understands more, this year's preparations are more fun - most of the time.
Soon after becoming parents, Jeff and I wondered what we'd tell Mia about Santa. I personally cannot remember a time that I believed in Santa, so it's no great shakes to me. My first memory of Santa is when my older brother showed me a picture (in the Encylopedia Brittanica, no less) of Santa flying through the air in a sleigh. As he explained to me that Santa visited every house on Christmas eve, I distinctly remember telling him that wasn't possible. I could see that there was no way he could fit a toy for every child on that sleigh, I knew sleighs didn't fly, and I knew he couldn't possibly make it around the world in one night. Always my rational self.
Back to our parenting discussion. If I recall correctly, Jeff was more concerned about the psychological aspects of telling one's child a big lie year after year. We have friends who tell their 5-year-old, "Santa is real just like Spiderman is real." They don't want to lie to him, but they also don't want him to dispell the fantasy for other children. I think we settled on the idea that the preschool would have lots of talk about Santa, so probably it made sense to go along with whatever they say for a while.
Which brings us to Christmas season 2009. As we expected, Mia came home from preschool one day talking about Santa. I asked her what Santa does and she said, "He comes down the chimney." I went along with it without embellishing. (Come to think of it, Mia hasn't asked for Santa to bring her anything yet. We don't let her watch children's TV, so it helps that she isn't exposed to all the toy advertising.) Later, I heard her singing, "I love Santa."
On Saturday, there was an Advent workshop at the church. They touted Santa would be making an appearance, and there would be crafts and snacks. I hadn't planned to take Mia, but then all morning Saturday she was singing about Santa. We happened to be driving past the church as the workshop was starting, so I made the decision to participate.
We were the second or third family to arrive. The event was in a big room with craft tables. Santa was sitting in a rocking chair at the far end of the room. Unfortunately, Mia took one look at him and started screaming in fear. (Deja vu - it was a lot like that Halloween party I told you about.) I tried to tell her it was just a nice man in a costume, like Halloween. (There were no other children within earshot, so I don't think I was spoiling it for anyone.) This went on for a while, despite my best efforts to comfort her. Finally, I was able to distract Mia long enough to get her to make a candy cane by stringing red and white beads on a pipe cleaner. That was going OK until Santa (who didn't have a lot to do at that point) decided to swoop in close to show her he wasn't scary. That started her crying again. Santa retreated to the food table. He was 30 or 40 feet away from us, but that wasn't good enough for Mia, who kept asking me to make him go back in his chair. As the room filled up with families who had clearly dressed up for a photo op with Santa, he returned to his rocker and became easier to ignore.
One of the event volunteers came to me and said, "That's why we do this. When you take your kids to the mall you've got one shot to get the photo and if they are crying, too bad." I see their point, but somehow I don't think Mia will be sitting on Santa's lap anytime soon. Until Mia asks to see Santa, I can get along without the classic Santa's lap photo in my album.