Boxing Day

This kiddo was laughing her guts out. This is not a look of shock, nor a yawn, this is a pure belly laugh.

Recently a friend from the US asked about our Boxing Day. It made me think how far our culture has come from what Boxing Day was originally intended for. On December 26th commonwealth countries have Boxing Day marked on their calendars. Way back in the day, Alms Boxes (boxes for the poor) were placed on church doorsteps for people to put money in. It was a day that was marked as giving to the poor. Now it's turned into a similar day to the American Black Friday (or what I know of it.) People wake up at crazy hours, some at 3AM, to drive to the city to stand in line to wait for stores to open and get smokin deals on all sorts of things. We've never done anything like this, probably not just because of the insane amounts of people, but we were all laying around in our pajamas eating turkey buns.

Really I don't think we need a day marked on those little square boxes to remind us to think of those less fortunate than us. I believe it should be something imprinted on our hearts all year long, and something that is just a natural extension of who we are. Nothing to be shown off or consciously thought of, but it should be as customary as getting your breakfast in the morning.

This year was a beautiful day as a Chinook had blown in right before Christmas and to accompany our white landscape there were impressive warm temperatures. A pink Carhartt coat, yellow snowpants from when I was a kid, and a poor old Oiler's toque (the only one we could find) was tossed on and sleigh rides around the yard ensued. Who needs mittens? Kitty socks on the hands work just fine. A lucky little girl, who promptly could call the horse after she said Momma, got to go for a lil ride and sat up their like a big girl, clicking her tongue and laughing. What a day it was!

 What did you all do the day after Christmas? Was it time to put the tree away and clean the house? Were you still at gatherings? I'd love to know.

*UPDATE* Another Canadian blogging friend made a wise comment about Boxing Day being the day post Christmas when servants got the day off. I looked it up and that is another part of Boxing Day--according to the article I read, people would send home with the servants, boxes of gifts, bonuses or food to go with them to visit their families. Again according to this article, it stated about Alms Boxes left on Church doorsteps. Who really knows...?

Breathe In, Breathe Out-It's Christmas

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By the time I actually get this post finished, Winter solstice will have past, and us Albertan's will have experienced one short day. I poked my head outside for the few minutes of sunshine we had, and then raced back in to continue wrapping gifts...no, I raced back into grab the last gingersnap.

Really, that is neither here nor there; let's get down to business. If I'm truly finished writing this by the 23rd, that leaves us two days till Christmas. Count 'em- T-W-O. How are you feeling about this? Are you pacing and hyperventilating? Do you feel like you're on a runaway treadmill and can't find the off switch? Maybe you are sitting in your green chair with your feet up laughing at all the people making their last minute trips to town to buy more gifts - gomers. Your gifts have been wrapped for weeks, months maybe, packed away in alphabetical order, beside your freezer full of Christmas baking.

You didn't really want to hear about those green chair folks anyway, did you? They are the gomers after all?!?! Right...

Back to business. I am not the latter type, a super organized person with Christmas powers in my hands to have everything all in perfect shape. Yet, I can assure you that I'm not the former either. There is no wildness in this house, okay, not about Christmas anyway. Honestly, dear readers, I've said it a few times this week, Christmas comes and Christmas goes. What get's done, get's done, and what doesn't, doesn't. No one's going to be angry that there aren't gingersnaps on the table - except maybe your diabetic Uncle, but does he really need an extra four pounds of gingersnaps anyway? Do you really think your four year old will notice that his gift is wrapped in Loonie Store paper and looks kind of like he wrapped it himself, instead of with natural packing paper, hand stamped with homemade ribbon that took you four months to make? Nah. Your child will be in wonder with the twinkly lights on the tree, and mercy, if a tree didn't get put up, they will be enthused that  you are enthused about the day. They will remember everyone was happy and excited, they will remember Daddy reading Luke 2, they will remember you teaching them to take baking to the neighbours and to remember to pray for those that don't have a Christmas meal that day. Let's not teach our kid's to be stressed, to be wild over preparation for an event that we've marked on the calendar and keep thinking, "EGADS, FOUR MORE DAYS LEFT, I HAVEN'T BAKED THE NINETIETH BATCH OF SUGAR COOKIES!"

 "Johnny, go play, your Mommy will come up for air in twenty hours after she has scrubbed the walls for company coming, repainted the living room, cooked the hardest candy to make ever, all for Christmas, Johnny, all for Christmas!"

Slow down. Again, it will come and it will go. We'll all be a little fatter afterward, and hopefully we won't all be burnt right out, we'll have remembered what Christmas is truly all about.

Christmas Concern

I kind of want to make this picture extra small. Camouflage gift wrap? Why is this stuff legal?!

Ladies, tonight I have a little concern floating through my mind. I talked to my friend today who let me know her husband was in Medicine Hat-Christmas shopping. Egads! Someone let this man go ALONE to the city to shop for his wife?

If I was the betting type,  I would start some kind of pool on here with all your guesses of what this man will bring home.

I did write him a list of rules guidelines for him to peruse, but again, if I was the betting kind, I'd like to place a bet to see if that list is printed off and in his wallet.

Where do you think this man stopped first? Let's hope he ran out of gas and had to call his sister. What can we do to stop him, send a messenger pigeon?

If your brother, husband, father, son has trouble shopping for anyone, feel free to consult that guideline and paste it to their forehead. Oh, they'll learn and grow, trust me, it only makes me a little afraid to see that there is camouflage wrapping paper in with the Christmas wrap?! Is my husband hoping that my gift will blend in with the tree?

Mercy, if someday I have a boy, please pray for grace for me!

Mrs. Claus

"Yes, there is a Mrs. Claus. She's you-busy making visions of sugarplums come true. No gift is more welcome than goodies from your own kitchen." --Elizabeth Wood, Better Homes and Gardens magazine, December 1955

I do believe part of the merriment of Christmas is baked up in tiny little drops of enchantment-cookies. The smell, the taste, and the sparkle of Christmas cookies hold happy memories in my own heart of this time of year. I don't want to be so busy baking nine thousand batches of cookies that I forget about the relationships around me, but a few Christmas cookies with children in the house are a must.

The scent of cloves would fill the kitchen when my mom would bake her Gingersnaps and we would blissfully stuff our faces on the gallon sized pail of Sugar Cookies my Grandma sent down. She had been known to clean out her sink to mix up batches of cookies in with her grandchildren, because a lil ol bowl wouldn't do in the size of her batches. I believe I came by my love of baking cookies honestly.

I think, as a child, it was a bit bewitching to see the flour, sugar, and butter mixed together and have tasty treats form out of that; it still is.

I hope you all feel as we would expect Mrs. Claus would, brightly baking up treats in her kitchen. Try not to let the load of Christmastime weigh you down, but try and remember the joys in a good old fashioned cookie you enjoyed as a child.

Here's a treat we enjoy:

Almond Sweets

3 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup cooking oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
Almond Icing
Colored sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease a cookie sheet; set aside.
2. In a medium mixing bowl stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large mixing bowl beat eggs, granulated sugar, oil and vanilla with an electric mixer until combined. Beat in as much of the flour mixture as you can. Stir in any remaining flour mixture with a wooden spoon.
3. Roll dough into 1-inch balls; place balls 2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until bottoms are light brown. Transfer cookies to a wire rack; cool. when cookies are cool, spread with Almond Icing. Makes about 60.
Almond Icing: In a medium bowl stir together 1 cup sifted icing sugar (powdered sugar), 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (YUM!), and 1 to 2 tablespoons of milk to make an icing of spreading consistency.

Best of luck to you--I'd love to know if you gave these a shot.

I am linking up here.

Minus One Million

This is for you, Baerg girls!

Folks, I know I just wrote a post about the delights of this Jack Frost time of year and law, I do enjoy the warmth of the inside of my house. Alas, girls, today it is so cold that when you walk outside goobers in your nose start to freeze your nostrils together. For you all who are telling me of living in states where it's in the 70'S! right now, I'd like to invite you up to the great white north. You'll enjoy your stay in a bleached land where we will submit you to a short lesson on surviving the cold and then we'll send you out to start our vehicle. Your lungs will smart as you walk, when you come in your legs will itch from the cold, and getting ready to go outside will be a 15 minute effort.

I heard a report today that Calgary (just over 60 miles away) registered as the coldest place on Earth, except for a lovely resort place in the Antarctic. Our thermometer was reading colder than Calgary! What?! It was -36 degrees Celsius, or for you cats south of the border that is -32.8 degrees Fahrenheit.  Throw in some icy wind and you have a recipe for a hibernating momma.

I guess we're lucky here in Alberta, what is the need for Botox and all those other ways to look younger? Our faces simply freeze in place and our cheeks are nice and rosy preventing any need for blusher. Be wary not to make any rude faces or have a look of shock on that mug when you walk outside-that is what might be preserved forevah (or at least until Summer!)

I lumbered out the back door to snap a photo with my husband's boots on and realized the drifts were higher than the boots, which were up to my knees. I snapped the photo and wanted to wrap myself in a full body hot water bottle. I was envious of my daughter's fleece pajamas with the feet included and thought about looking for a pattern for myself.

It is no joke that we live somewhere where there have been students who have come to school on snowmobiles to take their diploma exams. They are infamous and dedicated students, it's too bad they failed, but we knew they couldn't see out of their balaclavas.

It's also a semi dangerous time of year, not for the frost bite or the bad roads, but for our marriages. Running to the back door to greet your husband with a kiss can be a hazardous task. Who can tell any of these rural Alberta men apart, they are bundled up so much? So, before you plant a wet one on the man who appears at the door, make sure it's not a neighbour who has had a break down.

Tonight, with the stove a blazing, I'm painting signs for the Little Prairie Baby shop, be warned though folks, I am not too sure how the outcome will be. Holding a paintbrush with your mittens on is proven difficult.

The Weather Outside is Frightful

A glimpse out our living room window.

I love it when the busyness of the day is lulled to sleep by the shadows of the evening. In Alberta, our days are considerably shorter in the winter. My sister and I when we were young, it would be dark out when we would trudge down the lane in our Sorel boots to get on the bus. In the evening, when we'd race back up the lane with the wind painting our cheeks red, it would be dark out again.  It starts to get long by the end of January, but right now, I wrap myself in the coziness of slowing down.

I don't mind getting to bed early when the world already seems asleep, and it feels okay to hang up the apron after supper and sit down with a cup of tea. I love getting out projects that were stashed away for the busy summer months. I love warm drinks, wood stoves and looking outside to see the Evergreen trees weighed down with white. I enjoy seeing the cattle huddled together with snow on their backs and seeing the wind whirling in the yard light. Christmas baking, warm scented candles, and flannel sheets make Winter shorter for me. Most of all, a tiny marvel, with wisps of hair standing on end, pointing at the Christmas lights in glee at her Mammy's house, makes my heart full.

Hopefully, the hot chocolate from our lil giveaway will warm up Sheila's day! Congratulations Sheila, we'll be in touch. Sheila was randomly selected through here. To get me through MY Winter months, I wish this lady would start her own blog. I think the star of it would be her little boy. He is a hoot! My husband was in at her husband's shop when this little guy, maybe he is three or four years old? announced to my husband, "I know where you live and I'm going to come tear your yard up!" My husband thought this kid was about the funniest little guy he'd ever encountered and some days I would like to go pick him up and have him around the house for comic relief.

What helps you get through your Winter months?

City Day and a Giveaway

Sometimes a straight back and a smile on my face doesn't put the assurance in my step or the fortitude in my voice that I've been raised to own. Even though we were raised to be humble, we were taught to look anyone in the eye when we spoke to them.

Sometimes I just want to crawl down into my own shadow of Uncomfortable.  A couple of days ago my husband and I rambled past spread out farms, along the grasslands towards the city. I had a doctor's appointment and we had plans to look for a couch afterwards. A couch that I have been looking for for years now. Everywhere I go, I take in what people are lounging on and file it away in my psyche. You think with years of this sort of research, I'd have a good idea what I'd want-not a chance.

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Snaking our way through the maze of buildings and people, we found an exorbitant furniture shop deep in the south end of the city. My husband in his good Wranglers and I in my semi clean shirt, parked the farm truck around the side of the building. There was grass stuck in the tow hooks from jaunts out into the pasture to haul back a hunted deer-I'm pretty sure there was still blood in the box.

My palms started to fret when we were acknowledged with a quick up and down glance by a smart suit in the entrance. Minutes later when we were asked if we wanted bottled water and I prayed the blond haired man I was with wouldn't ask if it was free, I knew we should get out of there.

"Are you looking for a more traditional feel or contemporary style?"

"Country."

I knew my husband was weak kneed at the seventeen thousand dollar price tag on a couch. I was confused. Had someone made a mistake? Uh, folks, do you have a jiffy marker, this tag is mislabeled. You should really get new help.

A wool sweater three sizes two small was more comfortable than that shop. I am reminded to appreciate any soul, no matter what package it comes in. I want to appreciate and embrace our ethnically, culturally, and financially diverse country-I want to be able to beam sincerely at the salesman who smirked at us. Remind him that we are the people who make up our country.

Part of the reason I like blogging is I believe it gives us a better understanding of one another. I simply started to write to let others know about Little Prairie Baby, but now I see how blogging let's us be conscious of others. We see in each other similar feelings, whether good or bad, and the more exposure should breed more tolerance.

Once a month I'm going to have someone stop in here for 'coffee,' to let us have a little look into what their life is like in corner of this world. In celebration of this, I'd like to host a little giveaway before we have our first guest! I have a Norman Rockwell children's Christmas book, a Little Prairie Baby bib, and some yummy hot chocolate. You know the routine ladies and gentlemen-to enter leave a comment telling me who would wear this sweet bib if it showed up at your house. For additional chances to enter, become or let me know that you are a follower, blog about this contest, or grab my button. Please leave separate comments for each entry. Contest closes November 19th at 12:00PM. Best of luck to you!

Walk tall and live brave!