This is just one of the majillionty ways he tortures me.
F#$%ing cat.*
*I say that with love.
I suppose our reputation precedes us. AMURICA!
Me, my pops, and my baby nephew Chris, circa a million years ago.
My nephew Chris, who is more a like little brother than a nephew because we are so close in age, teaches English at a school in Japan. He gave his students a worksheet to review the grammar they have recently learned by completing sentences about Christmas in America. Here are his favorite answers:
In America, on Christmas, we enjoy… killing reindeer with a machine gun.
Many children love Santa Claus because he gives… them a unicorn.
On Christmas morning, children always look very… bloody.
This is a stocking! It is a sock to… receive presents.
This year for Christmas, Ms. Haruo wants to… go to a Haunted house.
Chris will go to America for Christmas to… kill.
Now that I know the Japanese believe American Christmas is all about violence and bloodshed, I’m confident that my traditional decapitated and mutilated gingerbread people will be the PERFECT gift for my nephew’s Japanese fiance and her family. Super!
Squatch
Earlier in the week I promised you Michael’s squash recipe — the very recipe that had everyone at Thanksgiving dinner oohing and ahhing simultaneously for a solid minute. I don’t hold out, kids. This recipe is super easy and will be a hit at all your holiday potlucks. You can thank me later.
Mike’s Squatch
What you’ll need:
Butternut squash
assorted dried berries
assorted nuts
maple syrup (the real stuff)
lots of butter
graham crackers
***
You want to start with a nice big butternut squash. Like, maybe the size of a small chihuahua. Skin it, then cube it. (Careful not to cut your fingers off. Cutting squash is hard.)
Steam the cubed squash for a while. We didn’t time it, we just checked it every few minutes and when it was soft enough, we took it off the steam.
You’ll know it’s done because the color will deepen and it will be soft enough to stick a fork through. Transfer the cubes to a mixing bowl and add a quarter cup or so of pure maple syrup. Toss it all together and then start mashing. Or, if you prefer, squashing.*
*har har
Take a break from all that squashing to sort and chop your nuts and berries.
You could really use any dried berries or nuts you feel like. We’re Costco junkies so we buy the Kirkland Wholesome Fruit & Nuts mix. It’s got dried cherries, cranberries, walnuts, pistachios, and almonds. We had some leftover figs and currants which Mike chopped up and threw in as well. But I’m getting ahead of myself! Keep your nuts and berries separate. The nuts go into the crust and the berries go into the squash. So chop up your berries, add them to the squash and mash them all together.
When it’s thoroughly mixed together, squash it all down into a baking dish or lasagna pan.
Put your chopped nuts into a little mixing bowl with a stack of crushed graham crackers and cut in at least half a stick of butter.
You’re basically making a simplified version of that crumbly awesome crust that goes on the top of some apple pies. Nuts and graham crackers smashed together with a stick of butter. Makes my mouth melt just thinking about it.
Spread the crust over the top of the squash and you are done. It needs ten to fifteen minutes in the oven at 375*. You’ll know it’s ready to eat when the top is browned and gorgeous.
We’re totally making this again for Christmas.
What’s a recipe you love to make this time of year? I shared with you, now it’s your turn.
P.S. There’s still time for you to enter to win an awesome hand-made Mama Bear hat from Dopey LaRue!
There are three hours left in November so I can totally get away with this
Lots of people feel like Thanksgiving weekend is a good time to pull out the Christmas tree and start listening to carols on the radio. Not me. As long as I’m still eating turkey leftovers, it’s Thanksgiving season. I can’t get into the Christmas spirit until the first of December at least. With that in mind, and because so many of you requested it*, I present you with a story of Thanksgiving, as told by the Sylvanians.
*No one requested it.
It is November, 1621. A friendly Native American family approaches the home of some wary Pilgrims.
The Pilgrims are incredibly wary. Those natives are awfully intimidating.
“Keep the children indoors! Away from those frightening savages.” Mama Thistlethorne whispers loudly. Nevermind it was those very people she called savages who gifted her with the nice rug for her floors, all the food laid out, and the lovely hand-carved totems that guard her door.
What is it the Native Americans bring to the wary Pilgrims? Another blanket! And some pretty necklaces for the ladies. Those savages aren’t so savage after all! (They should be though, considering the gifts of infectious disease they’ve been getting from the Europeans for years.)
Meanwhile, in the nearby Native American village…
Father Sweetwater teaches the chief about Jesus while a fisherman cooks them a nice roasted fish dinner.
Father Sweetwater said, “Jesus is good.” And that is the story of the first Thanksgiving.*
*Not really.
Extended Holiday
He made squash for Thanksgiving dinner. He had to work that night, but he made this wonderful squash dish as his contribution. His love in a side dish, so we wouldn’t forget. There was a moment at the table, one moment, when everyone was eating and someone tasted the squash and exclaimed over its flavor. Then someone else had to try and soon everyone was eating squash and exclaiming, so I got to brag on my beloved, which made me beam. I adore him.
“Where is he?” They all asked. “It’s so awful he has to work!” And then they pat my cheek while I insist that I don’t mind, I’m used to it. He’s worked every single holiday for every year I’ve known him, eleven years last July. I long ago gave up on the idea of spending holidays with him. I resented it for years until I figured out that holidays don’t have to be celebrated when everyone else celebrates and new traditions can be invented every year. Now I kind of love it. He works on holidays so we’re forced to draw them out, add an extra day of celebration to the week. An extra day to feel grateful, safe, loved. An extra day to sleep in and eat good food. It turns out to be pretty fabulous.
This year we shared a romantic Thanksgiving for two on Michael’s day off. We ate meatloaf leftovers and worked on a Christmas craft project inspired by the Dia de los Muertos display we saw earlier in the month. It turns out that clay people and cardboard houses are waaaaay harder to make than you’d think. Three hours of work yielded six naked, faceless people, one house with an unattached roof and only half a paint job, and a miniature wiener dog. If we actually want a whole village we’ll be working on this every year for the rest of our lives, but then again, isn’t that what it was all about? Creating a new family tradition.
He’ll work Christmas Eve and Christmas, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. We’ll wait until his next day off to celebrate together, the two of us, alone in our little home with the beasts and their endless shedded tufts of hair. We’ll cook if it sounds like fun or we’ll order in. We’ll nest. We’ll watch holiday movies or go adventuring, build tiny dream homes out of cardboard and hot glue or spend hours in bed. Whatever we do won’t matter as long as we’re together, uninterrupted, happy and in love.
This is my fourth week linking up with Just Write. You should totally link up too.
And on that day, we gorged ourselves on the flesh of dead birds
I could have titled this post, “Snapshots from Thanksgiving Weekend,” but where’s the fun in that?
I baked a strawberry pie. Someone who ate a piece wanted to know if I’d made it. I answered in the affirmative, of course.
Friend: Did you make this pie?
Me: Yes, sir!
Friend: How did you make the crust???
Me: With unicorn magic and fairy dust.*
Friend: THIS IS THE BEST PIE CRUST I’VE EVER EATEN.
*I did not tell my friend that, in fact, the pie crust was made by Pillsbury. I’m probably going to Hell.
We hosted our first family dinner on Saturday. I made turkey meatloaf, roasted red potatoes, and a nice green salad. I also set the fanciest table I’ve ever set in my young little life. But it’s nothing in comparison to this:
My mother’s holiday table is what my kitchen table aspires to be when it grows up.
She made these beautiful turkeys out of pinecones she’s been saving for fifty-five-ish years. Her mother found them on a vacation in 1956-ish and thought they looked just like turkey bodies, so my mom has been saving them all these years to turn them into Thanksgiving decorations. Next time Mike wants to know why our linen closet is stuffed full of craft supplies I rarely use I’m going to say, PINECONE TURKEYS.
Even her hors d’oeuvre table was gorgeous.
It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without the Sylvanians! In this scene, a friendly native bearing gifts of friendship approaches a wary pilgrim. Not pictured – our fireplace mantel, where a Puritan minister teaches the natives about Jesus.
Mike made a wonderful squash dish that was the belle of the Thanksgiving ball, next to the turkey and my grandfather’s infamous wild rice stuffing. Even Valentine wanted this squash. If you behave, dear readers, I’ll share the recipe later this week.
What were the highlights from your Thanksgiving weekend?
It’s not all skin and bones
This is the best. song. ever. I seriously cannot stop myself from dancing whenever I hear it. Total mood picker-up-er. Play the video, close your eyes and listen to this song. Now. Play it play it play it DO IT!
Wasn’t that awesome? Don’t you feel great now? Is that not the happiest song you’ve ever heard in your entire life? The perfect feeling to start a long weekend with, am I right?
RedEnvelope Give-a-way Winner!!
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Congratulations to Courtney B, who plans to give her mom a personalized gift for Christmas. Courtney, if you’re reading, I have emailed you the one-time use gift code. If you have any trouble with it, please let me know.
BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE.
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Alright kids. Now that I’ve written the most commercial post posted in all my four years of blogging, I have to go take a shower. A hot, hot, hot shower. To wash away the shame.
Just kidding. We all know the holidays are all about commercialism. Am I right? I’m just getting into the holiday spirit!
Maybe he misses Manhattan
The wiener in winter – NYC, Dec. 12, 2008
There are two dogs under me on the sofa. I’m sitting on them because they wouldn’t move when I tried to sit down and — wait — the wiener just moved. Now he’s at my elbow, jerking his head around and licking the air.
Internets, I do not know why he licks the air. He licks the air, sways his head around, whimpers, licks the air some more, licks my arm for a little while, licks the sofa pillows for a little while, and then, exhausted, he collapses. When he’s finally quieted, if I show him any interest at all, if I even so much as glance at him from the corner of my eye, his head snaps up and he continues, frantic in his efforts to lick my arm, then the sofa pillows, then the air, for as long as wienerly possible. It’s not cute. It’s awful. It amuses house guests, but only until it goes on for so long that they begin to worry about his well-being. The other night he licked a sofa pillow for over thirty minutes. It was so soaked full of dog spit it felt like someone pissed on it.
I recently praised Theo online for being officially house-trained after four years of exhaustive work and now that we’ve got that under control, I feel the need to address his obsessive-compulsive licking.
You may not know this, but one of his nick-names is Lightning Fast Poo Tongue. He’s recently gone back to eating Valentine’s poop as soon as he can snatch it from her bum. (We thought we had that under control – HA! Who’s the dumbass now?) He will eat a large turd on our morning walk and afterward, if I do not pay careful attention to where his tongue is in relation to my whereabouts, there will be a poo-tongue smacking the inside of my eyeball before I can say “What the.”
You guys, I could get a BRAIN INFECTION. And I would have to tell the doctor it was because I got poo in my eye.
Why oh why does my wiener dog compulsively lick the air and/or surrounding objects while swaying his head and whining? Why do I have a raw spot on my forearm where all the hair has been licked off? Why are the sofa pillows always damp? Is it anxiety? Is it a medical condition? Is he trying to tell me something? Am I somehow failing in my attempt to display appropriate dominance? WHAT WOULD CESAR DO?
Please help me. Don’t help me. Forget me. Help Theo. Help the little wiener. (I’m begging you.)
P.S. Valentine is still sitting under me. She’s bonier than you’d think.
This is my third Just Write. Join us!
