I have a new plot for a Hallmark movie.  Daughter flies home from glamorous London, England to hick hometown Calgary, Alberta to surprise her family as a Christmas present.  The parents are gobsmacked and cry the ugly tears of relief and love and surprise and gratefulness.  The brother is dumbfounded because he’s asleep and he’s wondering what kind of dream he is having.  The family canine gets the zoomies and the velcros for his long lost favorite person. She had arranged with good family friends that they keep this a secret and pick her up from the airport.  Mom and Dad were invited to said friends home for dinner Saturday night as a ruse to make sure they didn’t have any other plans. But then ….since they didn’t have any supper made because they  thought they were going out, said friends brought over a delicious dinner.

It’s December 2nd and I’m ready for Christmas.  Ready for the season of Christmas.  Only 3 more weeks to enjoy all the Christmas things.  Joys.  Traditions. Memories. Surprises.  Nostalgia.  I’ve always said that Christmas is really the lead up to the 25th.  Christmas is not really just one day.  There are some that wonder why people go to so much trouble for one day but its not just one day.

I’ve got the house decorated and I’ve got the great outdoors decorated. I’ve got my big gifts bought and will not have to tromp the streets are the malls looking for THE perfect gift. Many of the most perfect gifts cannot be bought anyway. Often I like to create the perfect gift.  I have a few ideas up my sleeve and in my head for a few people.

Its time to enjoy the sights, sounds and tastes of Christmas.  I decided to let myself take the time to read Christmas novels this year.  Its like reading a Hallmark movie.  Sappy but oh so feel good.  Just to take some time to smell the evergreens and combat the ‘busy’s’.  Time to ponder the possibilities of the New Year and to consider how to finish this year well.

Enjoy the Christmas season while you can.  If you can.  There are many  for whom this season is just painful but if you are in a position to enjoy it – DO!   Helping someone else enjoy it will also make it more memorable and meaningful.

Its coming on Christmas.  They’re cutting down trees.

Five measly weeks until Christmas. How did that happen? Only six weeks until the end of the year.  Six weeks to finish 2023 well. For some reason, I wasn’t really getting into Christmas this year.  Is it because my wee girlee is not going to be here – again? Because I’m exhaustified?  Is it because my husband needs a hip replacement and can’t get one?  Kind of puts a damper on things. I went to a Christmas Market and I thought, there’s nothing new under the sun. I know, this is starting to sound a little like Ecclesiastes.
I was planning on decorating the house for Christmas on my week break from work – last week, that is now over. I opened the door to the storage room and I thought, what am I doing with twelve Rubbermaid bins of Christmas decorations?  I got tired just looking at them.  I thought to myself, why don’t I just toss up a few garlands and some mini lights, get one real tree and be done with it? Actually the curtain lights were already up so I thought I would just piggy back on those.  What comes up must come down, you know. No matter how many Hallmark movies or Debbie MacComber novels I read, I am  just at a loss for making Christmas.

My daughter facetimed me today from London and she is not feeling great either.  She has been under the weather longer than usual for her and just not that enthusiastic about working under duress.  However, this could possibly be her last Christmas in London, so she is going to try to make the best of it.  I relayed that I sort of was feeling like I didn’t care about Christmas this year and she was alarmed. Well, not so much that I didn’t care but that I just couldn’t be bothered to decorate.  I thought, I’d rather read by the fire and drive around and look at the Christmas lights and feast off of everyone else’s efforts.   I realized, once I said it out loud, that if I’m not excited about Christmas,  it’s the end of the line for me. I’ve always been the Christmas queen. In our family, at least. Maybe I’ve spent one too many Christmases being the Christmas fairy.  I just don’t know.  What I DO know for sure is that I needed to snap out of this. Because truly, if I stop caring about Christmas, what’s left??

I needed some red in my decor.  I have tons of red.  Red drapes. Red rugs. Red blankets.  Red cushions, Red Everything. I was avoiding bringing it out but we need a little Christmas right this very minute so  I had to get some red up and get it up quick.  Once again, I opened the door to the storage room and began pulling out the Christmas bins until I was past the point of no return. I found red french toile valances that I forgot I had. So I ironed those up and hung them on the main level.   Exactly what was needed.  Found a stack of red french toile plates I was saving for Lexie.  Took  them upstairs.  Added red silk flowers to my existing urn.  Red cushions to the couches.  Red blankets over the backs of chairs.  Already everything is looking so much better.  Jollier. It’s putting me in a mood. A Christmas mood.  A festive mood.

It IS worth going to the trouble to achieve that ambiance. My family is used to it.  After 42 years of marriage I’ve always overdone Christmas.  They’d probably stage an intervention if I didn’t decorate.  I know the true meaning isn’t decorating.  But the decor brings me back to the true meaning.  As do the lights.  Especially the lights.  That’s what Christmas is all about.  The light of the world and I need some of those symbolic lights going on in our home.

So now, I’m getting overly enthusiastic and I’m revamping things. It’s like I had a renewed burst of Christmas energy.  Taking wreaths apart and redoing them. Finding new ways to use old decorations. We are getting a real tree this year so I can’t get that until the beginning of December but in the meantime I have a LEGO Christmas Village to set up.  That’s going to require moving some furniture around. I was actually trying to avoid redecorating the house just for Christmas and then having to redecorate again in the spring.  But hello?  That’s what I do.  That’s what I’ve always done.  That’s who I am.  So now I have five weeks to totally overdo it.  Five weeks to keep tweaking and adding. I don’t have to buy a thing.  I have it all.  So putzing with Christmas is where you’ll find me in the evenings for the rest of the year.  By the time I’m finished it will be time to take it down.  That’s the way of it.

Thanksgiving Dinner Tortellini Soup

Nothing like a hot, hardy soup on a quintessential fall day.   Rained most of the day.  So I thought I would dig out the remains of our thanksgiving dinner and make soup out of it tonight.  I had already finished off the leftover corn pudding and the mashed potatoes because I had a tooth extracted this week and it was suggested that I only eat soft food the first couple of days.  Most of the chicken was gone as well.  Mike had been eating it on its own and I sent a couple of portions home with Mom on Sunday night. We usually do Hutterite chickens instead of turkeys for holiday dinners because we like them so much better.

Anyway,  I did save the carcass and the carrots.  So I turned the carcass (such an unlovely word and not very appetizing at all, if you ask me) into broth and scrounged up any little pieces of chicken I could pick off those bones.  Then I sautéed a couple of cups of chopped celery and chopped onions in olive oil until they were almost transparent.  Next I added my homemade broth (approx. 8 cups worth) and my very secret ingredient, Better than Bouillon chicken.  To taste.  I added a can of tomato soup because that is the only tomatoey thing I had in the pantry.  Added some Thyme, some Sage, and some Salt and Pepper.  All to taste.  I like flavor.  Next I added the chicken pieces and the leftover cooked carrots (I had made quite a few so  we had about 4 cups leftover). I added about another 4 cups of water.  And once the broth was bubbling (and since up until this point everything has been previously cooked)  I  added the herb cheese tortellini (about 4 cups).   Then I let the soup simmer until the tortellini was cooked thru.
Next, I proceeded to serve up a heaping bowl of soup and let it cool.  Once it was cool enough to eat, I devoured it.  It was delicious…even if I do say so myself.  I have to say, I really loved the tomato soup flavor.  I think if I had had another can, I would have added it too.

I love this day.  It’s September 30 and a Saturday.  It’s been vacillating between raining and drizzling all day. I bailed on the dog park because of the rain but was pretty content to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things for tomorrow’s dinner as we are having a surprise visitor.  I stopped at the library on the way to pick up a couple of books I had put on hold.  Another Christmas novel and a sock knitting book.
Previous to leaving the house I spent the morning in my dungeon studio sewing to my heart’s content.  No pressure.  No one waiting for my project.  Just something I wanted to make for myself at my leisure. Now I am back at it.  I love my studio and it’s the perfect place to be on a raining fall Saturday afternoon.  Eating leftover pumpkin pie and browsing through my new UK Country Living magazine. I love this magazine.  The photography is amazing.  The font they use for all the titles is so beautifully British. Most of the ads look like actual articles.  And the paper is still high quality and glossy.  Not like the dull newsprint they’ve started using in all the American magazines. I digress….

My studio.  Let me describe it.  It’s a little chilly down here but I have one of Lexie’s old man cardigans she was going to toss and I saved from the bin to warm me if I need it.  Mike has built me a long wall to wall and around the corner desk for my computer and all my sewing machines and my books and lamps and pretty paraphernalia. I love to have a movie or podcast on while I am down here working.  I have all the pretty office supplies that I couldn’t buy when I worked in an actual office because they weren’t professional.  My profession is beautiful things so I can have all the beautiful things I want down here.  Thus,  I have all the pretty color post it notes and pens and tabs.  Mason jars full of rubber stamps and paint brushes and lovely mugs full of pens and scissors and rotary cutters, nail files and exacto knives.  I save all my greeting cards when I receive them so a lot of them are pinned to the walls.  They bring me joy.  I have shelves and shelves of sewing notions, card stock, books, and old journals, crepe paper for making flowers, candle making supplies. A circuit and a cuttlebug (google it).  I have wallpapered one wall with gorgeous layouts from one of my favorite magazines.  Mostly flowers and water scenes. There are shell frames and jars full of pearls and beads.  Clocks. Mirrors.  Tiny art work.  souvenirs from my travels.  Bulletin boards, boxes of puzzles. Stacks of library books. An old typewriter.  A gold standing mirror Lexie scored for free off Marketplace.  Jars of thread. Boxed cards and empty journals waiting to be filled. Lots of lamps. A dressform.  Candles.  I think I’ll go light one now.  There are close to 100 large cardstock roses pinned to the unpainted drywall (not that anyone can see it).  I guess that’s the point.  I have large black filing cabinets (that I inherited from a company 4 jobs back) full of fabric and baking packaging.  I have an industrial sewing machine and serger I bought from a clothing store my dear friend works at.  They came with their own tables.  so….I have those tables covered with sewing projects, fabric and magazines.  I have a high self to store my Christmas village on during the summer.  The shelf used to be the high rise platform or our kitchen island.  I’ve got an old glass front hutch that stores all the quilts I’ve made when they are not being used.  Lexie has a shabby chic looking armour and dressing table down here as well.  A trunk… Wedding dress storage bags full of the gowns she loves to make as a hobby. Bunches of silk flowers wherever I could fit them in.  Many of Lexie and my paintings that are seasonal adorn the walls.

Often when I survey the studio, I evaluate how it got like this.  It has evolved over time.  One could never just throw this together in one fail swoop or a plan because the beauty of it is that it’s not been planned.  It’s just evolved and taken on its own personality.  Well maybe my personality.  And that’s OK.  It’s my studio.  It could never be replicated exactly.  It’s taken me 13 years of living in this home. And it perfectly suits me.

All in all, it’s kind of a shabby chic look only with black accents.  I know black is not really shabby chic but I think I’ll make my own style name.  Because most of my home is sort of shabby chic – ish,  except for all the black.  I like the black and there’s too much of it to turn back now. Ebony French Country Chic maybe.

Anyway,  it’s back to sewing and puttering for the rest of this rainy day.  No one is calling my name or harassing me.   I’ll do what I love.  And thank the Lord for these circumstances.  They are ideal – for me.  In this moment.

Friday afternoon, leaving work.  Gorgeous sunny September afternoon. The leaves haven’t yet started to fall.  But school is back in session and I started back this year too.  Assisting in the cafe.  It’s been 15 years since my youngest graduated from these hallowed halls and 26 years since the school opened its doors that very first day.  We were one of the pioneer families. Walking through the school yard to my car evoked so many memories.  I was feeling all the feels this afternoon.  My daughter was in Grade 2 and my son was in grade 5 the year the school opened its doors.     We worked with the teachers and administrators most of August trying to get the newly purchased school ready for fall startup. I remember the first family picnic we had out on the school yard lawn. It was an exciting time.  We brought homemade apple pies – I think just to share with others and one of the school’s new administrators decided to auction them off for $125.00 a pie.  Parents were hyped and wanted to help this new school out.

The structure of the school has changed so much since our family was a part of this school.  I say ‘ our family’ because it was very much a family affair back then.  The trees are so much taller- They actually have trees. The whole area, so much more developed.  But as I was walking past the metal railings at the elementary door, the very same ones that were the backdrop of many first day of school pictures, all the sweet memories of my kids’ school years flooded over me and left me breathless.  Where did those years go?   So full of hopes and dreams.  So full of precious moments and memories.

As I serve up hot lunch to the kids these days, it just takes me back.  I usually made lunches for my kids.  I was one of those weirdos that enjoyed making lunches for my kids.  But I gave them money to buy lunch on Fridays or whichever day they were serving their favorite foods.  I was always available to drop them off at school in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon.  Don’t tell anyone, but I usually had a snack in the van because I knew they’d be hungry and being fed made them chatty and they’d tell me about their day.   I made cookies and brought cheese sticks and juice boxes.  Any day that was early dismissal or the last day before a break,  we always went out for lunch and/ or to a movie.  I never had these moments when I was growing up.  We had 7 kids in our family and we walked to school and back everyday and we made our own boring lunches.  Back in my day Spam was lunch meat not unwanted email.

I think back to all the times I decorated that gym for graduations and fundraisers.  All the times we attended concerts in that gym. I remember Journey to Bethlehem, where the kids and teachers turned the gym into Bethlehem for a walking tour with all the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of that first Christmas. Such a worthwhile learning experience.  I remember decorating the teachers lounge that first year, painting trees and all kinds of fun things on the walls.  I loved helping out in the kids’ classrooms and was very excited when the teachers let me decorate their bulletin boards.  I signed up for every field trip. Went as a chaperone to fall sleepover camp. I taught Lexie’s grade 3 class how to make a quilt.  I sewed costumes for plays – Little Women to be specific. My son had a role in the Dr. Suess musical.  He was amazing, even if I do say so myself.  Both kids ventured out on Missions trips.  Lexie to South Africa and Andrew to Trinidad.  Many sleepless nights til they arrived safely home.  And the science projects.  I loved to help the kids with their homework – I loved school.  Except Math.  I was always excited to see what mark I…. I mean, they…… got when their assignments came back.

In our days, the teachers gave out benchmarks.  The slogan was to be a lifelong learner.  I already was one. Oh right, I was not a student.  However, I did graduate from Grade 9 three times.  I had to drop out after Andrew and Lexie’s Grade 9 because I didn’t understand the math.  They were on their own then .  Another belief  that was drilled into these kids was that the student would eventually become the teacher.  I can honestly say, both of my kids flew right past me academically.  And now they are teaching me things I don’t know.  I hate that.  Like how to use my computer and phone.  Lexie, teaching me how to decorate cookies. Andrew,  full of all the trivial information we need at a moment’s notice and he always has it.

I remember both graduations from Grade 12 vividly.  Such momentous and bittersweet moments.  So proud they were graduating and so sad that part of their life was over.  I had so much fun.  I don’t know if I was supposed to, but I did.  I loved those school years. When the kids needed me and depended on me.  They came to me with all their problems and I was actually able to solve most of them. Life was so much easier back then.  Safer.  More predictable. Cohesive.  All for one and one for all.  We may not have had it all together but together we had it all.  And this school was the center of SO many of our family memories, how can I not look back wistfully and wish I was ‘there’ again?  Well I am there again, but you know what I mean.  Those really were the ‘good old days’.