December 27th

Oh, these days, these days! They make up for the crummy ones that occasionally litter the timeline. Too perfect, too beautiful and really, so simple! Family walks, meals, outings, shopping for notebooks, more meals shared, all of us, happy, playful, together.

Not much writing for today. Just photos with a few explanatory notes. You'll appreciate that the best of days require the least of words. 

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Up many hours before dawn. So is Ed. He offers to feed the animals and then he is off for some momentous stage of his machining project.

Breakfast, light. With the world's best red berries.

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An all-family meet up at the Arboretum. It's just above freezing. Despite the early hour, or maybe because of it, the kids are energetic! What better place for that!

(Juniper, the youngest, has her work cut out for her...)

(timed release selfie!)

A stranger with a camera (and a huge lens) comes up to me and asks if the kids would like to see an owl. He's spotted one just a few branches up in a tree. If they can stay quiet and don't scare the big bird... 

They stay quiet and it is positively awesome. (It's a Barred Owl and thankfully it was not feeling territorial so our ears and caps are intact. Those owl eyes! So beautiful!)

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Brunch at Hollander. (It describes itself thus: comfort-food fare served in a European-style cafe with a vintage-chic vibe..) I'd never been there. I thought it was perfect for us!

The eatery is at Hilldale (an outdoor shopping area) and since we are there, I gave the kids one last gift: $25 (max!) each to spend at Paper Source. Do you know this store? It's an expensive card and stationary shop, but they've added little gifty items and all kids love it and parents rightly see it as way overpriced. The older Madison two have ballet class right next to it and each week there's a lot of begging to go in and "just look." We never do, because we are older and wiser. If you care about your credit card limits, you'll stay away. But today, I wanted to see what they could accomplish with $25. 

After much angst, many calculations, changes of mind, comparisons, deliberations, they finally chose their loot and honestly, they did just fine!

(Sandpiper is hiding!)

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The older kids went with their moms to the movies (dads stayed with the younger two). I considered going along, but honestly, I cant sit through a movie when I'm under-slept, so I went home to tidy up and take care of the cats. 

We meet up later for supper downtown, at Lucille's. This has been our favorite supper place with all the kids and parents for a while now. It's mainly a pizza restaurant and it is so... cheerful! Especially around the holidays.

 

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Are we still in a period of "the holidays?" For me, as long as these guys are still here, we are on a holiday roll! 

With so much love....

Second day of Christmas

This afternoon, my younger daughter packs up her family and travels with them for a Christmas up north. In Wisconsin. Honestly, this extended two day celebration is just perfect for old me! When all five grandkids are together, there is usually some degree of chaos -- very fun, very lovely to be part of, but I feel I can never focus on any one of them. Add gift giving to the mix and suddenly the farmhouse is all discarded wrapping paper and tossed cardboard. With each young family coming here for their own Christmas with me, I have chance to actually feel the depth and beauty of every moment. Today will be the younger set's turn.

So I wake up early! Actually super early, though Ed says that's in my head. I swore I was awake when the cats outside started fighting with cat no. 7 aka Pancake (at 5 a.m.), but he said he could hear their screeching and my snoring. He must be making that up, because I do not snore! (Well, to the best of my knowledge...)

I have a full day ahead of me. But let's start things slowly. It's colder outside, but still above freezing, and still a bit wet...

("where is everybody?")

My breakfast isn't at home. My friend's in town, attending to family stuff and so she and I meet up at a downtown coffee shop.

This meeting is a tough one only because she has so much on her plate right now! If you're feeling overwhelmed, believe me she probably has double the load you do right now!

As long as I'm downtown, I drive over to the grocery store. I'm not terribly good (yet) at shopping for the whole week! We're running out of berries. Kids are coming from left and right in the next few days and our fruits are dwindling. 

Ed is away doing his machining work all day long so I have a chance to put the house in greater order. And to bring down the second batch of gifts. Smaller boxes this time. Yeah!

I have enough time to sit down and enjoy a quiet lunch. Or is it breakfast part two? Somehow lately these have been hard to distinguish.

Oh, here they come!

 

Presents. Joy. Exuberance. Music. Love.

Evening comes and the Madison family is here now as well...

 

(the art bunch)

 

 

(hide and seek, sort of)

 

So we have 11 for dinner -- my favorite number!

We do an old favorite -- Laotian take out. No one wants to cook a big meal today.

Kids play, grownups exhale. I mean, come on, we've survived a very full December. We deserve to put our feet up.

The kids' bedtime always dictates an early(-ish) ending to the evening. Who am I kidding -- it may be the kids' bedtime, but us grandparents are happy to wind it down at a reasonable hour as well. Especially this grandparent, who insists that everything needs to be cleaned up and put away before she can sit down on the couch and think back to the beauty of the day.

And it was beautiful. Every bit of it!

December 25th

 Is it Christmas in your home? Well then, Merry Christmas! Merry anyway, even if you're not a Santa/tree/manger/presents/Yule log/carols person. We all could use a huge dose of merry and bright!

Busy day here, at the farmette. Of course, animals need our care no matter what, so off I go, into a gray and too-warm December morning. This was not the year to give kids sleds! 

Christmas breakfast. Lovely, yummy, special.

(with cat, me at the camera)

(with me cat at the camera!)

And then I have to get at it: dinner is at the farmhouse tonight and we have to get it together. Priorities?  Ed cleans, I bake. I can't bring down presents until the house is vacuumed. (And here's a mental note for next year: no wish lists with huge items (in terms of physical size) allowed! The wrapping was monstrous and it took many trips just to carry the big boxes downstairs. Oh fine, I take it back: if Sandpiper wants big trucks and Snowdrop wants a squishy cat, and Sparrow wants whatever Snowdrop wants, so be it.) And the Yule log -- I have to bake it in the morning so that the filling (orange cream) can set before I frost it this afternoon.

Too, there is the matter of roasting chickens. I like the method suggested by J. Kenji-Lopez Alt. Problem is, for our dinner of seven, one chicken is too little, two are too much. I was hoping that the butcher would sell me half a bird, but he wouldn't so I'm stuck with two. Given that I want to spatchcock them, I need to figure out what pan could hold two butterflied birds and fit in the oven. That process is one huge pain: flatten the birds, nope, wont fit, scrub the useless pan, go on to the next. While the cats watch wistfully, hoping that those birds (4.5 lbs each) are for them.

That is my morning. And afternoon. And really, it's not hard. Past Christmases had even more meals and it had the tumult that comes with having young kids at your feet. This one is quiet (but for the music!) and productive!

Okay, Yule log done, despite warped pan and uneven oven. It always comes out just fine -- it may be fussy but it's easy to fix cracks and twists along the way.

Table set, potatoes peeled, beans trimmed, chickens seasoned. Let the roasting begin! 

And here they come!

Farmhouse gifts.

Farmhouse foods. Farmhouse fun. It's splendid to revel in this season of sharing.

Dinner. The chickens look great!

You have to admire the kids' stamina. They've been running on excitement turned to max power since wake up time this morning. I ask them to decorate the log with twigs, currants and raspberries. And powdered sugar. They are on it!

Merry and bright indeed!

With so much love on this beautiful day.

December 24th

Good morning, day of Eve! My, what heavy fog you're delivering for us! Never mind, I can see my way to the barn. Good morning, hens, cats, and the birds that eat up scattered chicken feed.

Bread. A staple for this week. Favorite bread bakery is closed, but second favorite, Batch is open. I have a reserved pie for Eve and I want to get there early so that I can grab their last warm baguette for Eve dinner, and their last warm sourdough loaf for tomorrow. And a treat for breakfast.

The fog is so dense now that I cannot see our skyline driving in. A white cloud over a warm and unfrozen lake.

At Batch, even at 8 a.m., a line has formed, but it moves quickly. Too quickly! I could take in the fragrance of that place for a good half hour! At least! 

Home again. Breakfast with Ed amidst beautiful winter colors.

Eve day. Music is going non stop now. Ed does not complain. He's working on putting life into his suddenly dead computer. I sit back and think about this day. This week. This year. Next year.

We go for a walk in our local park. Wet, damp, near record highs expected today, tomorrow. And no snow, No rain either. We're having a winter drought. And here's a surprise: on the drive to the park we encounter cranes. Not just one, not just a pair. Why haven't they left? Will this group overwinter here?

At the county park we take pleasure in the damp earthy smells, the forest quiet. 

Friends stop by with a homemade nut stollen. It is exceptionally delicious -- not too sweet, very yeasty. Perfect for Christmas Day breakfast.

 

Milestones that are not Christmas related: one friend is celebrating a birthday, another is attending to a father who is very very old and not well at all. This is what we do, every month, every year: we attend, we pause, we celebrate, we listen. 

 

Toward evening I go to my daughter's house. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's our tradition for me to cook dinner there tonight. Ed stays home for this one, as there is nothing in the main meal that appeals to him. Beef fondue. So un-Polish! (Poles do not really eat beef and certainly not on the Eve). But so us! I've been making sauces for Eve beef fondue (cooked in a spiced beef broth) for many decades. 

And pie for dessert. From Batch. Cherries from Door County.

And everyone in their pj's, and cookies for Santa and definitely an extra helping for poor Rudolph who has his work cut out for him this year in Wisconsin.

Time to say goodnight...

 

And drive home. Ours is on the farming edge of a small suburb of Madison. This time I drive through the heart of the community, where I come across this very large house with a very ambitious holiday light design.

I like it (though I'm also glad he is not my neighbor). And I also like the smaller displays... 

 

 

... or homes with nothing at all outside, and yet I know there to be lights inside.

And maybe some, where the light is entirely in the heart.

It's all beautiful.

 

with so much love...

December 23rd

Don't you just love the day before the day before? If you're anticipating the pleasure of, say, a family gathering to celebrate Christmas, foods, music, presents and all, then Christmas Eve is your big deal moment. Anticipation, about to be realized. (Of course, if you observe the religious aspects of Christmas or more strictly the traditions that lead up to it, then Eve is important in its own right. In Poland, Eve is more important than Day.) No matter how you slice it, with a heavy or light dose of religion, or perhaps no religion at all, Eve and Day are big! So, the day before Eve and Day is grand -- you have finally reached those heavily awaited days and they are just before you. 

In other words, by this logic, December 23rd is the best! 

Here, at the farmette, we wake to a misty morning. It'll be on the warm side today, tomorrow, and on Christmas Day. Second warmest in Madison's record keeping history. Rudolph's nose will be much in demand.

Breakfast. I seem to have forsaken oatmeal in favor of cinnamon. What can I say... my love of coffee with a yeasty or buttery pastry knows no bounds.

We have a quiet morning. Ed's head is in his machine design project and he spends many hours working through the details in the sheep shed. This frees me to play music without restraint in the farmhouse. I do promise him that in three days, I'll shut off my playlist for a whole eleven months!

 

 

In the afternoon, we take out our bikes. I cant say that it's a beautiful day for it (in the low 40sF, so maybe 6 or 7C), but we need the movement. I need the movement!

Misty, a bit wet. Dramatic. I swerve to avoid a car I hadn't initially spotted and throw out my wheel. Three fire engines and an ambulance come zipping our way. And birds. In the thick of a fog, we see the birds. Geese, crows maybe. And these two. See them? Cranes.

The lake is lost in the fog. We pause to stare into white space.

And then we go home, where my hero takes on the bike repair and I retreat inside for a warm cup of tea.

 

In the evening I have a date with my daughter and her two older kids. Sparrow had been asking to see the Nutcracker. We hesitated. He's a chatterbox and keeping him quiet in the auditorium is not easy. Snowdrop has seen the Nutcracker several times and though she likes it and was enthusiastic about an outing, she's a girl who favors words over music so I wondered if she'd get impatient with it. Still, we decided to go for it!

The four of us meet up at Cento for a pre-theater supper downtown.

(here they come!)

And now it's time for the show! I got side tickets that afforded some privacy in case things got a little too wiggly.

For me, personally, the Nutcracker is a big deal. I'd first seen it in New York, as a little girl and I was enchanted by it then. I came back to the ballet when my younger daughter ascended the Madison Nutcracker ladder, first performing as a 9 year old -- as one of the polichinelle children that come out of Mother Ginger's hoop skirts, eventually moving up to a party girl and then, at age 12 to Clara. That was her first en pointe performance and of course, it was thrilling for all of us to see her grace and artistry on stage. The last Nutcracker I attended was some two dozen years ago when she danced the snowflake dance. Somehow once she left the production and indeed, left ballet altogether (at her level of dance, it's very much an all or nothing activity), I shut the Nutcracker door for myself. This is the first time I return to it, looking at it afresh, with the eyes of the two older grandkids sitting by my side. Same theater, same stage, different generation.

Tears were shed.

Did they like it? Yes, very much so, we all did, in our own way (during the Sugar Plum Pas de Deux, I leaned over to whisper something to Snowdrop and she tells me  -- gaga, please, no words during this dance), each looking at it from her own perspective -- of dance, of story telling, of music, of time.

 

I drive home with the music in my head. The misty skies hide the stars, the moon. The warm air is too warm. The lakes were solidly frozen last year in December. There's not a hint of ice on them this year. The eve before the Eve. All is calm. For that and for everything else, I am so profoundly grateful.

with so much love...