Snowklahoma

I started to write a long post about the Christmas Eve blizzard that shut down our state, and, not unlike the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, threatened to shut down Christmas altogether, but it stressed me out. So, I'm going to do a picture post instead of some of the prettier moments of the extremely rare Oklahoma blizzard. It snowed again a few days later, and it looks like it may be in the forecast again for later this week.

Suffice it to say that snow on the windy prairie, especially powdery easy-to-blow snow, is considerably more dangerous than heavy snow in East Coast cities where there are plenty of windbreaks. I know lots of friends back East who laughed at our panic over a few inches of snow when they were maneuvering easily through their 2 feet of the white stuff, but when you're stuck on a highway where you can only see a foot in front of you on all sides and you never know when you may hit a 4+foot snowdrift, things get complicated. But I digress.

The pretty:

Happy New Year, I'm Not Dead!

Hello dear readers, and Happy New Year. Yes, I know that it has been more than a week since I posted anything (ack! no Mutt Monday post!), but I'm not apologizing. I've been too busy enjoying my family during the holidays and surviving Snowpocalypse 2009, and I hope you have been, too.

That said, I am itching to get back to blogging and to share with you some of my awesome Christmas presents (including a new camera--no more blurry shots!). I'd like to take a minute to jot down my resolutions for 2010, so we can all look back in 12 months and laugh at me.

In 2010, I will:

*Get organized. I've already gotten started by FINALLY UNPACKING MY CLOTHES that have sat in a Rubbermaid tub since May '08 when we moved here. I've overhauled my closet, Joe's closet, and I'm attacking the kitchen next. Employees of Bed, Bath, and Beyond: your jobs will be secure in 2010 thanks to me.

*Reduce paper consumption. Honestly, we do a pretty good job of this already, and if you've ever seen Mt. Cardboard in our garage, you'd know that we never throw this stuff away. However, I'd like to cut way back on paper towel usage this year, and maybe eliminate it entirely. One day.

*Lose weight. Roll your eyes, America. There is no such thing as a new year's resolution list without this one. This year, however, I have a running start (20lbs down!) and lots of knowledge and tools to help me get into better shape. I've done this one before, and I have awesome motivation. Besides my sister's upcoming wedding in May, I'd also like to take a shot at giving Joe a sibling one of these days. I did what I said I would: I enjoyed my first pregnancy and put no pressure on myself at all. Now that I know what to expect, I'm going to be a little smarter next time around and much more prepared. But first things first: smaller waistline.

*Homemade majority. This holiday season I tried my hand at baking my own bread (more on that in a future post) and it went really well. So well that when I went to Walmart last week and they were out of my favorite kind of wheat bread, I just shrugged and said "oh well, I'll just make some." And I did. And it was good. Better yet, it was a LOT cheaper than driving 25 min to town to feed the corporate beast. Moving forward, I'd like to try to eat at least 75% of our meals from homemade sources (and homegrown, too, as soon as the temps warm up). Beyond food, I'm going to try some other homemade avenues around the house, too. Stay tuned to hear how our adventure in homemade play dough turned out (hint: salty).

That's all I can think of at the moment. I think if I'm struggling to come up with more resolutions just for the sake of resolving to do them, then there's no way they'll get done.

Here's wishing you a happy and healthy year, folks! Let's make it a good one!

I Don't Want to Get My Hopes Up...

The weather forecast for Christmas Eve:

Mutt Monday: Holiday Spirit

What is it about the holidays that makes us eat more?


Okay, honestly, she does that everyday.

Every Christmas that I can remember (and often at other random times throughout the year) my family would watch "White Christmas" with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that several of my North cousins got involved in theater, and might have had something to do with that time that I forced them into performing a play I'd written called "The Christmas Tree That Ate My Mother" one Christmas Eve (more on that some other day).

Anyways, the favorite musical number turned out to be "Sisters," which if you haven't seen the movie:


Later spoofed in the movie (and in real life by my cousins Chad & Chris--wanna send me the video, guys?) by Bing & Danny:



All anyone in my family has to do is hum a few bars from this song, and we all crack up. It seems like the mutts are getting in on the action:


We're also very happy to be visited by my grandparents this week, Joe's great-grandparents, and they have integrated very well into the napping landscape.


The Feline Overlord tried to nap with Nonnie about an hour before this shot was taken, but was disturbed by Nonnie's pleas for us to remove the cat from her head. Can't imagine why she'd want us to do that....

Gingerbread

One of the first Watkins family Christmas traditions ever (actually, probably one of the first traditions period) is baking gingerbread. I started the first year that Bill and I lived together, and have kept it going for the past 4 Christmases. I think I made about 70 loaves that first year. I don't know what got into me, but we brought in loaves for everyone in both of our offices, mailed them to friends and family members, and ate about 20 loaves on our own. This was before I had my stand mixer, so I stirred every batch by hand. My right arm was approximately 3 times bigger than my left by Christmas. They have been mailed to several states and both Iraq and Afghanistan with fairly positive feedback across the board. I've recently tried experimenting with lower-fat and gluten-free versions, but I still have a long way to go in those departments.

As the years go by, the numbers of loaves being mailed out have dwindled due to astronomical postage prices from Oklahoma to everywhere else in the world, so I have decided to reproduce my recipe here in case readers want to make their own. A word of warning: if you are a bah-humbug type of Christmas avoider, do NOT make this bread. It will make your house smell like ginger and spice and everything nice and you'll have visions of sugarplums dancing in your head as you sing carols uncontrollably at the top of your lungs. Consider yourself warned.

Watkins Family Gingerbread
The original recipe that I print out and tape to my kitchen cabinets every year can be found here, and I only slightly modify it as I go. I've made so many batches of this stuff that I don't really need the recipe, but it doesn't feel like Christmas until it's taped up. One of these days I'll actually take the time to print it out on nice Christmas-y paper and frame it so it actually looks decorative instead of like I'm cramming for finals.

I start by creaming a cup of butter with a cup of brown sugar until light and fluffy:


Add 2 eggs and beat well. Then combine a cup of molasses (unsulfured) with a teaspoon of baking soda and a cup of boiling water. It will smell, sound, and look like science class:

The original recipe says to dump this in with the creamed butter mixture, but I like to add it alternatively in thirds with the flour for a better consistency. Thank you, Alton Brown, for teaching me that one. Add a total of 2 and 3/4 cups of flour alternatively with the molasses mixture to the creamed butter, with the mixer on low to avoid hot splashes of molasses. Voice of experience here.

Add 2 teaspoons of baking powder, and get excited. It's spice time. The original recipe calls for 4 tsp ginger, 2 tsp cinnamon, and 1 tsp each of allspice and cloves, but I dump at least a tbsp and a half of ginger in there, a full tbsp of cinnamon and heaping tsp of allspice and cloves, plus a pinch extra if I feel like it. I go through a LOT of spice. That's why when I stumbled upon a spice sale at my grocery store, I freaked out. A tiny jar of ground cloves is normally $8, but I got mine on sale for $.99! A Christmas miracle? I think so. I also have started zesting some orange into the mix to add brightness to the flavor.

Anyway, when you're all mixed up, you'll look like this:


Here's where I'll break and let you know that I used to make the lemon glaze as directed in the original recipe. It was good, but very very messy and sticky. This year I experimented with sugaring the pan and making a cinnamon-sugar topping, like I did in the Amish Friendship Bread earlier this fall, and had AMAZING results. I can't explain the tasty, I can only testify that it is mighty.

Once your pans are sugared and your oven is 350 degrees, fill 'em up. Sprinkle a generous helping of the cinnamon sugar mix on top of the loaves and toss them in the oven. It takes around an hour, give or take, but I never set the timer. At this point I can tell by smell, and I check with a cake tester. The finished product will look like this:


Well hello, you. Pull them out and let them cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes, then remove from the pans and allow to cool completely. If you can. These wrap up and freeze VERY nicely, obviously mail really well, and generally taste better the second day. Now, before you start thinking that I'm some Christmas fairy or something, I have to be brutally honest and admit that my kitchen looks thusly when I'm finished:


It's worth it. Trust me. Remember, you're going to be so busy singing carols loud enough for the neighbors to hear that you won't care about cleaning up.

Tannenbaum

Okay people, for those of you who know me or are getting to know me from the blog, you probably are aware that Christmas is a big deal to me. I can't explain it, but I'm hooked on the holiday. If I were elected president, I'd probably declare Christmas a year-long celebration.

That said, I feel very strongly about one of the major symbols (albeit pagan) of the season: the Christmas tree. My tree rules are as follows:



1. The tree must be real. I have ALWAYS had a real Christmas tree, and after reading this article about the environmental and economic impact of real vs. fake trees, I felt less guilty about cutting down a tree that spent many years growing tall. I've also resolved to rent a chipper and make awesomely beneficial mulch from our tree, which will be used in around the blueberry patch.

Last year's Christmas tree was the biggest tree I've ever had. The thing was at least 9 feet tall and round...I mean, we're almost talking Griswold tree. Unfortunately, it was dead about a week before Christmas and it was all we could do to keep a few needles on the branches until December 26th when we tore that sucker down.

This year we were all gung-ho to cut down our own tree so that it was as fresh as possible (and resolved to actually water the darn thing) and we even found a local Christmas tree farm just a few miles from our house. Unfortunately, they'd only been growing trees for 4 years, so they were all about 4 feet tall. Very nice and good for local economy/sustainable/small carbon footprint/yadda yadda, but I've already succumbed to my yuppy enviro-guilt this Christmas, and the only way a 4-foot tree would work in our living room would be to put it on the coffee table on a stack of phone books. Not happening. So we paid the nice man for one of his pre-cut trees which had been trucked in from North Carolina, swallowed our guilt, and went home. I'm actually planning to go back to the tree lot this summer and tag a tree for us to cut down next year or the year after, depending on how fast they grow.


2. Ornaments are sentimenal, not stylish. I'm not sure when the trend of having, well, trendy Christmas trees got started, but I am not a big fan of matchy-matchy Christmas trees that coordinate perfectly with the living room decor and are full of non-descript glass balls in 2 colors and giant cascading ribbons, also in 2 colors. Plus, I am a color traditionalist when it comes to Christmas decorating--red and green, please, with a little gold and white thrown in here and there. No offense to anyone who has the HGTV look going on right now--I know I am in the minority. With the exception of a few random balls purchased last year from Walmart to help fill out our giganto tree, all of the ornaments we use were gifts or from our childhoods. I think it really hit home that I was married when I picked up my box of ornaments from my parents' house to take home to MY house.


I can honestly say that almost every ornament on our tree means something to us, and even though the tree is a bit sparse now, I'm looking forward to filling it up with Joe's ornaments, etc.

It's probably not a surprise then to know that I'm not a fan of the bow topper trend, either. They seem sort of impersonal to me. Now, I don't really care if you've got a star or an angel or a picture of Chuck Norris up there, but it should mean something. Here's ours:

The head of this angel came from a doll that actually belonged to my grandmother, who passed away when I was 3. She had a few of these dolls in her house and they are one of the very few memories I have of her. My mom and aunt had the dolls made into Christmas angels a few years ago and the wave of memory that I get when I look at her is overwhelming.

3. Presents go under the tree. This is big. We all can acknowledge that Christmas is mainly a holiday for the children, but nothing brings out the holiday spirit in even the biggest too-cool-for-Christmas grinches like a big ole box under the tree with their name on the tag. So as soon as they are wrapped, presents go in their rightful position where they act as temptation and up the excitement factor for everyone within view.


Sidebar: Presents are not to be opened before Christmas. Even when I was a kid, I felt like this was cheating. Opening Christmas presents on any other day cheapens them, in my opinion. Who cares if Santa comes on the 25th if I already have a giant haul? Now, not all presents go out before Christmas morning. Obviously there are some biggies that would be a dead giveaway, and there needs to be ample room for Santa's delivery. Growing up we had "hide-your-eyes" which usually came at the end of the Christmas gift-opening ceremonies, and were mostly gifts that were too big to wrap; ie, awesome.

And most importantly,
4. The tree is to be enjoyed. How many times throughout the year would it be nice to come home at the end of a long day and bask in the glow of a twinkling, magical present-magnet in the middle of the living room? It's so nice to sit and admire all of the mismatched ornaments and think about the people and times they represent. I try to do as many things in close proximity to the tree as possible. Like wrapping presents. Or blogging.

Christmas Crash

Christmas is kicking my butt this year, friends. Actually, this time of year usually causes me to irrationally bake, overbuy gifts, obsess over cleanliness, and unnecessarily lose sleep for no good reason. It's a little more worth it this year since all of this effort is actually for the benefit of my son, which is what Christmas is all about, really.

However, I am tired. This is one of the lame "I promise to post soon" posts that I hate writing. But I will! Promise! I have pictures! And enthusiasm! Just no energy. Sorry.

Ho ho zzzzzzzzzz.