It’s hard to believe that our baby girl turns fourteen today. The chubby-kneed toddler has evolved into a slim, graceful long-legged young lady. However, she’s still her sweet, smart, funny, and beautiful self—and Bunny still sleeps on her bed.
Eileen
I rarely catch what my daughter brings home from school, but this year is apparently an exception. It’s certainly slowing down Santa’s progress. I hope I didn’t send out the flu along with all those homemade cookie plates and packages.
Leah
Third week of Advent, and the road to Bethlehem. (With gnomes.)
Kristen
Laurie
Ahhh… relaxing with the dog on the sofa. That’s how my husband ought to have spent his birthday today. But instead he spent it making…
…this table tennis cake to share with his fellow sportsmen.
Jimmy
Will you receive a lump of coal or a golden walnut this year?
And today is a good day to read about the discovery of the true author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” who was NOT Clement Clarke Moore (the naughty plagiarist).
For this week of Advent, the verse we sing at the dinner table while lighting the first candle.
Light the Advent Candle One.
Now the waiting has begun.
We have started on our way;
Time to think of Christmas Day.
Candle, candle, burning bright,
Shining in the cold winter night,
Candle, candle, burning bright,
Fill our hearts with Christmas light.
Brian
While a few weeks of the season still remain to us, a poem for fall, from our family dinner-table verse book.
Anne Clair
God, we thank thee for this food,
For rest, and home, and all things good,
For earth, and rain, and sun above,
But, most of all, for those we love.
Blessings on our meal.
—Traditional
Aunt Marge
Patricia
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
My husband and I were up until the wee hours baking for the Holiday Bazaar at the Washington Waldorf School today. Come have a taste of these and many other goodies; stay for the best bazaar lunch in town; listen to live music; shop for beautiful ceramics, textiles, and jewelry; take your children to the puppet show, or the Magical Maze, or to make unusual handcrafts. Admission is free, but come early, because many items sell out. If last year is any indication, my husband’s Deep Dark Chocolate Leaf Cake certainly will.
On Veterans Day my son and daughter and I made a visit to my father’s gravesite, a beautiful setting in all seasons but especially poignant in fall, when we recall those who have been willing to risk their lives for something larger than themselves. Veterans Day following so close upon Halloween, we took candy corn—one of my father’s Halloween favorites, which he enjoyed every year from the bounty of his children’s trick-or-treat bags—and tucked them invisibly into the grass, an offering which perhaps only birds and beetles will appreciate, but an offering nevertheless.