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Favorite Christmas Traditions

Ever since I was a little girl with blonde pigtails there has been a Thomas tradition at Christmas time! From the time I was big enough to lick the beaters I've been involved in this tradition -- cookie making

When I was younger my mom and I would go down to Granny's on a Friday about two weeks before Christmas to start the yearly task. Generally it was Granny, Mom, (ex-Aunt) Kiki and I! We'd all bustle around the mid-size kitchen beating batter, rolling buckeyes, measuring ingredients, tasting cookies, boiling the mix-in's for fudge and removing cookies from the oven. . . it was like an assembly line! I was usually stuck smooshing the ingredients for buckeyes and then rolling them out. Yeah, it was a great job for a little kid; however, I've passed this task along to the boys, because my carpal tunnel just cannot handle it!

I have always enjoyed this tradition. I was with ones I loved and making cookies! C'mon, how could you NOT enjoy this task? Unless you make chocolate chip cookies on a regular basis, the smell of sugar, cocoa, butter, flour and vanilla all mixed together is heavenly mouth watering!

For the past 15 or so years, this tradition has not happened; however, the goodies are always still made, just sans Granny. We've all done it our own may, with me doing a majority of the baking (unless you count the totally awesome Chex mix my Daddy makes). I think Granny has enjoyed all the goodies without having to do the work (who wouldn't right). I've made more than the Thomas Tradition of chocolate chip cookies, fudge, potato candy, buckeyes and peanut butter blossoms! I've branched out into things like chocolate covered pretzels, sugar cookies, haystacks, Reindeer poop, Cheerio crunchies, etc. Ya know what? I LOVE it!

My boys have helped make cookies too! It's a great time for family! Yes, I have to be more cautious around them, but Granny and Mom did with me. Yes, there have been flops. . .but then, there have been things that haven't lasted long too!

I think my favorite memory thus far of any sort of kitchen makings was the first (and only time thus far) that we made a ginger bread house. It was a great family time, minus the baking! Thomas was 2.5 and LJ was 5.5. . . Every time I turned around Thomas was stealing a gum drop from the house and LJ was squirting icing all over the place, and there was laughter all around! We labeled the house "The Ghetto House". Sure, it was not a pretty house, but it was FUN!So, although I will continue the cookie tradition, with help, I think we'll start a new one for ginger bread houses. . .who knows, maybe we'll get really good and do a princess castle?

Leaf Blowing

It's finally fall time, as you couldn't tell with the drop in the temperatures, the leaves falling, the pumpkins and gourds out, and the wonderful colds being passed around! Yes, I'm suffering from a fall cold and it sucks! I ran a day care for 6 years and rarely had a cold, I go into the middle school and I'm sick the first week! Is this karma for making fun of my hubby each fall? Probably!

Anyhow, fall is one of my favorite seasons! In Indiana you go from 90 degrees of heat with humidity to 65 degrees! I LOVE it! I'm not sweating buckets and I can still (most of the time) wear shorts! You can sleep with the windows open and give the 'ol NIPSCO bill a well deserved break before you are sucker punched with a heating bill! The house airs out of the summer stink (and lets in the ol cooty bugs) and the outside world starts to change!

I absolutely LOVE the environmental changes! Your summer flowers start wilting and you replace them with fall mums in yellow, mauves and oranges! The maple trees turn from green to a pink, orange, red and yellow - some of these trees are powerful in colors! You witness the beauty God has blessed us with! I love planning our trips home in the fall because the foliage that you get to take in! The drive through the Peru Salomonie area is just breathtaking (and especially so when you avoid that ginormous doe that just moseyed out of the yellow, dried up corn field)! The forest area is an array of colors that mix together is my all time favorite!

As I rattle on and on I cannot help but explain my all time favorite place to drive by in the fall! As you pull off the highway to go to my Granny's house you will come to the corner of Cherry street and there are two or three massive maple trees on the corner, and they are such a glorious sight! The trees produce such a beautiful rainbow of colors, and if you are lucky enough to catch it at sunset -- WOW!

Of course, fall isn't always great. There is a lot of death in the air. The tree leaves are dying, the flowers and gone and the corn and beans are dried up and waiting for their takers to plow them over. When driving, you must worry about the deer running into the roads, and lastly, you know that the white stuff is going to fall sooner or later. . .

This year I'm still enjoying the colors, but there is a sadness to it. This year it's unlikely that my Ma'amaw will get to see another fall. . . and it makes me very sad to think about. Yet, I realize she's taken in 80 falls! She has been lucky enough to take in a lot of Tennessee falls to boot! I'm pretty sure TN falls have some amazing colors, so she's been very fortunate. I can only hope that I'll get to see 80 falls and take delight in seeing all the little ghouls and goblins at the end of October, running through the rustling leaves as they wait their treats from each house! Yes, fall is sad this year, but I can only imagine what it'll be like for Ma'amaw in heaven! Fall all the time, minus the leaf blowing!