Traditions continued

I'm big on traditions: following them, making them, tweaking them, reinventing them. Thanksgiving and Christmas vie the place of "my favorite holiday" mainly because they are both rich with traditions.

The advantage of Thanksgiving is that the traditions tend to be simpler and less time consuming. I'm so thankful to be able to spend the time slowly teaching my children what we value, not day by day, but year by year.

One of my favorite traditions that my daughter's and I have established is reading Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin and making the bread from the recipe on the back cover. A couple of days before Thanksgiving, we get out the book and snuggle up on the couch. Then the girls pick through the cranberries, looking for any bad ones, then we mix and stir and wait impatiently for the bread to bake. I really don't know how they'd react if we skipped it.

The boys have never really participated in the reading or the baking. Sure they're around, but they've generally been to mobile to get much of the story. But today, something clicked. Suddenly the story was interesting, Bulldozer looked with wide eyes as Mr. Whiskers chased Mr. Horace round and round. Even Satchmo stayed close and wasn't too distracting.

The boys involvement in our Thanksgiving tradition was limited to the story and eating the bread (well, Satchmo wasn't too impressed with it), but I have hopes that next year they'll be sorting cranberries with the rest of us. And who knows, maybe in a few years our tradition will be the boys cook the turkey, mom takes a nap. I could be thankful for that.

Great idea, poor execution

It is a wonderful thing for a corporation to donate money to feed the poor. Excellent, magnificent, fabulous, yay corporate philanthropy. Woot!

But. . .





Who thought "1,000,000 pounds" and Crisco "bucket of fat" should go together? Really? You want people to be thinking one million pounds while they decide whether or not to buy your product? It paints such a lovely mental image. Truly it does.

But thanks for making my pie crusts extra yummy.


Happy Thanksgiving!

Thankful for . . .

Muppets!



Best. Video. Ever.


ht: Allahpundit @ Hot Air

Bookapalooza!

Little Miss, my oldest daughter, the child who is frighteningly like me, said that she had lots of friends in books. She has friends in England and friends in China, friends from 1609 and friends who travel through time. It made my heart happy and I still have a silly grin on my face.

All my kids love books, even little Satchmo, who can be rather insistent when asking for a "book book." (Which means, read me this book right now. No, you may not go to the bathroom. Book, book!) One of my main goals of education for my children is to instill a love of reading, and I'm enormously gratified that we've started out so well.

I'm always looking for new book lists and ideas to open new worlds to them, and this is the time of year when people put out lots of good lists, especially for kids.

We have Classic books for Boys at Mommy Life and Best books for boys at a Holy Experience, courtesy of the crew at the Common Room, who offer books for boys AND books for girls.

Mama Squirrel has Worthwhile Writing at Dewey's Treehouse and Semicolon offers suggestion for giving books for girls.

And for the long holiday road trips:

Dan @ Biblical Christianity points us to 100 free audio books.

Audible.com offers a free audio book for new registrations. (No fees, no credit cards, you just have to register.

I'm thankful that my children love to read, and I'm thankful for the overwhelming wealth of literature that we have at our fingertips. Now, go read a book.

The relevance of C.S. Lewis

On November 22, 1963, the same day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, C.S. Lewis died*. Lewis is one of my favorite authors. Oh, who am I kidding, he is my favorite author. I love it all, I quote him to the point of annoying people. I'd call my dog Jack if I had a dog.

Most people know him from the Chronicles of Narnia, a few more from Mere Christianity. But I think the most relevant for us today are two books that are companions: the non-fiction The Abolition of Man and the concepts of that book worked out in fiction, That Hideous Strength.

The Abolition of Man purports to be about education, but it is also a philosophical defense of morality and absolutes. That Hideous Strength paints a world were those who've rid themselves of absolute morality are seeking to be the rulers of a Brave New World and make men into their own image. When men aren't ruled from within by a common morality, they will be ruled from without by those who impose their own desires and ideals.

As a character in That Hideous Strength puts it,

"Man has got to take charge of Man. That means, remember, that some men have got to take charge of the rest--which is another reason for cashing in on it as soon as one can. You and I want to be the people who do the taking charge, not the ones who are taken charge of."

It all seems frightening familiar as the so-called "experts" seek to extend control over every aspect of our lives, doesn't it?

Lewis paints the dangers of bureaucracy and the effects of bad (and good) company,particularly on those without a moral center, like the protagonists Mark and Jane Studdock. In Belbury, Mark is finding the easy path of "go along to get along."

"This was the first thing Mark had been asked to do which he himself, before he did it, clearly knew to be criminal. . . But the moment of his consent almost escaped his notice. . . it all slipped past in a chatter of laughter, of that intimate laughter between fellow professionals, which of all earthly powers is strongest to make mendo very bad things before they are yet, individually, very bad men."

C.S.Lewis gave us so to think about, mull over and contend with. I'm very thankful that he lived and thought and shared his thoughts through such fascinating books.

Now off to find The Abolition of Man.


* Peter Kreeft wrote an interesting apologetic work called Between Heaven and Hell, featuring Lewis, Kennedy and Aldous Huxley, who also died that day. It's an interesting read.

S'mores!

Tonight, we joined with some other families for a bonfire. The whole shebang: hot dogs, s'mores, singing. The air was crisp, the conversation was good, and the songs were known. A good time was had by all.

I'm thankful for the family that so generously opened their home to such a large gathering of so few families. (We tend to grow our families large. In fact, our family of 6 was the smallest there!) I'm thankful that the older children were so patient with the younger children. I'm thankful my boys did not melt down, jump in the fire, jump off the trampoline, or run off into the darkness. I'm thankful we have the opportunity to gather freely, worship openly, and use as much gas as we want to drive to the boonies.

I'm thankful we don't live in the boonies, but I wish we could have bonfires and chickens here in suburbia. And a goat. I think a goat would be a lot of fun.

I'm better than that

I'm thankful that I'm mature enough that when I realized that I had missed the thankful post for yesterday (at around 12:30 a.m.), I did not get up and put up a random post and set the time for Thursday, November 19.

Because I am not that obsessive. Sure, I thought, "Put up the Buffy vs. Edward video. You're always thankful when moody boys get staked." I also considered being thankful for chocolate, because that's completely plausible. And yes, I thought of quickly putting something up (and altering the time) as I was running around like a mad woman trying to get out of the house for co-op (5 minutes late, not horrible, not great.) But I only thought it, I didn't do it.

So I'm thankful that I have grown past my obsessiveness. Really. Truly.

(Yesterday, I was very thankful for my husband who cleaned the house AND folded laundry while I took the Sprite to the allergist. But that TOTALLY doesn't count as obsessive, because it's not a separate, time-altered blog post. So there.)

Victory!

Woo-hoo! I won The Early Years: A Charlotte Mason Preschool Handbook from Simply Charlotte Mason.

Although, "victory" is probably the wrong choice for a title. Victory implies winning based on some effort, whereas I merely tweeted and won. But still, I won!

I am thankful

That this day is done.

On Mondays

I'm thankful most of all for coffee.

Here are 15ish fun facts about coffee, hit Dan at Biblical Christianity. (Noting a bad word and a tacky acronym.)

Now, where did I put my cup?