I’ve been fighting the crazy Christmas machine this week.  Not the one that jumps out of advertisements.  The one that lives inside my head.  It tells me that I’ll never ever get away from being in bondage to the Christmas frenzy, no matter what I do.

There are two current lines of thought in my brain about choosing to not do presents this year, neither of them helpful.

First one:

Your children are going to hate you one day for this…just give in.  Why is everyone is asking what they want Santa to bring them, even the dental hygienist, for crying out loud?  Maybe you should just forget it and put everything on your credit card.

The second is even worse, the self-righteous fighter of the Christmas machine:

Shopping is of the devil. I’m surrounded by materialism and greed. The whole world is out. of. control.

From either side of the Christmas curve (or as I’m swinging back and forth), I’m learning that the Christmas season is just hard on mamas, even this mama, which is not easy for me to admit.  My own dear mama spent a lot of my Christmas seasons in a bit of a funk (read: in bed with the covers pulled over her head), a state which we always chocked up to her being a grinch.  Which just isn’t fair.  Now that I experience Christmas as a mama, I know that it is a whole lot harder than the songs make it seem to strike that perfect balance at Christmas.  The balance between Christmas joy and Christmas restraint. The balance between enjoying the moment and feeling frazzled, or between trying to survive the moment and feeling guilty for not enjoying it (middle school Christmas band concerts come to mind).

My current effort towards landing somewhere close to joy (and sanity) this Christmas is to keep focusing back on our church’s give away weekend next week.  There is so much beautiful-ness going on at our church right now that I cannot even begin to express it here, but everyone has been encouraged to take part and every story I hear is another reminder to me of how much I really do want to celebrate Christmas…the kind that is all about sacrifice and singing and eating and blessing others with my minute presence on this planet.

So here’s our little part.

Cole, Mary Polly and Ben have decided on a water buffalo for Christmas.  Maybe even more than one.  I attribute this choice solely to Larry the Cucumber, even though they are too cool to watch him anymore.

We’re going to make cupcakes to raise money for our water buffalo.  Not just any cupcakes.  Really wonderful, homemade-from-secret-recipes-from-my-brilliant-baker-sister cupcakes.  Even better, I think that my sister will even be here to assist in the cupcake sale, which will mean that our cupcakes will not just be yummy, they will also be pretty.  Details coming soon on when and where you can both do and eat goodness at the same time.

Also, a friend wrote me and told me that someone else is doing what we’re doing for Christmas.  That makes me so happy.  And it helps me feel just a little weensy bit less crazy.  Always a good thing.  She was inspired by this video.  If you haven’t already seen it, maybe you will be too.

The post Inspired Christmas appeared first on Alison Chino.

the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.

from a report by the commission on reading, as quoted by jim trelease in the read-aloud handbook

i think i have talked before about how much i love to read aloud to my kids, how it calms everyone (including me) down at the end of long day. most of our days are so harried. right now, with soccer season upon us, there are games and practices. there is always somewhere someone has to be. but eventually…after the dishes are piled, the dirty clothes tossed about and the bathwater drained, everyone climbs into bed (right now our older three children are all sleeping in the same room) and i sit on the edge of a bed, take a deep breath and read a chapter from our current book to them. frequently, we are all anxious to know what will happen next to the people in our story. it drives us to be quiet and listen. to immerse ourselves in another world. it is one of my favorite moments of the day. often taido will read instead of me and hearing his voice reading to them fills me up in much the same way. it is comforting. and i hope they will remember hearing his voice reading to them for their whole lives. and that my boys will read to their children. (i know mary polly will read to hers.)

so, here are our last two read alouds if you’re looking for something new. i finished this one with the kids a couple of weeks ago and now the kids are traveling to mount everest every night with taido. both books have been fun stories about kids who have great adventures. the first one is by a local little rock author and he is actually signing books this saturday at lorenzen and co. booksellers from 1-3pm. stop by and pick up this little gem! there’s a sequel coming out this summer.

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One of the many great joys of reading The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket is the cleverly disguised vocabulary lessons throughout the entire series.

The oft repeated phrase, a word which here means,  followed by a definition of the word just used, introduces a word or phrase that might be unfamiliar to the child reading the story. The author doesn’t just define words. He also explains common expressions and phrases.

For example, here is an explanation of the phrase “feet of clay.”

“Feet of clay” is an expression which refers to a person who appears to be honest and true, but who turns out to have a hidden weakness or a treacherous secret. If someone turns out to have feet of clay, your opinion of them may topple, just as a statue will topple if its base turns out to be badly constructed.

I love how succinct and clear this definition is, and how he even explains why this expression make sense. Even better, the character about which this phrase is spoken sits in a chair with actual clay around his feet that he says is healing clay for his injured feet, a clue that he does indeed have feet of clay. How sly is that?

Usually, I am grateful for all of this explanation of vocabulary for the sake of my learning children, but this weekend, as I finished up the series right behind Mary Polly I also learned a new word.

I am sort of ashamed to say that I was hereto unfamiliar with the word detritus.

At first, it appeared that the Baudelaire orphans were still in the middle of the ocean, as all the children could see was a flat and wet landscape stretching out in all directions, fading in to the gray morning mist. But as they peered over the side of their ruined boat, the children saw that the water was not much deeper than a puddle, and this enormous puddle was littered with detritus, a word which here means “all sorts of strange items.”

Of course, this is not the dictionary definition of detritus, but as the author continues to use this word in context throughout the book, the reader can have no doubt as to the meaning of it. It sort of becomes subconscious, which is how meanings of words should be. Not just spouted definitions. I clearly remember memorizing definitions of vocabulary words in high school, words for which I had absolutely no context. I had this friend who was (and is) insanely brilliant. She already knew all the definitions of the words–in fact, she confessed to me later that our lazy teacher had just let her make out the test because he was certain that she already knew the words. She would help me study by coming up with contexts for the words. She would make sentences or explain the roots or show me how one part of the word could help me understand what it meant. It was amazing…both that she knew all the words and that she could explain them this way to me. I remember being in awe that she didn’t just have them memorized but that she had assimilated them. (In fact, it suddenly occurs to me that she could actually be Lemony Snicket.)

I guess we never got around to the word detritus.

Now that I know it, the strangest thing is that it is popping up everywhere. Seriously.

On Saturday when I was reading Comfort Me with Apples, Ruth Reichl cleared away the detritus from the night before. She lived for a long time in a communal setting in which there was always detritus to be cleared.

Then yesterday, in the Shaping of A Life, Phyllis Tickle was cleaning the detritus from her  husband’s lab coats while he was a medical student.

So I am left wondering, has this strange word been in every book i have read for a long time? Have I just been sort of skipping over it? Am i only seeing it everywhere because of the constant mention of the detritus in the ocean of the Baudelaires’ end? Perhaps.

Now I have my own detritus to attend to, in the form of breakfast dishes.

The post Lessons from Lemony appeared first on Alison Chino.

I got up at 5:30 because I so wanted our first morning back to school to be a smooth one. It’s just so brutal if we end our break with a rushed morning and everyone yelling.

So, I made raspberry bran muffins, a new recipe from my sister.

And hot cocoa.

I haven’t packed away the snowman cups just yet.

Then I woke everyone up and told them that they could come put marshmallows in their hot chocolate as soon as they were dressed for school.

Including the homeschooler, who was a wee bit grouchy.

Then they all walked to school (even Simon, who will NOT be left out of the walk without all kinds of fits) in the 19 degree weather. They were so excited because they put a cup of water outside last night to see if it would freeze…and it did. You can’t believe the riotous giggling and gasps of amazement this small event caused. Who knew frozen water could be so enthralling? Hello. It’s just ice.

So now that the first day back is under our belts, I am off to find a sunny spot to nap.

Raspberry Bran Muffins

makes 4-5 dozen

2 c. sugar

1 c. melted butter

4 c. all bran

5 cups flour (I used half-whole wheat flour)

5 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoon salt

4 cups buttermilk

2 cup warm water

4 eggs

2 teaspoons lemon zest

4 cups frozen raspberries

Directions:

Pour warm water over all bran. Set aside to cool.

Mix butter and sugar, add eggs and buttermilk.

Sift dry ingredients together. Fold them into the water/bran mixture.

Combine everything until mixed.

You can refrigerate at this point if you want to make the night before.

Before baking add 4-5 cups frozen raspberries.

Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes.

Homemade Hot Cocoa

1 pound box powdered sugar

4 cups powdered milk

1 pound container coffeemate creamer

1 pound nestle quick

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ cup crushed candy canes

Use about 1/3 cup of cocoa for 1 large mug of hot water.

Cheers to hot cocoa for breakfast!  Enjoy!!

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