Family Food

Ask most people what they eat for Thanksgiving dinner and they'll say, "Oh, just the traditional stuff." But when pressed for specifics, you'll find that the usual stuff varies widely by region and by family. Actually, all you have to do to figure that out is to get married and have a traditional holiday meal with your in-laws. You'll find dishes you've never had before and wonder where the sweet potatoes with little marshmallows are (though I'm more than happy to "miss" those).

The women in church are having an international Christmas night where we're encouraged to bring a dish from our heritage. There are many women from other countries and even if you're not, maybe you have a family recipe from a great-grandmother who immigrated here. Or maybe you're like me and most of you ancestors came over in the 17th or 18th centuries and anything like that is long lost.

I briefly joked that I probably had to bring Jello since I grew up in Utah, but then I started thinking about the foods that actually defined my childhood Christmases.

There was Jello, but it was the sugar free Jello that only my diabetic grandmother ate. And grandma herself made sugar cookie Santa heads with coconut beards and raisin eyes for the grandkids. We powered through the coconut flakes, but the rest was delicious. That side of the family also made popcorn balls--admittedly using Jello for flavor and color.

On my mom's side we couldn't eat our ham without Grandpa's potato rolls. And I had to spoil my dinner with Grandma's homemade caramels, always found in a candy dish shaped like a Santa boot. Great-grandma made divinity, but that was not to the younger generation's tastes.

So with those options in mind, I made Grandma's caramel recipe. And though I don't have a Santa boot candy dish, the buttery smooth flavor takes me back to my childhood.

Mother's Day and Mom Guilt

Mother's Day is supposed to be a day about celebrating moms. Somehow it's become more complicated than that.

A single mom I know just expressed bitterness about Mother's Day on Facebook (calling it just a reminder that no one appreciates what she does or goes through).

There are women who want to be mother's but aren't yet (because they're single or because of fertility issues). And though I've never experienced it, I can't imagine that "all women are mothers" can completely soothe that pain.

There are people who have lost their mothers. Father's Day is hard for me because I've lost my father--I try to focus on my husband as the father of my children, but the day is always tinged with sadness for me because my father is gone.

There are people with absentee mothers or who simply don't like their mothers (warranted or not).

And then there are mothers who don't like Mother's Day because they don't feel like they are or were good moms and it makes them feel guilty.

As long as there are mothers, there has been and will be mom guilt. It might be more exaggerated now. We don't just compare ourselves to the seemingly perfect moms in our neighborhoods, but we can now compare ourselves to the Pinterest perfect mom ideas and the carefully chosen pictures on blogs and Facebook. We can never live up to the ideals presented on the internet--and neither do the people who share them.

I love this post from one of my favorite blogs: Our Best Bites: A Few Thoughts Before Mother's Day. They address both comparing ourselves to the stuff we see on the internet (and show some truths of things that happen in their own homes) and their own relationships with their mother's (that were less than ideal).

Besides not nearly living up to the internet ideal of motherhood, I pretty much never live up to my own idea of the kind of mother I'd like to be. Sometimes I have a breakdown and feel like an awful mother. But I always try to pick myself back up the next day and do a little better. Without goals, I'd never do better. But I try to first be realistic (spending our summer with a newborn is going to pretty much equal the lamest summer ever, and I've tried to come to terms with that). And then I try to not feel guilty when I don't meet my feeble goals. It doesn't make me feel any better and it certainly doesn't make me a better mom.

In celebrating Mother's Day in our house, I think of it as a mom's day off. As much as it can be with small children who still need a lot from their mom. I don't cook or do the dishes. And I've learned to choose meals that I don't feel like I have to step in and help with.

Here's hoping that moms and those who wish they could be moms can find some peace this Mother's Day.

And a couple more blog posts I've appreciated about combating mom guilt:

How Does She: 6 Tips on Doing Away with "Mom Guilt"

Daring Young Mom: Drops of Awesome

My Least Favorite Holiday

Can April Fool's Day even be called a holiday? There's lots of traditions around it, but no one is sure why it started or what the point is. I found an interesting blog post with facts about April Fool's Day: Twenty Interesting Things About April Fool's Day. And there are some funny and clever things on blogs like Make It and Love It--in previous years she's done posts like chocolate covered veggies and embellished disposable diapers on April 1. There's cutesy stuff to do for your kids like making a cupcake look like a piece of corn on the cob. But that's far beyond the kind of time I'm going to take on just about any holiday, especially April 1.

The real reason I don't like April Fool's Day is that for the most part, any pranks or practical jokes made on this "holiday" are at someone else's expense. It creates a mess or a problem for someone else, or makes them look stupid so other people can laugh at them. And any time a joke has to be at another person's expense, it's not really funny.

This sentiment has sometimes given me the label of "not having a sense of humor." Well, having a different idea of what's funny than someone else doesn't mean I don't have a sense of humor. And I wrote a published paper about that as an undergrad, so don't get me started unless you want to hear the arguments I made in that paper. (And no, that's not an April Fool's Day joke.)

Why It's Okay to Be Afraid

When I picked up my daughter from preschool today, her hair was all askew and she had loops of hair pulled out of her pigtails. I immediately knew that something had made her nervous or upset; pulling at her hair is one of the way she copes. Her teacher told me that they had read a book and some of the images had scared her. As soon as this was brought up, my daughter burst into tears and we had to go to a corner and calm down before we left.

I kind of hate Halloween. I like candy and I like cute costumes, but I hate the fear and gore and making light of horrible ways to die. I can't even take my little girls to get the mail right now because the house next to the mailboxes is decorated too scary. I guess if you're into that fear thing you can do it, but keep it to yourself please. I really hate it when people (often their own parents or family members) think it's funny to scare small children with masks or scary images at Halloween. And there's a weird sense of pride in not being scared of frightening things.

But one of the things I told my daughter when we came home is that it's okay to be scared--and when we are, we don't have to stay or keep looking at whatever is making us afraid. It's okay to be afraid: sometimes it's the spirit telling us that something is wrong, and we should never ignore that spirit. It's okay to be afraid: my daughter for one, is a sensitive soul and far from wanting to squelch that, I want to help her cultivate it. As she grows older, the things that scare her simply because she doesn't understand them will diminish. But I don't want her to lose the sensitivity that will help her be a compassionate human being. It's okay to be afraid: You don't have to pretend to like the gross or scary things that come around at Halloween just because a few people do and many people pretend to. I wish my teenage self had stood up for herself and refused to go to the haunted house that made her physically nauseous, but I'm glad that my young adult self finally had the sense to not care if everyone else was going and I was going to miss out on a good time. Because that's not my version of a good time.

Okay, rant over. Now for a sweet picture from last year of the fun part of Halloween. The cutest little Snoopy and Woodstock you've ever seen:

Christmas with Children

2012: My baby wants to play with the magnets belonging to the advent.

Christmas is just more magical when you have children. Even if you don't make a big deal out of Santa Claus (more thoughts on that to come).

This is my baby's second Christmas, but she was only nine days old for her first one. This year she is enthralled all the lights and colors and sparkles of Christmas. She spends much of her time reaching for the advent calendar, the stockings, and the tree. And Christmas day will be full of boxes and ribbon and crinkly wrapping paper--what could be better?

My favorite new thing this Christmas is my three year old. She remembers Christmas last year and is adding to her idea of Christmastime. Many people feel jaded by the commercialism of Christmas. But in her innocence, my little girl sees things a bit differently. She is amazed and excited every time we go into a store or any public place and she sees that, "Hey, look Mom! They have Christmas stuff here!" Every new evidence of Christmastime is something to be celebrated and wondered over.

2011: The wonder of getting presents is even better than the presents themselves.

Christmas, Christmas Time Is Here!

Our Christmas tree is up, our stockings are hung, and we started our Christmas season by visiting a community Nativity Exhibit last night. Afterward we drove around a little to see the lights that many people have already put up. Christmastime has begun!

I had most of my Christmas shopping done weeks ago, so this year I’m trying to focus on doing things instead of buying things to celebrate the season.

This is the first year I’ve wrapped our Christmas books to count down to Christmas. We only have 20 books instead of 24, but I don’t think my daughter will mind having them all opened and being able to read any she chooses early. In fact, she thought we would get to open them all today.

Many of our Christmas traditions are done as an entire family. But Daddy is going to be out of town for the first two weeks of December, so some of our Christmas activities will help us pass the time without him. I’m going to set up a play date with a friend and her little girls to decorate gingerbread houses because it will be a lot more fun with more kids to enjoy it.

Here are a few of the things we have planned for this Christmas season. What’s on your list?

Christmastime Activities

Remembering the Reason
Read the Christmas Story from Luke
Christmas Scripture Chain
Talk About and Play with the Fisher Price Nativity

Outdoors
Build a Snowman
Go Sledding
Drive to See Christmas Lights

Watch
“Charlie Brown Christmas”
“It’s a Wonderful Life”
“Veggie Tales: Saint Nicholas” 

Indoors
Christmas Books Advent
Sing Christmas Carols
Letter to Santa

Art
Make Paper Snowflakes
Make Ornaments
Christmas Cards for Grandparents 

Kitchen
Christmas Cookies
Gingerbread Houses
Homemade Wassail

Giving Is Better…
Donate Food to the Food Bank
Give Christmas Goodies to Friends
Donate to Community Needs Basket

Outings
Community Creche Exhibit
Church Christmas Party
Shop Local

A Gluten Free Thanksgiving

I like to think we would make an effort for one person in the family, but since there are five people in my family who eat gluten free, our Thanksgiving dinner was planned so almost everything was gluten free or had an alternative.

Here's how it went down:

Turkey: Used gluten free flour to coat the turkey bag.

Mashed Potatoes: Naturally gluten free.

Gravy: Used gluten free flour or cornstarch as a thickener. Not sure which since I didn't make it, but there are options.

Stuffing: Obviously gluten. There was discussion of making a gluten free one, but most of the gluten free eaters didn't even like stuffing anyway.

Cranberry Sauce: Naturally gluten free.

Sweet Potatoes: Naturally gluten free.

Green Beans: Skipped the traditional creamy sauce w/ french fried onion topping. I wrapped them in bacon and drizzled them with a sweetened garlic soy sauce. I used my sister's soy sauce because many soy sauces have gluten in them. My 11 month old ate the green beans like candy, and even my brother who never eats green beans tried them because they came with bacon.

Veggie Tray: Naturally gluten free. The ranch dip had to be checked to be sure it was gluten free, and for me it was egg free too.

Rolls: Someone made gluten free rolls. A few others brought store bought gluten rolls. If I'd been at home, I'd have made some rolls, but I didn't want to spread gluten flour around my sister's gluten free kitchen. There were separate butters and jams for each and the gluten and gluten free rolls were put on opposites sides of the table.

Pies: Gluten free pies were made. Gluten pies were mostly bought (with one apple pie being made from a store bought crust). There were separate whipped creams and were put on the opposite ends of the tables like the rolls.

All of this planning satisfied my love of organizing things. And I even got to make little labels to keep things clear and separated.

Some might think that this is a lot of work, but even my  limited understanding of celiac disease and gluten intolerance tells me that even if we all had to eat gluten free rolls and pies, it would be worth it. My sister has written a great piece about what it means to have her husband and son eat gluten free (which I'd love to post here, hint, hint). The risks are not worth the possibility of a crumb of contamination. Plus we all ate good food and stuffed ourselves silly without having any component of Thanksgiving dinner that was important to us left out. And isn't that what Thanksgiving's all about? Oh, family was there too.

Family Traditions: Pioneer Day

Here’s the thing about state holidays—when you move to another state, no one knows or cares about a holiday that you’ve celebrated all your life. Maybe it’s something like being a Canadian in America on Canadian Thanksgiving.

Utah has a state holiday called Pioneer Day. It celebrates the day (July 24, 1847) that the Mormon Pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley. I moved to Utah when I was four, so I remember celebrating this holiday my entire life.

When I was young, our church would sponsor an activity for the children where we would dress up in pioneer bonnets, dresses, and aprons; decorate our bikes, trikes, and Radio Flyer wagons; and then march around the neighborhood as if we were pioneers. Our sneakers looked out of place with our dresses and our bikes were decorated with leftover birthday streamers, but we felt very traditional. Our final destination was usually the church parking lot where we got a popsicle. I know now, of course, that our once or twice around a city block didn’t even begin to compare to a single day’s journey of the pioneers’ 1300 mile trek. But as a six year old on a hot July day, I felt I’d earned that popsicle.*

My girls will very likely never live in Utah as children. Even in large Latter-day Saint communities outside of Utah, Pioneer Day is only remembered as a topic to talk about in church on Sunday. But no bike parades. My sister lives in Utah with her three daughters. Every year they go to a large celebration in a park for Pioneer Day. It involves a lot of booths and displays that tell you about the history of the pioneers and celebrates the sacrifices they made to settle these valleys.

This year I was lucky enough to be in Utah with my daughters for Pioneer Day. And my three year old now has her own pioneer bonnet to add to her dress up collection. They are too young to remember this Pioneer Day in particular, but it was nice for me to be able to share a holiday from my childhood with them. And maybe next year, though we won’t be in Utah, we’ll dig out the bonnet and talk about what it means to be a pioneer.


*Our church often sponsors real three day treks for youth where they have to push handcarts, dress and eat like pioneers, and actually walk the distance the pioneers had to walk in a day. I never had the opportunity to do that, but have heard good things about the experience from those who have.