Yuletide Delights-Part VI

Gingerbread is one of the quintessential flavors of the season and one that I love. The aroma of the spices and the molasses as they waft through the house just make me happy! Some of the recipes I’ve discovered and love are gingerbread cake, gingerbread waffles, and traditional gingerbread cookies, of course. This morning was gingerbread pancake day. And due to the imminent arrival of Christmas, they were shaped like gingerbread men. Some of them were a bit deformed, but I was winging it so I think I should get points for that. WINKY SMILIE I love gingerbread pancakes with a bit of whipped cream, so we added a few chocolate chips and chunks and that’s all we needed to decorate our pancakes. Malia had no intention of making an Elvis pancake, but a bit of an off-center flip created hair and a fabulous white whipped cream jumpsuit meant her pancake looked like the king of rock and roll himself. And he tasted delicious! 

I may need to make these pancakes one more time before the Christmas season actually passes. I ate my fill, but I’ve still got a hankering for the sweet and spicy flavor of gingerbread.

Yuletide Delights-Part V

 There are five whole days until Christmas which means there’s still plenty of time for more fun food! Today’s endeavors were of the savory variety rather than the sweet. We had a super delicious garlic bread Christmas tree and some tasty Christmas soup. Although to be honest, the only thing that made the soup Christmasy was the fact that it was red and green. Other than that, it was a nice Italian chicken noodle soup. But I chose it to accompany our themed bread based on its color attributes, so I’m sticking with the “Christmas soup” moniker. 😉

Bon appetite!

Yuletide Delights-Part IV

Today’s holiday creation was another old favorite. We used to make candy cane cookies every year, but for some reason we stopped making them a few years back. I’m not sure why, but Malia didn’t even remember these little sweets, so I figured I’d better get my act together and quit neglecting her childhood just because the boys are all getting quite grown up. 😜 

When they were young the boys liked helping make all the Christmas cookies, but the candy cane ones were always the favorites when it came to enthusiasm for the creating. It is probably because they kind of got to do whatever they wanted. I would show them how to form the candy canes, but then their creativity always burst out and we ended up with peppermint striped assorted shapes. I think it is because forming the dough is a lot like handling playdough and since playdough is all about making whatever shapes you want, making these cookies inspires an undeniable urge to create whatever your mind can think up. 

My playdough hypothesis was proven correct today. I showed Malia how to make the candy canes, but she quickly (like on her second cookie) diverged from the standard cane form and made a variety of braids, twirls, twists, and even a bit of tie dye. Not only that, but she actually said that the cookie dough reminded her of playdough! She also very much enjoyed sampling the baked cookies, helping me taste test the broken ones . And joking that if we ate them all now, the boys would never have to know they existed. 😂

I feel like I gained two points for this particular activity-one for reintroducing a family favorite and one for some good one-on-one mother/daughter time.

Yuletide Delights-Part III

Often, I like to create new fun foods, things I’ve never done before that are an experiment and a delight at the same time. But sometimes an old favorite is just the right thing. Because who doesn’t love snowman pancakes?

Yuletide Delights-Part II

A few weeks ago, Malia’s teacher let the parents know they would be doing a cookie exchange in class as part of their twelve days of Christmas activities. Cookies needed to be store bought and commercially packaged due to our district’s food in the classroom policies. The students would each bring one cookie and after their activity each would end up with a different cookie to enjoy. Store bought or bakery cookies are often problematic for food allergy kids and knowing that the odds were not in her favor, I immediately started making plans for Malia to have a special cookie at the end of the activity. While I can’t bake cookies for the other kids, I can bake cookies for Malia, so I made her a delightful Christmas themed cookie and arranged to get it to her teacher the day in advance so it could be a surprise for Malia. Often the food allergy kids are the ones who get left out when food activities occur, but I think Malia got the better end of the bargain today.

And my choice of gingerbread ended up being perfect because Malia told me there was a gingerbread cookie day a few days ago. Her teacher checked ingredients but didn’t spot the cross-contact warnings on the cookies she bought, so Malia had to pull something out of her treat bin rather than enjoying gingerbread with the rest of the class. Malia’s were cuter and I’ll bet hers tasted better too. Malia did have to double check when she got home to make sure it was a reindeer though. She kept trying to make it standard gingerbread man and couldn’t figure out why the face was so weird. 😂

Cookie Dough Though

Nathan is still running a fever and has been asleep for most of the day, but in general, the stress level of this household was dropped. School went much smoother than Malia expected yesterday so she is  feeling calmer. Matthew still isn't sleeping well, but at least he was in bed at 4:00 this morning. I have prepped nearly everything for the activity on Tuesday so if for some reason I can't go, one of the other leaders will be able to step in. With some help from Kev, I've even been able to dial back the germaphobe freak out a bit which is a huge accomplishment for me. Yes, I'm still cleaning like a maniac, but my stomach doesn't feel all tight like it did yesterday.

I didn't actually eat a cookie today, but I did make cookie dough for Christmas cookies and snitched a bit before it went into the freezer, so I think that counts. 😉 

State of the Household

I want to take a minute to address the physical, mental and emotional status of those living in my house. 

Malia came home from school yesterday distraught because she has found herself in the middle of two warring parties. This has been going on for months now, but things kind of blew up yesterday. She is friends with both girls, wants to remain so and doesn’t want to be mean to anyone, so she gets very worried about all the drama and how to navigate her social world. Nathan was having some mild cold symptoms yesterday morning, but when he started running a fever last night, we broke out the Covid tests. Unfortunately, he most definitely has Covid. That raised everyone’s stress levels but having Covid in the house coupled with the need to wear a mask at school due to being exposed to Covid added to the emotional stress was nearly more than Malia could handle. She couldn’t even focus enough to get her homework done, so she went to bed knowing that she would be unprepared today. Matthew’s focus was shot as well, so there was no homework done in our household last night and I was totally ok with that. Sometimes life requires a recess from the normal school rules.

This morning was a hard one all the way around. Malia had a really hard time falling asleep last night so she was extra tired this morning. Not only that, but she really, really didn’t want to go to school because she was so worried about the social drama, so she had a really hard time getting up and moving. It took her nearly an hour to get out of bed, which meant that she was eating breakfast five minutes before she was supposed to walk out the door. Matthew woke up at 3:00 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. At 4:00 he was still so completely awake that he figured he might as well get up and decided to take advantage of the time to wrap some Christmas presents. Although he didn’t come fully awake, Kev heard rustling in the house at 4:00 which disrupted his sleep a bit. And I never sleep well when I’m anxious about sick kids, so I was pretty tired this morning as well. In fact, I think Nathan was the one who slept the best. With some Aleve in him to dampen the fever and no need to get up early to go to work, he felt pretty good when he got up.

I’m feeling stressed today as well because I really don’t want Matthew and Malia to get sick and miss out on their fun activities for the next several weeks. Malia feels like she always gets sick just in time to miss the big events at school and to be completely fair, she is justified in thinking so. She has in fact missed many days that held fun activities, the latest being her big turkeys vs. farmers debate just before Thanksgiving two weeks ago. And Matthew has concerts and parties and a variety of things coming up as well. 

As for me, I’m a germaphobe who has Covid in the house which means my stress is running high. In addition, I am in charge of our primary activity on Tuesday, and I really don’t want to miss it. Not only is it the last activity of the year and our Christmas activity, but it is Malia’s last primary activity ever. I was in charge of our Christmas activity last December as well and it was cancelled due to a Covid outbreak in the ward. I’m really hoping the rest of the family can stay well so Malia and I can attend this activity.

So the catchword of the day seems to be stress. I’m so stressed that I can’t even stress eat which means my stress level is higher than the normal day to day stress of life. When the world shut down due to Covid and we had two earthquakes that same week, there were cookies. When the kids went back to school with all the Covid protocols in place, there were cookies. When Nathan was preparing to leave on his mission, there were cookies. When Matthew had Covid in July, there were cookies. When Nathan began to really struggle with the headaches while he was in Texas, there were cookies for both of us. When he came home as a result of the headaches, there were cookies. So the fact that the thought of eating a cookie makes my stomach clench up is really saying something about my current stress level.

Honestly, I think Nathan is the least stressed of all of us. He doesn’t feel particularly well, but he really needed a day off work and he’s going to get a few of those which will be good for his mental state. His life is on pause for a tiny bit, but he spent the day finishing his Christmas shopping and playing a Spiderman video game, so he feels like it has been a productive sick day. He is still running a fever, but at least the meds take away the fever headache, if not the underlying one that is still plaguing him.

Hopefully we will all sleep better tonight so that tomorrow doesn’t feel so hard. If I can sleep well and get the “what if’s” in my brain to quiet down, maybe I’ll even want to eat a cookie. That would be an improvement.

Yuletide Delights-Part I

A new month brings a new theme to my fun food and December is one of my favorites! This evening we kicked off the Christmas fun food season with a delightful cherry cream cheese sweet bread. The filling did bubble out quite a bit, but non-dairy substitutes have a tendency to be thinner than their dairy counterparts, so that was not a surprise. Despite the leakage, when I asked my family if I should cut back on the filling next time, the resounding response was no! The sweet filling balanced the barely sweetened bread just right. With a touch of almond flavor added in, it truly was delightful. I suspect this is a recipe that we will revisit in years to come.