Several years ago when the kids were young, I subscribed to Family Fun magazine. I highly recommend this to any mother who is vying for mother of the year. Every month, there are more fun-filled ideas on how to be a glorious mother than you can possibly complete in the thirty days before the next issue comes out.

I used to make it my goal to try just ONE of their suggestions per month, hoping that I would get the proper good mommy points.

I have to say some of their ideas were truly fun: cupcakes in ice cream cones, Choo Choose You Cupcakes for Valentine’s Day, and a Mayflower made of a milk carton were among my favorites.

Nowadays, I think Lauren is the only one that would humor me if I asked who wanted to make pom-pom snowmen or a merry christmouse. Everyone else is far too mature and cool.

However, one family tradition stolen from that magazine’s pages has held on through the years, in spite of multiple moves, a divorce, the repeated loss of the recipe and newfound teenage sophistication: the Santa Claus Cheese Ball.

Every year, no matter what day we celebrate Christmas, we have to have the Santa Cheese Ball. My 75-year-old father has even gotten in on the fun, INSISTING that I always bring that cheese ball at Thanksgiving in addition to Christmas.

This is easy to make, fun to assemble and, believe it or not, a good cheese ball recipe too!

So, if you are not already pulling out your hair with everything else you have to do and make in the next twenty-four hours, give it a try. Maybe it will become one of your most loved holiday traditions too.

Santa Clause Cheese Ball
Ingredients
• 1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 4 ounces Grated Sharp Cheddar cheese
• 1 tablespoon softened butter
• 1 tablespoon minced onion
• 1 clove minced garlic (optional)
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon tomato paste
• Black pepper, to taste
• Red bell pepper
• 1 to 2 cups whipped cream cheese
• Radish slice, carrot stick, pretzel, black olives, crackers, and a cherry tomato
Instructions
1. Make Santa’s face by blending the first eight ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Spoon the mixture onto a large piece of plastic wrap and shape it into a ball.
2. Tightly wrap the cheese and chill it for 1 hour. Unwrap the cheese ball and place it on a large serving tray.
3. Drape new plastic wrap over the cheese, then flatten and shape it into a face. Remove the wrap and turn the red pepper upside down for Santa’s hat.
4. Spoon the whipped cream cheese into a sealable pint-size plastic bag. Seal the bag and make a small snip in a lower corner to create a pastry bag.
5. Use piped-on whipped cream cheese to stick a radish-slice pom-pom to the hat. Pipe on more cream cheese for a hatband, eyebrows, and a beard.
6. Press on a carrot nose, a pretzel mouth, olive eyes, and cracker ears. Add cherry tomato halves for rosy cheeks. Makes 8 to 10 servings.
7. Kids’ Steps: Shaping Santa’s face and then decorating it with vegetable features are perfect jobs for little helpers.

Santa won’t last long, so try to snap a picture before anyone knows you’ve set him out. Thanks to my brother-in-law, Tom Snide for the REAL photography on this blog!

I looked around the house this morning and realized that the cleanest room in our home is Jack’s.

It’s a sad state of affairs when the room that is inhabited by a sweaty 10-year-old boy with a penchant for Lego wars and late-night candy binges is the tidiest. But on a quick home tour, that’s what I discovered.

I’m not sure what the girls actually DO in their rooms with the doors shut for hours on end when they are sent to clean them. I’m fairly certain that dusting and vacuuming is NOT a part of the routine. This morning when I dared to peek in their rooms in the daylight, I could see that the dust bunnies had woven themselves into dust blankets that covered every available surface. Then, there are the used tissues, dirty clothes, clean clothes, school papers and makeup that litter every square inch of floor and dresser space.

Not that my bedroom is much better. That was obvious when Rick took a dirty pair of boxer shorts and dusted his nightstand with them.

But the dust is a very small part of the actual mess. Currently, our bedroom is filled with shopping bags of unwrapped Christmas gifts and about 6 loads of folded, clean laundry that is waiting to be put away. It’s all sitting on the floor in semi-neat piles because I had to take it out of the baskets to make room for the dirty laundry.

The upstairs bathroom is still in under construction so you know what that looks like.

Lauren’s room? Why, it sits right beside the bathroom. Where else would I store all of the mirrors, cabinets, drawers and their contents while we wait for the construction fairy to finish the bathroom?

All of this would still fall under the realm of managed chaos if the explosion had been contained to the upstairs. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

The laundry room is… what else…overflowing with laundry. And I do mean overflowing. The lay-flat-to-dry sweaters have spilled out onto one of the two tables in the dining room. The second table is heaped with very important school papers, bills, junk mail, newspapers, magazines and everything else that we just don’t know where to put.

Since the other bath is out of commission, the downstairs bath… which is about the size of the Barbie Dreamhouse powderroom… is housing more makeup, hair care products, and miscellaneous toiletries than would fit in the Buckeye’s locker room.

The cat box which was once neatly tucked in there out of sight is now sitting in the hall where we can all enjoy the displaced kitty litter stuck to our bare feet whenever we walk by.

The living room is in the mid-holiday decorating stage, a wasteland of open storage boxes, broken ornaments, strands of dead lights and pine needles.

With all of this mess, you would think that I when I left work early yesterday I would have gone straight home to my vacuum cleaner and can of Pledge.

But, when I picked up the kids, I realized that it was my last evening with them until Christmas Eve. We hadn’t made our Christmas cutout cookies yet!

So as soon as we walked in the door, Jack and I proceeded to destroy the one room in the house that was actually clean: the kitchen. Flour, sugar, icing, food coloring… everywhere.

When I die, no one will remember what an immaculate house I kept (because I don’t), but I hope they will remember the fun that we had in the kitchen.

Saturday was my 43rd birthday. When I woke up, the first thing Rick asked me was whether I wanted him to make me a cake.

Thinking about the bare Christmas tree, the mountain of presents that needed to be wrapped and the still unfinished bathroom, my immediate and practical momly response was, “No, we have way too much to do today.”

But no sooner had the words come out of my mouth than I felt the eight-year-old that is still inside of me pop her bottom lip out and nod her head. Of course I wanted a birthday cake. Who doesn’t want a cake on their birthday? Even at 43-years-old.

“Well, what kind of cake do you want, Little Girl?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

I hemmed and hawed, telling him that a regular chocolate cake from a box would be fine. But, as I’ve said before, “fine” means anything but and he is well aware of that word in the female vocabulary.

We do this little newlywed dance often. We end up wasting a lot of time and both of us become a little frustrated with the back and forth.

“What do you want?” “I don’t care. What do you want, honey.” “No, really, what do you want?”

The kids roll their eyes and, depending on their moods, we are either “so cute” or “disgusting, get a room.”

This time, because I knew that if he was going to make what I wanted, he was going to have to get busy, I came right out and told him.

“Carrot cake, but it takes a long time, so maybe we should just buy a cake.” The challenge had been issued.

He dug out the recipe that I used for his birthday last year. “See, it says 30 minutes prep time. That’s not so bad.”

Thus began Rick’s day.

Of course he had to go to the grocery store since we didn’t have cream cheese or carrots on hand. When he got home, he began peeling carrots. Half an hour later, as he stood in the kitchen grating, he said, “I think they didn’t include the carrot part in their 30 minute prep time.”

I’m not sure how long it took because I took the girls shopping, but I got periodic updates from his Facebook posts. Yes, my husband chronicled his cake making on Facebook.

When I got home the cake was baked and on cooling racks. Of course, I knew that it was going to be because I had already seen his status on my phone.

We waited to ice it until we got home from dinner that night.

My birthday cake! Complete with writing and candles and everything! He even had time to get the presents wrapped.

Note the time in the picture. Yes, it took all day.

So the tree is not decorated, the presents are sitting in shopping bags in my bedroom and the bathroom remains a work in progress. Oh well! I had a great birthday and the cake was delicious! And, now that I know that he can make a cake, Rick’s going to get that job for ALL of the birthdays.

I have a picture of my oldest son Marty when he was about 5 opening a Super Nintendo game system. The look on his face is absolutely priceless: sheer glee! I’m so glad that I have that picture. It reminds me that I did, at one time, have the ability to purchase gifts that brought huge smiles to my kids’ faces.

Lately, I’m finding myself longing for those Christmases past: Christmases when I could go to ToysRUs and breeze through the aisles, picking up this Barbie and that Polly Pocket… when the biggest concern was when to put together the life-sized toy kitchen … when the most expensive item on Gracie’s gift list was $15…
when I knew that regardless of what Santa had in store for them, I would have three DELIGHTED children on Christmas morning.

The family, of course, has grown. Now there are seven of them. I’ve long ago given up trying to delight the oldest two. Money and gift cards are all the stimulation they really need. So, only the five that are still at home do the Santa thing with us on Christmas morning.

I assure you, FIVE is enough.

There is so much to consider when you have three teenage girls, a ten year old boy, and one handicapped Lauren who really is neither adult nor child. How many gifts each one has, how much was spent on each one, does one kid’s pile look bigger or smaller than the others’, who might be jealous of whom and for which gift and, most importantly, how can I possibly delight them?! (I’m still shooting for that sheer joy look again!)

A few years ago, I put a stop to Caryn’s practice of counting gifts when she walked in the door on Christmas Eve. I had spent one too many hours wrapping socks separately so that they each had the exact same number of gifts to open.

Fortunately, they are a little older and understand the number of gifts does not necessarily convey the amount of money that we will NOT be putting in their college funds. And all but Jack and Lauren have realized that bigger does not necessarily mean better.

Nonetheless, buying Christmas gifts for three teenage girls is a challenge that I signed up for before I read the fine print.

They are all about the same size, have the same taste in clothes, music, movies, etc. So when I’m buying a sweater, how do I do that? Should I buy one for each? One for each in different colors? If that’s the case, who gets the pink one?

And exactly, how do you please a 22 year old who thinks like a 4 year old, looks like a 13 year old, doesn’t play with toys and already has everything Hannah Montana that was ever made?

Last week, I had all of the kids write a Christmas list for me: big things, little things, things that they want a LOT, things that they think they might want and things that they might DIE without.

And I took the lists and made a spreadsheet. Yes, I have a spreadsheet for my Christmas list.

It includes the wants, the needs, the “will die withouts,” the prices, what’s been ordered, what’s already delivered and a running total of number of gifts and total amount spent for each child.

It even includes a section on what they are buying for one another. I give them each $100 and they are to use that to buy gifts for their four siblings. They can use less money if they want, or they can use more on one sibling than the other or they can pool their money with someone and buy a bigger present. The point is two-fold: to give them a taste of their own medicine – make them figure out the perfect gift on a limited budget… and to do part of my Christmas shopping for me.

Maybe one of them will happen upon THE gift… so I can capture that sheer joy look at least one more time!

This weekend I did something completely out of character. I fit in much more seamlessly at a wings and football tailgate than at a tea and crumpets social event. But in an effort to make some new friends and to support my neighbor who owns the bed and breakfast across the street, I decided to visit the edges of my comfort zone and attend her Holiday Tea and Cookie Exchange.

I love the idea: take 6 dozen cookies and trade with everyone. That way you have a variety of fun and colorful cookies to serve at a holiday party without having spent four days in the kitchen, making everything from bourbon balls to buckeyes to santa thumbprints.

My problem was what to bring. Chocolate chip cookies were banned (per the invitation) and we were instructed to be creative. My creativity is limited in the cookie department. Long ago, I decided that Pillsbury refrigerated cookie dough is quite possibly the best invention since the self-cleaning oven. (Not that I’m particularly proficient with my self-cleaning oven, but that’s another story.)

I’ve learned to make beautiful faux scratch cutouts with Pillsbury and some homemade icing. Besides the kids like that part of the program better than the dough mixing anyway.

Not wanting to cheat, I decided to make peanut brittle instead…not exactly a cookie, but something that I know how to make… as painful as the process is!

For some reason that I’ve long ago forgotten, I started making peanut brittle at Christmas. It must certainly have been before I became a mother, because no real mom has time to do something that takes this long and requires this much patience and undivided attention.

But after I made it that first Christmas, my father refused to let me come home for the holidays without a tin of my homemade peanut brittle for him. So, for years now, I’ve “scheduled” my peanut brittle making. Usually, it’s at 6 am the morning that we are going to my parents’ house before anyone else is out of bed.

The trick is to keep your family from eating it before you take it to your holiday gathering.

So here’s the recipe. You’ll need a candy thermometer and about an hour. If you are the parent of a baby or a toddler, I suggest that you try this when you are absolutely certain that they will be occupied somewhere else for that hour. (I can still remember trying to stir this boiling mess of peanuts and goo with Jack on one hip and Gracie calling for me to “come wipe” from the bathroom.)

Peanut Brittle
Ingredients:
• 1/2 Cup Butter
• 1 Cup Light Corn Syrup
• 2 Cups Sugar
• 1/2 Cup Water
• 1 LB (16 oz.) Raw Peanuts
• 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 2 tsp Baking Soda

Butter two baking sheets and the sides and bottom of a heavy sauce pan.

Bring sugar, water, corn syrup and butter to a boil over medium high heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until sugar is dissolved (appx. 5 mins.)

Cook mixture at medium low heat, stirring occasionally until candy thermometer reads 275F
(appx. 30 - 35 mins.)

Stir in peanuts. This will be difficult to stir for a few minutes, but it gets easier. The temperature will drop at this point too, but keep stirring constantly over medium low heat until temperature reaches 300F (appx. 15 - 20 mins.)

Remove from heat. Very quickly stir in vanilla and then the baking soda and immediately pour onto buttered baking sheets and spread thin (one peanut deep) with wooden spoon or forks.

Allow to cool completely and then break into bite-sized pieces.

I am in lifelong pursuit of the perfect Christmas tree.

Just ask Rick and the kids. They will give you a detailed narrative of the first Christmas I forced them to go Christmas tree shopping with me.

I had, as usual, pictured the Hallmark moment: All of us together… singing Christmas carols on the way out to the country… finding a quaint little farm where they served hot chocolate around an open fire… walking down a row or two of trees to find the most beautiful, dark green symmetrically shaped Fraser fir that you had ever seen… all of us taking turns with the saw … and coming home to trim it together to the sounds of White Christmas and Jingle Bells.

That didn’t happen. On the day in question, it was cold and drizzling with intermittent downpours. No one wore the proper clothing so everyone was FREEZING. And something had happened to the evergreen crop that year because half of the trees were dead or dying.

Nonetheless, we searched up one row and down another for what Queen Cindy of Perfect Treeland might deem acceptable.

“Mommy, mommy, look… look… how about this one?”

“No, trunk isn’t straight,” I snapped briskly as I looked 6 trees ahead at the white pine that might work.

No go… needles too flimsy.

“Cindy, I think I found it! Look at this one.”

“No, it’s not full enough… looks like a Charlie Brown tree.”

I was like one of the girls trying on dresses: too short, too tall, too fat, too skinny, not green enough, needles too long, needles too short, too….too… too…too!

After an hour and a half of trudging through the mud and mess, six heads hanging low behind me… having realized that the Hallmark moment was not going to happen and I was not finding the perfect tree, I gave up.

Lucky for us, there was another tree farm about a mile up the road. We stopped.

Heavy sighs as everyone piled out of the SUV.

I took the hint and only forced them to search for about 15 minutes before I decided that the corner tree lot with its nicely trimmed evergreens all confined in a 100 x 60 lot were good enough for me.

On the way home, we drove right by one of Oakland Nursery’s satellite tree lots. We stopped again. This time we were greeted with a host of near perfect trees already cut and waiting for my critical eye… not to mention a couple of strapping workers eager to pull out trees and spin them around for me. We took two.

I’ve been a loyal customer ever since. I’ve also learned to divide the Christmas tree process into five steps:

The purchase and delivery
Setting it up in the stand
Putting the lights on
Allowing the children to decorate
Redoing the decorations myself

So far this year, we’ve gotten the tree home.

I hope we get it trimmed before we are singing Auld Lang Syne.

Last year Rick and I took a holiday cooking class under the direction of Chef Hubert Seifert at Spagio. He delighted us with his brisk German, no-nonsense approach to all things culinary. He also sent us into a food coma with his sumptuous (if not a bit fat-laden) version of Thanksgiving dinner.

“A bit” is an understatement since bacon fried in butter was an ingredient for the stuffing. And spinach sautéed in the remaining fat was one of the side dishes. Yum. Fat = Flavor!

One of the other attendees … who obviously was far more high society than I am… bemoaned his own recent bourgeois Thanksgiving experience… how he had “endured” time with the in-laws and all of the little nieces and nephews running around… not to mention the disgusting, gloppy green bean-cream of mushroom soup concoction.

Now, I can be a food snob with the best of them, but I have tried to teach the kids an appreciation for foods from all walks up or down the social ladder and from all ethnic groups. Sometimes that means dining on Chilean sea bass at a nice restaurant and sometimes that means eating a mystery casserole that some well meaning neighbor has delivered to the kitchen table.

To borrow a phrase that I heard recently, “Don’t yuck someone else’s yum!”

What my children know but what my self proclaimed foodie classmate failed to recognize was that he was undermining the very essence of Thanksgiving. It’s all about celebrating what you have, enjoying the camaraderie of family and friends (that includes their children), and partaking in some foods that you might not normally eat.

Didn’t he ever read the Pilgrim story in elementary school?

Wonder how he would have liked Thanksgiving Dinner at my parents’ small farmhouse: my parents, 3 siblings and their spouses, and 11 grandchildren, ranging in age from 4 to 22. After all, what all-American family gathering would be complete without the kids’ table?!

And as for the menu… it was the same that it’s been for as long as I can remember:

Cheese ball and crackers
Deviled Eggs
Spinach dip in a bread bowl
Cut veggies and dill dip
Apple salad
3 pans of rolls
Homemade noodles
24 pound turkey
13 pound ham
4 kinds of stuffing: in-the-bird, oyster, sage, and vegetarian
Sweet potatoes with brown sugar glaze
10 pounds of mashed potatoes
½ gallon of gravy
Corn
Cranberry salad
6 different pies: cherry, apple, peach, chocolate, pecan and pumpkin

And, yes, green bean casserole! This year, it was even better than usual because I had Gracie make it.

8 cans green beans
4 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
2 cups finely shredded cheddar cheese
½ cup finely chopped onions
1 can French fried onions (store brand will do)

Mix all ingredients except for French fried onions

Pour green bean mixture in greased 9 x 13” pan.

Bake at 350 for 50 minutes.

Top with French fried onions and bake for 10 minutes longer.

Yummy! Mr. High Society doesn’t know what he’s missing.