Monthly Archives: December 2013

Nicole’s Favourite Things: Gifts From The Heart Edition

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Two things happened today that got me thinking about gift-giving in general and stressed-out Christmas gift-giving in particular. First, my mother-in-law sent the kids mini-loaves of raisin bread and it arrived today, and I am not exaggerating when I say this simple gesture was met with extreme joy and glee. Never has a lunchtime been so exciting. Raisin toast! For lunch! Second, I was reminded of a conversation I had months ago. Someone was relating a tale of Christmas morning woe, when she opened a gift from a relative – who was visiting at the time – and that gift was the wrong size. That person then gave the item back and asked for it to be exchanged for the correct size, and was subsequently huffy that she never did receive a replacement gift.

Gift giving this time of year is so strange, isn’t it? There can be problems of hurriedly purchasing gifts in order to reciprocate with someone that you had never before received a gift from, and there are the duty gifts to people who you don’t like and who don’t like you but yet you always exchange gifts so as to not cause a family ruckus. There are the what to get for the person who has everything gifts, and there are the it’s never going to be good enough so I might as well just give up gifts. There are also the hey, this is a cute but absolutely useless item that will either end up in a landfill or will be thrust upon unwilling relatives who are going through your stuff when you die gifts. Cheerful, no?  

It’s not like Christmas and commercialism are new concepts; after all, the Charlie Brown Christmas came out almost fifty years ago, and How The Grinch Stole Christmas came out in 1966. And yet every year we all struggle with what to get for this person, and how much to spend on that person, and it’s all very depressing.

But presumably the married people among us did not have weddings just to amass gifts, and in that spirit I say that Christmas should not a time of year where we simply accumulate more things. Gifts are a part of it, surely, but none of us really need anything, do we? This is not like Christmas in the Ingalls house where someone might get a badly needed pair of stockings or mittens to ward off frostbite, and maybe a peppermint candy just as a treat. We all have what we need, and more. However, it is nice and heartwarming to give and receive gifts as tokens of affection for the loved ones in our lives. And without further ado I give you…

Nicole’s Favourite Things: Gifts from the Heart Edition

Wine

We all have houses full of “things”, so these days I’m interested in consumable gifts. One of my very favourite gifts to give – and receive – is wine. You don’t need to be a connoisseur; most people are not and will be pleased with such a gift. The Superstore near my house sells wine at discounted rates for purchases of 6 or more bottles, which ends up being a steal of a deal. It’s hard to get more bang for your gifting buck than a nice bottle of wine, which can be less than $15 a bottle.

See how the bottle in the background is half empty? I was doing my research. This is a nice one!
Pampering
Speaking as someone whose hands are currently so dry they are snagging my sweater, the winter months can be harsh on your skin. Bath and Bodyworks has some nice lotions in fabulous scents like Cherry Blossom, Twilight Woods, and Exotic Coconut. Love the coconut. It’s not like I don’t eat enough coconut, I seem to need to smell like one too. Maybe I’ll cut my hair really short and dye it brown so that I resemble an actual coconut.
Or maybe I’ll make one of those bikini tops out of coconut halves and craft myself a hula skirt for “date night”.
Chocolate
Well, yes. Chocolate. What consumable gift is more acceptable than chocolate? My favourite is this peppermint Lindor, but really there are so many lovely choices out there.
Not to mention: do you know how easy it is to make your own chocolate? I have a few posts about this over at Yummy Mummy Club, Dark Chocolate Peppermint Bark and Dark Chocolate Truffles:
http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/blogs/nicole-macpherson-meatless-mummy-con-carne/20131118/dark-chocolate-peppermint-bark-recipe
http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/blogs/nicole-macpherson-meatless-mummy-con-carne/20131202/dark-chocolate-truffles-recipe
I had a few friends tell me their truffle-making horror stories, which horrified me: these are the easiest things to make and they make such lovely gifts. I’ve given out the truffles many times and every single time they are met with glee and excitement the likes of which rival my children’s over-the-top reaction to their grandmother’s raisin bread today. And yet – so easy. I swear. You will not be disappointed. My dad could make these*!
*Not really. But my dad isn’t allowed into the kitchen because my mom doesn’t want to come home to a smoking hole in the ground.
Gifts From The Kitchen
Speaking of not-burned-to-the-ground kitchens, is there anyone out there who doesn’t love homemade cookies? I have a few large recipes for you, again over at Yummy Mummy Club. These are crowd pleasers for sure: my Grandma’s Gingersnaps and Festive Gingerbread Cookies.
http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/blogs/nicole-macpherson-meatless-mummy-con-carne/20131104/grandmas-gingersnap-recipe
http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/blogs/nicole-macpherson-meatless-mummy-con-carne/20131208/festive-gingerbread-cookie-recipe
What’s not to love? Easy to make, enormous yields, and I’ve yet to meet someone who bites into these cookies and doesn’t immediately go for a handful. The gingersnaps, especially, are the potato chips of the cookie world. You eat one, then you must eat them ALL.
Just be sure to buy a few of those cute tins to put them in when you’re gifting them. I have this sweet little pack of snowman tins that I purchased years ago.
The “No Really, You Don’t Stink” Gift
I know I’ve talked about this before, but my friend makes natural deodorant that WORKS. Like, it’s all natural but you won’t smell like a feral hippie, I swear. This is amazing stuff; it’s called Routine De-Odor Cream. I tried it and I cannot go back to the world of chemical deodorant. And did I mention it works? This is what happened to me a while back: I put on the deodorant after my shower, at about 7:30 am. I went through my day – it was summer, so sort of sweaty. Went to bed, got up to practice yoga, realized I forgot to put more deodorant on, practiced in a sweaty hot shala for 90 minutes, came home, and gave myself the sniff test. I still smelled good. What sorcery is this? Amazing product, and they have new scents! I’ve always been a Sweet Jane fan, but I picked up a Bonita Applebom and a Whoa! Blackberry Betty and OMG SO FABULOUS.
Hey, my younger brother got engaged! Guess what I’m giving my sister-in-law to be for Christmas? That’s right, DEODORANT. My mother said, and I quote, “You’re giving her deodorant for Christmas?” in an incredulous tone. Welcome to the family! Have some deodorant! In all seriousness, she had asked about natural deodorants. I don’t recommend giving someone with whom you have an acrimonious relationship deodorant, or someone who might be sensitive (“Is this a hint? JUST SAY SO.”). But if you have decent lines of communication and that person has expressed interest in such items, well, click that link above and do some shopping! Plus, look how pretty!
What are your favourite gifts to give and receive? Let me know in the comments! If there’s a particular product you love, let me know that too. Happy shopping everyone! May the shipping be free and the parking spaces available. xoxo

Clark, Audrey’s frozen from the waist down.

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I know I complain – often? – about the crabby old ladies on the seniors’ bus who swarm the Co-Op when I’m grocery shopping and who snap at the sole cashier for being the only one working, like he has a choice in this matter, and who bang the back of my legs with their shopping carts and who, in general, seem to be going through life – or at least, the grocery store – with a black cloud hovering over their heads, but yesterday I had the loveliest conversation with two elderly ladies in the (sole) lineup. The conversation started with commentary about an unflattering photo of Hillary Clinton on the front page of a tabloid, which then led into a discussion about the perils of celebrity, and how we all feel sorry for young actresses who get labelled as “PREGNANT?!?” just because they had a large lunch or are slightly bloated. And yes, I did use the term “young actresses these days” because when in Rome, well.

It has been so cold here, complete with insane blizzard conditions that has left giant snowdrifts everywhere, but especially in the alley behind the school. Since Tuesday, I have personally seen eight cars stuck in the alley, one of which had to be chained out this morning. Public Service Announcement: do not attempt to park in alley until further notice. It’s so cold that I’m bundling up like Laura Ingalls on her way home from the Brewsters’ for the weekend (thanks Hannah!) and so I’m waiting for my husband to romance me old-timey style. Maybe we can exchange name cards or touch mitten tips or something.

The local news is entirely taken up by this cold snap. I have no idea what, if anything, is going on in the rest of the world because the newscast is entirely filled by messages about how many seconds it will take before your skin freezes, and to dress in layers. Noted!

OF COURSE it’s the coldest week of the year because it’s also the week that Mark’s class is having their swimming lessons. Luckily the pool is right next to the school but due to some disastrous planning their lessons end at 11:50. Guess what the chances are of 27 third and fourth graders getting out of the pool, showering, getting dressed, and putting on a zillion layers of winter clothing by lunchtime dismissal? Yeah. Our lunchtimes have just become that more rushed.

The weather is also cramping my dog walking style. Although Barkley is furry enough to tolerate these frigid conditions, I – despite my Scottish/ Norwegian heritage – am not. As I told my dog walking companions, my cut off is minus 15, which has unfortunately left us walk-less this week. Yesterday I decided to suck it up, buttercup, and walk ten minutes to the post office, dog in tow. I’m not sure if it was sheer giddiness from being outside after a cabin feverish week, or the fact that we were going a different and therefore extraordinarily exciting way, but Barkley was pretty much the most over-stimulated dog ever. If I could read his mind, it would probably go something like this: Where are we going? This is new! This is different! They have snow here! I’m going to pee on this snow! Then sniff the snow! Sniff sniff sniff. So many smells! Where are we going now? What is this place? There are people around? OMG a tree. A TREE. They have trees in this new exciting world. Where are we? What is this amazing place? OMG exciting. Wag wag wag. Hopefully the weather breaks soon or his fuzzy little mind is going to explode the next time we walk down a different sidewalk than usual.

The kids have a day off school tomorrow – again – so today has a nice, festive, long-weekend feeling. I think this weekend will be the one to make our annual fugly gingerbread house! Stay tuned! We’ve been improving every year and yet…

we are still not candidates for a career in gingerbread decorating. Remember the melted snowman? And the dead gingerbread man in the background? What will this year’s bring?

I don’t know what to say, Audrey, except it’s Christmas, and we’re all in misery.

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Here’s the scene: me, at the table, surrounded by envelopes and holiday cards, armed with an address book and a notebook, the same notebook that I’ve written Cards Sent and Cards Received in for the past eleven Christmases, with pens and stamps and special return-address labels that I ordered this year, with a motif of pussy willows and holly berries. My husband, looking at the giant stack of photo cards, that I planned back in October and ordered at the beginning of November with love and happiness, asks exactly how many cards I’m sending out. Around sixty, I reply. Maybe a few more, depending.

Sixty cards, give or take, might feel overwhelming to some people. It might feel like a giant chore, a hand-cramping source of stress, but to me, it feels exactly right. Every card makes me happy and at no time does it feel like a chore.

The same goes with holiday baking. I baked these cute little fellows on the weekend, and decorated them with the kids, and at no time did I feel panicked or stressed or overwhelmed in any way, even when one child made a gingerbread man with a cast on his leg and red splatters all over his torso, or another child plastered twenty M&M’s on one cookie.

Don’t eat these yet! I need to take a picture! – quote from every food blogger ever

Hard at work at the gingerbread factory.



Do I look stressed? No? That’s because I’m not.

A few weeks ago, I saw this on Facebook and I, as usual, felt a strong connection to Buddy the Elf:

Even if it’s October, hell, even if it’s AUGUST, which is when I usually get the Wish Book in the mail, I start to feel festive when I see Christmas decorations or hear Christmas music. The reason? Because I love Christmas. I love the holiday season and all that goes with it. I just cannot relate at all to those people who are upset by the sight of a decorated tree on November 2 or who feel stabby when Last Christmas comes on the radio. I wander around in my happy little Christmas bubble and forget that for a lot of people, ’tis the season for stress and road rage in the mall parking lot.

I forget that for a lot of people, it’s less about singing loud for all to hear, and more about it being Christmas, and we’re all in misery.

Here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to be that way. This is not usually an advice blog, no, nor is it one where I want people to feel bad about themselves that they are not creating their own Advent calendar of quotes from Elf and Christmas Vacation. But I tell you this: I love the holiday season and it makes me sad to think that for many, many people – women, especially – this is a time of stress and unhappiness, of a feeling that you need to do more, more, more just to be doing it right.

There is no doing it “right”. Well, there is, but not the way you think. Here is my basic rule that I think everyone should adopt. YES, EVERYONE.

IF IT CAUSES YOU STRESS AND UNHAPPINESS, DON’T DO IT.

Of course, there are always some necessary stresses: visits from people you have to see rather than want to see, duty gifts, family dinners you are forced into hosting, et cetera. But honestly? If the idea of sending out cards makes you break out in hives, DON’T DO IT. If the idea of baking eleven dozen cookies makes you want to stick your head in the oven, DON’T DO IT.

NICOLE’S RULES FOR MINIMAL HOLIDAY STRESS:

1) Bake a zillion cookies only if you want to. If you don’t like baking, buy some cookies. Or ask me, I’ll bake you some shizz.

2) Want to decorate cookies or gingerbread houses with your kids, but don’t have time? Buy some premade stuff from the grocery store, buy some tubes of icing, and go to town. No one will judge you and if they do, well, no cookies for them.

3) If you don’t love sending out cards, don’t send out cards. Usually those of us who send out cards do it because we like it, not because we are expecting reciprocation.

4) Shop online. Avoid the mall. Give magazine subscriptions. Buy gift bags instead of wrapping everything with handmade paper and six-inch ribbon curls.

5) If the thought of a holiday party is causing you anguish, don’t have one. Invite your friends over sometime in January. Everyone will be just as happy – if not happier.

6) Don’t feel bad if you can’t volunteer with the homeless, box up gifts for the unfortunate, or do other festive good works. Those needs will still be there after the holidays. You can help then.

7) Don’t feel like you have to do EVERYTHING to give your kids an authentic and joyous holiday experience.
    a) Your kids will probably not notice if you don’t make cocoa from scratch, have a daily activity calendar of Christmas-related activities, or have hand-felted a special Advent calendar for their enjoyment. This is especially true if they are under age 7.
    b) Your kids WILL notice if you mire yourself in your own high holiday expectations and then have a screaming breakdown over the leaning tower of gingerbread that is your gingerbread house.
    c) COME ON. Whatever you do will be awesome. Remember when we were kids and would go out on our own and sled until we couldn’t feel our feet and then when we came home our moms made us a cup of hot chocolate from a powdered mix and non-homemade marshmallows from a bag and it was the best treat ever? Kids pretty much are happy with whatever, so don’t beat yourself up about using those Pillsbury tubes of sugar cookie dough.

8) If you’re hosting Christmas dinner this year, ask everyone to bring a dish. So what if your mom made dinners for 25 people all on her own? This isn’t about her, it’s about you.

9) Stay away from Pinterest, or if you like Pinterest, then remember that not everything needs to look a certain way for it to be authentically awesome.

See? This is the worst gingerbread house ever. Yet my kids liked it.

 

10) If you’re at a family function and your mother-in-law is criticizing your turkey and your mom is eyeing your gravy with suspicion and your aunt is wondering WHY you didn’t make her recipe for Lutefisk, take a page from the book of Druncle and crack open the wine. Play your own little drinking game and instead of getting upset, have a sip and smile every time someone says something untoward.

Remember the most important thing: do what you love to do, not what you feel you HAVE to do, and the rest will follow. xoxo

Grandma Fern

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My whole life, Grandma Fern and I lived a thousand kilometres apart, but I’d spend large chunks of summer vacations visiting with her. The summer that I was six, she woke me up at three in the morning and we watched the Royal Wedding together; we were equally enchanted by the dresses and the fairy tale. It was a given, then, that thirty years later we would both get up at three in the morning, in our separate houses, and with our separate friends, to watch the other Royal Wedding. I called Grandma later that morning and we talked about the dresses and the fairy tale. We talked about how improbably handsome Prince Harry had become, if Pippa’s dress was appropriate, and how slim Carole Middleton looked. Grandma was of the opinion that Camilla Parker-Bowles should not have even been invited to the wedding, to which I replied that she should, since after all she is Prince William’s stepmother. She is NOT, Grandma retorted, She is nothing but a home wrecker. I should have known better. Topics to never discuss with Grandma include boredom, evolution, and Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Grandma told me once that she wasn’t the best housekeeper in the world, but she sure could make a good roast. She was an amazing cook and she had the ability to cook for twenty hungry people like it was nothing at all. She had a huge garden, which she loved. When I visited her she made a vegetable stir fry for the two of us, or fresh-from-the-garden tomato sandwiches. She was always doing something; baking, cooking, or watching the Blue Jays on TV. 

She loved the Blue Jays and she never missed a game. I was careful not to phone her when a game was on TV because I knew that her desire to talk to me would be much tempered by her desire to not miss a play. She had opinions about the batting order and who should be pitching when. When the Blue Jays lost she would turn off the TV in disgust, but the game would always be on again, the next day.

I also knew, if I phoned her when she had friends over, to tell her I would call back another time. When friends were over, they would be playing cards and I knew Grandma would want to get back to the game right away. She loved cards and would keep score on a notepad, writing “Us” versus “Them”.

Grandma was so funny. She, my mom, and I were walking through a department store lingerie section. My mom flipped her hand on a lacy, skimpy negligee. Oh yes, Grandma said, That looks very serviceable. Once I was helping her fasten her necklace before a family wedding. Oooh, Grandma, you smell nice, I said. Well, it’s hard, you know, with perfume. Grandma replied. You have to put it where you want to be kissed.

Oh, Grandma. When I picture her in my mind, she’s in her kitchen, cooking up a storm, wearing capri pants and a long blouse, in purple or blue or turquoise, and little Isotoner slippers on her feet. Her hair is done and she has lipstick on, and a cup of coffee is sitting on the counter.

She was the strongest person I had ever known. She was widowed at age 32, with six young children. She married my grandpa, who had four children of his own, the youngest being my dad. Grandma told me that before they were married, Grandma had my dad at her house and he – and all the other six children – came down with whooping cough. The youngest two, my twin aunts, were hit the hardest. Grandma said that Grandpa came over to give Grandma a rest; she slept that night while he watched the kids. The next day the party lines lit up, with the hottest gossip in the small town. Clifford’s car was there ALL NIGHT. And them not married yet!

She never slept much; she had so much energy. I could wake up at any time of the night, and Grandma would be sitting at the kitchen table, with a crossword puzzle. She did a crossword puzzle every day and what I wouldn’t give to do one with her right now.

She loved her church and she was strongly religious. When I was a kid, I would go to Vacation Bible School at her church, and I would enjoy the special treatment and minor celebrity of being “Fern’s granddaughter”. She was aghast when she found out my future husband was Catholic, although she warmed slightly when I told her he wasn’t exactly practicing. Once when I visited her, my darling cousins Brittany and Melissa came over too. Grandma said to Brittany, Nicole came all the way to Calgary to see me, you need to come over more often! To which my cousin Melissa replied I see Grandma every week at church! Brittany and I laughed, because there was no way we could top that one.

Grandma Fern didn’t have a particularly easy life, but she wasn’t one for self-pity or complaining; a characteristic I want to strive for. She had no use for feeling sorry for oneself; she made the best of every situation. I was one of many, many grandchildren, but she always made me feel special. She was the best grandma a girl could have, and I miss her so much already. Hey, what’s a seven word for love? Starts with G. Sixth letter is M.