Cookie baking

Instead of gingerbread men, I baked gingerbread nativities. This year the ladies in our family hosted a cookie exchange and I spent Thursday creating replicas of the star, Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus in a manger.

I enlisted Logan's help in rolling out the dough, after promising that he could eat the biggest cookie from the batch. Naomi volunteered to frost them after they were cooled. She, in turn, was "helped" by the four-year-old Libby was babysitting.

Revive

Photo credit: Amanda Byler

Sense of humor

I have no sense of humor. So said the spokesman for a group of ninth grade students with whom I spent a long hour Friday afternoon.

I think I will find that funnier in a week or two when I've forgotten the particulars.

Welkin

"Hark! how all the Welkin rings/ Glory to the King of Kings" reads the first line of Charles Wesley's "Hymn for Christmas Day." The poem was altered by George Whitefield and set to the music of Felix Mendelssohn to become the well-known Christmas carol it is today--"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."

Cake

Saturday Libby baked, frosted and decorated a cake for our Sunday dinner. When I was in high school I decorated cakes, and I have a collection of pans and decorating tips. But my wrists aren't strong, and for the past few years my decorating tools have sat in the cupboard collecting dust.

Libby expressed a desire to decorate cakes, so I showed her how to pipe borders and how to twirl flower petals. Saturday evening she created a basket on the side of the cake, while Logan lurked nearby waiting to snitch frosting. Then Sunday Dad sliced the cake and I can bear witness that the inside was just as delectable as the outside looked.

Contentment

Game

Blokus and Flash Uno have been the rage at our house, with deviations of Dutch Blitz and Phase Ten. "Will you play a game with me?" Naomi asks, her smile disguising the fact that she's spent hours practicing and strategizing while you've been blissfully minding your own business. Occasionally I agree and occasionally I win.