Well it’s back to the old grind today for me. Last night I slept like I was in the back of a cement mixer. (So basically I woke up like 8 or 9 times.) Honestly I might be the kind of person to be able to sleep in the back of a cement mixer so maybe this is a bad comparison. I guess it was all the dread of going back to work. Though the holidays and their associated craziness are still a form of work, it’s different when it’s all for fun. Plus my mom took on the brunt of hosting during Chistmas. Despite not making any presents for the kids for Christmas we had a lot of gatherings that require prep work! And one silly tradition we’ve started that you may have noticed on our cards this year. But before I talk about that, I just want to comment about how we are so lucky we ended up with two great kiddos instead of just the one.
Julius and Patricia are so cute to watch together. They played together all break and really (except for a very light amount of teasing) they didn’t get tired or frustrated with each other. Right before break there was a Cub scout pot luck and I had the kids make cards for someone they loved. Patricia made one for Julius and Julius made one for Patricia. It was the sweetest thing ever. Yesterday they insisted they were going to sleep in the bed they had made in the hallway and were incensed when we told them they couldn’t sleep in the same bed. They settled on sleeping in different beds in Julius’ bunks.
Another sweet moment was witnessing this conversation:
Patricia (to Will): Daddy I want to go outside in the snow.
Will: Ask if Julius wants to go with you.
Patricia runs upstairs
Patricia: Hey Julius, after you get your clothes on do you want to go outside and sled me around in the sled?
Julius: Yes I’d love to do that.
Patricia (shouting down to Will): He said he’ll go outside with me!
So the new tradition we have started is celebrating the winter solstice. Not just one of the solstice based holidays but the actual shortest day of the year. (I know I’ll have to celebrate summer solstice too, but one pagan thing at a time people or Will will catch on.) So last year we celebrated by leaving the lights off when the sun went down and lighting candles and a fire in the fireplace for light. We then had dinner by candlelight and had a yule log cake for dessert. After dinner we celebrated by looking at the stars and the moon through a telescope (first time my kids had looked in one) and then reading books by the fire before bed. It was a blast! And super cozy. Julius talked about the yule log cake for the entire next year. So… we did it all again this year!
Patricia and I were home by ourselves for the beginning of solstice so we built the fire and threw some rosemary on the fire for a nice spiritual cleansing. (I told Patricia because Julius and Will were going to be at a birthday party we would do witchy things by ourselves at home. She shouted “go away bad witch” when she threw her bundle of rosemary into the fire. Not sure if she thinks all witches are bad or just some but I guess sending bad witches away is always a good thing.) Patricia and I also made a delicious vegetarian cassoulet (aka just a big old pot of white beans) with bread crumb topping. I’ve made vegetarian white bean cassoulet a few times, and this recipe is definitely the best we’ve tried. Will had thirds and that’s saying something. My only substitutions were to use a couple sprigs of rosemary in place of the thyme (I still, despite my best efforts, despise thyme).
My yule cake also came out amazing this year! Julius helped me decorate by adding some bark patterns on the ganache. I think the key was not overcooking the cake and rolling it up immediately out of the oven. Mine didn’t crack at all! I used this recipe for all the parts of the cake and I highly recommend it!
For fireside reading I gave each of the kids a book I thrifted and Will read to them by the fire while I tried to finish the actual text based normal book (read: not audio based) that I’ve been reading. It was nice to catch up on some reading in such a cozy spot. The 21st was a Saturday this year so it was the perfect start to the holiday week.
If you made it this far I have to relay another cute Patricia quote. For context we were watching descendants, which has a bad guy named the boogie man who causes bad dreams.
Patricia (indignant): He didn’t make my bad dreams! I did!
She wasn’t mad the boogie man was giving people bad dreams, she was mad he was taking credit for the bad dreams she had created. Touche!
