What's Been Missing This Christmas

Kids! That is what has been missing at my house! Today my granddaughter and her friend were here to help make cookies. Well, actually they were here last night and helped me set up and take down for the open mic. We had a good time there; poets, writers, storytellers and one musician gathered to share the mic.

Here, writer Patrecia Gray shares her "cracked" version of Froggie Went A-Courtin'.

This morning, I could have cooked breakfast here but the girls jumped on the offer to go to the Downtowner, so off we went. While we were in town we stopped at my friend Reta's antique shop and I found two more Ruby Red cups and saucers. They're not matched--the cups are round punch cups instead of the square cups that should have been with the square red saucers, but I don't care; I just like them. Reta sold me many antiques at very good prices when I first moved to Jackson county, like the cast iron wood cookstove for $75. I still find a few bargains in her shop, 35 years later.

Who should we see wandering the streets of town but this suspicious guy:

I didn't get a chance to tell him how good I've been, but he did corner a few people on the street.

 Soon after we saw Santa, we stopped in the library briefly. On the way in a cute dog--half-grown puppy, really--ran up to us and we petted him and talked to him. He ran off again to some kids on the other side of the street but he ran right in front of a car. Poor puppy, he was hit and rolled. That is not a good thing to see or hear. Fortunately he jumped up and ran back to us as Hannah called to him. He had no collar and no one seemed to know whose dog he was. So he ended up in our car and now he's here. I am sure he is littermate to Hannah's pup Tillie and he's already been dubbed Willie. His owners may come to claim him--the library knows we have him--but in the meantime we're quite enjoying him. I don't really want another dog, but what else could we do? If he doesn't develop a taste for chicken like the last stray did, he may be a permanent resident.

Then it was home to find a tree at last, and make cookies. We cut a tree on our neighbor's farm (with permission!) and shoved it in the back of my car on top of who-knows-what. It was only a half-mile to home anyway.

We could have gone home and gotten the truck of course, but that seemed kind of silly. The tree will need a bit of trimming as we are planning to keep it smaller this year. Planning being the key word in that sentence. We'll see how it plays out.

Then it was cookie time! Hannah and her friend were champs.

They followed recipes effortlessly, and made those Hershey's Kisses cookies, Chocolate Cherry Cookies, and Orange and Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti, and got some refrigerator cookie dough in the fridge to be finished later. I pretty much stayed out of the way; I showed them what I wanted to make and helped when asked, and did the clean-up.

We went up on the ridge to see how Warren was doing with his new cabin. He's the guy who bought land from us last spring. Their cabin is under roof and they can rest easy now. (The pic is from a couple weeks ago, when the roof was put on.) Hannah drove my car--her first time driving! She's almost 14 and this is a good place to start out because there's no traffic and you can go v-e-r-y  s-l-o-w-l-y. She did fine.

Today made me realize how much I miss having kids around at the holidays. The grandkids are mostly teens now and so busy, but today and last night was a return to something special that I have always cherished. Maybe I need to borrow a couple kids more often!