Christmas Baking

Christmas Baking

November 29, 2017

Today is the day scheduled for my girlfriend and I to get our Christmas baking done. Despite us doing this for many years together it always seems like it takes forever and that it’s a monumental task. This year was no different but it seemed like we might have finally fine tuned our timing.

As we were taking turns rotating cookie sheets and icing whatever it was that needed to be iced a Christmas carol came on. What do you know it was my mom and grandma’s favourite Christmas song,  ‘Pretty Paper’ by Roy Orbison.

I am not kidding you every time that I hear this song, I instantly think of my mom and grandma. I told my girlfriend this and was explaining to her how my grandmother would stay up all night Christmas eve and prepare the Christmas feast for the family. How she would set the table with her pretty linens and fancy dishes and would listen to Christmas carols.

I wasn’t around for all of this but these are the memories that my mom had of her mom and she loved to share them with me. I liked that she passed these little stories from her childhood down to me. At least when I do something Christmasy, I know where I might have gotten it from.

Anyhow as I’m telling this story to my girlfriend we were on opposite ends of the kitchen and I must’ve stopped what I was doing and started to stare into space as I was telling her this story as I realized that I was starting at her fridge. I stopped and looked over at my friend and said “wow, I can’t believe that I didn’t cry when I told you that story”. To my dismay, it was my girlfriend who was crying and in her tears said “that was such a beautiful story”.

I think it is too and after some consoling on my part I agreed with her and said but it’s a happy story that I can carry the tradition on. I think both my mom and grandma would be proud. I suspect that every time my girlfriend hears that song she will think of my mom and grandma and me. I’m glad that I could be a part of a story that has been going on for three generations now.

Cartoons can bring back memories to, who knew?

Cartoons can bring back memories too, who knew?

November 12, 2017

Now that I have little my television watching has definitely changed, long gone are the days of CSI or NCIS or whatever other acronym crime drama is on now. Now my evenings and weekends are full of Disney Junior and Treehouse. It use to be Treehouse but as I evolved as a parent so did the selection of cartoon channels.

The boys have their favourites, some old and some new but overall they’re cartoons and something to entertain them with. I usually have them on in the background for noise or in the hopes that something might catch their eye and slow them down just a little bit. Sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t.

One Saturday morning I had the boys up and the opening theme to ‘Go Diego Go’ came on and I stopped drinking my tea and had a little bit of a daydream about me on my mat leave with the boys last winter. That show was on back to back to back at one point in time and I remember the boys being somewhat interested in it.

They glanced at the screen as they probably recognized the theme as well and then went back to what they were destroying at that moment. I chuckled a little bit and was also sad as I remember them being in their ‘circle of neglect’ bouncing up and down, getting excited about the toys attached to this contraption. They were so teeny tiny them and my heart skipped a beat as I realized they are growing up way too quickly. This was only last winter for crying out loud and now they’re little terrorists.

They’re into everything and anything they can get their hands on. Both smart as a whip but curious nonetheless. Who knew that the opening song to a cartoon could make me think back to the winter before when all my waking hours were spent with my little munchkins. Makes me almost want to have another little one…but then again I’m happy with the two that I have right now.