So some mice had a disco party on my kitchen counter the other night. They were leaping and prancing around like they owned the joint, or like they were practicing for the Nutcracker.

My husband hauled our half-asleep black cat over to the party and—shazaam—one of the mice was no longer dancing.

The cat now owns a free indoor pass (at least until the infestation is under control).

We trekked around the neighborhood, handing out festive tins of crack (and some bags of peppernuts and a couple lip balms). The kids were boinging all over the place.

Note to self: next year, practice approaching houses and knocking on doors before letting the kids do the real thing. The littlest twit of yours, especially, would benefit from some basic instruction.

When I was packing up the Christmas goodies, my daughter entered the kitchen bearing an old National Geographic. “What’s this?” she asked, showing me a picture of a dead, bruised and battered little boy.

I scanned the caption. “It’s a war in another country. A bunch of people were killed, including some children.”

As I scribbled Christmas trees and drew stars on my note cards, she peppered me with questions. How old was he? Did he have any brothers and sisters? Where are his parents? And, Look! They put all his toys beside him on the bed.

I watched her out of the corner of my (misty) eye, waiting for her face to crumble and her shoulders to hunch forward. But they never did.

I made a cheese ball and even though I haven’t eaten it yet (I wrote this part of the post on Christmas Eve), I know it’s the best cheese ball ever and that it’s going to be a part of the rest of my life, so there.

Bacon-Jalapeno Cheese Ball
Adapted from The Homesick Texan

I bought fresh cilantro specifically for this recipe, but when I got it out of the fridge it had mysteriously turned into parsley. (I hate when that happens.) So I used some dried cilantro (that tastes more like cardboard than cilantro) and a tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley just for anyhow.

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
½ cup sharp cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon lime juice
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon cumin
pinch of chipotle powder (or cayenne)
pinch of salt
5 pieces of bacon, fried, crumbled, and divided
1 jalapeno, minced and divided
1/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted

Mix together all the ingredients down through the salt, plus half of the bacon and half of the jalapeno. Shape the cheesy goop into a ball with your hands.

Mix together the remaining bacon and jalapeno, as well as the pecans, put them in a plate or shallow bowl, and roll the cheese ball around in the crumbles until it’s nicely coated.

Cover the cheese ball with plastic and chill for an hour before serving with crackers (though I like my cheese ball at room temperature—it spreads better).

They’re back at it again.

This time around, the tools are fancier.

It made for a great holiday project, something to get them outside after gorging on candy and cookies.

I had a minor break down at our Christmas eve service. Three of my kids were in a little skit—dirty sneakers and dress-shirt collars poking out from under their robes, plastic ivy and pipe cleaner laurel wreaths, that sort of thing. Nickel was Quirinius. He had to stand up front beside his big brother (Cesar Augustus) and unfurl the registry scroll. But the scroll wouldn’t unfurl, so he tossed it out, as though a quick flick of the wrist would fix everything, but instead of unrolling, the scroll flew out of his hand and landed on the floor with a thunk.

That’s when I lost it, a giant belly laugh half exploding out of me. I pressed my lips together quick and held my breath, but that only made the belly trembles grow all the more violent. My eyes watered, my shoulders shook—I was helpless against the hilarity.

At that moment, when I was physically and emotionally completely out of control, at that moment all the tension of the last couple hours—all the yelling and running around and cleaning up the house and getting everyone through the shower and trying to be jovial because it’s Christmas Eve for Pete’s sake—all that tension peaked and I realized that—oh my word, I am not stable! I am going to start sobbing because my child just hurled his scroll on the ground!

I didn’t do The Ugly Cry, thank goodness. A couple more stifled gasps and the strain eased up. I was even composed enough to wink at my boys without falling to pieces, whew.

Supper restored me the rest of the way.

Even though we’ve told the children that it’s us doing the gift giving, our Santa pretending makes my younger daughter upset, almost angry even.

This morning, after the stockings and hoopla, she told me, once again, that she knows there’s no Santa. “Tell me for real, Mama. I know it’s you and Papa.”

“This really bothers you, doesn’t it,” I said. “Okay, so yes, Papa and I buy the gifts, but we like to pretend it’s not us, just for fun.”

“And—tell me the truth—you’re the tooth fairy, too!”

“Yes.”

“Who does the tooth fairy more, you or Papa?”

“I do.”

She smiled, pleased (and relieved?) to finally get a straight answer.

Later, she asked if she could tell the other kids the truth. They already know, I said, but she wanted to tell them anyway. So she did, and the big kids said, Yeah, we know, but for her, this truth-telling statement was big, I could tell. The air was cleared. She could finally relax.

(Also, at bed time tonight, I asked her what her favorite part of the day was, and she said playing in the field and getting her feet muddy on the swings. Hello, honey! Today was CHRISTMAS and playing in the field was YOUR FAVORITE THING?!)

My older daughter took her earrings out for the first time.

Except they were stuck, so my husband had to use a pair of pliers to wrench them from her ears, smooshing the earrings in the process. She put in a pair of dime earrings she had made for herself, but later, after she took them out so she could go roughhouse, she couldn’t get them back in. She needed the lightweight studs, but I, thinking they were too damaged to use, had thrown them away.

So she and her father meticulously went through the garbage, searching for the tiny studs, which they somehow found, cleaned, and made useable. The earrings slipped back in (with a little numbing cream), and the dreaded holes-growing-shut disaster was averted.

I read the first couple chapters of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever before bed on Christmas Eve, and we finished it up tonight. So much of our last 24 hours coincided with parts of the story: the kids acting out the Christmas story during our church service (my daughter was Mary—You really should’ve thumped that doll on the back like Imogene did, I told her), the bit about Imogene not being able to take out her hoop earrings for fear the holes would grow shut (Sound familiar, sweetie?), and the ham, of course.

We didn’t bear ours down the center aisle of the church, though. We just ate it.

Hey! Unto you a child is born!

Peace and joy to you, sweet friends. Merry Christmas!

My writing mojo has flown the coop, gone on a hike, decamped, whatever. I sat at Panera for several hours yesterday and wrote the worst crap ever. All cliches, nothing interesting, bad, bad stuff.

To give me a little credit, I had trouble focusing for a good reason: I was afraid I was stranded. See, my husband and son are in Pittsburgh working on my brother’s house, my two littlest are in West Virginia at my parents house, and so it’s just me and my daughter at home, and she was at a friend’s house for the day. So I could write long, eloquent, charming essays, whatever.

Except one of the van tires kept going flat. My husband said I had to check the air every day and then fill it up.

“Check it how?” I wailed. “Fill it up with what? Every day, are you serious?”

“Stick this thing on it and the stick should pop out to 34. If it’s less than that, fill it up with air. Beccaboo knows how—have her do it.”

I didn’t do it the first day he was gone, but the second day I dutifully stuck the little stick thingy on (making even more air whoosh out)—it read 15 pounds. So my daughter filled it.

“I’m getting tired, Mom. Here, take a turn,” she pleaded.

“No, no. You’re doing fine.”

I discovered the source of the leak when I got to Panera so I went inside to write an SOS email to my husband, via my brother’s email. It read:

So I’m at Panera. I get out of the van and hear hissing. The roads were wet, so I can see the air bubbling out. There is a nail stuck in the tire. I pushed it in even farther and the hissing slowed.


I may be stuck at Panera till you get home.


Send advice.

He didn’t send any advice (I wasn’t surprised), so I finished writing my pages of crap and nonsense and then drove around town acting like I didn’t have a nail sticking in my tire. I called my husband once I got home (I don’t have a cell phone—be shocked, I don’t care), and he ordered me straight to a tire shop to get it patched. The end.

I mean, “And that’s why I couldn’t write yesterday. The end.”

I can’t write this morning for the dead mouse on the kitchen counter. I’m supposed to be baking, but my daughter set a trap and caught the little bugger, but she’s still sleeping and I am not about to touch that trap. I mean, I could, but I’m ethically opposed to cleaning up my children’s messes. Even if it’s a mess she made to help me.

Really, I just don’t feel like it.

I keep checking the mouse to be sure it’s actually dead. It doesn’t move: no breath puffs, no tail twitches. It remains perfectly flat, still, quiet, GROSS.

I guess you could say the dead mouse is making me write. Because otherwise I would be baking.

I have an impossibly long list of things to cook this morning, things like pretzel crack and mozzarella cheese and peanutella and peppernuts and cheesy polenta and eggnog. I’ve been eating so poorly since my family up and left me. Coffee, mostly, and pretzels and cider and peppernuts and hot chocolate with whipped cream. I’m so ready for real food—thus the reason for the cheesy polenta. I’m going to saute some kale and collards to go with it and can hardly wait. My very veins are yipping with anticipation.

This same time, years previous: marshmallows, the big snow, power paranoia, and turkey in a wash basket

I feel like I owe you a Christmas post. To assure you that we got the tree and put it up and strung (a little) popcorn and set up a couple nativities, etc. (Or maybe it’s to reassure myself that I’m on the right track?)

We’ve done it all—and parts of it have even been fun!—but what I really want to know is: HOW IN THE WORLD DOES ANYONE EVER KEEP THEIR HOUSE CLEAN?

I don’t know how anyone does it, period, but I really don’t know how you all cope with the mess and filth during the Christmas hoopla—I mean, holidays.

The glitz and glam make more mess, do they not? And the decorations are supposed to be up for at least several weeks, so you have to clean around all The Extra Pretty, right?

Seriously, people! Are you okay with this?

I read blogs and see magazines and all these people are doing such wonderful festive stuff and all I’m thinking about is the pine needles that are falling on the floor (and the mittens that fall in the tree’s water pan—why are there mittens in the tree’s water pan, willsomeonepleasetellme?) and that all the pretty votive candles eventually burn down and then need to be washed out before I can fill them with fresh votives but the little votive holders clutter up my sink for days because I hate washing them out and then my counter looks trashy.

So… I corral the five children in my charge—all under 10 years of age and two of them not mine—and make them work. They dust baseboards and chairs, wash dishes, desprout the potatoes, scrub sink and toilet, empty the compost, collect the trashes, all while I run around washing windows, dusting, and wiping down the stairs. It feels really good and I even call my husband to tell him he married a goddess.

But then the next day comes around and I spend the entire morning with the four children in my care—all under 12 years of ages and all of them mine—cleaning the house again. There are more windows to wash and picking up to do and organizing and vacuuming and a toilet to scrub and the kitchen floor to wash and empty canning jars to be taken to the basement and full ones to be lugged back up (and washed and shelved) and firewood to be hauled to the front porch and—

I am so sorry. This is probably boring you to tears. Heck, it’s boring me to tears. My point is: the house still feels messy and I feel defeated. All these blog-and-magazine people go waltzing through the holidays, red ribbons and twinkle lights and sanding sugar galore, and all I can think is: WHO IS CLEANING YOUR TOILETS! WHO IS DUSTING AROUND ALL THOSE KNICK-KNACKS AND WHO IS MOPPING UP THE STICKY SUGAR AND DON’T YOU EVER GET SICK OF IT AND FEEL LIKE SCREAMING?

I’m not really that shouty. I just start talking in all caps when I feel like my reality is totally different from everyone else’s. Perhaps they have better filters on and know not to talk about such boring stuff on their blogs. Perhaps they have cleaning ladies. Perhaps their houses are such screwball messes that they have to focus on the sparkly lights with uber concentration, because if they let themselves even notice the dust rhinos under the piano, the facade will crumble into a pile of dust, which is just one more thing to clean up.

P.S. I don’t have an open fire in my kitchen, in case you wondered. Those pictures are from our annual visit to a local Christmas tree farm where the kids get to hunt for the hidden candy cane tree, drink hot chocolate, and pick out a free ornament. Oh, and cut down a tree, too. It’s a jolly affair.

P.P.S. I love Christmas. Seriously. It doesn’t even stress me out.

P.P.P.S. Messes stress me out.

This same time, years previous: middle-of-the-night solstice party, lemon cheesecake tassies