Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson
This year I became obsessed with wrapping this tiny pear tree with lights. Three strands and an hour later, I ended up with something that looks like Charlie Brown got a visit from the Temple Square fairy.
It’s highly possible that the lumberjack fairy will bless it in January when I don’t have remotely enough patience to untangle the world’s worst yarn knot.
My hands-down favorite Thanksgiving tradition is the So Let It Be Written Thanksgiving Tablecloth. I like this even more than the fancy cheese tradition, where we test out all kinds of new fancy cheeses late Thanksgiving night after the turkey has worn off. That’s saying something because cheese is, to quote Wanda, “mine best friend.”
Every year at Thanksgiving, I pull out this white tablecloth and we each write one or two things we’re most thankful for that year on the cloth with fabric markers, followed by the year and our name. If friends or family are visiting for dinner, they get to leave their grati-fiti as well.
Over the last six years, it’s become a treasure and a time piece. We can see who we were with and what things were on our minds and hearts. If our house were burning down, I’d put the Thanksgiving tablecloth right up there with family photos and passports on the list of things to rescue.
It’s not too late to run out and get a white tablecloth. You can start the tradition this year. If you do, don’t forget to iron the ink into the cloth before washing it, and to avoid washing it more than once every few years, be sure to buy a clear plastic cover to go over it while you eat.
My fabulous next door neighbor is like the all-natural McGyver of crafting. She can take sticks, dirt specks and pine gum and create an elegant chandelier. She can make anything in the world out of sheep’s wool and she notices lovely things everywhere she goes and then tames them to decorate her beautiful home.
For Easter she helped me plant my own wheat grass to use as an Easter basket for my little bunnies this year. The project was super easy and looking gorgeous and I think you should all try it this month so it will grow in time for Easter. It takes at least two weeks to get looking gorgeous.
First, you soak a couple of handfuls of wheat in water for 24 hours. Soft white wheat berries are best and you need to get some that haven’t been stored with oxygen absorber packets. My neighbor purchased ours at Whole Foods for very little money.
Next you fill a pie plate or other dish with dirt about an inch deep. Then you sprinkle the soaked wheat berries over the top of the dirt. You only need about half of the amount of wheat that we used. We went a little overboard.
Water well and cover with plastic wrap until tiny sprouts appear.
After the sprouts start popping up (24-48 hours), remove the plastic wrap.
When the grass is a couple of inches tall, move the container to a sunny location so it will turn green in color.
On Easter Eve, cut the sod to fit in your Easter baskets, dress like a bunny and place eggs and treats amidst the blades of grass.
How sweet is that?
In his Easter basket, or rather under it, Magoo got a gigantic illustrated Lego Star Wars encyclopedia. In a plastic sleeve on the bottom corner of the book was a tiny Lego Luke Skywalker. So Sunday night he’s talking to some friends of ours about his Easter and he says, “You wanna see the awesome thing the Easter Bunny brought me?”
“Sure,” they say. What else can they say? The entire evening’s been a frantic show and tell, the likes of which only a second child with a captive audience can pull off. I am a second child. I would know. They know that he’s gonna show them the present whether they say, “Sure,” or, “Why don’t you take your pathetic Easter present and shove it where the sun don’t shine?” so they might as well be gracious.
At this point they’ve already seen his gaping tooth orifice and the way his tongue can slide through it, heard all of his jokes, learned how you can amputate the legs from multiple Lego guys to make stilts for one lucky Lego guy, and been subjected to detailed descriptions of multiple video games. What’s one more exhibit? Besides, we’re holding them hostage and if they want pie, they need to play along. Also. He is adorable.
So he brings out the tiny Lego guy and goes off about all of its many amazing properties (hair, moving limbs, painted-on medallion, relation to Star Wars) and its deficiencies (lack of light saber or weapon of any kind, representation of a part of the movie that involves kissing). He loves this Lego guy and is so glad that he got him for Easter.
“Oh, yeah,” he adds as an afterthought, “And he comes with a book.”
All day long on Valentine’s Day, I was listening to romantical music to put me in the mood for love. I pulled out the eighties power ballads, the Whitney, the Celine. I got in deep.
And in his deepest of mini-manly hearts, Magoo was NOT impressed. He was begging, BEGGING, for his favorite songs but I told him we could only listen to songs about love. At one point, he said, “Please can we listen to Ghostbusters? It’s about love. If you save people from bad ghosts, that’s love.”
He has a point. I think it’s okay to stretch the meaning of Valentine’s Day just a bit.
For Dan’s present, I got him the movie RED because red is one of the official colors of love and also there’s nothing quite as romantic as automatic weapons.
Dan got me some lovely flowers and serenaded me with My One and Only Love played on his saxophone. Ahhhh. That is romance. Then to finish off our evening, we tried to get our rabbit ears to pick up ABC so we could watch Castle, gave up and worked on our laptops side by side.
The kids even slept at some point last night, despite the fact that their veins ran thick with high fructose corn syrup and their teeth were died green from Fun Dip. In all honesty, that was a bit disappointing. It should have been pink.
And may all your heart-shaped pancakes be fluffy!
My parents and sister came to visit us for Christmas and it was so fun to have them here. It’s the first time we’ve ever had family up for the holiday and we wanted to make it special so we each chose a gift for each of our visitors. This year for the first time I asked the kids to use their own allowance money to pay for half of the gifts. It made the gifts more meaningful and it caused them to think more seriously about what to give.
Both kids got Auntie Meg jewelry because she is fashionable like that. Magoo got Papa a laser pointer and Grammy some chapstick.
After hours of looking, Laylee was browsing the little red boxed gift items on the end cap at Target when she came upon the Perfect Present for Grammy. She held the box up triumphantly.
Me: It’s a mini megaphone.
Laylee [grinning and nodding]: WITH siren!
I had to let her buy it, because who won’t remember the year that Grammy received a mini megaphone WITH siren for Christmas?
The gift was especially poignant considering Grammy suffered from migraines off and on for the first few days they were at our house. Yes, a siren will come in very handy for Grammy.
When Laylee and I went shopping for ballet shoes this fall, we found ourselves waiting in line behind 2 tween ballerinas being fitted for pointe shoes. Knowing how excited she is to one day dance like the big girls, I mentioned them to her later.
“Laylee. Did you see the ballerinas in there?”
“Do you really think they were REAL ballerinas?”
“Yeah,” I shrugged.
“Oh, I knew it! I knew ballerinas were real, just like FAIRIES!”
“Yes,” I thought, “And dentists and musicians. They’re all very real.”
This is Laylee. She has a crazy vivid imagination. She loves anything magical or mystical or fantastic. She was told quite suddenly two years ago that the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny weren’t real but a year later, she’d talked herself into believing again.
This week we had a talk about Santa.
I love Santa. I always have. My dad (picture above) is one of his special helpers. At times I have been employed as an elf. “The Ho-Ho-Ho Guy” is a big part of our Christmas celebration but definitely not the focal point. We enjoy encouraging the magic but try not to make direct claims about him. I tend to respond to questions with more questions.
“Do you think Santa’s real?”
“That’s a good question. What do you think?”
This year as the Christmas season draws near, my kids already have the fat man on the brain. Laylee told me she’s been thinking about it and she’s decided that the only way Santa could do all the magical things he does is if he were given special powers by God.
She came to this conclusion because Saint Nicholas was a good guy who loved Jesus and loved being kind and giving gifts to children. She figured God would want to reward someone like that and help him do an awesome job celebrating His son’s birthday so He allowed him to live forever and slurp himself down chimneys at supersonic speed.
There are a couple of things I like about this theory. As someone with a firm belief in God and Jesus Christ, I like that she knows where true power comes from. I also like that she knows what Christmas is really about and sees Santa as someone who just does a kick-butt job of celebrating it.
What I don’t like about this theory is that it puts God and Santa on the same roster. It leads to the question, “If Santa’s not real, then was all that stuff about religion an elaborate hoax too?”
I couldn’t let it stand. So I pulled my seven-year-old aside for a talk I’ve been dreading. And you know what? She left our discussion giddy to be initiated into the world of adults who spread joy, magic and love to others. Here’s how it went down:
I asked her to help me give Wanda a bath and while we washed the baby, I brought up our earlier discussion about Saint Nick.
“You know what happened to Saint Nicholas, Laylee?”
“What?”
“Like most people, he grew old and he died.”
She looked confused.
“Do you know how he got his power and continued to give gifts even after he was dead?”
She shook her head, wide-eyed.
“After he died, many people loved what he’d done so much and loved how his kindness reminded them of the Savior’s gifts that they all decided to make the magic of Saint Nick continue. Kind people all over the world are the real magic of Santa Claus. Isn’t that amazing? It’s not just one person but a whole bunch of people working together!”
At this her eyes grew even bigger and she started to smile.
“So when kids want to know more about Santa and their parents decide they’re kind enough and old enough to help, they get invited into the group of grown up magic makers to bring fun and joy to other people. Are you ready to help me make the magic of Santa for your little brother and sister? Are you ready to be Santa with me?”
I was getting really worked up at this point, using my most confidential voice, my most excited face. And she was thrilled.
“Oh yes! I’m ready,” she whispered and then let out a little squeal.
I hugged her and promised that I loved her and I’d still make sure that Santa visited her as well. We then proceeded to have a serious discussion about how only a parent can decide if her child is ready to become a magic maker so Laylee was absolutely forbidden from spoiling the fun for other children until their parents decided they were fully ready to become part of the brotherhood.
I also reinforced that I didn’t want her to confuse fun people like Santa that we create using our own imaginations with the real Being who created us.
Of course the discussion was over-simplified and I’m sure we’ll fine tune it over the years but for this week it was enough. She seems to get it. And she really seems fine with it. I promised her she could go Santa shopping with me at least once to pick out a few things for Magoo and Wanda. More squealing ensued. We magic makers have a hard time containing ourselves sometimes.
My sister KayLynn is guest posting today to talk about the National Day of Listening. I am a huge proponent of capturing the stories of those we love and I think this is a great way to spend our time on Friday. If you have contact with your parents or grandparents, take some time to listen and record what they have to say.
Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year. Good food, family, and reminders all around of all that we have to be thankful for. One thing that has been on my mind lately is how grateful I am for my wonderful family and how they have impacted me in my life. I have shared so many good times, been supported through hard times, and been blessed so much because of my parents and siblings.
This year, as I sit around the dinner table for our Thanksgiving feast, I want it to last longer than just a day. I want to always remember the stories my dad tells about his college days, or the stories my mom tells about her parents and growing up on the farm. More than always remembering the stories, I want my children to be able to know their grandparents and great-grandparents, to know where they got their blonde hair or short legs or patience or ability to make others feel loved. I want to read them bedtime stories of their great-grandfather’s escapades in the Air Force or of their great-grandmother’s love of gardening.
Preserving the stories of our parents and grandparents can seem a monumental task. However, as I have started writing and reading the histories of my family members, I realize that this task is completely worth it—not to mention extremely fulfilling. And to help in the task of recording and preserving your family’s stories, StoryCorps (starting in 2008) instigated a National Day of Listening on the day after Thanksgiving: November 26, 2010. This Day of Listening is basically a day set aside as a time for you to record (in any format) the stories of your loved ones. If you are hesitant on how to begin, read more at myunwrittenlegacy.wordpress.com/, or you can find many resources at nationaldayoflistening.org/.
Happy Mother’s Day from our bed of revellers to yours!
