Merry Christmas!

We’ve had a busy week of holiday celebrations. Our friends Peg and John flew in from Ohio last Thursday. That night brought freezing rain which made the trees look pretty, but walking around Lake Geneva on Friday was treacherous. We took the train into Chicago on Saturday. After dropping Peg and John’s luggage at their hotel, we had lunch at the Berghoff. In past years, Terry and I have eaten at the christkindlmarket. The trouble with that is that the lines are long; one generally has to eat standing up, and the food gets cold quickly. Add to that the gray and drizzly day, and lunch at a table in the warm, dry Berghoff seemed vastly preferable.

Peg and Terry outside the Berghoff

I had a thought that there wouldn’t be as many people out because of the weather. I was so wrong. Christkindlmarket was PACKED. We soon tired of fighting our way up to the booths to see what was for sale and pressed on the State St. to see the windows and other decorations at the store formerly known as Marshall Fields.

The crowd at christkindlmarket

Peg, Terry, and John (foreground, left to right) at christkindlmarket with the Picasso sculpture in the background

Eternal flame veterans' memorial and pigeon warmer at Daley Plaza

The windows this year recapped the history of the Marshall Fields and highlighted some of the products, such as the traditional Frango mints. “A crummy commercial,” Terry muttered, quoting from A Christmas Story, “son of a bitch.”

Garland in the store formerly known as Marshall Fields

Part of the tree in the Walnut Room. The lights in the big stars sparkled.

Terry and me by the fountain inside the store

While we were admiring the Tiffany ceiling, I noticed dragonfly shapes hanging from the third floor. They looked like sculptures. Upon closer inspection, however, they were just cut from paper. A clerk standing nearby explained that they had one “wonderful lady” who cut them all out. The thing that made an interesting presentation was that they were hung at different angles by altering the placement of the string.

Dragonfly cut-outs

It was going on 4:00 when we were done at Marshall Fields/Macy. And raining. We walked down the Magnificent Mile to the Hancock building anyway. 

The Wrigley Building tower was lit up with red and green lights

The Signature Lounge was socked in with fog. We saw nothing out the windows. I ordered club soda with lime. The waitress delivered a glass bottle of Voss sparkling water from Norway. Who knew one had to specify “tap” when ordering water? The price? $5.50. As Peg put it, “A dollar for the water, and $4.50 for the view that we can’t see.” Norwegian water, by the way, doesn’t taste any different from any other bottled water.

The view from the 96th floor of the Hancock

After our drinks, Terry and I had to hoof it back to the train station to catch the 6:30. If we didn’t make that one, it would be two hours before the next. We left Peg and John at Crate and Barrel to do some shopping and trudged quickly through the pouring rain back to Ogilvie. I missed it by one block, thinking it was on Monroe instead of Madison. President’s name starting with M… Not the sort of night when going out of the way seems like a good idea. Jimmy John’s was closed, forcing us to go to Subway. But we made our train and eventually found an empty seat.

Sunday, we drove to Northbrook for Christmas Observed. My brother got us all tickets to Music of the Baroque’s annual Holiday Brass and Choral Concert at Divine Word Chapel.  “Chapel” was an understatement, as the inside of the church looked like a full-scale Gothic cathedral. The concert was absolutely spine-tingling. I have not been to such a high-quality performance in a long, long time. The acoustics were phenomenal. The chorus sang as one voice and brass players were spot-on. I tend to forget how moving a professional live performance can be. Recorded music just isn’t the same.

Front entrance to the Divine Word Chapel (Techny Towers)

We had dinner at a nearby restaurant, Prairie Grass. Doug and Pam went back to their apartment in Chicago. They both had to work the next day. The rest of us stayed in a hotel just down the street from the restaurant and drove home in the morning.

We are now enjoying a relaxing and low key day at home. Jane will join us this afternoon and stay for dinner.

I wish you all a happy holiday with people you love!

Christmas activities

I had every intention of making a new post last night during the football game. I changed my plans when I had the honor of being selected as Lap of the Evening by her royal highness, Princess Della. It’s nice to have a warm cat on your lap on a cold winter night. I let her stay. We need to be nice to the elderly. At 19, she is now the equivalent of 92 years old. If she wants to rest her arthritic hips on me, so be it.

Jane, Hilda, and I spent the afternoon baking Christmas cookies on Sunday. Note to self: start in the morning. We took a break for supper, and frosted cookies like made until 8:00 to get it all done. We made five kinds of cookies (wedding cakes are not shown in the picture). I gave up on moose and reindeer in favor of Christmas bison years ago because the former are not structurally sound as cookies. Skinny little legs and antlers with weak attachment points—one ends up with a pile of dismembered body parts. Bison are squat and sturdy. I pipe a wreath and bow around their wide necks to make them more seasonally appropriate.

Plates of cookies destined for my calorie sharing program (I took them to work). From top clockwise, chocolate Christmas bison, sugar cookies, sour cream pockets (apricot and raspberry). Pecan caramel bars are in the center.

Although I am far from being ready for next semester, I took a day off yesterday to take the family down to a model train display in Huntley. Terry read about it in the paper and thought it sounded like something we would all enjoy. It was an elaborate set up, with several different sizes of trains, many, many buildings, models of vintage cars, and so forth. The largest trains were around the bottom, closest to the viewer. The display went upward in layers, with each layer having smaller trains and buildings, creating an illusion of great distance by the time it got to the tiniest trains at the top. Hilda said several times, “There’s so much to look at!” which summed it up pretty well. I liked the largest trains the best. Two of them had faces on the engines, and the eyes moved back and forth. How cool is that? Another train was festively decorated for Christmas. It’s hard to see the detail in the video, which is too bad. That train never stopped, however, making it impossible to get a good still photo.

Model train village

Terry (far left), Dad (front right), Hilda (next to Dad) and a total stranger admiring the trains

Things to watch for in the video: a train with moving eyes, the Christmas train, and moving dancers in a glass pavilion. 

We had lunch at a local restaurant. I read the reviews before we left and learned that the homemade raisin bread was “to die for.” I tried it. I think it must mean more to those who do not make their own bread. The cinnamon swirl raisin bread Hilda and I made last year ran circles around this stuff. I should make that again.

We ran into snow on the way home. I suspect it might be that sort of winter.

Oh, Christmas Tree

Not much shaking at the farm for me this week. The end of semester has somehow left my schedule full of last-minute meetings that got put off until we all had “more time.” Really? Why did we think that was going to happen?

We decorated our tree Wednesday evening. My folks put the finishing touches on theirs today. They are both just lovely. And our own trees!

Our tree

Mom and Dad's tree

I scheduled too much cooking for today (how does every Sunday end up this way??), which means I have not yet finished writing the Holiday Letter. I made almond croissants (thanks, Trader Joe’s!) for breakfast, cranberry-orange-apricot-walnut bread for the Division pot luck on Tuesday, the usual batch of yogurt for the week, a pot roast for supper, and for fun, Hilda and I made bleu cheese crackers and cheese pogacsa (Hungarian for “biscuit”) from recipes that were in the newspaper this week. Feels pretty good to be sitting down, let me tell you. It’s another weekend when I’ll be glad to get back to work so I can rest.

Seeding the prairie and more!

It was a busy long weekend here at Five Oaks. Terry and I kicked off the holiday with a Wednesday date night to the testicle festival in Union. He read in the newspaper about not one, but three turkey testicle festivals in the area. The one in Huntley has been running for over 30 years. Why had we never heard of it? I had wanted to see Clausen’s Tavern in Union since September when I learned that it is the oldest continuously operating bar in McHenry County. Thus, it seemed like fate when Clausen’s Tavern was hosting its first testicle festival. The festival itself was going to be in a “heated tent” next to the tavern. I bundled up because it was a wicked cold night.

We got there about 5:30, and the tent was packed. We paid $10 each (the event was a fundraiser for the Fire Department) at the door. One young woman put a beer bracelet on our left arm, sadly without checking my i.d. Another young woman handed each of us a ticket and said, “This ticket will get you two testicles.” I could not repress a smile—no one has ever said that to me before—and the girl giggled.

We went over to the makeshift steam table where the fried turkey testicles were being served. We each got a small one and a large one. We made our way to the only empty table and sat down. It didn’t take long to figure out why no one was sitting there. It was in a very, very chilly corner of the tent. I picked up the smaller of the testicles and removed a stringy structure that might have been a long, thin fragment of fried breading or part of the vas deferens. I didn’t feel like taking a chance. And I ate the testicle. It tasted like fried chicken. I let Terry have the other one because I’ve had to limit my intake of fried food lately. Poor me.

We didn’t stay long. We walked briefly through the tavern, admiring the vintage woodwork and stamped tin ceiling. And then we went home. I can now cross eating turkey testicles off my bucket list. Of course, I’ll have to put it on the list first.

Two servings of turkey testicles

Thursday and Friday were low-key, relaxing days devoted to preparing and/or eating food. Circumstances prevented us from traveling this year. While I missed getting together with the extended family, it was nice to be home. This is the first time in 8 or 9 years that I’ve gotten to have turkey leftovers.

We cut our Christmas tree from our own land for the second time on Saturday. Terry had enough to share this year. My folks decided to put up a real tree again for the first time in a hundred years. Pat and Nancy came out also. Terry marked the trees he thought were ready to go—eight in all—and we made our selections. Pat cut down her tree first and then got on a roll and did them all.

Pat cuts the tree while Terry keeps the trunk position so the saw wouldn't bind

Group shot with all three trees (left to right, Terry with our Frasier fir, Pat, concolor fir, Nancy, Hilda, Frasier fir, Dad)

Sunday was warm enough to melt the top ½ inch of soil. Terry and I took the opportunity to seed the prairie. I started at noon dividing up the seed by weight. I knew that if we just went out there and started spreading, we would end up with all the seeds in one corner. I divided the short sedge meadow seeds into 6 parts and the more expensive prairie mix into 10 parts. That way we would end up with all the seeds in one corner of 16 quadrats. I added an equal amount, by weight, of oats that I got at Farm and Fleet to act as nurse grass. I didn’t know quite what to expect when I opened the box. The seeds were divided into large and small. I weighed the bags, divided by 6 or 10, and weighed the aliquots into old yogurt containers.

Weighing out the seeds

The small seeds were really small. I can understand why this seed is so expensive. It would not be easy to harvest and clean seeds that are hardly bigger than a dust speck.

Tiny seeds with quarter for size reference

After the seeds were divided, all that remained was to pace off the quadrats and spread the seed. We used Terry’s collection of broken arrows that he saved from his days as camp ranger to mark the corners. And then we scattered the seeds as best we could. I can only speak for myself when I say I did a crappy job. The grass seeds were light and spread easily in the light breeze. I have no idea where the other seeds went. I know that I always ran out before I got to the last arrow.

Terry sows seed

We were done seeding at 2:30. Terry drove the Gator back and forth over the seed to try to make good contact between the seeds and the soil. 

Terry drives over the seeds

Nothing to do now but wait for two years to see what happens. Next year, we will keep the area mowed to 4 to 6” to keep any weeds from setting seed. The prairie seeds will spend the time developing deep roots. We hope. In two years, we’ll know if we were successful.

Sunday night, Hilda found an egg that looked just like a water balloon It was one of those eggs that didn’t calcify well. The shell was very soft. But we’ve seen soft shells before. The unique feature of this one was that it didn’t close off on one end.

Water balloon egg

Pat and Nancy were the first to get their tree decorated. We’re holding off until after the cleaning ladies come tomorrow.

Pat and Nancy's decorated tree