Christmas Traditions (aka the spikey cranberry orange death balls)

Weekends are truly fickle things. Very rarely am I able to balance relaxation with productivity, work with fun, and return to the office on Monday feeling great. This weekend was, by my exacting standards, just about perfect.

It might have something to do with me taking Friday off to help kick off the madness that is December. I spent the morning putting the lights on the house, and then in the afternoon we went and picked out a Christmas tree. Some of you may remember that last year we went out into the forest and chopped a tree down with our friends Tom & Sarah. Em has felt guilty about it for the entire year, even though I tried to explain to her that we had chopped down Alfie the Christmas Tree and that he was happy to be in our house, but it was kind of hard to argue that the tree's life was better once I had to put him in a dumpster...

Therefore, in order to atone for this misdeed, we bought a tree from Home Depot, where they are grown in a soulless tree farm in Oregon. But our penance didn't stop there. Oh no, we had to prove to the forest that we were truly sorry for killing one of their her native sons. So, Em decided to start a fun new family tradition (we're calling it Christmas for the Critters™) and make some bio-degradable animal-food decorations to take into the forest and decorate a tree. With our kids. And we took my sister. And her kids. I would add my sister's husband (aka my brother in-law) but he informed us that this idea was just too random and he was going to pass.

So Saturday morning we bought a 10-pound bag of bird seed (apparently it doesn't come in smaller bags, because most people either really like birds or are afraid of birdzilla...), a jar of peanut butter, and grabbed some of the pine cones that the kids collected and then, armed with mini-bagels, wonder bread, and Christmas cookie-cutters, began to make the ornaments.

Hazel, Chloe, Calvin and Jane work like Elves in the factory. Only there's no factory. Or toys. Ok so they're making decorations.

What emerged from this process was a few plate-fulls of gooey vaguely christmas ornament shaped messes that, while not particularly appetizing to me, I'm sure are proving to be very tasty to all of the forest denizens that used to live in the late Alfie's boughs. All of them were completely environmentally friendly, down to the Raphiella (or whatever the straw-like stuff is called) used to hang them.

The finished products. Cute, eh?

The one exception to this statement would be the spikey cranberry orange death balls. You see, toward the end of the ornament-making fun, Em realized that we had a bunch of leftover cranberries from Thanksgiving, and thought they would add just the right dash of color to the otherwise drab collection of ornaments. In addition, we had some clementines sitting around that would be really pretty. (side note: is there anything better than a clementine? They're one of my favorite parts about Christmas.) So, she decided that it would be a really cool ornament if she used toothpicks to stick the cranberries onto the clementines. Unfortunately, the finished product looked more akin to a ninja-chef's weapon than something you'd hang on a tree for a deer to eat, but when I pointed this out I was informed that 'deer have very sensitive lips and they will be able to avoid the toothpicks and get to the orange.'

There is no appropriate response to that statement. I've spent last few days thinking about it, and I can't come up with anything.

Why is it that clementines are so much more deadly than regular oranges? When asked questions like this I typically try to break the word down to its roots. In this case, 'clemen' would be referring to Roger Clemens, who had a wicked fastball and was known to throw at batters' heads from time to time, and 'tines' are obviously the sharp part of the spork, so clearly we see that clementines are dangerous, pokey projectiles.

Thus prepared for our decorative activity, we headed off to the canyon to find the right tree. As it turned out, it was about 1:00 and past nap time, so the 'perfect' tree quickly turned into the 'closest and most accessible' tree. We trekked down a trail about 50 feet, found a likely candidate, and quickly turned it into a squirrel, bird, and deer 7-11. The kids had a blast, and I enjoyed pointing out that we would be able to return in the spring and count the bodies of all the dead creatures that ate the spikey cranberry orange death balls.

The decorating crew in front of their work.

Hang a blueberry bagel on the highest bough...

The finished product did in fact look rather festive, and despite all of my heckling and good-natured ribbing I had a really good time doing it.

I love the maimed wonderbread man in the background...

Here's a close-up of the SCODB after a hummingbird tried to get some of the orange...

So after we got back from decorating the forest tree, we came back home and decorated our tree. We make a whole evening of it, and while it is a bit challenging with Allie undoing decorations as fast as we put them up, I really enjoy it. Christmas music playing in the background, fire glowing in the fireplace, chocolate orange sticks and these really tasty butterscotch gingerbread cookies to eat... all happy things for me.

Allie giving the camera her 'cool' face, while Jane takes yet another bite of cookie dough. I'm pretty sure she ate as much dough as she made...

We ended the day by reading "Bear Stays Up for Christmas" to Jane under the Christmas tree and drinking bubbly by the fireplace. It was one of those days that make you smile when you look back on it. Thanks Emmy!