I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

There aren't too many people who can really sing this and it not be scandalous!

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I was looking at my drafts where I started posts I hadn't finished, or put a few thoughts down so I wouldn't forget what I thought I wanted to say, and found these pictures I never posted from last summer when my parents came to visit.

You can't get much better than having Santa for your grandpa.

He also makes balloon animals and stuff. These were ant antennae.

I suppose that's how you'd make it plural.

Funnel Cakes

I mentioned a while back that we were having funnel cakes for dinner.

Okay, maybe a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much.

Simply put, we had purchased a funnel cake kit as an impulse buy at Bed, Bath & Beyond last winter, found it stuck in the cabinet in July, and nearly immediately made the funnel cake with the mix that was included. It worked like the proverbial charm and we were hooked.

So now we just needed to find refill mix. I went back to the scene of the crime, Bed, Bath & Beyond. Unfortunately, it was seasonal or something like that, so they didn't have any kits or mix refills.

So as I'm checking out I get the regular question, "Did you find everything okay?" to which I'm sure they expected me to say, "Yes, thank you." I said, "No, I couldn't find any funnel cake refill mix." This got people searching through the store.

In the course of the wait and conversation with the check-out girl, the lady checking out in the next aisle heard me. She said that they always made their own from a recipe her brother had for the past 20 years. So I gave her my email and she sent it to me. How great was that!

I've used it several times, and it is better than the one I found in the meantime online. I still use my little pitcher from the kit, but you could put the mix in a Ziploc bag, cut off the tip, and just squeeze it out. That's what she does. I have to add some water to the recipe to get it to pour from my pitcher, so if you use a Ziploc bag don't add the water.

Funnel Cakes
from Kathy

2 beaten eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder

Combine together eggs and milk.

Sift flour, salt, and baking powder. Combine with eggs and milk.

Add 1/4 cup water so that the mixture will pour out of the pitcher. Add a little more a tsp at a time if you need more.

Finish off with a sifting of powdered sugar.

E-N-J-O-Y!

It really doesn't get any better!

Santa and Caboose

I've mentioned a couple of times that we've had company. They left this morning after having been here for a week and a half, thus the almost week break in blogging. Now I get to fill you in on some of the fun things we've been doing and some fun stories.

Last Friday we went to Frankenmuth, Michigan, a small town about an hour and a half north of where we live. It has a strong German heritage, but oddly enough, is well-known for it's chicken dinners.

When you tell people you're going to Frankenmuth, or even ask them about it, they will tell you, "They have really good chicken." So here's where we ate.

Here was my plate.

Here was the competitor across the street.

It was good chicken, but I'd say second best. The chicken dinner at Rockhome Gardens in Arcola, Illinois, gets my vote for best. It's in the Amish country. Sorry, Frankenmuth. Second gets a medal though at the Olympics though.

Frankenmuth is a pretty little town with a small downtown shopping area.


Frankenmuth is also the home of Bronner's Christmas Wonderland, World's Largest Christmas Store. I'm taking their word for it. It was definitely big, the biggest I've ever seen, and I must say extremely well organized. They had the ornaments in different sections by theme (snowmen, farm, sports, etc.), and the map had each section well marked. An organizer's dream...

We had to take a picture of Santa and the grandkids by the big Santa.

Now I have to explain here that we have never done Santa with our kids. The gifts have always been from us. But we've done a breakfast with Santa, had their picture made with Santa...gosh, Santa's their Grandpa. So obviously none of the magic of the season is lost. They know what other kids think, and the only thing that's been difficult is what to answer when people ask them what they want from Santa or what Santa brought them for Christmas. So when they were younger we helped them come up with an answer that they were comfortable with — one that didn't give anything away to other kids but didn't make them feel like they were 'fibbing.' They would just say, "I got so-and-so for Christmas," or "I want so-and-so for Christmas," and then that sort of covered it.

Well, Caboose knows that Grandpa doesn't take other kids presents. He also knows that his Grandpa is Santa, and that Santa doesn't really live in the North Pole either. Santa lives in Arkansas. This, my friends, is my child that has always been my brightest at the youngest age. We have not told him any of these things. This is his magic, and we have not discouraged it.

Before Grandpa and Grandma came to visit, Buddy and Caboose were having a discussion at the table, and I happened to be sitting there as well. I don't even know what it was about, I just remember hearing something about reindeer. I told them that reindeer were real and that we'd seen them at zoos before. Caboose proceeds to say, "But they don't fly Grandpa around."

For several years Caboose has asked what will happen when Grandpa dies and who will be Santa. I tell him he might have to do it. He's not sure he will have the whiskers.

But at Bronner's the other day he really got it going. I should have been prepared, but I wasn't. First he asked me, "Was Grandpa the first Santa, or were there others before him that have already died?"

Thank goodness the next question came before I had to answer that one.

"When Grandpa dies, will they just go up to somebody and say, 'Hey, do you want to be Santa?'?" (I know I probably didn't quotation mark that right, but I'm too lazy to check it.) I told him maybe it was a Santa secret, or maybe it had to run in the family and he'd have to do it, or if he was too young and didn't have whiskers, his dad would have to do it, even though he's an in-law.

The good thing is, now Hubby can grow whiskers. See his 'playoff beard' from a month or so ago.

Because for years we've joked about how he can't grow any facial hair, except in splotches. And when the girls were about two years old, look what he did with my eyebrow pencil!

Um, you might notice it's even getting a little more of the Santa-ish color, Hubby.

The Federal Court System & Wal-Mart Aren't In Cahoots

When I was growing up, the day after Thanksgiving marked the beginning of the Christmas season. As I've gotten older, I've seen that change as mass marketers and retailers want to wring as much money out of our pockets as possible, for as long as possible. For a while I would see the Christmas things come out mid-November, then the day after Halloween. Now the Christmas items start seeping out almost as soon as Labor Day is over. It's like the Christmas decorations have to come out of the closet to make room for the white shoes to be put away.

Well, the Federal Government must not have gotten the memo from Wal-Mart about the Christmas season being in nearly full swing, because Santa has been called to jury duty for Federal District Court in North Arkansas. The good news for all the children, he sent an email and got excused from the week before Thanksgiving all the way through Christmas. Meet my stepdad, whose true location must remain secret since his identity is not.


Mrs. Claus will be driving the sleigh every day, one hour each way, so be on the lookout if you're in North Arkansas. They pay for mileage, but how do you figure that for the reindeer?