Friday, December 19, 2008

Jam Jams


See this? This is an, ahem, opened Christmas gift. It’s not even mine although I did ask the recipient’s permission before I cut the tape and Iain and I dove into them. The fact that the recipient is currently attending a Christmas party and had likely downed a couple of alcoholic beverages before I called for permission does not mean that I was asking when he was weak. Rather, I feel it shows excellent planning on my part.

Additionally, I certainly did not call up the gift giver (Hello, Mudder!) and ask her permission on whether or not I could open DH’s Christmas present before Christmas. Oh no! I already know what her response would be, the same response I received to that question for over 2 decades of living at home,

“No! You cannot open Christmas presents before Christmas morning!”

She’s over 1,000 kilometres away and, despite the guilt I’m sure I’m going to experience when she reads this post, it’s simply too late to stop us, Mudder.

Here is a little story about these cookies called ‘Jam Jams’ in Newfoundland and Labrador. In fact, they are a specialty where I come from. Purity makes them and most years, DH would get a Purity Jam Jams package or two with his birthday and/or Christmas gift from Mudder and Fadder. Until the year Mudder decided that DH should be made the homemade kind. The first words out of DH’s mouth when we arrived in Mudder’s kitchen and he saw them were,

“I didn’t know Jam Jams could be homemade (a small eye roll here as Newfoundland and Labrador has been settled longer than Purity has been making and packaging Jam Jams and he is a bright enough guy to have figured that out but, I digress)!”.

Yes, DH, it was a carefully guarded secret so that I wouldn’t be forced/cajoled/begged/pleaded with to make them at our house on a regular basis. They aren’t that hard, I’m just a lazy baker and usually stick to squares or drop cookies when I bake.

Ever since, whenever we go home or on special events such as birthdays and holidays, DH receives a box of Mudder’s homemade Jam Jams.

And, according to this picture, it looks as though it’s like father like son around here!

The fact that a box of homemade cookies inspired me to write a blog post after so long really speaks volumes about the importance of treats in my holiday world! In case I don’t get back before the big day, a very Merry Christmas from all of us at Chez Fibreholic!

Monday, December 08, 2008

To Blog…Or Not To Blog

What I’ve been doing with my blogging time at this, the start of the silly season:

  • Christmas cards (over 70) sent out – check! (This includes writing a Christmas letter, signing letters and cards, labelling all correspondence, cutting out Iain’s Christmas portraits and labelling them and stamping all the envelopes (thank God for peal-able stamps!) – Whew!

  • Christmas decorating – check!

  • Hosting DH’s work party (Saturday night) – check! This included making two hot appetizers, two cold appetizers and an assortment of desserts. Thank God DH cooks too…
  • House cleaned before guests arrived – check! Yes, it may have been 30 seconds before they arrived as a not-so-closely-watched Iain had the broom (after an unfortunate Cheerio incident…) and was using it to dip into the dog’s water dish and mop the back porch floor with it. Naturally, all of this occurred around the wall and just out of Mommy and Daddy’s sight.

  • Attending a choral Christmas concert last night – check!

  • Three of six Christmas parcels sent –check! I have GOT to get the rest out today/tomorrow. Well, two of three. I’m still waiting on the artisan I ordered another present from to call to say that the gift is ready.

  • I’m still feeling under the weather and Iain has been fighting a cold. And this list doesn’t include the usual drudgery of laundry, meal preparation and clean up (no small feat with a toddler), etc.

  • We have two more parties to attend this coming weekend.

    Is it any wonder I’m tired…?!? ;)

The pictures? Oh, well, they represent knitting content to keep you hanging until the next time I get to sit down in front of this computer...