A Cook in the Kitchen

This evening, in our kitchen.

Evergreen

Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree.  In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall.

~Larry Wilde, The Merry Book of Christmas

Poor Isaac.  You snooze, you lose.

Twinkle

The family went out on an evening tour of lights in Elmhurst.  While many houses were beautifully decorated from the curb to the rooftops, this house caught my attention.  A blessed and joyful Advent season to you all!

Newly Illumined

Iohan Hilary, the newborn son of our dear friends, Gabe and Laura, was baptized this past Sunday at their home parish, Christ Our Savior Orthodox Church in downtown Chicago.  His godfather, Brandon made the trip out from Pennsylvania to participate in the sacrament.

Father Anthony Coniaris, in his book, Introducing the Orthodox Church, writes:

Baptizing infants before they know what is going on is an expression of God’s great love for us. It shows that God loves us and accepts us before we can ever know or love Him. It shows we are wanted and loved by God from the very moment of our birth. To say that a person much reach the age of reason and believe in Christ before he may be baptized is to make God’s grace in some way dependent on man’s intelligence. But God’s grace is not dependent on any act of ours, intellectual or otherwise; it is a pure gift of love.

"And now take that spark within you and protect it, stoke the heavenly fire in your soul, use the tools God gave us—prayer, fasting, confession, Holy Communion—to grow in faith and finish what was started on the day of your baptism. And then love, love others as Christ loves each and every one of us—without bias, without limits, without restraint." (Molly Sabourin, Close to Home)

Snow à la Mode

While Eric and I made this snowman in the backyard, Isaac ate snow, a lot of snow.  Our delightful creation in need of a chiropractic adjustment is about Luke's size, and once he was complete Luke actually hugged him, faced pressed up against his, for a good 20 seconds.  A look passed between Eric and me that said, "Where's the camera?!"

“I bet when neanderthal kids would make a snowman, someone would always end up saying, 'Don't forget the thick, heavy brows.' Then they would get all embarrassed because they remembered they had the big husky brows too, and they'd get mad and eat the snowman.” ~ Jack Handy

Heavenly Snowflakes

For our first big snowfall we were blessed with "heavenly snowflakes," a phrase coined by Chris.  That's what he calls snow that falls in enormous flakes and twinkles and shimmers on the ground, appearing almost fake like it should be in a department store holiday display.  Eric and I took the boys to the Nature Center to experience it with all our senses.

St. Nicholas

On the feast day of St. Nicholas, December 6, we remember his generousity by giving each other

gifts and chocolate gold coins in our stockings. 

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

The custom of hanging Christmas stockings goes back to the 4th-century when St. Nicholas was a bishop of the Church.  One of the most famous stories about his life tells of a poor man who was unable to provide dowries for his three daughters. If he couldn't get them married, he'd have to sell them into slavery (such was the culture at the time). Hearing of the family's predicament, Nicholas took a stocking full of gold, enough for a dowry, and tossed it into the family's house through the window. He repeated his anonymous gift for each of the daughters, enabling the girls to marry.