Hi, everyone!
We’ve had some sunny days where I could make friends with a sunbeam! Do you remember I said we didn’t know what would happen first, all the leaves falling or the first sticking snow?
The leaves won! They were almost all down and raked up before we had snow yesterday. It’s cold enough today that the snow is still around!
Grandma says that if she has too many things to do around this time of year, she could turn into the Grinch That Stole Christmas! So she tries to get as many things done in advance as she can. Last week, we made the pieces for James’ and Thomas’ gingerbread house. I helped mix the dry ingredients together! Then, when the butter and sugar were melted together, I poured that in and started mixing. Gingerbread house dough is heavy and hard to mix! The recipe says children should get their hands into it and squish it together, but Grandma won’t let me do that! After the dough was mixed, it had to be wrapped up to rest before rolling out. I had to take a rest, too!
When we were both rested, I helped Grandma roll out the dough onto parchment paper. Then we got out our house patterns and cut them into the dough. That way, we could pull away the scraps and transfer the parchment paper to a cookie sheet without twisting the shapes we cut. We kept rerolling the scraps until all the dough was used up. In addition to making the pieces for the gingerbread house, we made two big gingerbread boys and a bunch of small gingerpersons! There were even four gingerhorses!
When Grandma had most of the leaves raked out of the back yard and piled by the road, we were ready to finish stringing the apple tree lights across the front. Before we put up the first ones, we tested all the lights to make sure they were working. There were three strings that didn’t light up fully. Grandpa was able to fix two of them, so we could use them to finish up. We put up the clothesline tree in the gap between our other trees. When we were done, Grandma tied red ribbons to the light strings stretched in the gaps, so nobody would run into them!
Last Sunday, Grandma and Grandpa took me to the bay after church. Grandma cleared the last leaves off the lawn and Grandpa cut the grass for the last time this year. The water level has gone down some more. Now there isn’t even any water in the boathouse! I made friends with the flock of Canada geese in front of the boathouse. Grandma says they were taking a rest after practicing formation flying. When we came back into town on Monday, Grandma made gluten free Christmas scones to freeze until our stollen party, just before Christmas.
Yesterday was a busy day! One of our church friends is looking for a new place to live. She needed a place to keep her family’s piano until she gets settled. We know how to be a foster family for a piano because we had Uncle David’s piano while he was in Japan. So yesterday we took in another foster piano! Snow was predicted, but it hadn’t started when the piano crew came. They got the piano out of their truck on a dolly and rolled it up the driveway. Grandma and Grandpa had moved furniture to give them a clear path from the garage to the living room. The piano crew unwrapped the piano, put the legs and pedals back on, and lifted it upright.
Grandma decided the best place for our foster piano was the corner across the living room from her piano. This piano is longer than Grandma’s piano, so it sticks out a little more, even on a slant. John-san is the piano’s uncle, and he came along to make sure the move went smoothly. This piano’s legs attached with recessed bolts. Nobody had a socket wrench handy, but John-san’s tire iron fit the bolts perfectly! After the piano was in place, I made friends with Juan-san, the piano crew chief.
After the piano crew left, Grandma and I made a shopping trip to Wegmans! Last Sunday, the children at our church made the 2023 Reverse Advent Calendar. For every day in Advent, we put a different item of food in our Advent basket from the “most needed” list of our local food shelf. Grandma made a shopping list that grouped everything we needed by location in the store, so we could buy everything in one trip to have ready. We started with the health and beauty items and worked our way from there. Aisle Nine had a LOT of the most-needed items!
When we had collected all the items for the Reverse Advent Calendar, Grandma did a little more shopping just for us. Then we checked everything out! Guess what? While we were shopping, the snow started!
Now my Advent box is all ready for the end of this week. That’s when we decorate the Christmas tree at church and our apple tree lights turn on, too!
Love,
Lion-san