Tag: Christmas

St. Augustine: A Few More Tidbits

St. Augustine: A Few More Tidbits

I want to tell you just a bit more about our last night in St. Augustine, what a jolly madhouse it was in our little beach house. Bunny and I sat around together trying to remind each other of old Christmas memories, things the other 

St. Augustine: Day Two

St. Augustine: Day Two

On our second full day in St. Augustine the weather finally started to warm up, and I was so glad. That first night we were there, Sunday night, I had felt so sad when we passed the historic district all lit up with Christmas lights; 

St. Augustine: Day One

St. Augustine: Day One

A little boy holding some stuffed animals on a couch
Jake and some of his cuddle pals relaxing in the beach house

The day after Christmas my family (Kris, Phil, Sophie, Jake, Bun, Matt, and Mom) and I took a trip to St. Augustine and stayed in a cute little coral-colored beach house. It was bitter cold when we arrived on Sunday afternoon, and I was worried our whole trip would be ruined by the weather–but it wasn’t. It turned out to be one of my favorite after-Christmas trips ever.

We did a few things on Sunday–like going to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum and playing Cheese Touch (a board game) with Jake–but our first big day was Monday, and that’s where I’ll start my little post. We played in the beach house until about 10 and then we went into town, to the historic district, and poked around the little tourist shops.
 
Sophie was so cute that day in her new knit hat with the owl eyes. She and I went into Body Candy, a little shop that was selling edible body scrubs and dusting powders. Well, it wasn’t actually a shop; it was more of a booth. But the booth kind of looked like a gingerbread house, with strawberry wafer cookies for shutters, and the nice lady working there gave us free samples.
 
She was holding a fat, fluffy makeup brush, and she said kindly, “Would you like to try our dusting powder? It’s 100 percent edible and delicious.”
 
We nodded, and she brushed a bit of powder on the backs of our hands.
 
Sophie licked her powder off in a sweet, charming, demure sort of way. She licked very politely. Then her eyes lit up. “Mmm, that’s good,” she said.
 
Sophie never wants to buy anything (she’s a very practical, no-nonsense child), but she wanted to buy the dusting powder, which tasted exactly like powdered sugar.
 
“Maybe I should get this for my souvenir,” she said. “Mommy said I could get a souvenir.”
 
“It is delicious,” I said. “And it makes a nice dusting powder too. So it seems a wise investment. I approve.”
 
But Sophie decided she should think the decision over for a while.
 
Next the friendly lady gave us a little sample pot of edible body scrub to try. Sophie took a little bite from a tiny pink plastic spoon. I took a bite too. The scrub had a sweet, sugary, buttery flavor.
 
Sophie is the fussiest eater in the world and pretty much hates all food, but she kept snacking out of her little sample pot of edible body scrub even as we walked on to other shops. Her eyes were so bright; there was a spring in her step. She had finally found a food she liked!
 
“Isn’t it good?” she said.
 
“It’s quite nice,” I agreed.
 
She told me she was now thinking about getting the edible body scrub for her souvenir.
 
“I probably won’t scrub with it though,” she said, giggling shyly. “I’ll probably just eat it.”
 
“Well, that’s okay,” I said.
 
Oh, I just loved it. Sophie had finally found the food for her: edible body scrub!
 
Another interesting shop we visited was the Theatre Magic Shop, where the clerk suddenly came out from behind the cash register and put on a little magic show for us customers. The show was quite impressive and involved a wallet that burst into flames, a levitating quarter, and a ball that turned into two balls. The clerk was a dapper little man in a black turtleneck and a red satin vest, and Sophie was chosen to be his assistant, a job she took very seriously. Sophie was fascinated by the whole experience and kept talking about it the whole day, speculating about how the tricks were done. She began to dream about going back to the shop and purchasing the levitating quarter kit as her souvenir. I knew it wouldn’t be a waste of money. Sophie is the rare type of smart, determined child who will actually practice a magic trick over and over until she masters it. And in the end, after much debate, she did go back to the shop with her mother and make a purchase.
 
At about noon we went to the St. Augustine Pirate and Treasure Museum, and a really funny thing happened there. A costumed interpreter, dressed as a pirate, was walking around the museum, answering questions, and Phil stopped him and complimented him on his knee socks. Phil is so shy (he never says anything), so I was really surprised when I heard him talking to the pirate, saying, “Those are some nice socks. They sure look warm. Do you think I might be able to find a pair like that myself?”
 
“Arrr!” the pirate said. “I got them at the Pirate Shop just around the corner.”
 
Well, Phil was pumped. He was so excited, he even talked to me about it. (Phil never talks to me.) “I think I’ll head over the Pirate Shop,” he said. “It’s just around the corner. The guy said he got his socks there, and they look pretty good. Nice and warm, 100 percent wool. I think I might pick up a pair.”
 
And then he was off. He left the museum and went sock shopping. He was kind of a hilarious sight, headed down the sunny sidewalk. Phil hates being cold, so he was dressed for his day of shopping in bright yellow insulated fishing coveralls with a bulky FSU jacket crammed into them. Oh, and he was sporting a tall, colorful fleece hat. We had all chuckled at his outfit earlier that morning.
 
“Yeah,” Matt had said to him, “but at least you won’t look like a tourist, right?”
 
Phil spent half the day sock shopping along St. George Street on his own (apparently he had trouble finding that pirate shop), and I kept laughing every time I caught a glimpse of him up ahead in his coveralls. Here’s yet another reason the whole situation was so funny: Phil usually hates to spend money. In fact, he deplores it. But he was going for it on vacation; he was in hot pursuit of those pirate socks.
 
At the Pirate Museum gift shop, Jake picked out his souvenir–a little stuffed turtle with a striped pirate scarf and an eye patch. Jake named him Turtleson and loved him and felt sorry for him right away. For the next several hours he made his mother talk for Turtleson and answer his kindly questions.
 
“Turtleson,” Jake said, “have you ever lived in a house before?”
 
“No,” Kris/Turtleson said. “I never had the opportunity . . . because nobody ever bought me.”
 
“Why didn’t anybody buy you?” Jake asked sweetly, sympathetically.
 
“I don’t know,” Turtleson said. “Maybe they didn’t like my scarf. Or maybe it was my eye patch. . . . I’m sorry I have an eye problem, Jake. I hope you’re not disappointed.”
 
“I’m not disappointed,” Jake told his turtle. ” I think you’re perfect.”
 
“Thank you, Jake,” Turtleson said.
 
We had lunch at a little place called Pizzalley’s, and Jake and Turtleson chatted throughout the meal.
 
While we waited for our food, Jake asked, “Turtleson, have you ever had pizza?”
 
Turtleson said no in his sad-sack way.
 
“Well, you can have some today!” Jake cried happily. “It’s good! . . . And have you ever tried water? . . . Why don’t you have some right now?” And he gave the little turtle a sip from his paper cup.
 
Later I could hear Jake chattering to his turtle as we walked down the freezing, windy little streets. He said, “Turtleson, have you ever been in a bed before?”
 
And Turtleson said, “No, Jake. Can you tell me about it?”
 
“It’s soft, Turtleson,” Jake said. “And comfortable. I think you will like it. You can snug there all day, okay? Under the covers.”
 
“Thanks, Jake,” Turtleson said in his heartrending style. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
 
That night we played all kinds of games in the beach house, including Cheese Touch and Luck of the Draw. And Bun and I played Liv dolls with Sophie.
 
The Liv dolls are glamorous teens and Sophie had her doll say the most hilarious teen-ish things, like, “Oh no, you did not just go there.”
 
My poor doll was the hated one, “the foil,” as Bunny said. Everything she did was uncool according to the other dolls. My doll could not catch a break, and the other dolls always had annoying advice for her. At one point Sophie’s doll said to her, “Maybe if you were nicer, people might open up to you more.”
 
My doll stole Sophie’s doll’s prom dress and strode into the school cafeteria wearing it. I had her say to herself, “If nobody gives me a compliment on my dress, I am going to storm out of here. I owe that much to myself.”
 
Oh, the cattiness that followed! Oh, the drama!
 
It was really fun playing Liv dolls. We were still playing when Sophie’s mother told her she had to go to bed.
 
“Here,” Sophie said sweetly, reluctantly handing me her doll. “You guys can keep playing.”
 
I loved that, that she thought two middle-aged women might keep playing dolls together without her. But we did! We actually did. Bunny and I stayed up till midnight styling all the girls’ wigs and dressing them to the nines. And then we posed them in a nice way, not a teasing way. Each doll got to hold something, a little plastic pet rabbit, a little book. . . . One held a kumquat, but it was supposed to be a cantaloupe. This was my idea because we ran out of props.
 
Bun and I were so proud, but Sophie did not appreciate our work. The next morning she rushed into the living room, spied her dolls, and snatched them up. She threw them in their box in a huff. Then she cried, “I can’t believe you people! Haven’t you learned anything?!” (She was referring to the events of Christmas Day, when Bun, Matt, and I dressed Jake’s Darth Vader clock radio in a Liv Doll wig and Sophie ended up pouting and fake-crying in her closet.)
 
Sophie threw the kumquat at me.
 
“But it was supposed to be a cantaloupe!” I protested.
 
“I don’t like kumquats!” she yelled. “I don’t like cantaloupes!” But she was trying not to smile.
 
 
A little boy holding a stuffed turtle
Jake and Turtleson, a match made in heaven
A grandmother and her two grandchildren, with a photo bomber behind them
I believe only Mom is aware of the nerd in the window.
A Kimel Christmas

A Kimel Christmas

On Christmas morning I got up really early and planted 12 Shi-Shi Gashira sasanquas under the pindo palms near our pond. I was running around in the sparkling dew, petting Maggie and Babs in between plantings and wishing them a merry Christmas. Greg was sitting 

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was so exciting–because it was the beginning of everything, the beginning of all the fun, the beginning of all my days off, my sweet, precious vacation. I spent the morning happily cleaning up cat throw up. Kris and I met at Mom’s house 

Mom’s Christmas Date Balls

Mom’s Christmas Date Balls


I heart my Bumble!

On Saturday Kris and Sophie had a Christmas crafting party. It was a freezing, gloomy, dark day, so it was so nice to spend it inside Kris’s warm, cozy house, which was all decorated with lush garlands and wreaths and a big sparkly Christmas tree.

Sophie looked so cute at the party. She answered the door in a little black ruffled mini skirt, leopard-print leggings, a sequined T-shirt, and sequined tennis shoes. Then she donned a striped elf hat complete with pointy elf ears.
The ears were flesh-colored plastic and quite realistic.
“Don’t those look like Sophie’s real ears?” Kris said.
Sophie handed me and Kris some handmade tickets (the writing in pink magic marker) and motioned to us to follow her upstairs to her room. There we were treated to one of the weirdest “shows” I have ever seen. Sophie became a “burrower”—an odd, ornery creature she apparently dreamed up some days ago—and the burrower did a sort of magic show for us (it involved a magic wand and a bag of Skittles). The burrower had an unpredictable, menacing nature and was apt to hit us with the magic wand if she felt like it. The burrower was also mute and had the craziest way of walking (more like rolling), and she often made angry faces at us.
“Well,” I said to Kris, “this is certainly one of the more unusual performances I’ve ever witnessed.”
The burrower did not care for my reaction and I was hit with the magic wand.
Finally, Sophie broke character and said, “Mommy, do you have Bunny’s ticket?”
“Oh, yes,” Kris said. “I’ll give it to her as soon as she gets here. Boy, is she in for a treat.” (She was rolling her eyes.)
As soon as Bunny arrived, Sophie dragged her upstairs for the performance. Downstairs we could hear the magic wand making its maniacal sounds and Bunny laughing—then squawking when she got hit with the wand.
Sophie had set up the buffet table in the dining room with all sorts of goodies. There was a three-tiered serving dish arranged with Jelly Bellies, gummy worms, and homemade thumbprint cookies. (Sophie had carefully arranged each individual gummy worm.) There were creampuffs and fancy brownies and peppermint-flavored marshmallow Peeps, cherries and blackberries, crackers and cheese, French bread with olive oil, chips and salsa, and hot cider. Mom brought buttery pecan balls, and I brought date balls and chocolate-covered cherries.
I kept referring to my date balls as “poo balls,” because, frankly, that’s what they looked like. “Hey, Bun,” I said, “come try one of my holiday poo balls. They look terrible, but they taste really good.”
“Wow,” she said, taking a bite, “that’s a nice poo ball.”
I brought the chocolate-covered cherries for sentimental reasons–because Santa always brought them when we were kids. He’d bring us chocolate-covered cherries with liquid—not cream—centers. He’d also bring us Andes candies—both the mints and the toffees. And all kinds of nuts in their shells. And fancy fruit. But the chocolate-covered cherries were our favorites, and during Christmas vacations we always lived on a steady diet of them.
I convinced Jake to try a chocolate-covered cherry and he got the most delighted look on his face.
“Pretty awesome, right?” I said.
He nodded, smiling shyly. His mouth was full.
“I knew Jake would like them,” I said to Rob. “Because Jake is 100 percent Kimel. And it’s in the genes—Kimels love chocolate-covered cherries.”
Rob and I really hogged out on the buffet. We hadn’t eaten anything that day except for a few of my homemade poo balls, so we were starving and we couldn’t stop stuffing our faces with bread and crackers and blackberries. I ate so many jelly beans and cherries.
Sophie said, “Mommy, I know why nobody’s drinking any of your cider. It’s because you put it in that weird crock pot.”
Rob chimed in: “There’s nothing wrong with that crock pot, Sophie. It’s just really old. Kris just got it from the secondhand store, right, Kris? You just got it from Goodwill or something, right?”
“Uh, actually I got it for my wedding,” Kris said, laughing. (We were all laughing.) “I believe it was actually brand new.”
I loved that exchange. It was so typical, so classic. A lot of times when Rob is trying to comfort you, he’ll really put his foot in his mouth. He’ll end of inadvertently insulting you. But he has the best intentions.
We got started with our crafting. Kris had a great selection of craft projects for us to choose from. There were ceramic ornaments, little light-up paper churches, and little wooden trains—all ready to paint. There were felt ornaments to assemble and balsa wood ornaments to color. There were even Glitter-by-Numbers kits.
Rob got started painting a train. He kept messing up. “Okay, I’m doing a terrible job here,” he said.
“You should put glitter on it,” I said. “Glitter covers a multitude of sins.”
“I’m not putting glitter on it,” Rob said firmly. “This is a good old-fashioned all-American train.”
“Fine,” I said. And I encouraged other people to put glitter on their ornaments.
But Rob kept fussing and fretting over his train. “Okay,” he said. “The yellow is totally not covering up the red. So I guess these red globs are here to stay. I guess I’m going to have to learn to live with them.”
“I still say you should put glitter on it,” I said. “You could totally hide those globs with some well-placed glitter.”
But Rob refused. He seemed to think glitter use was somehow unmanly.
I put glitter all over the ceramic Christmas ball I was painting–and I did a wonderfully sloppy job of it too.
Bunny was being her typical perfectionist self. All the ornaments she made were absolutely flawless. And each took her forever to finish and involved a lot of thought and suffering. She made a perfect little felt penguin. Then she started on a ceramic gingerbread boy. Oh, you should have seen how long it took her to paint the boy. She did coat after perfect coat. Then she added the tiniest amount of snowy glitter. Carefully, patiently, she brushed the excess glitter away with a delicate dry paintbrush.
Kris was teasing her: “Oh, look, now she’s using archeology tools!”
Bunny cried, “Don’t make fun of me! I have a mental disorder!”
Meanwhile, I was sitting at the kitchen table burning my fingers with the hot glue gun and accidentally sticking sequins to the table. I am the messiest, most untalented crafter.
Jake is addicted to computer games. So he kept leaving the party for extended periods to sit in Kris’s studio and play by himself.
“Jake, get back in here!” Kris would yell.
“Yeah!” I’d call. “Quit ripping us off! We thought we were going to get to hang out with you today!”
Jake was wearing a little red sweater vest and his little glasses. He looked so cute. He finally came out of the studio and whizzed his way through a ceramic Christmas tree. He added glitter and jewels and paint in about five seconds, but the tree turned out great! Jake is very creative.
“Oh, what a marvelous tree,” I said. “Let’s have a contest. Whoever makes the worst ornament wins Jake’s Christmas tree! I think I’m a shoo-in for the prize!”
Jake didn’t like that idea. So I kept asking him to simply give me the tree for a Christmas present.
But he didn’t go for that either.
Rob was making a felt gingerbread boy. “I added these jeweled buttons,” he said sheepishly. “And I could put this jeweled butterfly on his pants, but maybe that wouldn’t be a very good idea.”
Sophie was mixing her own colors to paint her ceramic ornaments and a little wooden train. She mixed a beautiful light blue-green and a pale lavender. Her colors were lovely.
As Sophie worked, she and Kris told us about how they had had to start over four times on their thumbprint cookies. “Mommy kept reading the recipe wrong!” Sophie cried.
Rob kept disappearing into the dining room to gorge himself on bread and Camembert. He was starving. Later Sophie started accusing Bunny of stealing the bread.“Hey, where did all the bread go?” Sophie cried. “Bunny stole it! She put it in her purse!”

Of course, Sophie knew that Bunny didn’t steal the bread, but she liked the idea of Bunny stealing the bread. She liked to picture perfect, straight-laced moral little Bunny sneaking bread off the buffet into her hippie bag. Rob and I had basically inhaled the entire array of party food, but Sophie accused Bunny of stealing the bread. I guess what made it so funny is that Bunny was the least likely suspect. But Sophie insisted:
“Bunny, you took it!” she cried. “You put it in your purse! You wanted to take it home and feed it to your chicken!”
Sophie loves to tease Bunny. She’s always saying she’s taller than Bunny. (Sophie’s nine).
Throughout the party, we were listening to Christmas music on the radio. I announced that my favorite Christmas song was “Last Christmas” by Wham, but everybody already knew that.
“Duh,” Kris said.
“What’s your favorite Christmas song, Sophie?” I asked.
“This one,” Sophie said. We listened. Gayla Peevey was singing “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.”
Rob was surprised at Sophie’s choice, but I reminded him, “Rob, Sophie is a lovable goofball. Of course this is her favorite Christmas song.”
While we were crafting, Kris and I told Rob some funny stories about our college years. We didn’t have a car back then, so we walked everywhere. We’d walk five miles to go out dancing at the Club Park Avenue. One Wednesday night in November 1987, we walked there in the pouring, freezing rain. It was after midnight and we were in the midst of a monsoon! Mom had bought us these cheap little disposable ponchos and we were wearing those over our going-out outfits. They were so cheap, as thin as Saran Wrap.
I said, “It was pouring, but we were having fun. We were jumping in the puddles and catching raindrops on our tongues, and then this huge bolt of lightning struck. It struck right there, like three feet away from us. We almost died. But we didn’t turn around.”
“Our cheap shoes were so wet,” Kris. “And the dye turned our feet all black.”
“And, I mean, the rain was murder on our spiked hairdos,” I said. “We must have looked so terrible when we finally arrived at the club.”
“I like how you guys were acting like complete babies, splashing in the puddles,” Rob smiled.
“We were babies,” I said. “After all, I couldn’t even drive.” I went on: “We’d always go into the Ramada Inn, which was next door to the club, and re-spike our hair in the bathroom off the lobby.”
“We thought the hotel authorities would never notice us,” Kris said. “We thought we’d blend right in with the guests.”
“Even though we were wearing fishnets and were clearly drunk,” I said.
“We’d spend like an hour in the bathroom, working on our hair,” Kris said.
“And reapplying our lipstick,” I added. “I never blotted. I always had lipstick on my teeth.”
Sophie told us to quit talking.
She invited me up into her room, where she promptly proceeded to lock me in her closet.
When I finally escaped, Kris asked me where I’d been.
“Sophie had me locked in her closet!” I cried breathlessly.
“You were locked in a closet with an un-lock-able folding door?” Kris said. “How’s that?”
“I don’t know!” I cried. “But I was afraid to come out! Sophie became the burrower again and she intimidated me!”
Date balls taste better than they look.
Mom’s Christmas Date Balls
Ingredients:
1 stick vegan butter
1 cup brown sugar
16 oz chopped dates
1 cup coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
2 cups Rice Krispies
1 tsp vanilla
1 dash salt
Powdered sugar
Directions:
Mix butter, sugar, and dates in a pan and cook over low heat until the mixture bubbles. Cook 5 minutes longer. Remove from stove and add pecans, coconut, Rice Krispies, vanilla, and salt. Roll in small balls. Roll balls in powdered sugar.
Tree-Trimming Party

Tree-Trimming Party

Mom had a tree-trimming party on Friday night. The usual folks were there—Mom, Kris, Sophie, Jake, Bunny, Matt, and me. I was one of the first to arrive. I came over right after work and the living room was already full of the old, familiar boxes of ornaments.

Mom’s Christmas Pecan Balls

Mom’s Christmas Pecan Balls

I’d like to take time out from my England-trip posts to say how happy I was to be home this weekend. I got to do all my favorite things: play with the cats, garden, and bake cookies!