December 2009

Birthday & Christmas


Happy Birthday Sean!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of our friends and family.

We are spending Christmas with family & friends in Cincinnati.  Here are some photos of the trip.

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Spice

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There is an unusual house around the corner from ours.  It’s clear that no one lives there but there are no signs or other indications as to what goes on, aside from the random times when a piece of green posterboard is in the front window with the writing “Yes, We’re Open”.  Out of curiosity Chris stopped by one day and as soon as he opened the door the smell made it clear that this is The Spice House.  It is run by Ruth and her husband, the ones who started the Penzey spice empire before they gave the name to their children.  Ruth is also a neighbor of ours on Kavanaugh who loves children, so we always take Everett with us when we visit.  She has a rather unobtrusive website that advertises spices and the local group that has made them over the years: http://www.kavanaugh-hill-spices.com/.

We purchase spices from Ruth throughout the year but especially around Christmas as Melissa makes batch after batch of rosemary shortbread cookies and Chris prepares our first gingerbread houses since moving to Wisconsin.  This Christmas will be Everett’s first time making gingerbread houses, which has been a tradition of Chris’ for about 20 years, except for last year which was so hectic we ended up just making cookies instead.  We will be in Cincinnati for Christmas and so will be making them there with friends and family.  The tradition of making gingerbread houses was introduced to Chris by the Jacoby family.  The entire enterprise was led by Mr. Jacoby, a fun-loving, gregarious man who made dozens of gingerbread houses each year for each of his three children and their friends and families (Chris was good friends with the second oldest, JT).  He also bought a used fire engine to transport Christmas carolers before and after house construction.  Anyway, Chris picked up the tradition and has introduced it to many other people over the years who have expressed varying levels of enthusiasm, but the Barbers more than anyone else jumped in with both feet and took to it right away.

Chris’ recipe produces gingerbread that is both tasty and meets appropriate engineering standards for sturdy construction (one of the most important points from this report: shortening produces much stronger gingerbread than butter or margarine).  One difference this year was that we used freshly milled spices from the Spice House, which seems like an appropriate way to incorporate our new hometown into this tradition.  Also, this year marks the first time that Chris actually read the baking instructions and subsequently found that they contain some useful information.  We made a village of five houses this year: The Gabbys (Grandad and Grandma Barber), The Butsons (Melissa, Chris, Everett), The Szolwinskis & Birches (Grant, Judy, Matt Jenny, Anna, Adam),The Barbers (Matt, Shawna & Trinity), The Singers (Kirsten, Braden, Bob, Linda).
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Everett wasn’t quite old enough to participate in construction, but he was old enough to taste test a lot of the decorations, and candy consumption was certainly one measure of success.  Another was seeing what each family created from the same pool of raw materials.  Plans are already in the works for next year when house pieces will be precision crafted from CAD drawings using an Epilog laser.

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Santa

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Santa Claus is a tradition that needs little explanation, or so we originally believed.  We thought it was universally accepted that Santa (a.k.a. Saint Nick) is a ruddy, jolly fellow who lives at the North Pole with Mrs. Claus, a frolic of elves and herd of reindeer; the elves and Santa work together all year in preparation for his sleigh ride on the night of December 24th.  But we recently learned that Wisconsin has some of its own traditions with regard to Christmas, one of which is to put your shoes outside your door on the night of December 5th and the next morning you can see if Saint Nicholas left you a gift in them, which is how Everett received his first set of Play-Doh.  Our friends from Wisconsin say this has been a local family tradition for many generations, but we also have several friends from Germany who swear that this originated in Europe.  It goes without saying that both of these theories could be true, especially considering the large German population that has come to Wisconsin over the last two centuries.  Of course, this is a minor discrepancy compared to the Dutch Christmas tradition as described by David Sedaris.  Briefly: Saint Nick is the former Bishop of Turkey who now lives in Spain, he is quite thin and dresses like the Pope, and at some point in November he will arrive by boat and white horse to either put gifts in the children’s clogs or dole out discipline with a switch.  What seems interesting is that some cultures have embraced Santa, some St. Nick and some both.  After doing a little research on the subject it seems that the roots of Santa Claus really are in Saint Nicholas, and that even though some view them as synonymous, Santa began to diverge from Saint Nick about 200 years ago.  The traditions that exist today are an odd mixture of historical facts and fanciful tales.

Whoever you believe in, a natural next question is: where do you find him?  In the U.S. it’s a pretty safe bet that you will find one or two Santas at the nearest mall.  But if you are in Milwaukee then a much better bet is the Santa Rampage, a (semi) organized all day bike tour of the city, the purpose of which is to spread holiday cheer in a convivial, bicycle-friendly atmosphere (average speed this year: 4.43 mph, which factors in several long stops at popular local establishments).

Everett did not meet Santa on the Rampage, partly because it wasn’t exactly an event for children and partly because he was taking a nap.  Instead he met Santa on the East Troy Electric Railroad Christmas Express,
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although they did not exactly hit it off.  In fact, Everett seemed a little freaked out, and I can’t really blame him.  Santa is an oddly dressed stranger in whose lap he must sit for reasons that are not yet clear to him.  There is no time to warm up to each other prior to this meeting because there is a long line of children waiting for the same chance.


The association of Christmas candy and gifts will probably help this relationship in time, but until then Everett seems happier when Santa is viewed at a distance.

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Dance

Everett likes to dance, and over the last few months he has spontaneously come up with several dance moves. He seems to do this for the fun of it rather than for an audience – several times we have walked in the room and found him dancing by himself…

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