The Many Days of Christmas

Christmas in the Fein household during even years, such as 2010, seem to go on and on and on since we make the journey down to Las Vegas to visit Raina's family. Shopping, baking, wrapping etc all needs to be completed early so that we can get out of Washington the week prior to Christmas.

Every 2-3 years, I resurrect my mom's tradition of making caramels for the holidays and this year it was time. Mostly because I wanted to eat them. Since the process entails standing over a boiling pot of sugar for 2-3 hours, I really need to be committed to the process and in my 2010 commitment I decided to double the recipe which in hindsight was practically suicidal. Half way through the process, I started to add the requisite cream and in doing so the mixture immediately froths and if not careful will boil over the edges. It quickly became apparent that it would not all fit in my largest pot so I had to take out another and move through the steps extra slow to so all the frothiness remained contained. Picture me standing over the stove top, wearing rubber gloves to fend off the heat and random splatters, stirring two pots at the same time to prevent burning for nearly 2 hours.

I manage to live through the 3 hour affair only to have the very last drops of 144 degree sticky caramel drip onto my left thumb as I transfer the pot to the stink. I tell you, that 2" long blister was not pretty. But my caramels were in the end!

This year we got a "big" Christmas tree, about 7', which seemed huge compared to the previous several years with 2-3 footers, although once we set it up in the room with the highest ceiling it suddenly looked smallish. It was really nice to use almost all of our ornaments though, many of which are from our own childhoods. Harrison kept pointing to a rocking horse and proclaiming, "neigh, neigh!" and the little bears received a resounding "roar!"

As an only child, naturally we spoiled Harrison with lots of gifts. Mom thought it best to wrap everything separately to maximize the gift opening experience and then realized it could take 8 hours to get through it all with a 2 year old. So the two nights before we left for Las Vegas, we had Harrison "practice" for Christmas and start opening our gifts. He didn't object in the least. I got him several musical instruments and once he opened them all, he resisted opening anymore and instead enjoyed a musical buffet, playing them for 3 seconds, placing them back in the pile and rotating through until he could start it all over again.