The Elf Blog

Happy Halloween

Have a wonderful evening!  Trick-or-treat safely.  Celebrate joyously.

For those who follow the old path, Happy Samhain.  May the turning of the year bring you back to center.

Blessed be.

Thanksgiving Preparation

Thanksgiving is four weeks from today. If you are travelling and have not yet bought tickets, you must do that immediately.

If you are hosting, you need to start your basic preparations:

• Decide on your guest list and extend invitations.

• Begin deciding your menu. If you are doing the standard turkey, you will need to decide on side dishes, the type of stuffing, and desserts.  If you have an all day gathering, you may need to plan breakfast, appetizers, and snacks as well.

• Unearth your serving ware, silver, and table linens.  You may not have used them since last Christmas, so they could be tough to find.  If you've never hosted before, you may find that you need to purchase some serving pieces or linens. (World Market is a great place for inexpensive, yet attractive, table linens.) Make sure you have enough place settings for the number of people invited.  Expect to need extra glasses.

• If you will be serving wine or other alcohol, you will want to watch specials so you can make a good purchase.

Christmas Countdown -- Eight Weeks

Hard to believe, but Christmas is only eight weeks away.  In the past weeks, you've ordered and planned and scheduled and made lists.  Now it's time to start acting.

• If possible, consider setting up a "Christmas Command Center" where you can keep your projects organized, including crafts, cards, and gift wrapping.
• You should be working on any Christmas crafts.
• Make a list of all gifts that will need to be shipped.
• Begin shopping -- with emphasis on the gifts to be shipped.
• Pull your recipe file and begin sorting out the recipes you may want to try this year.
• Get your cards out (or purchase them), gather return address stickers, and prepare your address list to create labels or start hand addressing.

Halloween Safety

With only three days left until Halloween, it's time to make final safety preparations:

• If you have kids who will be trick or treating, check your weather forecast for Friday evening to make sure that they will be warm enough.  Consider putting a few layers of fleece or a turtle neck or long underwear underneath a costume.  If rain is expected, make sure you have plenty of umbrellas handy.
• Everyone who will be on the streets should have plenty of reflective tape on their costumes.  Buy a role at a home improvement store and stick it all over.  Glowsticks can add to a costume AND make you more visible.  Of course, several flashlights are a requirement.
• Make sure that a costume isn't so long or cumbersome that the wearer is likely to trip and fall.  Hospitals are not fun on Halloween.
• Makeup allows better vision than masks.
• Make sure that no parts of a costume flutter.  If they do, exercise exceptional care around candles or other flames.
• Limit use of candles in decorating.  If you do use them, make sure they are enclosed.
• Keep all pets inside after dark on Halloween.  Don't let a pet outside unless you are right there.
• Always trick or treat in neighborhoods you know and immediately toss any unwrapped candy.
• Enjoy the frights, but be careful of those who have a lower "scare threshhold."

Have a spooky, but safe, Hallloween.

Halloween Parties!

If you are having a Halloween party this weekend, you have already invited your guests.  Now it's time to finalize everything else.

Decorations are a first step.  You can go the autumn route or the scary route, depending on the folks who attend.  You'll certainly want pumpkins, gourds, and jack o'lanterns.  Consider using battery-operated lights in the jack o'lanterns for saftey.  Beware of purchasing hay bales from farms as decorative accents.   These hay bales often come with univited party guests -- mice.  On the other hand, old pots filled with water and dry ice look scary and clean themselves up!

As for food, there's a practice of trying to make it look scary.  I don't want my food to be frightening -- and I certainly don't want it to look like an insect.  I'm a big fan of keeping Halloween party food simple finger food with an emphasis on fall flavors.  For example, pumpkin cupcakes and apples with caramel dipping sauce, cocktail meatballs and hot dogs, suqash dip with toasted pitas, mixed toasted nuts spiced with chili powder.  Keep things simple, with an emphasis on preparing beforehand, especially if the party is Friday night.  Consider buying simple appetizers from a local restaurant or seasonal goodies from a bakery.  If you want to be eerie, make a nice red wine punch and toss in a few chunks of food grade dry ice.  It will make the punch smoke (and keep it cold), but it won't affect the flavor.

Whatever you do, the key is making sure that you are having a good time.  If you are stressed, your guests will be too!

The Beauty of Soup

For years, I avoided making homemade soup because I thought it was hard to make.  Since most canned soup is way too salty for me, that meant I did without soup.

This is most unfortunate as soup is a most excellent and versatile food.  On it's own or with a sandwich, it makes a fine lunch.  Paired with a salad, it's a light dinner.  It can also be a good first course in a larger meal.  Reheated, it's a great snack, especially on a chilly day.

It's also ridiculously easy to make if you use storebought broth.  Buy a decent non-fat, low sodium brand of stock (I like the resealable containers) and you are good to go.  Several brands even make good vegetable stocks, so making vegetarian soups is really easy.

All soups have four basic steps:

1. Saute the aromatics (onions, garlic, spices, sausage, etc.) in some oil until soft. You can deglaze the pan with broth, wine, or a light vinegar).
2. Add the liquid -- usually broth, possibly supplemented with crushed or peeled tomatoes, tomato juice, or milk.
3. Add the floaters -- things like chopped veggies or cubed already cooked meat or potatoes.
4. Thicken.  Once the veggies are soft enough, you will probably want to thicken the soup a bit.  You can do this by adding rice or noodles or by taking out a few cups of the soup, running it through the blender, and pouring it back into the soup.  that thickens it up nicely without changing the flavor.

Ta da.  You just made soup.  Wasn't as hard as you thought, huh?

Giving Before Christmas

This blog post comes to you from the inspiration of regular reader, Jeanie, who just happens to be one of the kindest and most generous people I know. Her name is on Santa's nice list in ink.

She pointed out that, given the economic situation, homeless shelters are full and the agencies that help the needy are in desperate straits.  If you can help with a financial contribution, please do.  If money is tight, there are other ways to help.

• When you are cleaning out your cabinets and pantry, set aside some of the canned or non-perishable food you are unlikely to use in the near future and donate it to a food bank.
• Take advantage of buy-one, get-one specials at the grocery stores, with special attention to food bank basics like rice, beans, tuna, and powdered milk.
• If you know that you plan to replace clothing items at Christmas, please consider donating the old ones.  Especially useful are coats, hats, scarves, gloves or mittens, sweaters, and sneakers or heavy shoes.
• Many agencies also accept household goods that they resell in thrift stores. 
• If you have blankets in good shape, many homeless shelters will accept them. 
• If they aren't in the best shape (say they have a small stain or are a bit worn), consider donating them to an animal shelter.  Animal shelters accept blankets, towels, and sheets to help the animals feel cozy and loved.  Due to the foreclosures, animal shelters are extremely full.

None of us alone can do everything, but each of us can do something.  And together, we can make a difference.

Christmas Countdown -- 9 Weeks

Christmas Eve is 9 weeks from today.  That means its time to finish off the staging part of your planning:

• Finalize your Christmas card list, making sure you have accurate addresses.
• Update your calendar to include all major holiday events -- church choir rehearsals, school hoiday programs, office parties, travel, etc. 
• Block out a few days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Schedule NOTHING on those days.  At some point in the season, you'll want a quiet evening at home.
• If you plan a Christmas party, let folks know they should hold the date.  Of course, that means you need to pick a date!
• If you are making any gifts, start your crafting.  Starting early is the easiest way to limit stress. 

A Political Party

The U.S. general election is two weeks away.  What better way to spend the night of November 4th than watching the results come in?  If you are in the East, you'll be up quite late.  On the west coast and beyond, results will start coming in early in the evening.

If you plan to have a party, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Invite people who, even if they don't share political viewpoints, can be civil.  You do not want to have to call the police to break up a fight.
• You'll want at least one tv and one computer on so that folks can get up to the minute info.
• If folks are going to be up late, make sure there's plenty of caffeine and double-check alertness before you let anyone drive home.
• If you are particularly ambitious, a dry-erase board for an electoral vote count or a map wall chart you can color code make nice accessories.

For food, try things related to the candidates:  Chicago hot dogs or deep dish pizza, kielbasa and pierogis, cactus candies, smoked salmon, and, of course, six packs and lattes.  (As a note, you can buy Alaska game meats online and have them flown in.  Search it.  I will not point you toward them because most sell reindeer meat and Rudolph would never forgive me.)

A fun thing to do is to make a batch of cupcakes (mix is fine) and leave them unfrosted.  Mix up a batch of white icing and put small amounts into two bowls.  Using regular food coloring, dye one small bowl blue and one red.  Allow your guests to frost with the party of their choice!  (You can hold the extra frosting to refill bowls as they run out.)

Ode to a Calendar

I have to admit, I'm always amazed when people tell me they don't have a calendar. I honestly have no idea how they get through the day.  Now, by calendar, I don't necessarily mean something you hang on the wall with pictures of bunnies, puppies, and kitties (though I am most fond of all of the above). Your calendar can be print or electronic.  I have friends who keep their calendar in personal digital assistants or in their cell phone.  The key is that you need to be able to enter task/appointments and times and you should be able to review at least a week with relative ease.

As soon as you commit to anything, it should go on the calendar.  I don't care if it's six months out.  It goes on the calendar.  If you are tentatively considering something major -- a couple days out of town or the like, get it on the calendar as quickly as possible.  Keep everything in one place.  This is especially important for families.  The last thing you want to deal with is to try to collate work travel, soccer games, drama practice, and dentist appointments from multiple lists.  You'll screw it up and make yourself nuts in the process.  If it's complicated, put it all on one huge calendar and do your handheld calendars off that.  You can even color code for each person.

Once I have appointments in place, I like to add the tasks I know I need to accomplish in a given week. For example, library books must be returned by Friday.  I need to grocery shop on Thursday.  The dry cleaning will be ready Saturday.  The Halloween costumes must be sewn by Sunday night.  I actually schedule these tasks in and give myself a visual reminder. I have blog topics listed a few weeks out, just to keep me thinking.  Some people even use their calendar to plan meals or what they'll wear each day.  I'm not that organized!

Let's face it.  We're all way too busy.  If we try to rely on our memories, we're asking for disaster.  Write it down and make it a point to check your calendar a couple of times a day.  You'll be amazed at what you've forgotten.

And the most important point of all, each month, mark a day or two off as "no appointment" days.  You need a break. Give yourself one.