In Other Words ... A Christmas Game

Wanna be my "Christmas game idea" focus group?

I’ve mentioned before that I am the group leader of a local TOPS chapter, so for the last several weeks we’ve been discussing how to survive holiday functions and the monumental amounts of food that are involved with any sort of celebration.  Tonight is our last meeting of 2015 so I thought it would be fun to have a games night complete with prizes.  Yes, yes … we are a small group of adults … but who doesn’t like to go home with a little something?

I saw a game online quite some time ago that I thought would be fun to play but of course when I went to look for it again I couldn't find the website (memo to self: Bookmark!).  So I decided to make up my own version ... I'm calling it "In Other Words" ... simply, well known Christmas carol titles explain in "other words".

So back to being my Christmas game guinea pigs focus group … and if you tell me the whole idea really sucks … then my group will have to fall back on word scrambles and bingo.

IN OTHER WORDS – THE GAME 

Can you figure out these 25 well known Christmas Carols when they are described in other words?

For example:

"Evidence of moth munching after sundown"

would translate into ...

O HOLY NIGHT

Get it?

Don’t worry, there are no obscure carols such as “Six White Boomers” – although come to think of it – THAT would have made an awesome bonus question!

DISCLAIMER:

SORRY … there are no prizes for the guinea pigs focus group.

Wanna play?

I think some are easier than others but in no order of difficulty …

1.  Hoping not to visit the dentist during the holidays.

2.  Spanish Christmas Classic

3.  Shut up when it’s dark outside.

4.  A water horse is on my wish list.

5.  Small city in the Middle East.

6.  Tiny male percussionist.

7.  Wife is witnessed cheating on husband with Christmas icon.

8.  Nureyev namesake quadruped with a fortuitous birth defect.

9.  Excuse me?  What was that sound?

10. The opposite of Black Easter.

11. Royal trio from the Far East we be!

12. Ms. Channing or Ms. Burnett of the chimes.

13. Pealing clappers.

14. Also a song by Three Dog Night.

15. German coniferous yuletide symbol.

16. December 14^th to December 25^th.

17. The floor of a ship used to decorate passageways.

18. The color of Elvis Presley’s shoes on December 25^th.

19. Chilly balls of frozen precipitation wearing a top hat.

20. Family matriarch in tragic accident on Christmas Eve.

21. The expected vision of the season is starting to happen.

22. It looks like there will be nary an item for me in my stocking or under the tree.

23. Stonehenge surrounding the pine scented Christmas symbol.

24. Steeple noisemakers – not golden.

25. St. Nick will be arriving in your habitat.

 I know what you are all thinking ...

 If anyone is interested I’ll post the answers tomorrow.

Sunday Christmas Baking - Round DONE!

All that's left now is to make the cake for dessert at Christmas dinner.  I'm always the "dessert bringer".  Secretly, I think it's because it is so much easier to bring veggies, a salad, or a side dish than dessert.  You see, I'm still trying to figure out how this works?  When one of my daughters is hosting the holiday dinner the "host" does the turkey and the rest becomes pot-luck. When it's my turn to host I get to prepare everything and they show up with empty tupperware for leftovers.  (Oh yes, I imposed that rule a long time ago ... you want to take leftovers home?  Bring your own containers 'cause I've had to replenish my supply too often).

So this Sunday the task was Cinnamon Palmiers, Pistachio Pinwheels, Monkey Bars (nothing to do with Christmas but they were a special request) and my Chocolate Baklava.  I found the Baklava recipe quite some time ago and it has definitely become a family fave at Christmas and Easter.

I managed to package everything all up (sorry for the blurry pic ... I really need to remember to put my glasses on when use the camera).  I couldn't resist - I had to put "Naughty" and "Nice" stickers on the containers.

All that's left now is the delivering ...

The munching ...

And, hopefully - no cookie regrets or hangovers!

Sunday Christmas Baking - Round 3

Well, you've got to be tired of hearing it (feel free to tell me to stop whining in the comments), but I'm behind again in my posts.  There are these silly folks around that actually expect me to do social things around Christmas time ... go figure?

Anyway - since I started these baking posts I figured I might as well continue on with the latest batch of baking.

This Sunday it included "Chocolate Peanut Butter (filled) Snowballs".  I don't know what happened but I ran out of filling before I ran out of dough so the few cookies on the bottom are simply "Left-over Dough Butter Cookies" with a few sprinkles on top ... they must have been all right because they disappeared quickly enough.

Then, for the first time I attempted "Cherry Chocolate Rugalah".  They turned out well, but I had to get the hang of rolling them properly and the first batch turned out too big.  No worries, they'll go on the dessert table instead of into the gift packages.

My son-in-law loves "Pineapple Kipfel".  They are a kinda-sorta butter dough filled with pineapple.  His Oma used to make them for him every Christmas (as did my mother when I was growing up).  When his Oma passed away I took over making them for him so he wouldn't miss out.  It was a bit of a challenge since I didn't have a recipe to go by.  Consequently there were a few hit and miss years until I finally figured it out to get the taste and texture right.  This year's batch looks like the best ones and it's the recipe I'll stick to from now on.

I live in a little house and although the kitchen is a fair size it has VERY LIMITED counter space, so since it was a disaster zone anyway and I had some bananas that were a couple of hours away from being zombie bananas I decided to make some "Banana Pistachio Muffins" (okay - they are supposed to be Banana Walnut Muffins but I ran out of walnuts and had some pistachios left over so I improvised).

And lest you think I was kidding about the kitchen being a disaster zone ...

BUT ... I did clean up!!

AND ... I managed to get the tree up.

Saturday I am going to make two small batches of cookies that do not freeze well (so cannot be made too far in advance) and on Sunday I am going to make my Chocolate Baklava.  It is the costliest thing on my list of home made gifts and only a select few (by request) get a small container - the rest is for the dessert table at our family and friends Christmas dinner.

Then they'll all get packaged up ready for delivery throughout the week.  No doubt next year I'll again decide that it's too much work ... and probably do it all over again anyway!

JMW Turner at the AGO

Wow, I can't believe it's already Friday!  I meant to post this on Monday but this week has totally slipped away from me time-wise.

The past few Mondays I have posted my baking adventures in getting ready for Christmas but this Sunday I took a day off from "mom chores" and spent the afternoon at the Art Gallery of Ontario where they were having a special exhibit of JMW Turner paintings.  I'm a big fan of Impressionist Art and Turner always seemed to me to be that bridge between the staid conservatism and those renegade impressionists.  I have seen the movie "Mr. Turner", based on the later years of his life, and thought he was quite a character ... not always like-able and, arguably, not the best painter to ever put brush to canvas ... but he certainly has a firm place in the evolution of 19th century art.

My daughter joined my at the AGO and then, as has become our custom, we enjoyed Dim Sum afterwards, where the new fellow in her life joined us.  I guess she figured she's mellow me out with some art before I got to know this young man.

It was a nice day and (with apologies for my photography skills) I thought I'd share some of my personal favorites from the exhibit ...

His two "Goethean" colour theory canvases together, Shade and Darkness - The Evening of the Deluge, and Light and Darkness (Goethe's Theory)

The Morning After the Deluge - Moses Writing the Book of Genesis.

Close up of the corner of "Light and Darkness". Made me think Turner was about the atmosphere and people in his paintings were an afterthought.

 

 "Hurrah for the whaler Erebus - another fish"

 

"Peace - Burial at Sea". This one prompted some interesting discussion about framing.

My "Fave of the Day" ... "Sunrise with a Sea Monster"

Close up of the "Monster" ... I think he's a cute little bugger

 

How Amazing is This?

Talk about beautiful books - this one is a work of art ...

https://www.facebook.com/cornelluniversitylibrary/videos/10153198135954212/

A Bookish Christmas Tree

One of the members in our local "Little Libraries" community makes crafts.  She posted a picture of this Christmas tree she made out of an old (hopefully, not salvageable) book.  I thought it looked great and would make a lovely and quite festive addition to a bookshelf.  Something about its quaint and old fashioned look appeals to me.

A couple of days ago she posted instructions so I messaged her for permission to post her craft idea on my blog to share with everyone here.  Kindly, she said yes.

Pam's instructions ...

Book Tree Tutorial

What you will need:

- an old book, the older the better
- corrugated cardboard
- zigzag scissors
- a shish-kabob skewer
- a base for your tree (I use candle holders)
- a tree topper (a button or broach)
-glue

Directions:
 

1. Cut squares out in various sizes. My largest size is about 4x4". I used 5 different sizes. I used about 30 pieces book page of each size.
 

2. Cut out about 30 pieces of cardboard. These can be small as they are just to use for spacing between the book pages so you don't have to use as much paper to make the tree look full.
 

3.Cut out one piece of cardboard as big as your biggest piece of paper to use as your base.
 

4. Glue a piece of page to it to cover it up.
 

5. Pierce the center of the base with your skewer.
 

6. Put the squares of paper on the skewer, rotating them each time.
 

7. After every 5 squares, put a piece of cardboard on the skewer.
 

8. Decrease size of square every 30 pieces of paper or so.
 

9. Glue the base to you candle holder.
 

10. Put the topper on.
 

Easy, just time consuming and a bit messy! The bigger the squares you use and the more pieces you use, the bigger tree you will have. I want to make a really big one out of an old music book I found.  If you have any questions, feel free to message me on my craft page: www.facebook.com/pamspersonalizedprezzies

I'm not very crafty but this is something I think I could pull off making!?!?!?!

Christmas Traditions ... True or False?

I saw this on a FaceBook thread.  Now, I didn't fact check, but I sure like the idea of getting a book for Christmas and the chocolate part!

True or false?

Friends!

I've seen this posted on several different sites and a few blogs ...

I figured he (?) needed a friend ...

#GivingTuesday

It's a grey, cold, rainy day here today and I needed some cheering up.  Since today is #Giving Tuesday I thought I'd share ...

Homemade Christmas decoration ... needs some tweeking!

Sunday Christmas Baking - Round Two

So, yesterday was dedicated to more Christmas Baking, this time for the Greek taste buds in the family.

I did manage to get a couple of Christmas themed short stories read (reviews later today, I hope) while waiting for things to come out of the oven.  Reading Christmas stories seemed appropriate somehow.





Yesterday's results ...

Melomakarona (Honey Walnut Cookies) 

And the sampling plate 'cause, you know, you have to taste before you can give them to folks!

Koulouraki (which I always think of as Greek Shortbread)

and Kourabiethes (Walnut Crescents)

 

30/30
NaBloPoMo  DONE!!

TeeHeeHee - LOTR Bar Battle

I'm not a huge fan but even I found this amusing.

Introducing the first annual LOTR dance battle ....

Your Welcome!  :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlh_7Zebha4 

Too Many Books - Not Enough Time

In my opinion this is still the BEST bookstore meltdown EVER!

"There aren't enough bowel movements left"

27/30

Is That a Werd?

Today is going to be a busy day and I have nothing prepared for my daily NaBloPoMo post, until this came up and got me thinking about a quick post.

When my girls played rep sports we spent a lot of time in the car traveling to various sports venues.  Let me tell you they do not call them "travel teams" for nothing!  We enjoyed making up ridiculous stories as we drove along.  I always said someday I would write them out, which I still might.  But spending all that time in the car, especially after long days spend at tournaments, sometimes you get so tired your mouth does not want to work correctly anymore.  Things fall out that make you shake your head and laugh.  Which led to an imaginary world we made up called "Joe-Land" where nothing could be used except combination words to alleviate the stress of trying to think up a perfect word when you're talking.  There were a lot of rules around "Joe-Land" but just to give you an example ... the national sport was "BaBoJengGolf"; Baseball or Basketball (depending on the season)/Bowling/Jenga/Golf.  (Cut us some slack, the girls were young)

ANYWAY ...

I recently wished another blogger I follow a Happy Blog Anniversary.  I simply commented "Happy Blogiversary".  I know I didn't make up that word - I'm not usually that clever - but judging from the comments people had not heard it before ... so ... I'm claiming it as my word for today. 

That just reminded me of another word I read in a book (Red Tide by Jeff Lindsay) recently, that I meant to comment on in my review and forgot.  The word was "coughter".  I mentioned it to my daughter and she immediately knew what it was - uncontrollable laughing until it makes you cough - and then she said "that would be an awesome word for Joe-Land."  It warmed my heart that she even remembered that made up place.

So there are my first two contributions to "Is that a Werd".  Has anyone else come across words that are not real but yet convey the thought perfectly.  I'd love to see them 'cause who knows, Joe-Land may need a dictionary some day?

24/30