Anyone who knows me knows that I tend to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. In fact, my kids and I were joking over the Christmas holiday that we should do an art project and collect all the photos over the years of the kids sitting at one side of the counter on stools and me standing on the other. Whether it is cooking, serving up leftovers or preparing the "warm beverage," if there are people in the house, there is a good chance I will be spending a goodly portion of my time in the kitchen. Last year, when I hosted the queer film group for the month of July--every Thursday night, I swear the film buffs spent as much time standing around in my kitchen as they did watching the films!
It is a strange reality of my world and as you can imagine, Christmas was no exception. While Christmas day was rather quiet since my kids all went to see their dad's side of the family on that day, Christmas Eve day was an all-day bustle at my house. The joy for me was that for the first time in a long time, all three of my kids helped with the meal. Having all of us in the kitchen kneading, chopping, stirring and assembling was fantastic! As they get to be better and more confident cooks, they need less direction from me and it just becomes a lot of fun to have cooking companions.
As soon as Lucy's friend Andy arrived and her boyfriend Jacob walked into the house after having to work on Christmas Eve, they both knew that they were welcome to help themselves in the kitchen. I absolutely love that people know there is always plenty and that they can join in, help themselves or wander through and sample in my kitchen.
I am quite certain that my main memories of Christmas 2008 will be associated with the kitchen--making cookies with Lucy, helping Lilly with her homemade gift baskets, making cheater fudge and chocolate-covered pretzels with Stuart and all the meals and mugs of hot cocoa that were rustled up during the month of December--all culminating with our day in the kitchen on Christmas Eve. How lucky am I?!
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