Originally published December 2012
For the past 30-plus years (give or take a score), your Chronicler has baked Pecan Snowball Cookies at Christmastime. For many years, it was a Christmas Eve tradition, but now they're made in time to take to parties and to share with friends. This link takes you to the recipe. I advise doubling the recipe. These are just too good to run out of.
I want to add a recipe for Banana Bread, too, since it is so tasty!
Originally published December 2011
PM, Alabaster, Lapis and Geranium, not to mention Peppermint Paunch, Clyde Elf and Santa himself, wish you all a very Merry, Merry Christmas and a love-filled New Year.
Chronicler's continued dereliction of duty does not mean that Purple Monster and the Christmas Crew have not been working all year to spread love and joy to all they encounter. It's just that there's no Saga this year, more's the pity.
"Simple, declarative sentences,” said Purple Monster, glaring at me via her Web camera. "That's all that's required, my dear Chronicler, simple declarative sentences. There is no need to write the Great American Novel nor a Saga worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. What is required are simple declarative sentences, subject, verb, object. That's all you need to tell my story. The rest — adjectives, adverbs, clauses (other than Santa), and so on — they're just time-consuming distractions that weigh too heavily on your creative instincts."
I might be willing to take acting lessons from PM, given her extraordinary talent. Or singing lessons, since the lilting lavender North Pole Ambassador is renowned for her vocal exquisiteness. But writing lessons? Did not PM try to write her own saga one year, and fail miserably? Yet here am I yet again, facing the wrath of the greatest sleigh-puller who ever led St. Nick's annual conveyance, because yet again, I have failed to write a Christmas Saga. I deserve the criticism. But is she right? Should I just have put one noun, one verb, and maybe one object together and churned out a chronicle of the amazingness of the Christmas Crew this year as they prepared to deliver joy, presents and good cheer around the world?
See PM.
See PM BOING!
BOING!, PM, BOING!
Hmmmm.
Doesn't work for me.
But I do understand PM's frustration. She could be a grandmother before her Chronicler gets her act together. Lapis Snowflake and Geranium Amethyst are pretty grown up now, and love and snerkling and all things Christmas Monsterland have been going on without your Chronicler's literary observations.
Ah, well, maybe next year. In the meantime, this year's tree in the hovel is named Elvira, after Elvira Fernhat, the lovesick elf who still holds Clyde Elf in her heart. A beautiful tree, with enough ornaments and glitter to light Manhattan. So your Chronicler, bereft of holiday inspiration, does have an abundance of the Christmas spirit.
Once again, the magical critters of the North Pole and Christmas Monsterland wish all of you the very merriest Christmas and a New Year full of creativity and love and joy.
First Published July 2009
CHARITY ISABEL WATTLES KIRBY
April 24, 1912-July 12, 2009
The most beautiful woman in the world, both inside and out. A wonderful wife to William R. Kirby and a mother without peer to Kathleen, Susan and Rebecca Kirby.
I will write about Mom in the days and weeks to come, but for now here are some photographs of her that I find especially appealing. If you have photos you'd like posted, send them to susan.kirby@gmail.com.
The photo on the left was at one of her birthday parties in Florissant. She loved the parties that celebrated her life, because she got to see all the ladies she loved. She had an unending reservoir of love and an unsurpassed capacity to hug.
The next photograph is of Mom with her older sister Hattie, in about 1976. The family resemblance is remarkable. Mom was the 12th of 13 children. There is a genealogy Web site about the descendants of John Jacob Kepp. It gives all the children of John Wesley Wattles and Maria Isabelle Harmon, Mom's father and mother. Aunt Hattie apparently provided some of the information.
Continue reading this post on the Charity Isabel Wattles Kirby page.
