My favorite memory of the New Philadelphia Annual Christmas Parade

One year we went to the New Philadelphia annual Christmas parade with Mike, I don't know if Brian might have been in a stroller, or not even born yet. It was very cold and hard to stand outside for the whole parade, but we made it. After the parade ended we went to the Dutch Oven for a late breakfast. We ordered hot chocolate and they brought it in a big insulated coffee pot, all we could drink! It was so warming and soothing. I'll never forget sitting there with my family enjoying that pot of chocolate. The Dutch Oven restaurant more or less burned down with the rest of that block in New Phila in about 1983 or so. The town lost Williams Furniture, two shoe stores, the restaurant, and a barbershop. Mike was so impressed, and read the next-day Times Reporter so many times that I ended up having it laminated for him. We still have it somewhere.....

I love filo dough foods but am a filo virgin and filo-phob too, I guess. But, feeling pressured to do a special Christmas recipe, I bought some dough and asked my best friend Jane what she would make with filo dough. She told me about a restaurant at which she has eaten, having a wonderful spinach, feta cheese and filo pastry appetizer. That sounded perfect for my Christmas table Tuesday. Here is the recipe I decided on. Click on recipes and you'll see it:

http://pinchmysalt.com/2006/08/23/spinach-and-feta-turnovers/

Best Christmas Present This Year

My husband and I have two sons. They don't know it, but they both just gave us the best Christmas present they could, days before the 25th. Due to varying work schedules we all have trouble getting together as much as we'd like to. This past Thursday one of them went Christmas shopping with me, and we ate lunch together at Dante's, a little restaurant in New Philadelphia. (A house behind it is the first house I remember living in, we were there until the early 60's. And the Dante's house used to be Evans Funeral Home.) The last time I'd eaten there was with my mother, so I was surprised how long it had been when I thought of that. Thanks for taking that time Brian, you can't know how special it was for me.

Not to be left out, BOTH sons put their dad in the car and drove up to Canton Friday afternoon. Their goal was to buy him a new pair of tower speakers for Christmas. I can't remember when the 3 men in our family did something alone, just the guys. My husband came home happy, excited, animated, and full of little stories, each detail was spread out over the evening and I realized what a precious time this was for him.

We'll open our presents in a few more days and have fun, but the biggest gift has already been given, spending some time that is precious to us all with each other. Thanks, guys. Love you both!

Martian Santa Clause

I have a bag of Christmas ornaments that were handed over to me from my brother. They were salvaged from a dumpster after our parents estate auction. He told me yesterday that lots of the ornaments ended up in a box at the auction, and that people dug through them and broke some. I suppose that box was sold, though I don't remember seeing it that day.

Anyway, I've finished decorating our tree but haven't gotten that bag out yet. I know that one special one is in there. It is the only ornament Dad ever made. He named it Martian Santa Clause. How it came about, is Mom got this idea that she needed religion but didn't want to go back to the Presbyterian Church. So she got involved with some like-minded people who called themselves Unitarians, and one evening she had a Unitarian meeting at our house.

They mostly got together to have fun, it seemed to me. That night, Mom bought red felt, pipecleaners, gold rickrack and other holiday supplies and each person could build/make their own ornament. Dads was cute, it was a styrofoam mans head with a pipecleaner circle around it's head. He announced it was a Martian Santa Clause. I remember the group burst out laughing.

Looking back, I can see that it was kind of appropriate for it's time, early 60's when UFO hysteria had been around for awhile, and Sputnik was created, the race for the moon was on. So that ornament was pretty special to me and I'm glad I'm it's keeper now.