Nana in the North

I just got back from six spectacular days in the mountain lake town of South Tahoe, California, where I visited my son and his wife, played Nana to my gorgeous granddaughters Sundrop and Bee, who are nine, and five respectively and their Grandpa Dan from Seattle. When the girls’ faces lit up with Christmas anticipation during the countdown of days, it was a sight to behold. Our time was chock full of activities, including a ninth birthday party for Sundrop and twelve of her closest friends at the Fly High Trampoline Park in Reno, and a Cookie Swap party on the Monday before Christmas, a Ski day on Christmas at Sierra, and a lovely Christmas dinner chez some friends of my daughter-in-law, as well as studious tracking of Santa on the Norad Track Santa App on Christmas Eve.

Mid-life parenting is not for the faint of heart. I was continuously impressed with my son and his wife’s fortitude preparing for these events. I consider my role similar to that of DeMarcus in the wonderful Dr. No by Percival Everett, described here as a sly madcap novel which I began and finished while traveling home on the day after Christmas. DeMarcus is the man servant of the supervillain antagonist, John Sill, and he has the alluring facility of showing up just at the right moment with whatever is needed or desired. I have a ways to go to perfect my DeMarcus, but I do think I have one of the features pretty nailed down – that is my RBF*. DeMarcus rarely smiles or lets on if he’s pleased. I am sure that that is one thing I can work on in my own Project 2025.

The birthday party was fantastic. We drove Sundrop and two of her friends down to Reno through the wind and sporadic rain, arriving at 12:00 after discovering that I ordered the pizza from the wrong Blind Onion. So I went about 5 miles to the other branch and picked that up while Whitney got the kids settled in. The Fly High Trampoline Park Reno/Sparks I highly recommend for your birthday party needs! Ours was one of about 10 birthday parties set up in the party area. They set up the table, and provide plates and cups and after signing waivers for all the kids, they get wristbands and then are sent off to bounce their little brains out. Well, hopefully not literally. There are many different areas for them to play in and they moved like a pack through the park, mingling with the other children in a merry pre-holiday blizzard of confusion and hysteria. No one got seriously injured. After an hour and a half, they page the kids back to the table to eat and open presents.

They ate some pizza, then cake, which Sundrop and I had picked out at the Safeway the day before, and after about two hours, their grateful parents came and picked them all up and we disbanded back to Tahoe. Just as the rain started down we were driving up the hill. It was unseasonably warm though, about 45 degrees, so there wasn’t ice.

I only have one picture because my phone died shortly after arriving there. Here’s Sundrop looking like the queen bee with her two friends, Caramella and Mayonnaise. It’s a weird thing but all of Sundrop’s friends have food names.

The next project was making cookies for the Cookie Swap on Monday. I knew that I wanted to make Pecan Puffs from the Joy of Cooking, because my dad generously sends each of us a pound of pecans at Christmas time, and the cookies are an old standard in our family. Here, with thanks to the Joy of the Joy of Cooking blogger who shared the recipe. Though they have very few ingredients, they are a little painstaking because of the dipping in the confectioner’s sugar part, but they always wow the crowd. So I knew I was going to make those. Sundrop had the wonderful idea of making mint chocolate cookies with a glaze which sounded hard to me, as I had never dealt with melted chocolate glaze before. The result of our cookie preparation was to be expected with nine and five-year-old bakers. We squabbled over who would do each step of the process, and had to divide tasks equally to avoid an insurrection. As soon as the dough was chilling after rolling it out, the girls disappeared to their next task, which was watching cartoons, leaving Mom and Nana to finish up.

The melting chocolate part was made more difficult due to the fact that we had bought chocolate chips rather than melting chocolate, so ended up with a pyrex cup of melted/hardened chocolate. I looked at Whitney after we had acquired the new chocolate and said,

We can reheat this and liquify it to pour it down the disposal, or we can drop this pyrex cup into the trash. You decide.

Nana in the North

I’m not proud of our decision, but it certainly fast-tracked the process. This second phase of the process happened after dinner when Nana’s RBF* was in full bloom. I don’t know how it happened, but cooking suddenly got so much more tiring. Baking four dozen pecan puffs and about 4 dozen mint chocolate cookies took it out of me. And so it went on Sunday. We spent most of the day cleaning the house for the party, and setting up the porch and dining room for the arrival of about 8 families with their children on Monday at 4pm.

We left the dipping phase until Monday morning after we got the right chocolate.

You and I are finishing up these cookies with no help from Sundrop or Bee. (vigorous agreement from Nana)

Whitney

Sunday night I made a few spinach and red pepper quiches – see the great recipe from the New York Times. Monday morning, we continued to clean, and then at about noon, Whitney’s Dad and I took Sundrop to see Wicked at the Heavenly Cinema. It was fantastic, though proved to be a tad bit long. We got home just after four when the party was supposed to start.

Chris and Whitney’s split level home is ideal for a mixed adult/kid party. The children primarily played in the lower level playroom, and the adults congregated in the kitchen/dining room. It was potluck, and they all brought really great food and drinks. They have really nice friends, and the party went very smoothly.

Even with close to 75 children, no one died, and only a little blood was drawn from a racing child through the living room when he caught his ear on an aggressive table corner. But you know the old adage:

What happens at the cookie swap party stays at the cookie swap party.

Tuesday was of course Christmas Eve, when we began tracking Santa late in the afternoon on the Norad app. It snowed solidly all day, which was very thoughtful of the Christmas gods because the plan was for everyone to go skiing on Christmas Day. Up until then, the scant snow was melting off the mountain. At the movie theater, in the elevator, we encountered a snowboarder who said that his runs had been good on about six inches of snow. “You could see the trunks sticking up.” Hmm. sounds like a liability to me.

One of Dan’s old friends, David, dropped by for dinner, and we had Chilean Sea Bass and Ribeye Steaks, green beans, salad and potatoes. Meanwhile, Sundrop was making a plate of cookies for Santa that was equivalent in number to the boxes of cookies that the families had taken away the night before. She also thoughtfully included a liter and a half of milk. I think we might have expected four Santas instead of one, judging on the serving size.

Santa can’t eat that many cookies, Sundrop!

Nana in the North

Lighting the fireplace was verbotten as well on Christmas Eve (of course) , and Sundrop was concerned that you could still see the pilot light in the fireplace but I assured her that Santa was more agile than that and would easily cross the hearth in the night. We were all in bed by 9:30pm, and try as I did throughout the night, I didn’t hear Santa’s reindeer on the roof or his heavy boots in the living room.

The next morning, we heard the scamper of little feet upstairs at about 6:45AM and Dan, Chris, Whitney and I went to see the fun begin. Santa as well as Sundrop and Bee’s family were very generous, and after about an hour, the living room looked like the aftermath of a black Friday tour of the mall. Everyone will be well-outfitted for the upcoming year!

After a few hours playing with our new toys, and after some quick bacon and waffles, we packed everyone up to go to Sierra for skiing. Nana had no idea about the amount of equipment needed to prepare three adults and two children for a day on the slopes. Bee wasn’t feeling tip top so Nana agreed to stay in the Lodge with her while everyone hit the slopes. Dan’s friend David was planning to ski that day as well, so it was a jolly afternoon at Sierra. The drive up was beautiful, the surrounding hillsides sparkled with the newly fallen snow of the day before.

Whitney has a collapsible wagon, which we filled with Bee and all the other snow gear and a cooler with yummy Kale Soup with Potatoes and Sausage (veggie version) packaged in thermoses for lunch time. Since Bee and I would be spending the day as Lodge Lizards, we also packed our new Candyland game and several small LOL dolls as well as other snacks.

I took these shots at lunchtime, when old friends Dan and David reminisced and new friends, Sundrop and Eggplant built memories together between runs down the slopes.

Chris and Sundrop used walkie talkies to communicate when outside. Dan and Chris couldn’t keep up with Eggplant, who, at seven, zipped down the slopes at high speed. He’s on the ski team, as is Sundrop. It was a great day. At about four we packed up and made our way to the car (once we found the correct lot).

We were all pretty tired when we got home, but had one more social event – Christmas dinner at Whitney’s and Chris’ friends Allison and Javi’s home. It was a delicious Italian meal of Eggplant Parm and pasta with meatballs. I know I was grateful to Allison for preparing such a delicious meal and their two kids, Avocado and Egg were giddy with having Sundrop and Bee there. There was much squealing and running after dinner, and they all tired themselves out by about 8:00pm. It was a lovely and very full Christmas day. The most active Christmas I’ve had in years.

Thursday was a very low-key day, and the day of my departure. I got an extra few hours of leisure when my flight was delayed by a few hours. I was grateful to get home by 8:30 and be able to reminisce about a happy holiday with loved ones.

*RBF – Resting Bitch Face