Make Mine Toast!

Recently the Sunday Morning news magazine had an article on collecting toasters. One of the men they interviewed has a small appliance museum full of some 700 toasters. That museum which opened in October is called The World’s Largest Small Appliance Museum and is located only a few miles from me. So this morning DH and I made a quick run to check it out.

Built off the end of a Western Clothing store, the museum is filled with small appliances including all those toasters. It was amazing to see some “modern” things that we grew up with now labeled as antiques or collectibles such as a metal percolator or a hot dog cooker. While some of the early toasters were rather crude and even dangerous looking, toasters from the 1930s were absolutely gorgeous in many cases. I could picture Marlene Dietrich or James Cagney still in silk robes fetching toast from the beautiful stainless steel. The of course, I enjoyed seeing 1950 toasters that made my morning toast for years.

The second most numerous items in this collection were electric coffee pots and tea pots. Oh, some silver pots were so smartly shaped that I longed to take them home with me! The amazing ones were the porcelain pots with art deco or floral designs. These pots were stunning in their elegance. In many cases there were matching porcelain waffle irons too.


The owner is willing to meet groups or individuals there for demos of the appliances. I might have to make an appointment just to touch these handsome
appliances once used in some contemporary woman’s kitchen.

Christmas Books

We don’t always start collections; sometimes they start themselves. That is what happened when I first found a Christmas book on sale after the holidays. It then became a practice to add a Christmas book to my “collection” every year. Like collections do, this one got unruly, and I had to weed. But still, I kept some very special Christmas books on hand. I often use a beautiful Christmas book even as décor during the season.


One of my favorites is Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory. No matter how many times I read it, it brings a lump to my throat at the end. Then there is that wonderful book The Polar Express. Don’t kid yourself, this is not a child’s story but actually an adult book. Only adults can truly grasp the pathos of not hearing the Christmas bell! No disrespect to William Hurt or Tom Hanks, but famous actors reading the book aloud almost spoiled it for me. Hearing the voices in my head was so much better than anyone else’s interpretation!

If you like westerns, the great writer (Shane) Jack Schaffer wrote a Christmas story called Stubby Pringle’s Christmas. When the school librarian was weeding old books from the shelves, I literally begged to have the copy she was tossing. Mari Sandoz wrote The Christmas of the Phonograph Record, and then there is the Louis May Alcott’s Christmas Treasury. Oh, and another goodie is the Walton’s Christmas story of Pa getting home in the snowstorm during the Great Depression.



This year I was the lucky winner of a new Christmas book from Donna’s Book Pub (www.donnasbookpub.blogspot.com).The Christmas Village by Melissa Ann Goodwin is a delightful and imaginative story of a 12 year old boy who does some time travel on Christmas Eve. His own life is saddled with worries, and while looking at his grandma’s Christmas village laid out in the living room, he wishes he could live in the old time village where people seemed happier. Jamie falls into the 1932 village where the people celebrate the Christmas season with a Depression backdrop with problems of their own.

Author Melissa Ann Goodwin tells a good old fashioned story here despite the modern element of time travel. The characters fight good and evil along with love and loss in a story bound to become another Christmas classic for readers of all ages. She ties all the ends up in a charming finale that is magical and charming, the delicious elements of any good Christmas!

So what about you? What are your favorite Christmas stories or books?

A Christmas Contest Entry

I haven't been able to keep up with things around here lately, and I was about to miss a great little writing op! So this morning I made a effort and entered a Christmas contest over at Things I
Want to Tell My Mother at http://warnerwriting.wordpress.com/christmas-with-mom-contest/.
It is a memory written in hundred words and gives a chance to win a $25 gift card. It closes Dec. 5. For full details go over to the blog.

It was the year of the ballerina on pointe and wearing a pink tutu. I wrote Santa after pouring over Christmas catalogs wondering which doll he would bring me. On Christmas morning, there she was. I lifted her from the box to see one eye pushed back into her head, permanently damaged! Didn’t those elves check toys?

My gasping shock was shadowed by Mom’s own distress at neglecting to inspect the box in a holiday rush. In the end the defect didn’t matter as I cherished my beautiful ballerina. My actual Christmas gift was learning real love isn’t always perfect.

Turkeys Transition To An Angel

The transition between Thanksgiving and Christmas is one of the fastest seasonal changes there is. It has to be since the days are numbered before December 25th. Today is the first Sunday of Advent so

Christmas is now on the countdown officially. Yesterday while son drove four hours back home to the west, I spent the ame time and more taking down turkeys and putting up Santas.

Last year I weeded the Christmas boxes, but they could still use more cleaning. I did not put out everything this year. Though I love all my special holiday pieces, something about having less "stuff" sitting around is more therapeutic than being crowded. I wanted to use this white angel too this year which changed the table setting. She belongs to my mother-in-law who sat her out for many Christmases that I remember. As the dismantling of her home began, she would not take the angel to assisted living. She told me to bring her home with me. Now I did not need one more thing in this house, but I could not leave the angel there in the farmhouse all alone. Maybe someday I will let this angel go, but this was not the year to say goodbye. I brought her home and she will reign here in my home, watching one branch of the same family,  this year.

Thanksgiving, 2011

Autumn days and Thanksgiving in particular always meant quail hunting at my house. Dad would arise in the dark, load up and head out to a farmer’s hedge row to hunt quail alone. They were numerous in those days and Dad, an excellent shot, always got his limit. He would return and then take grandpa and nephews out again once the sun was up. Again, the bounty was good and the freezer filled quickly with tiny birds for winter eating. Sometimes a few went right to the Thanksgiving table, fried golden and crispy.

Meanwhile, Mom would stuff celery, stir up Chex mix, or pick out a few pecans while we hunkered in from of the Macy’s parade. We kids waited for Santa to appear at the end of the parade because that meant Christmas could now be eagerly anticipated; the Sears Wish Book would be opened in the afternoon for some serious yearning.


Thanksgiving might mean a road trip to Oklahoma for huge dinners, family gossip and ballgames with Mom’s people. But most years it was a block’s walk to Grandma’s house where Dad’s family gathered. Food spread across tables like a scene from a Normal Rockwell painting. In Oklahoma, tiny pearl onions and olives were special, but at Grandma’s it was plump homemade noodles swollen to doughy perfection in turkey broth.


Things change and there are no more festive trips to Oklahoma; Grandma is gone and noodles have never been the same since those days. This year one son will come home, and we will join my friend and her daughters for a holiday meal. I will be free of making a big meal, but this morning I cooked cranberries in wine to take as my contribution. It will noisy and jolly tomorrow, but I will still miss particular faces, remember specific dishes not served, and hunger for days gone by. Amid the activities I will acknowledge that life changes for us all. I will be thankful for all I have now as I nod a bit in my head to what used to be.


May you have a magnificent Thanksgiving Day and weekend ahead.

Duel with Dust

Thoreau said SIMPLIFY! He thought if anything caused you to spend time cleaning it or caring for it, throw it out. Sounds good to me, but then again I can’t part with a lot of my “stuff”. What I have done is get careless with taking care of it. So many of us around here since that F5 tornado realize that stuff is just stuff, and it can be taken from you in a matter of seconds.

My mother kept a chest in our utility room where she stored drawers full of table linens and hand-crocheted pieces by her grandmother. She never used them, and to be fair she had a small house with rumbustious kids and dogs. (However, that very chest was to burn in a house fire a few years ago…what a waste of pleasures went up in smoke.) When I got old enough to be left at home alone, I would go to that chest and unfold the beauties, feel their richness, admire their color, and appreciate their workmanship. I said if I ever had a home of my own I would use my things. I have kept my word for the most part, which means some stained pieces or some broken porcelain. But things were meant to be used. Nothing more moving than buying a cup and saucer that was loved by some other women in her toasty kitchen before your own hands caressed the same china.


The other day some of us were discussing household dusting or the lack of it. One gal said she no longer lifts a doily but merely dusts around it. Another has removed things that need to be dusted. My own solution is to never move anything because then you can see where the dust starts and stops! Just don’t touch a thing and everyone glances over the dust! One of my grandmothers took that a step further. She never dusted or cleaned much. When things got too bad, she said it was time to paint. We all knew that when a refurbishing of paint or wallpaper started, it meant Grandma thought it was time to “clean”.


My mother-in-law, who was an artist, told me to leave the dishes in the sink, ignore the house chores and go paint, write, or be creative. I never could do that. The work had to be done first before I “played” and the result was not much fun time because the work never ended for a mom. She, however, could walk away from household burdens. Lately, I have been able to at least ignore that dust!

Despite trying to minimize dustable things in my house and trying to avoid flea markets, I still fall prey to collectibles. This last week after my Tai Chi and Tea class, my friends and I drove by an estate sale. The car nosed into a parking place by the curb before we knew what was happening! Items were priced fairly but not cheap inside the little bungalow. The other gals found things, but I ignored items calling my name. Until—I saw this master knife rest. Wow, I didn’t have a master one (like I needed it!). The crystal was so pretty, the light bouncing off the cuts. Well gee, I guess it won’t take TOO much dusting will it?

What about you? How do you fight the Duel with Dust?

This Year's Flock

When I read about her new turkeys for the season on Susan’s blog (http://writingstraightfromtheheart.blogspot.com/2011/11/thanksgiving-turkeys-to-look-at-not-eat.html), I thought of my own few Thanksgiving birds. I only have a couple, but this year I added two to the flock. One is very old and DH found it while cleaning out his parents’ attic. He tossed it down and asked me if I wanted it. Well, it is rather an ugly thing, paint scuffed off in places, and not something I would long for except that DH said he saw the thing for years on his mom’s Thanksgiving table. Hum, while I wasn’t a witness to those years, I am sucker for tradition and continuity in family holiday rituals. Since our families are fading away through children’s jobs, aging parents, and even death I grabbed on to the turkey even though I know none of the kids coming after me will want to “own” this guy. Something about him called to me, for this year anyway.

The other small turkey is fairly new although I did pick him up in a flea market. I love the totally white ceramic bird and I have so many white pitchers and plates, I thought he would be at home here. After all, he doesn’t take up much room. While he won’t spend much of the year out and about, he can nest with the quail, turkey, and silver birds of winter holidays in the off season! If I can find another inch in the storage closet that is!!!