Epiphany Dinner

On the table: Wise Men.

On the CD player: lute music.

On the menu:
Sausages
French fries
Baked beans
Salad

Applesauce Spice Star Muffins.

Quote for Advent III: Candles in the Wood

From Pilgrim's Inn (The Herb of Grace), by Elizabeth Goudge: on a day of Christmas-season miracles, nanny Jill and the five-year-old-twins look for holly in the woods.

"Will there be candles lit again in the wood as it's nearly Christmas?" asked Jerry.
"No, dear," said Jill. "There are never candles in the wood. There are lighted candles on Christmas trees, and in people's eyes when they're happy, but not in woods."
"There were the first day we came. We saw them when we went away."
"The sunset behind the trees, perhaps," said Jill....

(Later in the chapter)

As she sat on the rock she was not consciously thinking any more of the mystery of that moment when she had thought she saw the shining hoofprints on the path; she was watching a nuthatch running like a little mouse up the trunk of the tree opposite her, listening for the tap of its beak, feasting her eyes upon the glow of the holly berries above; yet because of it she saw a little more deeply into the beauty of bird and berry, heard a music in the tappings that she would not have heard before. And so it would be for the rest of her life. 

The music of the nuthatch was lost in the music of small feet running, and the twins were with her again, incredibly dirty, leaves in their hair, mud on their faces and their reefer coats, but with very pink cheeks and candle eyes....At the door of the Herb of Grace they paused and looked back. It was nearly dark now, with the stars pricking through. The last fires of sunset were still flaming low in the west and  a thousand candles had been lit upon the trees that stretched their shade deep beyond deep in the dark wood.  ~~ Elizabeth Goudge, Pilgrim's Inn (The Herb of Grace)

How they found Pluto, not to mention Neptune (Book Review)

The Search for Planet X*, by Tony Simon.  Basic Books, 1962.  Issued in paperback by Scholastic, #TX 691.

This is a long-lost treasure for homeschooled students!  "My favorite book as a kid," says one Amazon reviewer.  Another says, "I remember reading this fascinating book, a selection of Scholastic Book Services, when I was hospitalized at age 9. I still remember the nurse coming into the room way after midnight to demand that I turn off the light. I couldn't do it. Planet X had me."

"Planet X" isn't science fiction, but true science writing for kids (roughly upper elementary through middle school).  It's about, first, the search for Neptune; because something was throwing the orbit of Uranus out of whack, and the odds were that the something was a planet.  But after confirming Neptune's existence, astronomers thought there must be something more dragging it out of its normal pattern.  And after years of searching...there was our ninth planet.

Or our ninth planet-that-was.

How did they do it?  Why did they do it?  Who were the key "space detectives?"  (I should be writing copy for the backs of Scholastic books.)  Clyde Tombaugh, of course, gets quite a bit of the story, since he was the astronomer who located Pluto.  (You do know, don't you, that an eleven-year-old Parent's Union School student came up with the name?)  Clyde Tombaugh becomes more than just a name, or the photograph of an old man peering into a telescope that's included in another of our solar system books; in this story, he's a curious, slightly geeky kid who can't get enough of stars and telescopes but can't afford college, but who then lucks into the job of official Planet X-searcher.  One of the reviews says that we don't know what Tombaugh thought of Simon's book, but actually there's a letter from him included as an epilogue.  It starts, "Your saga of the discovery of Pluto is told interestingly and with understanding in this book.  You have caught the spirit of the search for the elusive ninth planet..."  I think that was commendation enough.

Tony Simon pulls out the entire bag of non-fiction writing techniques here:  using images of planet-searching such as looking down at a ballroom floor full of beads, only one of which is moving; making use of fiction techniques such as dialogue; using short paragraphs, but not dumbed-down language.  Those who would like to write children's non-fiction could find this book instructive.

But I think its primary appeal would be to children who can still appreciate the romance of star-searching.  Yes, "Planet X" has been demoted to a dwarf planet; but that doesn't diminish the story of its discovery.  (And the Neptune story is interesting too.)

This would be a great addition to a study of astronomy.  The book is long out of print, but inexpensive copies are still available through online sources.

*The scientists in my family want me to mention that Pluto is no longer "Planet X," first of all because it has a name, but second because it lost its planet status.  So the search for "Planet X" goes on.

Christmas Cookies: Last Minute (now with photo)

We got to Christmas Eve and the cookie stash was depleted...even the Butterscotch Bars were almost gone.  Note to self:  stop making the kinds of cookies that people like too much too many days before Christmas.

OK...time for one batch of something quick.  The fastest sugar cookie recipe I know!  (Remember Speed Baking?)

Push onto the pans.  Press with a glass.  Just about ready to go into the oven--and I thought of Grandma Squirrel's little canape cutters in the drawer.  I found the flower and star cutters, and cut a shape through each cookie--not lifting out the dough, just leaving it in the middle.  As they baked, the cut-out part baked back into the cookie, but left us with an impression of the shape. 

The stars turned out clearer than the flowers...but we had a bit of strawberry-flavoured frosting in the fridge (from the Apprentice's class brownie project), and that went on about half the cookies...plus...oh, up on the top shelf we had some pastel star sprinkles from someone's birthday! Yes!

So we have plain star cookies, and icing star cookies.  Sometimes last-minute baking turns out the best of all.

(How do you get strawberry-flavoured frosting?  Ice-cream/milk shake flavouring--The Apprentice had bought some last year to put in milk shakes.)

Photo: Ponytails.

Linked from Four Moms' Christmas Baking, December 2011.