Helping Hands

Our deco motif this Thanksgiving: handprints.  They fit so nicely into the message of this season-- of lending a helping hand, working hard, giving thanks.  And they make great little turkeys.  Our table center pieces are seen here at the left and were a whole afternoon's worth of entertainment for the family.  Grama and the boys collected some gorgeous pinecones of varying sizes and then spent an afternoon tracing little hands and cutting them out of autumn shades of construction paper.  Some pipe cleaner feet, and these decorative toms were complete.  We made a whole fleet of them, though S (age 4) got tired of the enterprise.  Cutting out a hand is very hard work for a little guy--it's sort of intricate scissor work.  F, the baby, did his part by standing still for 7 seconds and permitting us to trace his chubby little hand.  C (age 7) worked hard at this activity for quite a while.  It had something for everyone (which can be tricky with this age spread)--a walk in the woods, gathering, drawing, cutting, gluing. 

We're also going to use our hand made and very wobbly (and partially nibbled on by curious teeth) beeswax candles on the table.  And C, my 7 year old, has literally spent hours making menus for each of our guests.  We are excited to have close friends and neighbors joining us, bringing authentic Southern sweet potato pie to share.  My husband's sister and her family are traveling here for the long weekend and C is already planning how he and his cousin can play waiters for the dinner.  His menus had adorable drawings of turkeys on the front and each attendee's name.  Inside was a list of the food and drawings of pies.  This was a very big deal for this boy who has struggled with writing skills, and though he's always loved to draw, the illustrations were identifiable.  I'm so proud of him, and pleased it was entirely his idea.  And the fact that he is planning on using his own helping hands for the holiday is just lovely.  We'll see how it actually turns out. 

On this pre-Turkey Day Sunday afternoon we made hand print turkey cookies.  I'll admit, they got the idea from the incessant PSA-type message between repeated episodes of The Wonder Pets on Nick Jr.  Why don't they show Yo Gabba Gabba all of the time?  And, it's easy to make 4 colors of frosting when someone else makes it for you.  But they were darn cute and the boys know how much I love to bake.  I try so very hard to share this activity with them, and really, as many activities in the kitchen as possible.  Baking, though, is like chemistry lab and requires a certain amount of precision.  I don't want to say I have to be in control, but I hate to waste ingredients (ie, throw away a pan of inedible cookies/bread/cake)...and it's a big mess to clean up flour sprinkled everywhere...and picking out eggshells from batter can be tricky.  I really do try to let go of all of my need to bake perfectly and let the boys go at it.  I would hate to damper kitchen enthusiasm, especially in a boy.  But boy, do I have to try.  And breathe a lot.

So I made some sugar cookie dough with the help of S.  He especially likes to be in the kitchen.  In fact, he loves to have a job and to be needed and useful.  I guess we all do, to some degree.  But whenever he is going astray by torturing his baby brother, licking the mud from the adobe walls, stealing special things, marking up his older brother's hand made Thanksgiving menus that took 5 hours to make, I know it's time to call him in to help me with a special chore.  It's our little way of bonding and re-setting into the right groove.  He, like all four year old's, has a hard time with impulse control.  Specifically the impulse to eat the raw dough of whatever we're making.  I've tried not to bog him down with the threat of salmonella, but he does know raw eggs are a no no, and he doesn't seem to particularly care.  So far, knock on wood, we've avoided any horrible dysenteric food-borne illnesses.

After a few hours of outside time and dough chillin' we were ready to make cookies.  We made a template with outlines of hands that we cut out and used on the dough to trace and cut.  A few minutes in the oven and we were ready for the fun part, the decoration.  These cookies could have turned out cuter if I'd made multiple shades of frosting, but I just wasn't up for it today.  We had orange and that was going to have to do.   A chocolate chip eye, a candy corn beak and some free form frosting work finished the birds. 

It was a fun way to spend the afternoon.  I have always loved to bake, from childhood--much more so than cooking (future post on that one in the pipe).  And taking the time to bake from scratch makes the reward that much sweeter.  I walk that tightrope of appropriate amounts of treats for my children, and it's a tricky one.  I fear if they are deprived that they will never learn their own limits on sugar intake.  But I don't want it around all of the time.  We don't buy packaged cookies, and baking together seems to be a nice compromise on the whole issue.  We get to have together time, use ingredients of our choosing, and see the work that goes into making a sweet.  Then we get to enjoy it--a treat on many levels.  It was my treat to see all three of their sweet little hands in cookie form.

I'm hoping to find someone to share these with, as the recipe made a lot of dough...and after we lost steam on the precision needed for free form hand carving, I used my fall cookie cutters to make oodles of pumpkins, leaves and acorns.  I or my husband will probably take them to work--that's what we usually do with our confectionary excesses.  People who work in hospitals need that kind of love sometimes.

I'm looking forward to the coming week, though there's much work-- cooking, baking, decorating--to do for the celebration.  I'm sure if I just let go a little, let things be a bit imperfect, take the gifts of many helping hands, a great time will indeed be had by all--including me.