Here’s their coop, which we were lucky to inherit from some neighbors who had it in their backyard but didn’t have chickens (thanks!). It’s all decorated for Christmas:

They were babies just this spring at being raised by Sara’s cousin Emily at Twitter Creek Gardens in Homer. And now, they’ve finally started laying:

They have been way more fun than I expected.  And the fresh eggs are great. I love giving them to friends and family almost as much as I love eating them.

Anyway, thanks Ash, for these great photos:

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I’ve got the holiday spirit. Bad. And it’s all thanks to our 3-year-old son.  Seeing his little face light up at every holiday detail fills me with warmth and joy. We turned on the car radio the other morning as little Michael Jackson was belting out “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Jack was giddy and screamed, “We sing this at preschool! I know this song!”

The magic is real and I want to be a part of it.

Here are some ways we’ve been keeping the holiday spirit alive in our Anchorage household. Share yours in the comments!

1. Portable North Pole

A friend told me about Portable North Pole, a free online program where you enter a few generic bits of information about your child, what you’d like him to work on this year (we went with “brush teeth every night”) and a photo. In a few minutes you have a personalized video message from Santa.

Our son Jack was stunned when he watched it. He made us replay it four times. Let the Christmas joy begin.

2. Get into the kitchen

Our preschooler loves to help out in the kitchen. At Thanksgiving he helped me make pumpkin pie and it was a kitchen bonding experience. He measured the flour, cracked the eggs and turned on the mixer.

Last week we made perfect potato latkes and Jack was a terrific sous chef.

Whether it’s Christmas cookies or candy cane bark, there’s plenty of ways to get your kids culinarily involved.

3. Donate to a local shelter

Each year Bean’s Cafe, a local homeless shelter, turns to the community to help out with Beanie Boxes, which are wrapped shoeboxes filled with necessities such as deodorant, toothbrushes and socks. Have your child help you fill up a shoebox with goodies, pick out the wrapping paper and ribbon and drop it off.

This year we collected items for AWAIC, the local women’s shelter. I made a list based on what they asked for and included little clip art pictures of each item to make it visual. Jack and I went to the store and he selected three items from the list to donate.

4. Felt Christmas Tree

This is a project I put together two years ago, but it’s still fun to play with. Buy a couple of yards of green felt and cut out a tree shape. On several different colors of felt draw some simple shapes and have your child cut them out to create ornaments. Pin the tree to the wall and let him decorate his tree to his heart’s content.

Click here for a more detailed tutorial.

5. Go to a holiday movie

Up till now we’ve avoided taking our son to a movie theater. I remember being a non-parent and cursing the world whenever a screaming kid was seated at our movie.

Thankfully there are kid-friendly options. We recently took Jack to Williwaw where they were showing a kid-themed Christmas film as a fundraiser for Special Olympics. It was Jack’s first movie theater experience and a positive one. The manager passed out free popcorn and families roasted marshmallows over a s’mores kit.

Williwaw has several more movie nights planned. There are two show times so you don’t have to worry about staying out past bedtime. Plus it saves you a night of having to cook dinner! Click here for show times.

If you can’t make it to Williwaw, there’s always the peanut gallery at Bear Tooth Theaterpub. Tickets are cheap and if you catch an early show you don’t have to feel bad about making noise in the balcony area.

6. Make snowflakes

Many tiny tots are hard at work on their fine motor skills. Ours loves cutting out paper. Work on making paper snowflakes together. Jack was happy with just cutting up pieces of paper and taping them to the window. We’ve got sort of an abstract impressionism vibe going on.

Here’s a simplified way to make paper snowflakes that is perfect for new scissor users.

7. Visit the Gingerbread Village

Every year the Hotel Captain Cook sets up an elaborate gingerbread house village in their lobby. Check out their live gingerbread web cam to catch a glimpse.

Afterwards, head the the store for some graham crackers, powdered sugar, gumdrops and Necco wafers and build your own.

8. Write holiday cards

I’m a big supporter of snail mail. Have your child help you with your holiday cards by including their scribbles and drawings. Jack actually drew a Christmas tree for his preschool teacher, so that definitely was included.

9. Look at the lights

Kids tend to love sparkly things that light up. Thankfully it’s dark most of the time here right now so it’s easy to find trees and houses adorned with twinkly lights. Start off at Town Square Park, which has some of the most stunning blue lighted trees.

If it’s not too cold, take a stroll through the Alaska Zoo at their evening Zoo Lights event. All the pathways are illuminated by animal-shaped light fixtures, some of which are animated. If you’re lucky you might spot a real, non-napping animal.

This week, Jack rushed inside after school to tell me his wish finally came true: the shooting star was on. A house over on Elmore and Huffman has a tall pole that lights up to the rhythm of holiday music that you tune to your car radio. Jack’s been waiting for it all year; and it’s free!

10. Have Santa mail a letter

Ok, this one is a little manipulative, but I had to give it a try. We have started a tradition in our family that in order for Santa to deliver toys to us, we have to give toys away to someone else who needs them. Instead of boring old parents telling their children to give away their toys, why not have Santa ask?

Santa mailed Jack a letter explaining that sometimes the elves fix up old toys in the workshop to give to other kids who don’t have many things. It worked like a charm. Be sure to put the correct return address.

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They won’t even remember when their parents couldn’t get married in every state.

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No flower is safe.

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On occasion my wife Sara and I fall into old-fashioned roles when it comes to parenting. We’re both moms, but sometimes I feel like a total dad. I’m sure this happens to her, too.

Her mom trait is worrying. She once Googled “crawling helmet,” she tracks childhood illness outbreaks like she works for the CDC, and she always knows the weather forecast. I just don’t worry like she does. It’s not in my wiring.

“It’ll be just fine,” I say, calm as Mr. Brady in the den. And, usually, it is.

One night a couple of weeks ago when we were having that stretch of warm weather, my friends Abraham and Lam came to town for a journalism training and I decided to take them for a drive.
This was a Thursday. As it happened Sara was taking care of Leo, who is three, and I had baby Neri, who is six months. He fell asleep about the moment I plugged him into his seat in the minivan. Before I left, Sara told me not to go anywhere steep. Freezing rain in the forecast, she said.

“It’ll be just fine,” I said.

I picked up Lam and Abraham and we decided we wanted to see a view. While I was thinking about where to take them, I looked up and saw the Arctic Valley star glowing on Mt. Gordon Lyon. Great idea!

The roads were dry as we drove out the Glenn Highway toward Arctic Valley. It had rained but the temperature was mild and I figured the cloud cover was high because I could see the star.

As we started up Arctic Valley Road, Abraham, who has a baby Neri’s age, asked me about driving a minivan. His tone was neutral but we both knew what he was getting at: a minivan is the telltale sign that you’ve lost the battle to stay cool after becoming a parent.

I told him that it was a hand-me-down from Sara’s parents, and totally practical for hauling children and gear around. I’d only been driving it for five months, I said. It took a little getting used to because though it had snow tires, it’s the first car I’ve had that isn’t four-wheel drive.

Up we went into the mountainous dark. The trees were spooky in the headlights, branches white with frost. At the first pullout, the city lay before us like a twinkling blanket. The baby was sleeping and I decided to keep driving to the next, higher, viewing opportunity.

I might have driven another 15 minutes, and I might have lost track of the fact we’d turned away from the view, heading up toward the ski area. A few raindrops splashed onto the windshield. A quick little squall. Minutes long. But suddenly the road ahead looked different. Shiny. It took me a minute or two to process.

Ice.

I felt the car struggling to climb and slowed to a stop. Time to turn around, I said. We were on a steep incline. The road was carved into the mountain, a tree-filled ravine on one side of the road and an upward slope on the other.

I started to maneuver the van in reverse, but the rear wheels couldn’t get a purchase on the roadway. Soon we were perpendicular to the road. I gave the car a tiny amount of gas, trying to regain control and back up. The wheels turned, but the car began to slide, sideways, downhill.

So. Totally. Not. Just. Fine.

I ground the brake into the floor, but we were still sliding. Over the shape of the baby’s car seat, I saw the city through the van’s long side window. The sensation of sliding felt like vertigo.

“I don’t like this,” I whispered. Lam and Abraham said nothing.

My thoughts coalesced into a brutal reality check: I was on the ice in a front-wheel drive minivan in the dark, sliding sideways down a mountain, and I couldn’t make it stop. Oh: and there was a baby with me. (Insert lightning bolt of terror) How had I been such a total idiot?

We were still sliding. Were we picking up speed?

One of the possible outcomes of our sideways movement was that the minivan might roll. Or go off a cliff?  I wanted to be anywhere else. Watching an infomercial. At the dentist. Making yet another peanut butter sandwich for a school lunch. Just not here in this car sliding to my death with my tiny, innocent son.

The car stopped.

I took a breath.

“Are you a good driver?” I asked Abraham.

“Not on this,” he said.

I put the minivan in reverse and managed to work it toward the side of the road until the rear wheels made contact with soft snow. We were angled uphill pointed the wrong way, but secure. I pulled out my cell phone and called my car insurance company’s roadside assist number. I told them we needed a tow truck. I also texted Sara. She called my cousin’s husband, John, who has a Ford F-150.

And then we waited. The baby didn’t stir. Pretty soon, some headlights came up the road. A big old diesel truck with 20-somethings inside. They stopped and got out, slipping and giggling over to our car. Did we need a pull-out? (Can I take an aside to say that this offer of help is so one of those things I love about Alaska.) No, thanks. They said they’d wait with us until John or the tow truck showed up. At least 30 minutes passed.

Then my phone rang. It was the insurance company. They’d called every tow company in the city, they said. No one was willing to come. Most of the trucks don’t have four-wheel drive, they said. (!) The companies were worried about getting stuck, they said. (!!) Call the police, they said. (!!!)

About then we saw another set of headlights coming up the road. But then they disappeared, sliding backwards, downhill, out of view. Up they came again. Down they slid. My phone buzzed. It was John. We had to walk down to him, he said, the truck couldn’t make it up. That meant abandoning the minivan on the side of the mountain. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get my baby down.

We left the van unlocked, gathered our stuff and tromped down the snow on the side of the road, the 20-somethings illuminating the way with their headlights. Abraham carried the car seat. When we got to the truck, he slid the seat across the icy road to John who put Neri in the car. Neri was still asleep, pacifier moving up and down.

“You took a baby up here?” John asked.

I didn’t answer. We headed down.

I felt horrible all the way. This is exactly how regular people end up getting rescued by helicopters when they get lost off well-traveled trails, or how people end up dying in canoe accidents on popular lakes in view of recreational cabins. They just forget for a moment that this is Alaska. My grandparents are buried here, and I’d forgotten.

The next day, visions of my minivan in flames on the roadside, I called JBER to see if they might sand the road so a person could drive down. Nope.

But, they said, they’d wait a couple days before they towed me.

“You went and drove a baby up the side of a mountain in a minivan?” said the guy on the phone.

Out of ideas, I called my dad.

“Let’s go investigate,” he said.

We headed up the mountain at sunrise in a Subaru with old-fashioned studded snow tires. Dad spent the ride telling me about how he used to go up Arctic Valley Road to go skiing all the time as a kid in bad weather. Cars just had chains back then, he said. Sometimes they had to back up the hills.

Pretty soon we started coming across abandoned cars. Then there was a guy standing with his sedan, looking terrified. And a tow truck, its driver putting on chains. We pushed higher, (I didn’t realize I’d gone so high.) passing a couple of big pick-ups on the side of the road, waiting for tows. We spotted the minivan, sideways, on a steep, slick incline.

Dad parked the Subaru above it and slipped down the hill, pretending to speed skate, looking back at me to see if I was laughing. It was one of those moments when Dad seemed ageless, even though he is 66. I am 36 but I felt like a child. I was alone in the passenger seat in the parked Subaru. All of a sudden, it started to slide. I saw Dad’s expression change. I jumped in the drivers’ seat and smashed the brake. The car skittered to a stop. Adrenaline flooded my raw nerves. Man, I’d had enough of that road.

Dad got in the minivan and started it. He inched forward on the ice. So far, so good. Then he started sliding downhill. Sideways. I screamed, watching him pick up speed. (Thoughts: I am totally going to be responsible for killing my dad.) He gained control, turned forward and kept going until I couldn’t see him any more.

I sat in the Subaru, breathing, too petrified to take my foot off the brake. My phone rang. It was Dad. Little slide there getting the van going, he said. Everything was fine once he took off the emergency brake.

“Come on down now,” he told me. I could hear the smile in his voice.

I let my foot off the brake.

We inched down the mountain that way. Him first, me behind, passing all the stranded motorists and the tow truck. My pulse returned to normal. The mid-morning light was golden. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been so terrified and so at a loss for what to do.

I stared at Dad’s taillights. He’d used the calm, “it will be just fine” dad voice on me. But there was more to it than that. Someday my kids will need me to take the wheel just like he did. I would have to be ready. Paralyzing fear like I felt on that mountain is a luxury a parent eventually has to give up. Because your kids need you to be stronger than they are.

It’s probably good to be reminded that I’m not as squared away as I think I am even if I have two kids, a mortgage and a minivan. Parenting is a lifelong project. There was Dad up ahead, still doing it.

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1. The old standby face grease.

Don’t question the magic. This is my go-to everything remedy with my kids when we head outdoors. It’s totally neutral, doesn’t sting and it protects their red, dry cheeks. It’s also good for that weird ring-around-the-lips thing that toddlers and preschoolers get as well as chapped noses. Totally cheap. I’ve heard the one mixed with cocoa butter is also rad. Have you tried it?

2. My all time favorite face cream.

I have the world’s driest, most sensitive, redheaded skin. You know what works for the crazy red ring of dryness around my mouth and the patches on my cheeks? Not one single expensive cream I’ve bought at Nordstorm or Sephora. CeraVe PM is the jam. You can get it at Walgreens. My dermatologist told me about it. It’s unscented, not too heavy, and it WORKS. Scale-spots and irritation gone. The CeraVe body cream, which is also pretty great, is available by the tub at Costco.

3. This wonderful Alpine balm.

Elta is kind of like Chapstick for your body. Key: Put it on after a shower when your skin is still damp. It’s unscented and melts in your hands when you scoop it out. It’s thinner than Vaseline and absorbs quickly. Great for rough patches like heels and elbows.

4. My second favorite face cream.

Dr. H Rose Day Cream is kind of spendy and girly but it’s made with essential oils and it smells heavenly. It slathers on thick (a thinner “light” version is also available) in a way that soothes my burning cheeks and just feels good.

5. Yep, right from the kitchen.

I know it seems crazy, but it is actually total heaven. Either use a dry brush before showering or loofa in the shower to loosen dry skin. Then towel dry and slather this great-smelling stuff (also melts in your hands) all over. Fantastic for children, post bath.

6. The big gun.

When the knuckles are cracking and bleeding or the itchy patches of bumps crop up on the backs of arms, I use U-Lactin. It’s not glamorous. It comes from the old folks section of the pharmacy, it goes on thin and feels a little medicinal, but it seriously works. The trick is, though, you can’t stop using it before the weather changes or the problem will come back.

So there’s a tour of my Alaska winter skin arsenal. What’s in yours? Anybody have a miracle hand cream? And the feet? How do we fix the feet?

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This particular pud was made for me and my brother who are gluten-free, so Dad subbed in King Arthur GF flour, cup-for-cup. There are all kinds of ingredients for steamed puddings. Dad makes his with persimmons. They make for a lighter pudding.

The main special thing you need to make a pudding is a mold. Dad’s is an old one and it looks like this one:

And, because it is coming on New Years Eve, you might consider hiding something in the cake like a nice shiny dime. If you get the dime in your slice, the tradition says you’ll have good luck for the year to come. (Just be careful when you’re eating not to break a tooth.)

The other thing you need is time. It takes two hours steaming in the mold in a big soup pot. Here, while you wait, is a super meta picture of Aunt Barbara taking a picture of me taking a picture of the holiday basket she brought for us on the night we were going to exchange gifts and eat pudding. (After a traditional meal of take-out Indian of course.)

While it cools, you make the foamy sauce. See:

The recipes both come from the old Fanny Farmer Cookbook

Here’s how to make a pud, adapted from Fanny Farmer:

Ingredients:
1 cup puréed persimmons (about 3 persimmons with skins removed)
2 teaspoons baking soda
¼ lb butter, at room temperature
1½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons rum
1 cup all-purpose flour (or GF flour)
1 teaspoon cinnamon (you might also add a dash of clove and some Allspice)
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
1 cup raisins (you can soak these in rum for at least an hour beforehand if you want)

Instructions:
Fill a pot that is large enough to hold a pudding mold with enough water to come halfway up the sides of the mold. The mold must have a lid. Also there must be a rack or mason jar rings on the bottom under the mold so the water can move freely while the pudding is steaming. Grease the mold. Put the persimmon purée in a small bowl and stir in the baking soda. Set aside. (The persimmon mixture will foam and thicken). Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, lemon juice, rum and beat well. Add the flour, cinnamon, and salt, and stir to blend. Add the persimmon mixture and beat until well mixed. Stir in the nuts and raisins. Spoon the batter into the mold, cover, lower into the water, bring to a boil and steam for 2 hours. Remove from the pot, and let rest for at least 5 minutes. Turn mold onto plate. Serve warm.

Foamy Sauce:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 large egg, beaten
2 tablespoons brandy (or vanilla)

Instructions:
Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy; add in the beaten egg and brandy (or vanilla). Transfer to the top of a double boiler and heat over simmering water, stirring continuously, until warm and thickened. Spoon over sliced pudding.

Here is a silly video of us bringing a piece of pudding to my parents’ neighbor Jack Roderick. Naturally we’re singing. (You have to turn your phone sideways to watch it, because my blog won’t upload vertical video. Blogger lesson learned.;))

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For more holiday delights, go here.

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