Talkin' Turkey

L to R: Daddy to the little ones, Em,  Granty and the Birthday Boy (Grandpa)

Once upon a November evening, a family gathered together to celebrate the Grandpa's birthday.  There was a meal of comfort food, the family gathered around the table, passing bowls and butter and hogging the mashed potatoes.  This family will, unfortunately, not all be together on Thanksgiving this year, so the birthday celebration was a sort of Thanksgiving celebration, too.  As is the tradition of this family, chocolate turkeys were at the places of the three youngest family members present (there are younger family members who, alas, were not present for this dinner).  Chocolate turkeys are the best part of any Thanksgiving celebration, in the opinion of the children at the table (and may well be an opinion held by some who are not, um, exactly young anymore....but I digress).

Emma is demonstrating how you can make a much grander tail for the foil-wraplped turkey by the addition of a sandal wood fan to said turkey's posterior

The most amazing thing about this particular family tradition is that, as the chocolate turkeys are unwrapped and then eaten by the children, the chocolate turkey speaks!  It says things like, "Noooo, don't take off my lovely foil feathers!  It's cold!"  and "Why are  you licking me??!?" in a high, squeaky voice.

This year for the first time, the Twins really participated in the turkey torture.  They loved the talking turkey.  They, pardon the pun, ate it up.

"Not my feet!  No, don't eat my feet!"

"No!  NO! No, don't eat my head!  I can't gobble if you eat my head!"

"Nooooo!  Not you, too!  Not my beautiful feathered tail!"

Sometimes it is difficult to understand that the turkey really is complaining so bitterly, especially if you are only three....

"It's really dark down here!  Where am I!  It sort of feels like I'm inside a tummy!!!"

....but it becomes funnier and funnier as the chocolate turkeys are devoured and the talking turkey makes more and more outrageous (and outraged) squawks.

The turkey continues to complain, and the girls continue to gnaw off pieces of their chocolate, with relish.

Em has loved the talking turkey for many (well at least four) years now.  She loves to torture the poor bird.  She looks forward to Thanksgiving each year so she can slowly dismantle the chocolate turkey and ignore it's pleas.

Ah, the young can be cruel to a poor chocolate turkey.

And this year we managed to get a picture of the crabby turkey, the turkey who complains and whines and begs not to be eaten.  Remarkably, it bears a striking resemblance to Granty Nonie.  Who knew?

Art

Ever since last summer I have been mulling over a conversation I had with my granddaughter Emma about art. At the time we were on our way back from a ferry boat ride to Kingston with most of the family. All the clan had gathered at my house and then trooped down Main street to the ferry, where we walked on and rode over to have breakfast. Mostly it was an outing for all of us and a fun thing for the grand babies to do. The cousins see each other only a few times a year and so, when we all gather, we try and do some "kid friendly" fun activities. Anyway, that was what brought us together this particular Saturday morning in July. On the walk down I pointed out to Emma that her Granty had artwork for sale in a local home decor shop and there was a lovely glass and shell mermaid window of Granty's prominently displayed in the store's front window. Other pieces were just visible, if you peered through the shop window, hung on the wall inside. Emma seemed rather interested in what Granty had done so on the way back Emma, Granty and I stopped to give the art a closer work. (And to compliment Granty, too, of course.)

We showed the shell artwork Granty creates to Emma. She looked at it, very interestedly. Granty told her a little bit about how she made them. Emma, big blue eyes wide, took it all in. Finally I asked her what she thought about all this art.

Silence.

I pushed a little. Emma announced it was pretty and she liked all the shells and the way the colors looked. And that the shells were shiny. And the sand Granty uses as background in may of her works.....but, they were not art. Now, Dear Reader, this was said in a firm and exceedingly confident voice. Emma knew what was art and THAT WAS NOT IT. I am the first person to defend any one's take on what constitutes art to that individual person. Art is, we all know, very subjective. If Granty's work was not art to Emma, so be it. Four-year-olds aren't usually that, er, what's the word I want here.....critical? Secure in their own taste? Emma, however, is. Very sure. Very, very sure.

Granty's canvases were pretty and she truly liked them, but THEY WERE NOT ART. Nope. Not art. Not at all.

We had to know what was Emma's definition of art and why didn't Granty's things live up to that (apparently) very high, Emma set, bar!

After a lot of questioning and conversation it came out that art is sparkly. Art is glittery. Art fairly glows. Disneyland is art. The opening credits of any Disney movie, with the castle and the fireworks and the fairy dust and the glitz is art, to Emma. Granty's work was, alas, pretty but not glittery or sparkly. It did not shriek of fireworks and Tinkerbell's fairy dust or anything. It was just shells.

So, the photo below is art. To Emma.

(It's a lovely photograph of Disneyland taken by someone with the Flickr name of 'Mastery of Maps'. Please give the photographer due credit for a lovely photo.)

And how did I come to feel the need to share this with you, you ask, Dear Reader? Well, every time I look at my Christmas tree and my eye falls upon a glittery ornament, or I look at the beautiful silver glass glitter stars I both saw and bought when I was at Wendy Addison's Theatre of Dreams last August, or a bit of glitter falls from a Christmas card I received in the morning mail, I think back to Emma and her very sure definition of art.

Christmas is an arty time, isn't it? I hope your Holidays are twinkling and sparkling and joyful. And full of art.

Quiet Moment

The Twins at two days of age, July 8th. Abigail is on the left and Olivia's on the right.

Annie holding her daughter Alex and her niece, Emma.
Annie and the two pink princesses. Please notice the dainty fork work.

Emma making pancakes for Grandpa "Johnny".

Alex explores the echos that live in garages on a walk back to Gramma's from the beach.

It's quiet. Everyone is asleep--even the cats. I have three grandchildren in the house, my daughter Annie and her husband, my DH and the two aforementioned cats. And it's quiet.....I love having everyone here but I'm no longer used to the noise that small children make. I live in a small house and it's bursting at the seams right now---bursting with those I love the most, but bursting all the same! These quiet moments are to be appreciated and enjoyed, while I wait for the next day and the wonderful, noisy chaos that will be.

Ian enjoying his bath. Granty reads The Mole Sisters to Emma.

And, finally, Gramma.....playing cats (like dolls only more purrfectly delightful) with Emma and Granty.