178

Last night was very exciting for William. He opened some presents after dinner at Margaret's parents' house, he got some Lego of course. I got a new wireless hub from Paul, so now all the computers can be on line! William was up past eleven, but that didn't stop him from getting up at 9 am on Christmas day. Santa, who mysteriously came while we ate last night, dropped off even more Lego: it's taken over the house! Actually, the Lego is under control. William got a number of sets, the one we worked on the most was a large Bionicle set which, to our surprise, has a dozen small figures in it rather than the larger scale figures that dominate the Lego/Bioncle line. It will integrate in with his regular Lego better.
We went tobogganing with Daniel and then went for supper at my parents' house. Food was great, nice evening. Socializing and eating rich food is taking it's tole, I'm in the mood for some tv.

175

Today William and I took Margaret to work. I told William that I'd pick him up a new Terry's chocolate orange (dark) so we ended up at Superstore. There were barely any spots left, I parted farther than I ever have before. Line ups weren't bad though, everyone seemed evenly distributed (didn't go into toys). We watched "Empire Strikes Back" after that, William wasn't scared. He talked through much of it. The Yeti type creature on Hoth seemed like the abominable snow man so that didn't bother him (he thought it was like a Lego monster with arms that come off). He questioned why they would want to carbon freeze Luke to take him to the emperor, and I admit I don't have a good answer for that except it was a device to have Vader oversee Han being frozen. Otherwise it is quite ill conceived.
I baked mini-cheesecakes (double batch, four variations of flavours) and ginger snaps, both for the second time for the season, and have declared my baking to be complete.

174

Yesterday I managed to make my nanaimo bars, they worked quite well as I didn't put as thick a chocolate coating on top as last year and I cut them while that chocolate was still warm. Success.
Yesterday I also ordered "Song of the South" on dvd. This isn't coming from Disney or any reputable source, even though it is a Disney film. I have an entire chapter on it in a really good book on Hollywood animation called Serious Business: The Art and Commerce of Animation in America from Betty Boop to “Toy Story”, a 1997 book by Sefan Kanfer. It's a really boring title for a really interesting book, it chronicles what is happening in each of the main animation company one decade at a time with the context of what was happening in the market. The chapter on "Song of the South" talks about how everyone told Walt Disney that producing it would bring trouble, but he kept ignoring them. Uncle Remus was no longer a popular icon by the 1950s, and he didn't become more popular as Disney, against everyone advice again, continued to release it every few years, promising never to do it again. The last time they released it was about 1985 on vhs, so my hopes for a good copy is thin, but something is better than nothing.
Today was William's last day of school. It'll be tv and hanging out for two weeks.

171

William's Christmas pageant was today, we went to the dress rehearsal this afternoon and then to the real show in the evening. It all went fine. I'd like to brag about him, but it really isn't possible to be the star of the show when you're in grade one. At least I can say that I could see his mouth moving, which is more than I can say for some of his cousins in the past. He enjoyed it. He wore a toque for the rehearsal but not for the main show, no explanation. From where I was sitting, here is what he looked like:
I'm out of butter, I thought I still had some frozen, but I must have used it. Now I need to shop before I can bake.

170

My parents dropped in today, mom wanted to give me some baking so I gave her some of mine back. Her brownies are still the best, although I'm not sure everyone would agree. I guess they are just a slightly dry chocolate cake with some walnuts in them and great chocolate icing, but not too sweet. Some people know that my capacity to consume sugar is exceedingly high, but I've come to realize as I've been baking that many of my favorite baked goods are the less sweet ones. These brownies are a good example; they probably have only 2/3 the sugar of something you'd buy in the store. Sometime this week I'm going to do a batch of Naniamo bars. These were a family favorite when I was a kid and were only eaten when my mom made some near Christmas. Then in the late 80s they started appearing in the stores, available by the square foot. However, and I hope some of you can back me up on this, they are so sweet they can trigger migraines. Not even I can eat two of them and not walk a bit crooked. Last year I got my mom's recipe and went to transcribe the differences into my cookie book and discovered that I couldn't just correct the published recipe, I had to re-write it. The two are so different that it's surprising the two squares even look alike. I did run into a problem with cutting them, I hope to fix that this year. Eating them did not offer problems. They are very good frozen, and best eaten when stolen from the freezer late at night. Uh, Christmas.

159

Got something in the oven! That's right! You heard me, it's Christmas baking season! I was working on mini-cheesecakes for the first time. I was hoping that I could push crusts into the bottom of the mini-muffin trays -- heavily buttered -- then pop them out once cold. No such luck. I've taken the alternative plan, to use paper cups for each. I'd done them without crusts so one will have to eat them with a fork (or uncouthly without one) directly out of these cups. I also made 206 Belgium truffles today. This all got me in the mood to start another Len Lye style animated film called "December" as a working title (although not as a finished title as I don't want it confused with Dianne Ouellette's film of the same name) and this animation is all around reds and greens, getting into the season in work and play.

156

I spent all morning, and a bit of the afternoon, sorting out receipts and figuring out my paperwork for reimbursements on my trip in September and a hard drive I bought and some other things. It will take more work tomorrow as I need to bill these things to 3 different University accounts and I can never keep track of it all. This afternoon, William wanted to play Bionicles again and after we did that for a while (fortunately the big new guy that rides the spider is a villain so I get to use him) William agreed to do some baking with me. However, he got stubborn and decided he would only make gingerbread cookies shaped like people and that the round gingerbread cookies I froze a couple of weeks ago were no good. Eventually I convinced him of some random recipe which ended up being a bit complicated and required the food processor, the little chamber mixer, the regular mixer, and melting things on the stove. It also took about $7 in ingredients (3 cups of nuts and 3/4 of a brick of butter). I've got to read more carefully before I jump into these things. My eye still hurts and I've got an appointment to see an eye doctor (not my own but someone else in his office) tomorrow morning.