Christmas Time's A Commin'

Ardenwood Farm's annual Christmas event was this weekend. Its three days long and I got to participate all three days since I'm unemployed (add your own assorted grumble words here - make sure they start with "f"s, "s"s, and "b"s). It was a lot of fun and someday I hope to get the feeling back in my feet and my ass.

On Friday, the kitchen where I usually work was fully staffed so I was put in crafts. There were about a million strips of green, white and red paper pre-cut. I was there to help kids make paper chains. This is pretty easy duty because most of the 700 kids in the park were older than kindergarten, in possession of all their digits and at least as smart as a house cat. There were some exceptions (and some preschoolers) though, and they needed extra help. If I told them to "roll the paper", I found they could visualize the circular shape they needed to make a chain.

Then came the glue...Do NOT get me started on glue sticks as a means of affixing one piece of paper to another! A glue stick is only slightly more useful than the paste we used in second grade but at least you could eat that stuff. Most of the kids were fine, but some of the parents were nuts! I thought of some good uses for the glue sticks - many of which started with the glue stick creatively applied to a parental orifice. In the park's favor, liquid glue was not an option since these chains had to go directly home and couldn't be drippy.

Saturday, I was in the kitchen. I love being in there because there is a buffer zone between the volunteer (me) and the park visitors (all the people). Officially, we can't let people get too close to the wood burning stove - they might get burned. However,none of the volunteers have a degree in wood burning stove but we all crowd around the thing! Saturday I burned a spoon and a pair of scissors. Sunday, I sacrificed another spoon to the gods of fire, along with a couple batches of cookies and 7 pancakes but no human flesh! (this time).

Anyway, the visitors all enjoyed our wares and I perfected a very Vanna White-ish hand gesture for demonstrating the location of the firebox on the stove. A few visitors laughed and I found myself hilarious, so I consider it a successful addition to my repertoire. I only ate about a tenth of what I wanted to eat, but I did OK, all food considered.

The funniest part of the weekend was on Friday when the local high school choruses were there. They had all practiced like crazy and did a really great job. The kids all got to check out the park and all the craft and food stations. Every single one of those horny little weasels hit the mistletoe table, then took it into the trees to see if it worked. It did.

They made paper chains, sachets, and book marks but mostly they made out. It was pretty funny, but largely because none of them were mine. Nice kids - maybe next year we should say that anybody over 8th grade can attach a condom to their mistletoe. I learned a lot this weekend - and not just about paper chains...