Like the Romans of old, the chickens surround and begin to dismantle our holiday “ginge-agogue”

The end of the holiday season is generally marked sometime in early January with the dismantling of the last decoration and the curbside deposit of the Christmas tree. The last remnant of our holidays was the gingerbread synagogue, or “ginge-agogue”, that Margaret and the girls had made in December (see it here in all its original splendor). It’s been hanging around because we couldn’t bear to get rid of it, but the “ginge-agogue” was beginning to look a little pecked, as a few pieces of candy seemed to disappear daily from the creation. So, in an act of housecleaning as well as an attempt to save Charlotte’s teeth, we decided to give the house and what remained of its sugary trim over to the chickens. We’ve been calling it the destruction of the temple. Sacrilegious? Perhaps, but would the compost pile be any less? The chickens did seem to enjoy their part in the historical re-enactment.

Crafts, Judaism, poultry chickens, destruction, gingerbread, Holidays, synagogue, temple

A sleepy Margaret shows off our Thanksgiving turkey (23 lbs!) before popping it in the oven first thing in the morning.

We have so much to be thankful for:

• Our beautiful healthy children
• The farm and our animals
• Jobs and health insurance
• A supportive family
• Friends who inspire and entertain

And now we have the wonderful Thanksgiving we shared with Margaret’s dad, the Knight-Chamberlain family, and the entire extended family of our friends, Nicole Chaison and Craig Lapine. There were 23 of us (a pound of turkey per guest) and we kicked off the meal with a communal goat milking. Some of the Chaison-Lapine clan introduced us to the custom of a “gratitude basket,” Nicole said a beautiful grace, and we ended the evening with song. Margaret closed out the meal with the poem by Mary Oliver that her mom (who couldn’t be with us, but is very much alive) likes to say for grace.

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

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Events, Family, Food, Poems Food, Holidays, Thanksgiving, Turkey