The holiday cook-a-thon has begun. My patented cranberry-orange relish is bubbling enticingly on the stove, filling the house with the aroma of oranges and cloves. This afternoon will be devoted to the steaming and spicing of Moroccan carrots, although I have my doubts about the authenticity of the nomenclature. In this case I think �Moroccan� means �with cumin.� And this evening will be devoted to the preliminary chopping of ingredients for my grandmother�s truly awesome dressing recipe. I love Thanksgiving.

AJ and I spent the morning in a vain (and admittedly last minute) attempt at finding some decent-looking dining room chairs that won�t break the bank. Alas, the task proved impossible, so instead, since Thanksgiving is more or less under control, we began shopping for assorted items to help us survive the family Christmas party, which we�ve just agreed to host � two houseguests (my mom and dad), one resident small child and 50 or more people for dinner on Christmas Eve. What were we thinking? But thanks to AJ, who got very excited at the towers of red and green plastic cups, we now have all the silverware and fine paper china that we could possibly need. Now what do we do for food?

After our shopping extravaganza, it seemed only fair to do something fun for AJ, so we headed to the theater for popcorn and The Polar Express (in that order). I was all excited that AJ wanted to see the movie. It was his first ever time in a movie theater and he gasped with excitement when the lights went down and laughed uproariously at the previews for assorted inanities. The film has been getting such dreadful reviews that I wasn�t expecting much but I really enjoyed what I saw of it. AJ was transfixed by the screen, the bigness and loudness of the film. He loves the book deeply � we read it at least once a week � and the film was so visually faithful, that it was like falling into the story. Unfortunately, the small plot details that were added in an attempt to turn a quiet picture book into a feature film to engage the video game set proved a little too frightening for AJ, and we left about halfway through. AJ has been running the whole experience over and over and we had to read the story twice when we got home, just to make sure everyone was okay.

Tomorrow will be full of cooking and cleaning and watching for snow, which the weather forecasts assure us is coming. I hope they are right. AJ is counting on it. Last night as we were going to bed, he wanted to watch the weather forecast one more time. �When it snows, Mommy, I�m going to run outside and catch snowflakes on my tongue and they will taste like sugar.� (This comes, I think, from the A Charlie Brown Christmas). Later, after we sang as many songs as we could think of about snow (�Over the River and Through the Woods,� �Let it Snow,� and �Jingle Bells�), AJ escaped from his bed and padded down to my office to ask, �Does rain turn into snow?� The question was so unexpected that I forgot to scold him for getting out of bed. Instead we went upstairs together, I tucked him under his comforter, and we talked about the weather until his eyes began to droop.

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