Author: Bob Stanza

Odd that it’s been a month since we’ve really stayed here for the full weekend but with all the events this time of year we always seem to have to leave early in the weekend. Tonight it’s the St, Louis Symphony Holiday concert, an event that’s guaranteed to put you in the Christmas spirit.

So we got here on Wednesday evening and I had to work all day Thursday and Friday which left little time to do a lot around here. I did get the carpet shampooed in the Laird’s Room and washed the remaining bedding so all that’s left from the “Soot Incident” is to clean off the upholstered chair in that room and it looks like that’s going to have to wait until next Wednesday.

We did get one of our Christmas presents delivered. A pair of counter stools for the kitchen. I tried finding some at the antique mall a bunch of times and finally settled for getting some from Wayfair. As has been my luck recently, one of them wasn’t built properly so I had to make a trip to Ace Hardware for screws and wood glue. Not a tough fix and other than that they turned out pretty well.

I also got to put a true tree topper on our Christmas tree. We’ve never really had one of these but there was a great selection at the Chicago Christkindlmart so I couldn’t resist bringing one home.

We spent Dec 9 – 12 visiting the Rapaport family in Chicago. We hadn’t seen Kathy’s sister since 2019 before the pandemic hit. It was nice to get away even though the case numbers post Thanksgiving and with the omicron variant emerging are going up fast. Kathy and I have both gotten our booster shots so we felt pretty good since we didn’t plan on spending a lot of time in large crowds. Carol, Steve and Max are all vaccinated too so other than a couple restaurant visits and a trip downtown to Garrett’s and the outdoors Christkindlmart (I went alone), our chance of significant exposer was low.

We had a wonderful time catching up with our northern family members. Great food, games and conversation. We look forward to doing this again next year… God willing and the river don’t rise!

The fireplace in the Laird’s Room is wonderful but a bit finicky. It needs to be serviced each year, likely because propane doesn’t burn as cleanly as natural gas so there’s some soot buildup on the igniter. Finding someone to maintain it out here has proved a bit of a challenge but have someone now that can us in with a few weeks notice.

This year he showed up on Dec 3. It took about 30 minutes to get things going again that Friday morning and all seemed fine. It wasn’t until the next morning I realized that virtually every surface on the first floor was covered with a layer of soot! Floors, counters, carpets, window sills, yada, yada, yada. I mean everything. Long story short, the vacuum that our service guy used wasn’t venting right so blew all the soot from the fireplace into the bedroom and it travelled around the house from there.

So the great cleanup began. Mopping floors, doing laundry, cleaning furniture, counter tops and every other horizontal surface in the house. I had to take the comforter from the bed to the cleaners because it’s too big to wash here and told myself I’d need to bring the Hoover carpet cleaner here when we returned next for the bedroom carpet.

It took all day Saturday and most of Sunday to begin to get a handle on things. We had to cancel going home for the symphony and will reschedule that for sometime next year but I had to at least make things livable again so had little choice. The next week we are leaving for Chicago so won’t be back here until mid-December and I didn’t wanted that time to enjoy the Christmas season.

So things are much better now. To his credit, my service man offered to pay for a cleaning crew but I didn’t want it to come to that. In fact, I cleaned many things that probably have never been cleaned before and as such were long overdue for attention. Hopefully by Christmas this is just a bad memory and I’ll have a cleaner place in which to spend my long winter’s nap!

It was a year ago that we celebrated our first farm Thanksgiving. It was Kathy and me dining alone because of COVID-19. We prepared most of the traditional fare although in smaller portions. This year was quite a bit different indeed.

To make it easier on people we decided to do the big night on Friday instead of Thursday. We figured that way the people in St. Louis could celebrate Thanksgiving proper with others in their family and then come to the country on Friday. That seemed to work well for everyone so on Friday Ron, Jen, Dustin, Niki and all the kids showed up here.

I should have taken pictures but was too busy actually cooking and such to do that. We sat nine around the table as best we could and everyone had a wonderful time dining on turkey and all the fixings. See all the menu items and recipes here.

I had to usher on Sunday morning so did a quick turn around trip back into St. Louis and started doing Christmas decorating in earnest after everyone headed home. I moved an end table from the family room to the living room to make room for the tree instead of putting the table in the basement. I like it so much I’m going to leave it there and will need to hit the antique malls to find another to replace it after the holidays.

The last weekend before the first family Thanksgiving at Oak Moon. Kathy and I celebrated here last year but since it was just the two of us, getting ready for it didn’t take much effort. This year there will be 9 of us so preparations are a bigger deal. Interestingly we will again have a quiet Thanksgiving for 2 because Jen, Ron, Niki, Dustin and the kiddos won’t be here until Friday. That way they can have one evening with their city families and then come to the country for the weekend.

First task was to bottle the riesling and pinot grigio. Six gallons of each. All went as planned and the 57 bottles were moved to the cellar awaiting labeling when I get here next week. After cleaning, all the other wine making accoutrements were stored downstairs freeing up some more space for when people are here.

Next was the start of the Christmas decorating. Only outdoor lights and decorating the staircase so we don’t steal Thanksgiving’s thunder. But that required doing a good bit of cleanup in the gardens so things took longer than I expected but came out well.

The last Thanksgiving to-do was to make the cranberry sauce. I find it tastes better if it sits for a few days and blends. I made fig and pinot cranberry sauce and some extra “base” cranberry sauce for those that want something a bit less complex. Now it’s time to relax!