Merry Christmas

This holiday so far has been a study in contrast. Last night I spent Christmas Eve with my little sister. Some of you already know that I've been part of the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization for many years. In fact, I was matched with Sade when she was seven and next month we'll be celebrating our 10th year anniversary.

No doubt I've seen this child go through a lot. Right now is a particularly hard time for her. She, her mother and sister are spending Christmas in a homeless shelter. They were evicted from their home in late September and ever since have been homeless. The shame of it all has caused her to drop out of high school. Here's a 17-year-old who is literally falling through the cracks right before my eyes. Thus far, she's avoided the fate of many of her friends: she chooses not to drink, smoke or do drugs and has remained a virgin. Although I'm very proud of her, I'm frustrated as hell and saddened by her decision to drop out of school. She knows that it's her ticket out of poverty. She says she'll return to school some day, and, believe me, I want that more than anything, but my gut is telling me otherwise. All I can do is stick by her side and pray that things will turn around for her.

Another holiday event we attended was a potluck held by the Twin Cities Russian Language Meetup Group. As the name implies, it's a group of people who enjoy speaking Russian—from native Russians to students to people like us who know just a few phrases and words. We figured this would be a great way to learn Russian and keep our son's culture alive. We have also found Russians to be very willing to help out. After going around telling people our adoption story, we were flooded with email and phone numbers. Very kind, generous people.

By the way, here's a sampling of some of the tasty food we got to enjoy that night.


After dinner, there were Russian language games. For us newbies, there was a word face-off. Five of us had to go around and say a Russian word. Three cheated right off the bat, which meant Bob and I had to compete against each other.

Here's Bob staring me down as I'm about to give my final answer.

The next day was the Norwegian Christmas. My best friend's mother assigned me to Potato Lefsa duty. Frankly, I've found nothing beats a warm lefsa covered in butter with a sprinkling of sugar. Yum.

INGREDIENTS
18 baking potatoes, scrubbed
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup butter
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS
1. Peel potatoes and place them in a large pot with a large amount of water. Bring water to a boil, and let the potatoes boil until soft. Drain and mash well.
2.In a large mixing bowl, combine 8 cups mashed potatoes, cream, butter, salt, and sugar. Cover potatoes and refrigerate over night.
3. Mix flour into the mashed potatoes and roll the mixture into balls about the size of tennis balls, or smaller depending on preference. Keep balls of dough on plate in the refrigerator.
4. Taking one ball out of the refrigerator at a time, roll dough balls out on a floured board. To keep the dough from sticking while rolling it out, it helps to have a rolling pin with a cotton rolling pin covers.
5. Fry the lefsa in a grill or in an iron skillet at very high heat. If lefsa brown too much, turn the heat down. After cooking each piece of lefsa place on a dishtowel. Fold towel over lefsa to keep warm. Stack lefsa on top of each other and keep covered to keep from drying out.

Today (Christmas) the dinner of choice is tacos. Silly me, I forgot that grocery stores close early December 24th (4 p.m. to be exact), so my only option was what was left in my freezer. I know, my bad.

Whatever holiday tradition you may have, we wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas.