Holiday Advice: Ideas for Hostess Gifts

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

This post is part of a short series about having a happy holiday. It’s inspired by questions posted in my parent support group, shared here with permission and without identifying details. If you have a question–or a solution to one!–to share, let me know.

Here is today’s question, plus some follow-ups:

I’m at a loss when it comes to host/hostess gifts. Can you offer some suggestions?

A host/hostess gift thanks someone for their hospitality–their invitation for you to join them in their home, which is an act of vulnerability and generosity. We recognize their efforts in preparing their home, making food, and ensuring our comfort and safety with a small gift.

A good host/hostess gift is one that

  • is sincerely given
  • isn’t so expensive as to be a burden to you or an embarrassment to the recipient
  • is for the host/hostess only, to be given to them without expectation that they share it with the group
  • is never a criticism or suggests that they might not be prepared (for example, handing them a bottle of wine or a serving utensil and saying, “This is in case you don’t have enough”)
  • does not presume a level of intimacy that doesn’t exist between you (for example, no personal care items unless you know the person very well)
  • is not something to be displayed unless, again, you know them very well–and even then, is small (like a Christmas ornament)
  • is typically consumable, so they can use it, share it, or regift it easily

Some gifts are best if you know the person very well, while others are suitable even if it’s your first time in someone’s home. Here are our favorites to give and receive:

  • higher-end nuts, chocolates, or candies–nicer than what is typically at your grocery store
  • cut flowers already in a vase–better if it’s a pretty one you score from a thrift store rather than one from the floral department of the grocery store
  • old-fashioned holiday candies, like ribbon candies
  • a small fruit basket (Kumquats are a favorite to share!)
  • a 0 proof wine or apéritif if you don’t know if they consume alcohol or a bottle of wine or liqueur if you know that they do
  • a 4- or 6-pack of fun sodas
  • a box of fancy tea or pound of fancy coffee
  • a locally made favorite: pfeffernüsse, pecans or chestnuts from a local orchard, popcorn from local growers
  • if they aren’t from around where they live, a favorite from where they’re from. Someone once sent me grilled stickies from Ye Old College Diner (RIP) in State College, Pennsylvania, while I lived far away, and they will be mentioned in my obituary.
grilled stickies in a box

Above, a dessert that you didn’t know you needed. Be a pal and order some for the central Pennsylvanians you love who are far from home.

If you know someone well, you can consider:

  • one more item in a series of something that they collect (book, kitchen tool, refrigerator magnet)
  • a framed photo of people or a place they love–maybe even with them in it!
  • a houseplant, including a cutting from one of yours
  • an amaryllis, small pointsettia, or other holiday-specific plant
  • a jar of jam or bottle of real maple syrup
  • an ingredient they’d enjoy cooking with but aren’t likely to already own (specialty flour, high-end spice)
  • something homemade: a spice blend, a jar of salsa, your famous hot sauce, a table runner, potpourri that you made, dried flowers, a bottle of homemade Irish cream
  • something small that you noticed them enjoying in a previous encounter–like a magnet from your visit to the art museum, a small kitchen tool of yours that they complimented when they visited you

I prefer not to receive a hostess gift. How do I tell people not to bring one?

It is good that people desire to express their appreciation for your work as host, so be sure you have a significant reason for saying no, one that doesn’t dismiss their appreciation (“It’s no big deal to host!”) or insult them (“I already have enough junk in my house and don’t need more!”). If you do have a good reason and if you know someone well, you can tell them that you prefer for them to say thanks with words, not a gift. If you don’t know someone well, let them bring you a gift.

If you receive a gift you don’t want, say “Thank you!” without lying that it’s perfect or that you love it or that it’s thoughtful. Then, give it away. Drop it off in your local neighborhood sharing box (“Blessing Box,” in some communities), advertise it for free on Facebook Marketplace (setting the settings so that your friends can’t see it), put it in the common area at your workplace with a sign that says “free,” or regift it to your child’s teacher, your church secretary, the janitor at work, your mail carrier, your garbarge collector, etc. Even if you are irritated that you received a gift you didn’t want, sharing a gift is a chance for you to think about the people in your life who would enjoy it, which is a good practice!

How do I handle a hostess gift that is clearly intended to be shared with the group?

If you want to share it, share it. If you don’t–maybe because it’s alcohol and this event is alcohol-free or because you have the perfect menu planned and this item interrupts it–say, “Thank you! I’m going to go put this away to enjoy later.” If the item is clearly for the moment–like a pan of dinner rolls or a pie–just say, “Thank you! I’m going to put this in the freezer so we can enjoy it later.” When you do enjoy it later, send them a text thanking them for it.

I think this is an important practice because some people really struggle not to impose their food on your menu. Whether this is because they are controlling or because they like helping (remembering that “helping is often the sunny side of control”), it’s a bad habit, and you shouldn’t cater to it.

Is it okay to regift a hostess gift?

Gifts are meant to be enjoyed, so if passing one along is how you enjoy, that’s just great! Just be sure that 1. the giver won’t see you do it, 2. the recipient is likely to enjoy it, and 3. you remove any indicators that it is a regift. Then, give it away while enjoying the idea of it being appreciated by someone else.

Having a Happy Holiday: Hostesses Who Can’t Relax

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

This post is part of a short series about having a happy holiday, one where you aren’t exhausted by or resentful of the work needed, everyone gets to participate in ways that satisfy, and your values and traditions–and effort and money–are respected. It’s inspired by questions posted my parent support group, shared here with permission and without identifying details. If you have a question–or a solution to one!–to share, let me know.

In this post, we’re sharing challenges we’ve faced in creating a happy Thanksgiving, Christmas, or other major holiday, in hopes that others can benefit from our experiences. We’re drawing on our childhood and adult experiences, with a focus on the diverse needs of guests and the challenges of helping everyone, regardless of age, having a fun time.

Here’s today’s challenge:

While typically a normal human being, my mother is highly stressed when hosting and passes that along to others. It’s clear that she doesn’t enjoy hosting events, but she also won’t let anyone else take over the duties. We dread going to her house for the holidays. She works through the entire event, but instead of feeling cared for, we feel like we’re a burden. For example, last year, she whisked away my dessert plate while I was still eating my pie! We’re not allowed to eat in the dining room because she got new carpet in it 15 years ago and doesn’t want stains on it, so we end up perched on couches and folding chairs throughout the house, and then she’s anxious that we’re going to spill our food there, too. Instead of eating, she walks around with a Dustbuster in her hand sweeping up crumbs. It’s misery.

Graciously remember that many generations of women likely faced (and saw their mothers face) a lot of judgment about being an “angel of the house,” and they have internalized it–and may also externalize it by being judgmental about other women’s performances of hosting. But the reality is that it’s hard to be gracious to a Thankzilla when she’s raging against both internalized sexism and her guests, even if that rage is the quiet seething of someone who is unloading the dishwasher that you loaded after the dishes have been through the wash cycle, rinsing them, and then reloading it and re-starting the entire dishwasher process because, without her supervision, you surely did not properly scrape and rinse the dishes before loading the dishwasher in the first place. (Ooops. I think we’ve touched a nerve here for me!)

Yeah, it’s hard to be the object of resentment while also being seen as too incompetent to perform any tasks that would lighten her burden.

While I’m not recommending Bad Moms, Christine Baranaski’s character is the epitome of a controlling, insecure mom at the holidays. My favorite line is when she tells her adult daughter “Moms don’t ENjoy; they GIVE joy. That’s how being a mom works and this hideous tree does not give joy to anybody.”

There is no solving her problem, unfortunately, because if you do manage to get her to release control, she will feel guilty about enjoying her day; her anxiety and resentment are, to her, measures of her success; she cannot fathom that she did a good job unless she feels like she is suffering.

The only way to win at this game is not to play. So, to that extent:

  • drop the holiday gathering from your rotation of times when you see her. You can see her at a time when the pressure is lower on her, creating a new tradition at a different time of year. You can celebrate a holiday that you love in a way that makes sense for your family. Yes, this will hurt her feelings, but you can say honestly, “I want something different from my Thanksgiving than we’re able to do together, so our family won’t be coming this year. We’d love to do X [a luminary walk at the arboretum, attend the town Thanksgiving Day parade, attend a performance of Amahl and the Night Visitors, participate in the Audubon Society’s annual bird count, sing in the community choir’s performance of Handel’s Messiah, etc.] with you instead.” Be clear that it’s not a scheduling issue as she’ll try to solve it, which only kicks the problem down the road.
  • host the event. If she asks how she can help, give her a specific task that she will actually enjoy, along with a compliment about it; the key here is that it has to have some level of challenge to it so it will help dissipate her anxious energy. (“You always make the best pumpkin roll! Would you like to make one for the event?” “The kids love your cookies! Could you bake sugar cookies for the kids to decorate, with your help, after the meal while I do the dishes? I’ll bring the icing and the decorations if you bake them.” “We’d like to take a family photo. Could you find a photographer and schedule them for a mini-session at our house? And let everyone know to come dressed for photos. We’ll pay, and the budget is XXX.” “You set such a beautiful table! Could you bring a centerpiece?”)
  • offer to host, but shift to a nice restaurant, and pay for her meal without telling her the cost. Tell her that it’s a thank you for all the times she’s hosted. If she complains that it costs too much to eat out, tell her, “You’re worth every penny!” Tip the waitstaff HUGELY and, again, don’t tell your mother/MIL. And if she says that she’ll tip them, let her, but them tip them again anyway because they deserve a huge tip at a holiday and probably had to absorb your mother/MIL’s anxious energy and criticism too.
  • if she insists on hosting, suggest a breakfast or dessert event, which will limit the amount of time spent together, or quickly transition from a meal to something outdoors, like a family walk at a local county park or volunteering at a soup kitchen, so that time spent in her home is limited.
  • if she hosts, remember that you don’t have to attend or stay very long. You can enjoy as much of the day as you enjoy, then leave. Or you can even make plans to leave early because of another event, like volunteering or visiting a shut-in friend or relative. Drive separately from your partner if needed to ensure a quick getaway.
  • if she hosts and you choose to participate, ask early how you can help, then do that thing early, giving her updates once it’s done so that her anxiety about whether you are going to deliver is soothed (“I made the cheese balls last weekend, and they’re in the freezer, just waiting for the big day!”) If you live nearby, offer to drop food or other items off early, like the day before, so she can organize them as she pleases. When en route, call and ask if she needs any last minute items, like additional ice or more butter or a box of plastic flatware, which shows that you understand the stress of hosting.

Also, bring a hostess gift that she will actually enjoy–cut flowers already in a vase, a little plant, some pretty stationary, a favorite candy. When you arrive, take her aside and give it to her, letting her know that it’s just for her, to be opened whenever she likes. If she wants to share the box of chocolates or bottle of wine with everyone, that’s up to her, but it should be something that demonstrates that you know her well and appreciate her. Because, even when she’s melting down because someone has violated an unspoken rule, you actually do appreciate her. At least, on other days.

Have a question, challenge, or piece of advice to share about how to enjoy holidays? Please share it!

Our Thanksgiving Trivia

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

At large holiday gatherings, we often play trivia, using questions that we know folks in our family will know–so, in our family, you’ll see questions about farming, Kansas history, and family lore. You can download our Thanksgiving trivia questions or make your own, of course. Our rule is teams of 2 people of different households and different generations on each team to ensure that folks are mingling.

 

Names:

 

With your partner, answer as many questions as you can correctly without consulting the internet. When you’re done, hand this sheet to your host. Your host is the sole arbiter of correct answers and has the authority to add points for inaccurate but creative responses!

 

1 Who is one person here today who has a fall birthday?
2 What is one nickname for the November full moon?
3 Chlorophyll makes leaves green. What makes them yellow, orange, and red?
4 Companion planting is the practice of planting crops that benefit each other together. “Three sisters” are three crops that were traditionally planted together in native American cultures. What were the three vegetables planted together?
5 What is one Big 12 college mascot that is NOT a mammal or bird? (Remember that humans are mammals!)
6 It takes between ___ and ____ apples to make a gallon of cider. (Hint: Choose a range of 10, such as 1-10 or 100-110).
7 Of all the trees in the US, what kind of firewood generates the most BTUs? 
8 Which is more nutritious: yams or sweet potatoes?
9 Pepitas are dried ____________.
10 What key ingredient does Texas chili lack that chili in most other places always includes?
11 Which president issued a national proclamation making Thanksgiving a federal holiday?
12 How many pecks are in a bushel?
13 Which American novel’s opening chapter describes the main character’s motivation to embark on an adventure this way: 

 Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off–then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”
14 In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the date of Thanksgiving from the fourth to the third Thursday of the month, a practice that was reversed in 1941. Why did he do this? (Bonus points if you know the derisive nickname his experiment was labeled with!)
15 About how many cranberries are in a pound? (Closest guess, whether over or under, wins!)
16 Which state produces the most cranberries?
17 The world record for largest ____________ is 2,624.6 pounds
18 What kind of cheese is often served with apple pie–or even shredded and added to the crust?
19 What company staffs a hotline each Thanksgiving just to answer questions about turkey preparation?
20 If you serve a chicken inside a turkey inside a duck, what dish are your guests eating?
21 Beauregard, Red Garnet, Murasaki, and Jewel are kinds of __________. 
22 Are we currently using standard or daylight savings time?
23 What holiday that is NOT Columbus Day is celebrated on the second Monday of October?
24 Traditionally, we consider a 1621 meal shared by native Americans and English Pilgrims as the first celebration. What native tribe participated in this meal?
25 According to folklore, the more black on ________ ________ ________, the harsher winter will be.

 

What’s baking? Pumpkin whoopie pies!

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

Gazing at a case of whoopie pies–chocolate, peanut butter, red velvet, and other flavors–is perhaps my favorite activity at Lancaster’s Central Market, my favorite place to eat when I’m back home. And pumpkin is my favorite flavor, which is why I created these. They have a cream cheese frosting which is also pretty tasty with red velvet whoopie pies. Hope you enjoy!

This makes 20 oversized pies, 20 regular ones, or 120 minis.

a plate of five mini whoopie pies
an oversized whoopie pie, held in a hand

Ingredients

for the pies

  • 6 cups all-purpose flour (360g)
  • 2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons cardamon
  • 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 4 teaspoons ground ginger
  • 2 (15-ounce/425g) cans pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
  • 4 large eggs, room temperature
  • 4 cups packed light brown sugar
  • 1 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 tablespoon vanilla extract

For the Filling:

  • 1 stick softened butter
  • 8 ounces room-temperature cream cheese
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • pinch of salt
  • 6 cups confectioners’ sugar (360g)

Directions

  1. Preheat over to 350. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  2. Whisk flour, soda, salt, and spices in a large bowl.
  3. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs lightly; add brown sugar, oil, and vanilla and beat well.
  4. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until no dry streaks remain.
  5. Spoon onto one baking sheet; for oversized whoopie pies, use two large spoons to create pies about 1.5-2 inches in diameter. For regular size, aim for about half that. For minis, use a teaspoon or small melon baller to dollop them on the baking sheet. Space about 1″ apart. (I can easily fit 36 minis on a baking sheet.)
  6. Bake one sheet at a time: 12-14 minutes for oversized; 10-12 for regular, or 8-10 for minis. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then remove to cooling rack until thoroughly cool.
  7. In the bowl of stand mixer if you have one, cream butter and cream cheese. Add vanilla and salt and mix another 20 seconds. Add confectioners’ sugar slowly, then, when all is added, mix at high speed for 30 seconds. Scrape down sides as needed.
  8. Use a cake decorating bag to pipe filling half of the pies. Top with remaining half. If you’re feeling fancy, you can roll the sides in sprinkles or toasted, chopped pecans.

Party Games: PowerPoint Karaoke

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox
a slide with an image of Columbus, native Americans greeting white colonizers, a not-quite-right early map of the New World, and syphilis

Having fun is a high priority for us as a family, and a round of PowerPoint karaoke (which we reserve for family vacations but you can do anytime) is a major source of laughs for us. If you try it and like it, tell me, please–and share your slide decks!

PowerPoint Karaoke is fun because your center-of-attention types get a stage to themselves for 4-7 minutes, your behind-the-scenes planners will have fun prepping it, and everyone will laugh a lot.

Here’s how it works: Someone builds a slide deck (PowerPoint, Google Slides, etc.) for presentation to the group. It should be on a theme that is appropriate for the audience, include ample images and few words, and make some kind of argument. (“How to do X” is a good choice because you can organize the slides into steps in a process.)

You’ll then hand it off to the presenter, who hasn’t seen it before and won’t know what the topic is until they open the first slide–which is the same time the audience sees it. They’ll deliver a short talk on the topic, inspired by the slides as they appear on the TV or projection screen. Their goal isn’t to be accurate about the topic but to be funny.

Prep 3-4 slideshows at once so that you had spend about 30-40 minutes laughing together. Obviously, the person/people who create them can’t present the ones they create, but they can tailor the ones they make for specific presenters. Make one about cooking for the family chef, one about WWII for the military historian, and one about fashion trends or game design for the teenager.

Here are some of ours, which you can use or edit, as you like:

What will you presenter say about Christopher Columbus, early encounters between European and indigenous Americans, this map of the New World, and syphilis?

True Blue Blueberry Cake

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

A few weeks go, my youngest woke up and said, “I had a dream that I made a blueberry cake, but I’m pretty sure that I did it wrong, because I put the frosting in the batter. How about we try to make that right today?” Well, it took awhile, because he didn’t mean a cake with blueberries in it–he meant a cake that was blue through-and-through, like how a chocolate cake is chocolate, not just dotted with chocolate chips. Makes sense for a kid who dyed every one of his Easter eggs blue until he was 8 years old.

The last few slices of our cake

Here is our final result! Like the Homemade Strawberry Cake from Sally’s Baking, it builds on a white cake recipe. Our secret is to stuff as much blueberry in it–compote, emulsion, and freeze dried–as the batter can handle.

Make this in three stages, with time for cooling in between: compote, cake, and frosting. Also make sure that your eggs, butter, sour cream, and milk are at room temperature for the cake itself and that the milk and cream cheese are at room temperature for the frosting, and leave time for the frosting to cool in the refrigerator before decorating the cake. I strongly recommend weighing your ingredients in this case.

Ingredients:

for the compote

  • 1 lb of blueberries, frozen or fresh
  • 1/4 c sugar
  • 2-3 TBS lemon juice + zest of one lemon
  • pinch of salt

for the cake

  • 295g (2 1/2 c) cake flour, spooned rather than dumped onto your scale or into your measuring cup
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) softened butter
  • 350g (1 3/4 c) sugar
  • 5 room temperature egg whites, yolks reserved for another use
  • 1/3 c full-fat blueberry Greek yogurt or sour cream, at room temperature
  • 2 tsp clear vanilla extract
  • 2 Tbs blueberry emulsion (which we had to order online)
  • 2 drops red food coloring
  • 1/2 cup whole milk, at room temperature
  • 1 c. blueberry compote

for the frosting

  • 1 brick of full-fat cream cheese, softened
  • 1 stick of butter
  • 30 grams (a little over 1 cup) of freeze dried blueberries
  • 3 c. powdered sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 Tbs whole milk, room temperature
  • 1 tsp clear vanilla

Make the compote (20 mins, plus cooling time)

Actually, to make clean up easier, start the whole process by whizzing 30 grams of freeze dried blueberries in your blender to create a powder that will cover and flavor your frosting. Ensure that no chunks remain. Set aside. (Doing this first means you don’t have the wash the blender twice to make this cake.)

Combine blueberries, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, and pinch of salt in small saucepan and bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, as it reduces to about 1 cup. Remove from heat and allow to cool until you can safely transfer to a blender. Blend until a think blend; some chunks can remain. Cool to room temperature. (If you prepare the day before you bake the cake, refrigerate, then bring to room temperature.)

Make the cake (20 mins prep; 40 mins bake; plus cooling)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a round cake pan with cooking spray; line with parchment paper and spray the paper, too. Set aside.

Whisk together dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Or do what I do and place inside a mixing bowl with a lid and shake vigorously–a fun job for a kid!

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream sugar and butter by mixing with a paddle attachment on medium-high for about 3 minutes, pausing to scrape down sides as needed. Add egg whites, beating on high for 2 minutes. Add yogurt or sour cream, vanilla, blueberry emulsion, and food coloring and beat until combined, about 1 minute. Stir in dry ingredients. With mixer on low, slowly add milk until just combined. Finally, fold in 1 cup of blueberry compote. (If you have leftover, enjoy on stuffed French toast or baked oatmeal; if you are short.) Mix with a light touch only until no streaks of white are left.

Pour into prepared pans and bake until the center is set and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. I use a 9 inch round pan and it takes about 35 minutes, but my oven is a slow-poke, so check your sooner.

Cool on a baking rack for an hour, then loosen from the pan with a butter knife or offset spatula.

At this point, begin to make the frosting if you’d like to frost the cake today as the frosting requires an hour of refrigeration before being applied–and then will require another hour to set.

Remove from the pan, peel away parchment paper, and continue cooling until the cake is entirely cool.

Make the frosting and assemble, then chill, the cake (1 hour, 40 minutes total time)

Using a handheld mixer or stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and cream cheese on medium high until smooth, about 2 minutes, scraping down sides of the bowl as needed.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the powdered blueberries, powdered sugar, and a pinch of salt (or, again, add to a mixing bowl with a lid and shake vigorously). Add to butter and cream cheese, then add milk and vanilla. Beat on low for about 30 seconds, then slowly increase speed to high for three minutes or until smooth and creamy. Refrigerate for an hour.

To assemble the cake, divide in half horizontally with a cake leveling tool or large bread knife. Add about 1/3 of frosting to what will be the first layer and spread to edge. Top with second layer and frost the top and sides. Refrigerate about an hour.

At this point, the cake is ready to serve. If you refrigerate longer, bring to room temperature before serving.

Soup’s On: First Snowfall Chili, a Vegan Chili

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

We had our first snowfall today, which means we make chili! We love all kinds of chili around here, but this one isn’t just our favorite vegetarian or vegan chili–it’s our overall favorite. It’s hearty, gloppy and warming without being one-note spicy. Even if you think you don’t like squash or sweet potatoes, give them a try here–they don’t taste like what you might expect.

First Snowfall Chili

Our ingredient list includes convenience items, but you can easily make this using dried beans and fresh tomatoes, squash, and sweet potatoes if you prefer, especially as squash and sweet potatoes are in season and you might have the last of the green tomatoes ripening in your garage or basement when the first snow comes; if using the last of those tomatoes, add a 1-2 inch squeeze of double-concentrated tomato paste to improve their flavor.

You can easily halve or even quarter this recipe if you want to make a smaller batch.

  • 2 glugs of olive oil, to saute onions
  • 2 large yellow onions, chopped or, if you have diners who don’t like the texture of onions, 1-2 onions blended into a liquid
  • ▢ 4 tablespoons chili powder
  • ▢ 2 tablespoons cumin
  • ▢ 2 teaspoons salt
  • ▢ 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
  • ▢ 1/2 – 1 teaspoon cayenne powder, optional
  • 8 cloves of garlic, minced or chopped fine
  • 4 28-oz cans of diced tomatoes
  • 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
  • 4 19-oz cans of beans, mixing as many as you prefer: dark red kidney, light red kidney, pinto, black beans, cannellini beans, Italian northern beans, or garbanzo beans. We use whatever we have on hand but always include at least one kind of kidney bean, at least one dark bean, and at least one light bean.
  • 1 bag (10-12 oz) frozen, steam-in-the-bag sweet potatoes
  • 1 bag (10-12 oz) frozen, steam-in-the-bag butternut squash
  1. In a Dutch oven, heat oil to glistening and add onions; cook until golden. Add spices, stirring constantly, for about 30 seconds. Add garlic and stir another 30 seconds.
  2. Quickly, so that spices do not burn, add tomatoes and brown sugar. Add up to 1/2 can of water if the mixture is thick.
  3. Add beans, including liquid in can. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook, uncovered for about an hour, stirring occasionally to avoid beans sticking to the bottom of the pot.
  4. During this time, cook sweet potatoes and butternut squash according to package directions. Drain of any excess liquid, then add to chili. Be sure that the chili cooks with the sweet potatoes and the squash for at least half an hour.
  5. While you can cook this chili for longer, the longer you cook it, the higher the risk that the beans will become mushy.

Serve with your favorite chili toppings, like Fritos, lime-flavored corn chips, and hot sauce.

Our Holiday Letter, 2025

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

For years now, we’ve included holiday letter with our Christmas card. We enjoy sharing with our friends the news of our world–our successes and struggles, life changes, political concerns, and reflections on scriptures that spoke to us that year. But this year’s letter is a little different!

These days, our family is substantially changed in form: the older two children are in college and grad school, and while in the past few years we’ve collaborated on our family holiday letter, they’re at a stage to write their own stories. I encourage you to reach out to these young adults to hear them!

A Quiet Life

Life is mostly pleasant in our mid-sized Midwestern town, and especially from the third floor of our 1902 American Four Square where I am writing this letter. From one window, I see the historic main street; from another, a great oak tree that makes me feel like I’m in a treehouse; and, from the third, our backyard, which is just starting to take shape.

This year, we planted a number of fruit bushes, but it’s likely that only a blackberry bush will survive. We had a decent crop of tomatoes, and our neighbor had an even better one and happily shared when we were in need. (Homebuying advice: look for neighbors who like gardening and who plant more than they can eat!) A few volunteer pumpkins popped up–and should have even more next year, as we hosted a jack-o-lantern carving party for the campus gay-straight alliance and tossed the seeds into a corner of the yard. About a dozen varieties of hens and chicks are flourishing in our rock garden, and the morning glories we planted to fill in the privacy fence have taken off, as expected.

7 jack-o-lanterns sitting in a row, lit up with candles

Above, jack-o-lanterns carved by our students at a chili-and-carving party at our house. Maybe next year we’ll carve the pumpkins that grow from the seeds of this year’s jack-o-lanterns!

To this growing garden, we added a tank pool, which we kept in use until mid-October before we decided that the lower 70s were as cold as we could handle. We’re toying with ideas to heat the water. Advice is welcome!

A photo taken from the perspective of someone sitting in a tank pool, with legs extended in the water and a chiminea at the foot of the tub

We also finally introduced chickens to our henhouse and now get 3 or 4 eggs–white, coppery-chocolate, pistachio, and blue–a day, which gives us enough to share with friends or deliver on our almost-daily walks to our neighborhood free pantry.

Living close to downtown means we can walk to some of our favorite spots: the new Mediterranean restaurant, a coffee shop or one of the town’s two bookstores (Red Fern, for new books, and Ad Astra, for used), and our pastry shop, Seraphim Bakery, which serves a delightful Scotch egg in an Art Deco setting. In the summer and fall, we can walk to the farmer’s market, but we love the fruit and vegetable stand so much that we have to bring the minivan to haul it all home. Downtown is also home to the Steifel Theater, where we sometimes see the city’s symphony. Walking the other direction brings us to a little private college, a beautiful campus of old brick buildings and a lovely pond with a fountain. From our back porch, we can hear the fans cheer at home football games.

We walk often, amping up our step count this year by completing K-State Extension’s Walk Kansas challenge, in which your team attempts to walk the distance of the state–423 miles–over two months. Our team, the Bad Knees Bears, included my siblings and brother-in-law and honored our grandmother, who passed away in May and who, when we were young, wore us out “tramping,” as she called it–taking long walks on country roads and hikes through the woods, despite her serious arthritis. We walk some local trails, but our daily walk is a neighborhood loop with Teddy and Lizzie, our dogs, that helps us get to know the neighbors and the neighborhood trees and flowers. (Hollyhocks are especially popular on our street, which has been a comfort since they were also part of my grandmother’s front porch garden during my childhood.)

We got new neighbors this summer, and it’s a joy to hear their three little children playing in the backyard, singing (“Wife is a highway, and I wanna wide it all night wong!” as the three-year-old sings), riding their trikes, and playing. I miss that stage of parenting: we had a summer of big birthdays–21, 18, and 13, so everyone “leveled up”–and even though we still have a lot of fun, it’s less silly. But, also, we see the reward for that earlier parenting when the youngest fixes his own lunch or the oldest changes their oil and the brake fluid solo.

Locally, we continue to work to reducing COVID infections and their harms. I’m trying to create a local Mask Bloc and share information about COVID and local transmission information and also provide respirators and COVID tests to those who want them. If you do or want to do that kind of work in your community, let’s collaborate! Or if you want to learn more about COVID, share your story, get support for your health, or work through your grief at the many losses from COVID, let me know.

School and Work

The older two kids are in grad school (master’s of arts in history) and undergraduate (social work and anthropology) an hour away, which is a nice distance in case of emergency but not so close that we step on each other. One is working with in a memory care facility, preparing food and serving people with dementia and also assisting a recently widowed professor in transitioning to this new stage of life by sorting and storing and toting her beloved’s things; both jobs are sacred work. The other child works in the registrar’s office, a job we remind them is incredibly cushy for a college student. The youngest child is in 8th grade, enjoying the little bit of time left before we expect a summer or maybe even after-school job. He built a new computer this year (and one last year, too) and enjoys biking, friendship, and game design, winning his teacher’s praise that his most recent game is the best she’s seen in the five years she’s been teaching the course.

Serving as a professor right now is hard; anxiety about decisions from the Department of Education and other federal agencies is high, as funding for important meaningful projects has ended, including a grant from KU Med that I was part of that worked to ameliorate inequities around COVID. We grieve with our colleagues and friends at the cruel and unnecessary cuts intended to undermine higher education.

But the work itself is encouraging. Many K-State students are the first in their families to go to college, and it’s a privilege to support them in this big step. The College of Technology and Aviation is a weird place for scholars in the Liberal Arts, but it’s also fun to learn from colleagues whose knowledge, assumptions, and experiences have been shaped in such different disciplines. Do they feel the same? Hard to say, so I keep a candy dish of Zotz outside my office to foster good will.

The scholarship part of the job remains satisfying, as the work contributes to a better understanding of issues that affect us all: COVID, health inequities, politics, religion, violence, and hate. Despite so much discouragement about academia, we need more, not fewer, people thinking about these topics, whether as researchers or readers and activists.

A Little Travel

We traveled to Kentucky in March to attend my grandfather’s funeral and burial, less than 10 miles from the rural homestead where he was born, near Somerset. It was a lovely funeral, planned in great detail by my grandfather, a lifelong carpenter who always paid attention to little things and cared about beauty. We took the opportunity to visit family in the area and got to enjoy a stay in the Cumberland Mountains

Above, a recording of The Stanley Brother’s “Farther Along,” performed by some cousins at my grandfather’s funeral

In mid-August, we headed again to the Buffalo River in Arkansas, to dip our toes into the first nationally protected river in the US. We recommend it heartily.

A photo of the Buffalo River, clear with a bluff rising across the river

A favorite swimming hole along the Buffalo River.

And in October, the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine conference took us north to Minneapolis, a city we’d never visited before. Outside of the conference, we spent time at the Weisman Art Museum; the Bell Museum, a natural history museum with spectacular dioramas; and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

Hare on Bell on Portland Stone Piers, a sculpture of a hare on a bell from the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

Hare on Bell on Portland Stone Piers at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

We love living in the Midwest in part because so many beautiful and diverse places are within a day’s drive. We’re lucky!

Our Goal for 2026: Seeking the Good of Others

Have you felt that people–maybe even yourself–have been a little, uh, ruder in recent years? More short-tempered and less thoughtful? The coarsening of our interactions isn’t just a downstream effect of callow political leadership. In his reflection on the fifth anniversary of the start of the COVID pandemic, science writer David Wallace-Wells identified a pattern of “survivor’s resentment”–anger that protecting each other imposed costs on us; we resent having had to do the work of caring. In backlash, we flaunt how much we’re not required to care for each other by cutting off others in traffic, declining to mask when we see others doing it, or generally prioritizing our preferences over others’ needs.

In this moment, when it feels like fellow drivers, colleagues, customers and customer service reps, students, parents, fellow shoppers at the grocery store, people I’m trying to share the sidewalk with, almost everyone on social media, and virtually all politicians are ruder, cruder, and more selfish, I’ve turned to the Apostle Paul, who was pretty skilled in helping people get along. (Paul and I have had a contentious relationship, but when I see him not as a theologian but as an organizer, my appreciation grows.) In 1 Corinthians 10, he writes the script of our internal monologue when we are experiencing survivor’s resentment:

“I have the right to do anything,” you say–but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”–but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.

Paul understands the temptation to shout “My rights!” and “I’ve already done my share!” and “It’s not fair!” But exercising our right can include declining our preferences when they make life harder for others. Paul directs us to seek the good of others, not advantage over them. This is even more the case when we are more mature, safer, or stronger than them and thus can easier relent of our desires than they can of theirs. Or, as Paul says in Romans 15:

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.

These words are encouraging because they point me toward actions that reduce my anger and others’ refusal to care. Can I bear with an entitled student? An employee doing a lackadaisical job? Someone being an asshole on the internet? Sure, I have the right to complain, to assign an F or try to get them fired or cuss them out. But if I take Paul’s advice and seek their good, the situation almost always changes. I’m in problem-solving mode rather than rights-exercising mode, and I’m less angry, and that makes the whole encounter less angry.

This is not a cure-all–Our problems are big and rooted in an ableism that runs across the political spectrum and takes forms both rude and polite–but it is one strategy. We would love to hear yours as we struggle together for a kinder, more just world.

With love, on behalf of the larger B-F family,

Rebecca

PS. Want to hear a beautiful song? Listen to Guy Clark’s “Stuff that Works.” And share with us your own “Stuff that works, stuff that holds up/The kind of stuff you don’t hang on a wall/Stuff that’s real, stuff you feel/The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall.” We would be honored to hear about what you hold dear.

Ways we love these “darkest days”

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

The time of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, which we celebrate through the Presentation of the Lord at the Temple (so, from December 1 to February 2 this year) encompasses a season of long nights, including the winter solstice. By now, we see the sun setting a little later in the day, which brings relief to many of my friends, but I love this time of year, when our reason to light candles and turn on the Christmas lights starts at 5:15 pm.

We light lights, and we find lights, especially in our neighborhoods and in public places.

We celebrate the birth of Jesus, the start of Mary and Joseph’s life as parents, the hope of the Magnificat, and the work of our faith.

We decorate trees with reminders of people and places we love.

We built a forest of paper evergreens.

Continue reading Ways we love these “darkest days”

15 Tips for a Lower-Stress Move

Posted on by Rebecca Barrettfox

Since the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory was developed in 1967, Americans have consistently reported moving as one of their top stressors–and it is sometimes ranked as more stressful than marriage, breakups, and divorce. Of course, that probably depends on why, where, and when you’re moving; your financial situation; your physical health; etc. Still, even when you’re moving for all the best reasons, it’s stressful.

As a frequent mover (I’m doing it again this summer) and a friend to frequent movers, I’ve picked up some strategies along the way. I’m sharing a few of them here because some friends who haven’t moved in awhile are doing so this summer, and I’d like to share with them the things that have made my moves much easier. I’m presenting them in the order I recommend doing them.

Join social media groups in your new hometown. If there is a Facebook group where locals share recommendations for home repair services, house cleaning services, plumbers, carpenters, etc., join now. This will let you start building some knowledge of who to call if you need help on your first day.

Hire a housecleaner. Before you arrive in your new place, have it professionally deep cleaned. Yes, the previous owner should have done it. But they were likely in a hurry and, since they weren’t going to live with the consequences of a bad job, they probably did not do it to your standard, and you want to start your time in your new place with feelings of gratitude, not fury or doubt about whether the previous occupants took good care of the place. Plus, you want to focus on unpacking, not cleaning, and you absolutely don’t want to unpack your stuff into greasy cabinets or dusty drawers. If you already have a housekeeping service you like, ask if they will clean your new place, even if it is out of their service area–for an extra fee, of course. If you don’t have a current housecleaner, hire one now to clean a small part of your current house–a deep clean of the bathroom or kitchen is a good place to start. This lets you test out a service before committing to a pricey whole-house cleaning. (And this is why this advice comes first in my list–because you might need to test out a few cleaning services before you find a great one.) If you are moving at a distance, start asking friends or future colleagues for recommendations. Get specific about what you want: every nook and cranny, every drawer and shelf, the inmost depths of every closet and cabinet. A solo cleaner may need 2-3 days to accomplish this, depending on the size of your house.

Collect liquor store boxes. Provided that a liquor store is a safe and legal place for you to be, ask if yours gives away free boxes. Lots do, and they may even store them in a specific spot with a dolly you can borrow to haul them to your car. Pop in regularly, ideally right after opening, to pick up lots and lots.

Liquor boxes are small enough that they can be carried by even those of us with smaller wingspans, and they are also small enough that you can’t easily overfill them, making them too heavy to lift. Even when filled with books or Fiestaware, they’re manageable. Avoid beer boxes, which typically have a whole in the bottom as the four flaps don’t perfectly overlap. Wine and liquor boxes work well, and they may even have dividers in them that are perfect for packing glasses. Always choose sturdy ones, and, if you have an option, pick light-colored boxes without too much advertising on them so that you have plenty of places to label them.

If you will hire professional movers, reserve their services now and learn their packing policies. Some may request that you list every item in a box, and that’s easier to do from the start.

Get everything in the room where it belongs. First step of packing: know what you have. Your goal is to avoid “miscellaneous” boxes that will have you walking from room to room at your new place as you unpack them. And it stinks to have packed up your winter sweaters and carefully labeled them, only to find one more at the bottom of the laundry hamper.

To achieve this goal, take an empty box or tote bag or laundry basket and label it (even if just mentally) with the name of one room. Then walk into every other room of the house and pick up anything in them that belongs in the first room. For example, you can take a laundry basket that is dedicated to the kitchen and walk every other room of the house looking for dishes, dish towels, or food (or whatever else might have left the kitchen but really belongs there).

Declutter. How rich we are, that we have to have a plan to have less! Instead of seeing decluttering as a painful or shameful task, view it as an exercise in gratitude to those who make products and those who have given them to you and an act of connection to those who will care for them now that you have benefitted from them. Here are some tips to make it easier to tap into appreciation for your material possessions.

Put everything you own away. As you move through the decluttering process, you’ll be winnowing your stuff down to what is beautiful, meaningful, or useful (and hopefully at least two of these three!). Make sure it is clean, then put it where it belongs in your current home. Use the effort of putting it away as another opportunity to review if you really want to carry it with you to your next home. As you hold it in your hand, ask yourself, If I didn’t own this, would I wish that I had it? If not, it may be a good candidate for gifting, donating, or selling.

Pack items of a kind, starting with what you don’t need now, in boxes that will end up in the same room in your new home. Your goal is to end up with no boxes labeled miscellaneous. So, pack items that are alike and will end up in the same room in your new home, even if they don’t come out of the same rooms in your current home. For example, perhaps your children now share a bedroom but will have separate bedrooms in your new home. Pack now according to which bedroom the box will go into, not which one it came out of. The narrower the range of items inside the box, the better. For example, pack your sweaters in one box, your dressier dresses in another. Label narrowly so that you can prioritize your unpacking to find what you need quickly. You don’t want to waste time unpacking a food dehydrator when what you need is the coffee pot just because you labeled them both only as “kitchen.”

Start your packing with the things you are least likely to need now: out-of-season clothing, athletic gear, holiday decorations, home repair tools, school supplies, or items that belong to people who aren’t currently living with you (like a college student or parent who lives with you part-time).

Inventory what you own. I mean this literally–and especially if you are doing a move that will require your possessions to be out of your sight, like on the road with a moving company, in a storage unit, or in a moving truck that you yourself are driving a long distance (since you’ll have to stop to eat, use the restroom, and maybe sleep). Thieves target moving vans in hotel parking lots, auto collisions happen, and storage units flood. Check your homeowner’s insurance to make sure it covers damage, destruction, or theft of property mid-move, and help yourself now by keeping a long list of items you are packing.

Label your boxes. Label the box with the name of the room and the items inside. For example, don’t just write “books,” because that will require you (or, even worse, someone helping you move) to decide where books go. Is it a library? Home office? Den? Children’s bedroom? Write the name of the room where you want the item to go AND include a word that will help you figure out what’s inside without opening it. “Office: Textbooks” or “Sarah’s bedroom: Books” will help those carrying the box know where to place it and also how to handle it–like whether it will be heavy or if they should avoid putting other boxes on top of it. Plus, this labeling makes it easier to find what you need fast upon arrival.

I also recommend tagging boxes with a colorful sticker that corresponds to a room in your new home. (The neon circles used to tag items for yard sales work well, provided you can get them in lots of colors.) This can help you see from a distance which boxes will go to which rooms, which is especially useful if you are loading a dolly with boxes that go to the same place.

Pro-tip: your keywords on every side of each box, plus on the top. When a box is loaded into a moving truck, you’ll typically only be able to see one side of it. If you write the new home for the box on only one side, 75% of the time, you won’t be able to see it without picking it up and searching for it (and if you write it on the top, you’ll never be able to see it unless you stand over it, which you can’t do if it’s underneath other boxes). Use a black Sharpie on light colored boxes and, if you’re using liquor boxes with dark sides, use a white, silver, or gold Sharpie (store cap-side down for best results).

Sort your packed items according to the room where they will go in your new home. When you bag your groceries at the grocery store, you bag them according to where they will go in your house: all bathroom items together, all items for the pantry or the refrigerator. That way, when you unload groceries, you can look inside the bag, see a single item and instantly know where to take and unload the whole bag, and you don’t have to take every bag to the basement freezer–only the ones that are filled with only items for that destination.

Apply the same concept here: Once you pack your boxes and label them, store them according to what room they will go into. For example, if you currently have books throughout your home but will soon be consolidating them into a single library, place all the boxes of books together now–in an empty closet, corner of the garage, etc. This way, when they are placed in the moving truck, they will be placed near each other and then can be unpacked all at once. On move-in day, you can unload the truck one room at a time. If friends or family are helping unpack, someone can work in a single room, and within a few hours, you can have the whole library or kitchen set up. And if you are moving yourself in your car over a few days, you can load all the items for one room, transport them at once, and unload them at once, checking off each room as you complete it.

Hire loaders and unloaders, even if you drive the moving truck yourself. If you are a friend of mine, your friends are likely too old to help you lift every single thing you own in exchange for pizza. If you are moving a great distance, you might rely on a moving service, but even if you are driving all your stuff yourself, having someone else schlepp boxes to and from the moving truck is a huge help. You’ll have to do the unboxing and putting away yourself–don’t start that process with back pain from hauling it, too. Professional movers know how to avoid injury and have better equipment than you can rent to get the job done.

That said, expect even professional movers to do a bad job. (Sorry, but I’ve never seen a case where they didn’t break something.) If you own an item that is especially heavy and tricky–a piano, for example–hire someone with specialized knowledge. If anything is delicate and precious to you, carry it with you or ask a friend to drive it separately: musical instruments; artwork; electronics; jewelry; sensitive files; your fireproof envelope with your birth certificate, social security card, passport, etc. If you are transporting firearms over a long distance, hire a company that specializes in that kind of service as you don’t want to leave them in a moving truck or even your own car.

Pack an overnight bag and carry it with you. Don’t wait until 11 pm, after you have spent the day loading and unloading a moving truck, to figure out that you don’t have what you need to go to sleep. Pack an overnight bag with your toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss; face wash and soap; washcloth and towel; shampoo and conditioner; meds; pajamas; eye mask (since you don’t know what the light is going to be like in your new bedroom); a change of clothes; and your pillow (if you are a fussy person like me). If moving a distance with a family over the road, pack a single carry-on for the family for each night on the road; that way, you don’t have to unload one suitcase per person into the hotel each night but can instead just bring in one suitcase per night. In the Night #1 suitcase, pack a laundry bag for collecting dirty laundry.

If moving a long distance by car, rent an AirBnB or VRBO in a remote location or with a garage that locks. Do not park your moving truck in the parking lot of a motel. If you must stay in a city without the ability to secure your car or moving truck, rent a storage unit (yes, it’s worth it to pay a month’s rent for one night if it means you aren’t robbed) in the city, park it inside the unit, lock it (You may need to bring your own lock), and then get an Uber back to your hotel.

Hire an awesome cleaning service to clean after you leave. Be a Boy Scout and leave your current home nicer than you found it. Can you get away with not doing a deep clean? Sure, but don’t be like that, especially if the next occupants are likely to be people without the money to hire help with their own move.