Oh Baumkuchen, O Baumkuchen

Christmas is a time of family tradition, and my family Christmas is not short of them. On my mom's side, we have the tradition of eating ham and deviled eggs while we all open our gifts at the same time in a frenzy. There was one year that my mom tried to establish some order to the holiday by having each person open one gift at a time, but this quickly degenerated into the usual haphazard shredding of holiday paper while thank-yous were shouted across the room. I guess you can't change tradition.
The tradition on my dad's side is completely different and very one-dimensional. Christmases with Oma completely revolve around the fact that we are German. My dad is only half German, which leaves my brother and I at a quarter German, but this doesn't hinder our feast of spaetzel and saurkraut. Every year, my mom hides a picle ornament in the tree, promising a special present for the first child who finds it. After much pushing and shoving between my brother and I, someone finds the pickle and Mom backs out of the present reward because she never had one in the first place.
When I was very little, my Christmas outfit was not the traditional red satin and white lace dress that most little girls wore. I wore a durndel, and Oma had a matching one. Somehow, my brother escaped wearing leiderhosen, but that might be because by the time he was born, Oma could no longer fit into her durndel, so traditional German garb was no longer required. Once I got older and learned to play the piano, the most dreaded German tradition was started--as I fumbled around Oma's untuned piano, searching for a key that wouldn't cause everyone's voices to crack, the rest of my family stood around the piano to sing Silent Night in German. Well, really, Oma would sing, Dad would mumble, Mom would turn the pages of the sheet music for me, and Alex would giggle. I'm sure our rendition of Still Nacht leaves the neighborhood dogs howling, but we can't hear them over Oma's strained soprano and Dad's attempt at remembering his high school German.
Though our Christmas seems as German-filled as the Haufbrauhaus, it has toned down since my dad's childhood, when every pastry and every toy ended in an unpronounceable suffix. My father does not miss most of the old tradition, but one thing that he has mentioned every Christmas is Baumkuchen--tree cake. For years, my mother has searched every bakery and website for Baumkuchen in order to reignite my father's childhood memories. No one except Dad and Oma knew what a Baumkuchen was, so the search was especially difficult. This year, however, my mom was finally successful in her German pastry quest. She called me and said, "You'll never believe what I found for dad!" I knew right away that it was baumkuchen, not because I'm really good at guessing, but because she told me she had found it at the German market in downtown Akron. Unless she was planning on getting my dad another pickle ornament, it had to be a baumkuchen. However, as fate would have it, this was also the year that my dad would occasionally spend half his work days surfing the internet. And of course, he stumbled upon a bakery in Toronto that sold baumkuchen. He brought one home to surprise my mom, who put on an award-winning performance, acting shocked that he had found this endangered German cake. It was a like the Gift of the Maji story, except with cake and less irony.
When Oma came over a couple days before Christmas, Dad said he had a surprise for her, "Something that will bring back some memories." "Is it a baumkuchen?" Oma said, hopefully. She guessed what it was so quickly, I began to think that maybe this cake was more central to their holidays of past than I had previously thought. I imagined everyone in leidherhosen and durndels, dancing around the baumkuchen to tuba and accordion music. This probably didn't happen, but I'll keep it in mind for a potential new tradition.
Dad took the cake out of a gold box. It was not shaped like a Christmas tree, like I had expected, and it was not very colorful or particularly tasty looking either. "I wonder if it will have that almond flavor that I remember," Oma said, a twinkling Star of David in her eye. "Well let's have some and find out!" Dad said, cutting a ring off this magical German tree cake. We each took a small piece--it was very thick and pretty good, but not legendary. After a few moments of silence while we all tasted the baumkuchen, Oma said, "Well, it's more about the tradition and the memories than it is the taste." Dad agreed, saying, "Yeah, this is a good memory."

The Thanksgiving Pimp

Thanksgiving at my house is always a great day of family togetherness. My brother and I are the only kids, as we have no first cousins, so everyone else aside from my parents is kind of old. The ages range from 17 to 93, and the food shows it. Each year, the food gets a little mushier, the dinner starts a little earlier, and it's only a matter of time before half of the dinner guests are enjoying their Thanksgiving feast intravenously. I'm thankful to be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with all my family members, but just like any family, they are a bit quirky.
My only job on Thanksgiving is to make the cranberry sauce. It takes about 5 minutes and the directions are right on the bag, so it's the only job at my level of cooking. I thought everyone enjoyed having real cranberry sauce, but I found out this year that I have basically been the only one eating it and that all the other family members prefer the canned crap. This just means more cranberry sauce for me, which I don't mind.
The Thanksgiving hijinks started before the grandparents even got there, when my brother came downstairs dressed as the Thanksgiving Pimp. The Thanksgiving Pimp is a character beloved by all. His job is to usher in the "ho ho hos" for the Christmas season. It entails my brother wearing an undershirt, his suit jacket, and a black fedora until my dad and I make fun of him enough that he changes into normal clothes. This is a new tradition starting this year. I don't know if it will make it to 2009, since Oma didn't really appreciate me calling my brother a "suburban pimp".
The day's festivities continued when all the old folks started showing up. As soon as Oma walked in the door, she approached my diabetic grandfather with a brand new blood sugar meter. She wanted to know how to use it (and was shocked that she would actually have to draw blood) and the two of them sat in the living room trying to figure the piece of equipment out for 2 hours before even glancing at the instructions.
The food was delicious as usual. At the end of the meal, Oma wanted a family photo. She spent about 15 minutes trying to chase down the dog to get him in the picture, but since he is also old and basically deaf, he refused to participate in the photo session. Instead, unbeknownst to anyone, the dog ate an entire plate of chocolate truffles. This is how we found out a great way to get rid of relatives on a holiday--have your dog puke all over the house. Once people had to watch their step for fear of treading in something unpleasant, it was time for everyone to go and the holiday was over. Another way to get rid of relatives (well, really just Oma) is to put in a movie. She hates the talkies.
My favorite part of Thanksgiving this year was the stuffing and the Thanksgiving Pimp. I hope both make a reappearance for Christmas

Classroom Rules

With the hectic class schedule that some Notre Dame students undertake, I can understand not having time to have a meal in between classes. While snacking is perfectly acceptable, there are certain foods that people should refrain from eating in a classroom setting.
Here is an incomplete list of acceptable classroom foods:
Bagel
Coffee
Any drink from a vending machine
Gummy candy
Crackers
Most baked goods*
Small sandwiches

*coffee cake or any other particularly messy and crumbly baked good is not acceptable

This list may not provide the healthiest food options, but it's not all that good for you to be eating on the run, either, and eating the above listed foods is a lot better than eating the follow:

Unacceptable classroom foods, most of which I have actually seen people eating in class:
Banana
Baked potato
2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew
Popsicle
Salisbury steak
Pop Rocks
Celery, apples, or any other very crunchy food
Pizza

Maybe I'm being picky, but loud foods or food items that require multiple utensils are really distracting and kind of disgusting to sit next to.

While we're on the subject of classroom pet peeves...
To those who bring computers to class--please be mindful of your desktop image. If you have a laptop, I will definitely look at it because your game of solitaire and/or your AIM conversation is much more interesting than the lecture going on. However, it's a little strange to gaze upon an image of a half-naked lady or an official Hanson brothers fan club photo sitting right there on your computer for all to see. Obviously, you have chosen this photo because you like to look at it a lot. You see your desktop several times a day, so it only follows that you really like to look at pictures of the Olsen twins as often as possible. But to those sitting around you, your desktop is an unsolicited peek into your personal life. I didn't really care to know that you were into busty blondes or that you have a special affinity for babies dressed as vegetables. So to all the laptop carriers out there, please be kind to your classmates and maybe choose one of the default desktops, or at least something we can all enjoy, like a picture of George Clooney or some puppies in a basket.