Category Archives: Holidays

Happy New Year 2025!

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Gosh, it’s time to update the narrative again.

I’ve been thinking about doing a New Year’s post for several days. I wanted to talk about resolutions, especially dietary ones, and find a way to encourage people to make the changes they’re already thinking about making. I guess it’s become a little bit of a ministry for me to tout a healthy lifestyle. So much so that I get to hear many confessions from people about their habits. They admit that they need to “go keto” or get more exercise or whatever. These are good paths for them to explore, and I really do want to encourage them, especially after the Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations, that they can and should do these things. The benefits are worth every effort!

I think it’s a fine, human thing to both mark the seasons gone by and to look ahead to the next year. No mere animal can do that. Forward and backward thinking is one mark of human ensoulment. I have grumbled at other times about the pointlessness of picking a day for everybody to get started on new habits, or ditch old ones, as if we all turned over a new leaf with the calendar page. But I can see both sides of it. If you’re not going to pick a day, you’ll never get started, will you? Why not have a day set aside for everybody to think about that?

But after a rough year–and our neck of the woods has certainly seen a rough year–, you might not be ready for any big changes, no matter how beneficial they might be. I’m certainly not.

Instead of changing things drastically, how about just doing a Narrative update?

Might take a little explainin’.

You see, we all have a Narrative we tell ourselves about our lives. Our personalities, our relationships, our routines are all kept in our minds, in a personal Story–a story only the individual and the Creator really have access to. No matter what I tell people about myself, no matter what others observe in me, my Narrative will never match theirs about me, nor will it ever be 100% true. People are inconsistent, and that’s not hypocrisy. It’s just reality. We’re limited in our understanding, and that includes how we understand ourselves.

My Narrative has been that I am a Jesus-loving, large-family mothering, homeschooling, meat-eating, fitness-interested woman of a certain age. There are other aspects to my Narrative that I wouldn’t share with anybody, that I haven’t even named for myself yet. I have a lot of growing and learning to do in all of my things, but that’s been my Story.

If you asked someone else if the aforementioned list looks correct from their perspective, I don’t know what you’d get. I know that God would know my Story better than I do. He’d have a lot of changes to make. My husband would probably add or subtract some of that list in favor of his own Narrative, which only includes me as a (very important) character. He can’t know my whole Story, and I can’t know his! He might say I’m all that, and a bag of chips, or he might notice the times I ate a plant and say “yeah, not really a carnivore”. People farther out from my life–friends, neighbors, haters–are going to have an even differenter view of my Narrative. They’re going to find all kinds of holes in me that aren’t even on my radar. That’s fine!

It’s not about making your Story line up with anybody else’s idea of you. It’s about making my actions true to my thinking. My New Year’s question–not resolution, for which I have no strength right now–, is this:

How accurate is my own Narrative compared to what I’m really doing?

Maybe you’re feeling like this year just brutally beat you up, and you don’t have the strength to throw yourself into one big resolution, or even a small one. Losing the weight, or finding more time to volunteer, or learning to play an instrument are all fine goals, but if your Narrative is out of whack, you’re not even going to start out in the right direction, let alone get anywhere.

Instead of saying you’re going to lose forty pounds, somehow, why not just do a Narrative Check-up? What is it about what you’re telling yourself (this food benefits me in some way) that is making you unable to do the thing you need to do (not eat this food)? Why not update your Narrative? This food is addictive for me, and I have to fight this addiction. You can only do something about it when you see it for what it really is. You are not a “comfort-food lover”. You are a carb addict.

This isn’t just about food, though. Interrogate yourself about every aspect of your life.

Do I love Jesus? Do I just go to church and put some money in the offering plate and sing the songs without allowing any effect on my heart? Have I lost my first love? I could remedy that by spending a half hour praying and reading the Bible every day instead of jumping straight to the internet to read the news. I could find a Bible study or prayer meeting to attend weekly. I could just ask Jesus to come closer to me, even as I am struggling to draw nearer to Him.

Or I could update that narrative and just stop pretending to love Jesus. (Oh, my heart, that hurts to even type! Whatever you do, don’t do that!) If something hurts like that, it’s a sign that you need to true up your behavior with your Narrative.

The Narrative is not false, therefore you CAN live up to it!

Or suppose my narrative is that I’m learning to play the piano. But I haven’t actually touched it in six weeks, and my progress hasn’t been good in months. Is this a chapter of my Narrative that needs to close? Am I truly a learner who’s merely hit a temporary stall? Or do I actually not have that kind of time, and lack the neuro-plasticity at my advanced age? If so, that’s going to have to be fine. I don’t like it. The Narrative said I’m a learner, and I really want to accomplish this. The Reality may be that, sadly, I am not going to be able to do everything, and this ambition has to go.

If you’ve got something like this, cut it out of your Narrative! You are not a piano player. That didn’t hurt like the last one, so it can go! And you can put that back in your Narrative any time, should circumstances change. You need to constantly update your expectations. Today’s a good day to do that.

Take account of your wins. These are the parts of the Narrative you want to really double down on.

For instance, both strength and endurance training are very important to me.

Narrative says: I work out in a systematic way, no excuses, and see continuous progress.

Reality says: I’m crushing that! I did have some setbacks, but every time I’ve had a choice, I have made that choice well. I can rest in this aspect of who I think I am right now.

Find your Narrative-busters and don’t let them get the better of you.

Narrative says: I eat only meat every day, and that feels great.

Reality says: Starting at Thanksgiving and going on through Christmas, I ate a little more “keto”, and it didn’t go so well for me.

This Narrative is still true, and the Reality, my behavior, got in the way. I still only eat meat every day, as a rule. The carnivore way of eating is an integral part of how I live. I can remedy this Narrative-buster by simply taking no action at all. It is lifting the fork that takes effort, not refusing to! That’s certainly not too high a hurdle to clear.

Fix your Narrative, or fix your Reality. Unless you want to go on lying to yourself or others, these really are the only two options. I could, instead of being true to the diet that I know works for me, decide that the square of dark chocolate is worth the inevitable inflammation it will cause. It isn’t, but those are my choices. The one choice I cannot allow myself is that of continuing after these indulgences to live out of accordance with the Narrative I know is true: Carnivore works better than anything I’ve tried.

Find these inconsistencies in your life and ask yourself “Should I change this part of my Narrative, or recommit to it?”

Is it hypocrisy I’m talking about rooting out? No, I really don’t think it is! Hypocrisy knows it’s lying, and doesn’t care. It’s just human imperfection we’re dealing with, normal inconsistency and frailty. We get so down on ourselves that we think we failed, think we’ve given up, when the truth is, we just need to get back in touch with Reality. Stop telling yourself one Story when another is more realistic.

For the world-weary, it may be better to take stock of your Self-story today than it would be to make a big commitment to one hard thing. Does it hurt to view the difference between your Narrative and your Reality? If so, you have two choices:

Update the Narrative, or change the Reality.

Keto Shortbread Christmas Cookies

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Recipe first, talk later:

Print Recipe

Keto Shortbread Cookies

An almond-flour alternative to a high-carb treat
Prep Time10 minutes
Cook Time15 minutes
Course: Dessert
Keyword: keto, low carb, sugar-free
Servings: 12

Equipment

  • 2 cookie sheets
  • 2 sheets of parchment paper
  • 1 large mixing bowl

Ingredients

  • 1.5 cups granulated sweetener such as a monkfruit/erythritol blend
  • 1 stick (half cup) unsalted butter room temperature
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 tsp butter extract optional
  • 4 lg eggs
  • 4 cups almond flour
  • 2/3 tsp cream of tartar optional (makes a fluffier cookie)
  • 1/3 tsp baking soda optional (makes a fluffier cookie)
  • 1 pinch salt

Instructions

  • Heat oven to 350℉
  • Cream together the butter and sweetener. Use either a hand mixer or a rubber spatula. I find a spatula is better for this.
  • Add vanilla, eggs, and extracts, and blend well with a hand mixer.
  • In a separate bowl, sift together the almond flour, baking powder, and salt.
  • Fold the dry mixture into the wet mixture.
  • Using a 2 oz scoop, form a dozen cookies per sheet, flattening the cookies with the palm of the hand (food service gloves are helpful here) or the back of a spoon.
  • If desired, top each cookie with a cherry (omit for keto, obviously), macadamia nut, or anything else you can think of!
  • Bake for 15-18 minutes, until just the edges have begun to brown. The cookies will firm up a bit as they cool. Bake one pan at a time for best results.

Notes

You can use a teaspoon of baking powder instead of the cream of tartar and baking soda. Commercial baking powders tend to use cornstarch. I have found one that uses cassava flour, as well.

I’ve shown you our adorable Advent Calendar before, haven’t I?

It’s become an indispensable tradition in our family. Some people just do a piece of candy or a small gift every day, and I have done that in the distant past. But when you are a low-sugar family, and there are eight children, that way of doing things can get unhealthy or expensive in a hurry. So I usually do activities. There is a food thing here and there, and today it was cookies!

I was going to attempt to make these traditional St. Nicholas Speculaas Cookies with a gluten-free flour, but when I mentioned that to the children, they didn’t like the idea. I think it’s OK to deviate from the plan from time to time. I’ve seen so many people stress out about putting food in their mouth that wasn’t perfect. I don’t want to see my kids with that kind of relationship with food. I just want them to know they always have a choice, and that every choice they make leads to the next one. They’ve come to understand that some foods don’t make them feel as good, even if they do provide a very satisfying experience in the mouth.

Kids want to do the best thing for themselves, if you just teach them how to think about it!

So we went to our go-to keto shortbread cookie. It really is every bit as tasty as a sugar and wheat cookie, and without the blood sugar spike and crash later on. Adding the nutmeg and cinnamon would be a very good idea, but I didn’t think to do that.

Merry Christmas, My Friends!

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And the rest of you, too!

He left the comfort of Heaven to come to a place where His body would be vulnerable to the same ailments as ours. He endured the same discomforts. When it was cold, He shivered. When it was hot, He sweated. He subjected himself to every temptation that we must endure. And yet with all physical and spiritual temptations visited upon Him, He sinned not, and then became the propitiation for our sins, who have failed in a million ways.

We should absolutely enjoy the Feast of Christmas, without turning up our noses at the “materialism” in the gifts and decorations, or the “gluttony” of meals and drinks shared with loved ones. There is a time for feasting and enjoying the bounty of His provision. The times for fasting and mourning won’t be denied, and they are coming. They are inevitable.

One day there will be an eternal feast, with no more fasting when we are finally with our Bridegroom. Let us look forward to that by celebrating our Salvation’s coming on this day.

Merry Christmas, all!

Homeschooling in the Christmas Season

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How did Christmas get to be a month-long thing, anyway? 

Christmas has become quite the to-do in our home, even though I never really got into the spirit of things for the first several years of our marriage. If I could put the tree up on the 23rd, then take it down on the 26th, that would have been quite enough for me, thank you very much. I guess motherhood is the Grinch-buster, because the longer I have little ones in the house, the more excited I get about all the baubles and lights. Christmas has become a treasured season in our lives, and not just a day. And that’s the way it should be!

Growing up in Appalachian mountain evangelical churches, I don’t think I ever even heard the word “advent” until I was in my twenties. Most people will find that amusing, I’m sure. Dumb hillbillies. Regardless, once I heard about it, I adopted the Advent calendar as a tradition in our home. When we only had a couple of kids in the house, I just put small candies or toys into a paper bag calendar I’d made. I’m not crafty, so you won’t see this one on Pinterest. I can’t believe this was 10 years ago.

As the family grew I couldn’t fit individual things into the bags anymore. Besides, doing things is way more fun.

Now, sometime in November I sit down and think of 24 Christmassy things to do (or eat!) leading up to the Day. I write the ideas on strips of paper and put them in the little drawers of our Advent Calendar.

Advent Calendar

 

Each year is a little bit different, depending on my mood and how much of a mess I think I’ll be up for. There is a lazy side of me that wishes I hadn’t taught the children to expect so much every year, but the quality time is always worth the effort. There are a few things that we do every year without fail. Of course, there is always the Reason for the Season, reading the Christmas story and singing hymns. There are some less pious things, as well, like gingerbread houses made with graham crackers and royal icing. I’ll post a how-to later on for those interested. Yesterday we put together a Christmas puzzle. We’ll use some peel-and-stick sheets to stick it together and frame it. Other things we do are making and taking gifts to neighbors, singing Christmas carols, and drinking hot chocolate.

So how do we keep on schooling when it’s just one big party? Well, to tell the truth, I called the puzzle geometry and art (it’s shapes and colors!) yesterday, and when the time comes for gingerbread houses, I’m going to call that “handicrafts”. We do our morning meeting with prayer and Bible reading, a few together things like Shakespeare or Plutarch, then a little bit of copywork and math. After that we’re as flexible as we need to be, depending on how time-consuming the day’s activity is. Sometimes it’s just an extra story or song. Sometimes it’s an all-morning event.

The kids can still fit their lessons in around the edges while we center our lives around the Truth that Christ was born for us. If we skip some academic things, I can still rest easy knowing that January is coming. We can grind it out then. We have so much going on in December that I’ve learned to look forward to January as a time to accomplish much. Perhaps I’ll even accomplish a few more blog posts! Sorry it’s been sparse so far, but as long as I’m raising these kids, it’s going to be like that. You know how it is.

What are your Christmas traditions? Do you have an advent calendar? Let me know in the comments what you do so I can fill out my calendar with new ideas next year! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Since I’m sitting here waiting for the all-day cookathon to begin, why don’t we talk a little bit about food? I’ve taken some pride over the years in being a pretty good cook, and an extremely flexible eater. There was a time not that long ago when I would put pretty nearly any edible item in my mouth, and defy the gods of health to do anything about it. I loved making messes in the kitchen, and the more complicated the dish, the happier I was. I made very tasty food, no denying it! And thanks to my belief in the food pyramid, which I’ve come to understand was invented by Satan himself, I actually thought that I was doing something good for my family. Four hours a day in the kitchen, cranking out high-carb, low protein junk. What a great mom!

Sigh. It was a mistake made from a place of love, so I’m not beating myself up over past food follies. But I do hope I can forewarn some other moms who may be headed down the same path of spoiling their children–spoiling their health and their palate for truly good food, at least.

Nowadays, my cooking amounts to throwing a big hunk of meat in the oven and roasting some vegetables at the same time. I’ve become, honestly, a lazy cook. And you know what? The kids are more satisfied and healthier than they ever were when I was putting all that fuss into feeding them. Ain’t that a kick in the pants? Truly healthful food turns out to be easier to cook and consume, not harder.

Toward the end of my last pregnancy, even though I had passed the glucose challenge test, I started having symptoms of gestational diabetes. I’d never done that in the previous seven pregnancies, and I’d “passed” the test, so I was shocked a few weeks later at the doctor’s office when they found I was spilling sugar in my urine. I had been feeling profoundly tired, especially after meals, but I didn’t make any connection between my health and my sugar intake. Why should I? I’ve always followed a good diet! I had put my illness down to being an old mom, even though I was only 37. Thankfully, I had just begun spending my enforced time on the couch reading a book that now has a place of honor right next to my Bible, Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes. So I had a problem, but I also had a solution!

What’s amazing to me is that, as fat as I was (160 lbs on a five-foot frame), I never thought that this was unhealthy. I would always come back down to about 135 or so after a pregnancy, and nobody even seemed to think of me as fat, so I wasn’t concerned. I ate what the Food Pyramid guidelines said to, and didn’t have any diagnosable eating disorders, so I thought I was doing ok.

I felt awful, my thyroid disease kept getting worse, and I couldn’t lose that last thirty pounds, but the culture around me, the doctors I saw, and the mainstream nutritional advice all said I was doing everything right, and this is just the way I have to be. Must be genetic. Everyone who has been healed by a ketogenic way of eating will surely join me in saying “Thank God for Gary Taubes!” His work started me off on a journey to health by turning my food-view–and my food pyramid–upside down.

Our Thanksgiving meal today will be fairly traditional. I will certainly include some whole food carbohydrates. I’m even going to put some little marshmallows on the sweet potato casserole. Since the kids never get to eat that stuff, it will be a treat. There will be no industrial seed oils. The “potatoes” will be made of cauliflower, and you almost wouldn’t know it. The cranberry sauce and desserts will be sugar-free.

A friend asked me yesterday if I wouldn’t have some of my favorite foods, like stuffing, just for the holiday. In my current state of health, I could certainly “get away” with eating any amount of carbs I want for just this one day, or for several days, honestly. On the rare occasion that I do eat carbs, my body clears the glucose very quickly and comfortably. My Hashimodos probably won’t flare up as long as I avoid gluten and dairy. Still, I probably won’t eat anything but meat today. Cranberry sauce and my safer version of pumpkin pie are a distinct possibility. Habit is, as Charlotte Mason homeschoolers know, a very powerful thing, so I will probably behave myself very well, even in the presence of all that temptation. The longer I go without carbs, the less drawn to them I am.

And that brings me to my real point here. A holiday meal is supposed to be a special, once-or-twice a year blowout. It’s not supposed to be just a bigger meal of all the kinds of foods you eat pretty much anytime you want to anyway. I’m going to make sure my family enjoys some crazy-delicious food. We’re going to have dessert with whipped cream and wine. We’re going to thank God for the bounty of the year, and pray His mercy on the next one. We’re going to do all of that with no guilt whatsoever!

But then we’re going to go right back to our daily, boring (to the average palate) low-carb, satiating, whole foods.

How about you, Reader? Have you found a way of eating that’s different from the SAD diet? Maybe you were raised already knowing this stuff. What’s eating like on a regular day for your family?