I started my googling towards this end on Thanksgiving Day itself.  I was stunned to find a recipe for Green Tomato Mincemeat and then further stunned to have my mother confirm that the mincemeat she had had as a girl was always of the green tomato variety.  Green tomato mincemeat??!! It turns out that there are dozens of internet recipes for this!  To go back a little, the reason Thanksgiving = Mincemeat for me is because my wonderful great aunt Joy served it at her Thanksgiving dinners that I attended each year as a child.  Those dinners were the stuff that tradition is made of.  Although some things have fallen away–Joy no longer hosts hundreds and I no longer play with Barbies on Thanksgiving–I haven’t stopped passing up the pumpkin and looking for the Mince pie.  Aunt Joy is from my Dad’s side of the family so I have always associated mincemeat with them.  Now I learn that my mother grew up eating it too–made out of green tomatoes!  This is tragic, because just a few weeks ago I had a lovely supply of green tomatoes and I could have tried it.  Now I will have to wait an entire year! 

Too late for a green tomato harvest here

My googling also led me to the information that Mincemeat is traditionally considered a Christmas pie.  Surprise # 2!  Again, my mother confirmed: “Oh yes, I always thought it was funny that they served mince pies at Thanksgiving.  It’s a Christmas pie!”  Oh.  I wondered if this was a Canadian thing (My mother is Canadian).  Further googling revealed that Mincemeat is definitely an English thing and that Mincemeat pie was long associated with Catholicism.  In fact, the Puritans refused to eat it because for them Mincemeat was tied up with idolatry.  I’m glad I’m not Puritan!      

I can’t help being drawn to the recipes that call for suet.  Something about suet screams authenticity (I’m not sure that I’m brave enough to go as far as the recipes that call for venison though!)  MinceMEAT, yeehah!  Apparently, it’s possible to substitute vegetable oil, although that doesn’t seem like a good substitute.  Any ideas on where I could get real suet anyone?  Have any of you ever made mincemeat–with or without green tomatoes, with or without suet?  How did it turn out? 

Meanwhile this resolving to make mincemeat post has reminded me that last year I resolved to do Advent and today is December1st!  I’d better get cracking, or there will be no reason to hold out hope for this year’s mincemeat resolutions!

Pmom’s #1 tip for making ordinary costumes feel extraordinary (for under eights): face paint and colored hair spray.

Amelia desperately wanted Duncan to be a knight because she likes to have a theme for our costumes. For Kate, it was clear that nothing but a princess would do. Because Amelia was willing to be a dragon, in her mind that meant that Duncan needed to be a knight. That was convenient, because Duncan already had a nice knight costume. The problem: as I said, he already had it. Boooor-ring. He didn’t want to be a boring old knight. However, after I suggested that he could paint his face and hair red, he was very enthused! I don’t know what what a red gladiator is (other than a knight with red paint), but he made a great one.

Best type of color spray: Jerome Russell B wild!!! Temp’ry Color Spray.
I like this spray because it is much more vivid and visible than other color sprays. It is higher quality but not  more expensive–more shocking color bang for your buck.  It is available at Walgreens year ’round.

Pmom’s tip for trick-or-treating night sanity: Get agreements on showering before bed, well in advance.

The top of Kate’s car seat turned bright pink and there are smudges of red makeup all over our bathroom.  Do not let people who look like this (see pictures below) roam your house unattended.  Showering is a must.  If the shower-haters demur, no colored hair for them. (As you can see in the photograph of the dragon with princess and red gladiator in the blog post below, both Duncan and Kate skipped haircoloring the night of the actual trick or treating.  They love the color, but not the requisite shower.)

The award for funniest Halloween-related comment in our house went to our little pink princess, who after dawning her stunning glasses, her pink nail polish, her pink cheeks, and pink dress said, “I’m going to be sooooo scary!”

I already blogged about my plan to make Amelia an awesome homemade Halloween costume designed from scratch. Although I started well in advance of Halloween, I found myself gluing on scales at 2 a.m. the night before the school costume parade. The costume didn’t quite fulfill my vision of awesomeness, but it was good enough and Amelia was pleased.

Advice for future dragon costume makers:

1. Styrofoam floral forms make nice spikes.  However, if your child doesn’t like  being bumped into, you might ask her to reconsider being a dragon.  Wearing big spikes down your back may make your costume more awesome, but it also makes it less comfortable and far less convenient.  You can’t sit in a car or in a classroom with spikes sticking out of your back.  A zippable hoodie helps with this problem, but putting the hoodie on and off is more tricky than you would think with the big spikes threatening to rub against each other, get chipped, lose their paint, or fall off (But we made it through the holiday without losing a single spike. Hooray!).   

2. Some styrofoam spikes take spray paint pretty well (plan on at least 2 coats).  Others literally dissolve!  This took us by surprise.   Experiment early to determine which type you have. 

3. Learned the hard way: Adhering the scales to the costume is very difficult if you have already attached the spikes.  Next time: scales first, then spikes! 

4.  Miracle: Despite my fear, it turns out that  Aleene’s tacky glue is strong enough to permanently adhere the styrofoam forms to a hoodie.  Saturate the bottom of the form with glue and spread glue on the fabric as well.  Hold them together as long as you can stand to.  Leave parchment paper under the fabric of the hoodie so that it doesn’t get glued to itself or to the table.  Expect it to take at least 24 hours to dry.  Dritz Liquid Stitch worked great for gluing the triangles of lizard fabric (the scales) to the hoodie.  Naturally, sewing would have been better, but sewing was not an option for me, so hooray liquid stitch!)

5. Wings: Use the child’s arms as your structure. Adhere the wings to the arms of the hoodie.   That way you don’t need to spend your time bending hangers or building supports or anything like that.  Wings that fold in when the child puts her arms down are a whole lot easier and much more convenient!

6.  Face Makeup: Google image search is your friend.  I entered “dragon makeup” and found this purple dragon makeup and this green dragon makeup.  I copied the best of their ideas and added some of mine.   I was surprised how well it turned out given that I can’t draw and didn’t know what I was doing.