Cabin in the City

Books, cats and midwestern charm.

Traditions

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On Having Traditions Just for You

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Package of coffee from Stone Creek Coffee, a Kindle, an iced coffee and a small quiche on a table

I hold so many traditions — particularly holiday traditions — close to my heart. Every year, Michael and I stir up a batch of Irish cream together, we share oplatki with my in-laws every Christmas Eve (a nod to our Polish roots) and watch all the Bob’s Burgers Christmas episodes during winter break.

But as important as it is to share these annual rituals, I’d argue it’s just as important to have a few traditions that are for just you. These don’t need to be time-consuming or major, they just need to be comforting.

I’ve found having some solo traditions can be very grounding during tough times, can provide much-needed stillness during busy seasons and bring joy because you deserve a little magic, too.

Here are the Christmastime traditions that I hold just for myself:

Christmas Wrapping

I love wrapping gifts. Picking the paper, finding pretty bows (less so now that we have a curious kitten at home) and nestling all the packages under the tree.

But the tradition here is not the wrapping, it’s the when. Since I’ve been young, I don’t allow myself to wrap a gift until December 1. It’s a good way to kick off the Christmas season — and it can help put me in the spirit when I may not be quite ready.

A Holiday Coffee Stop

Don’t get me wrong: I will stop and get regular mint mochas from Thanksgiving to the New Year, but once a season, I’ll slow down and take myself on a coffee date—often as a reward for finishing up holiday shopping or baking.

This typically happens on a Saturday morning shortly before Christmas. I like to hit up Stone Creek Coffee, order a nice coffee, pick up a bag of their seasonal Bumble roast (a treat I like to share with the family on Christmas morning) and settle in with a book for a short while.

Watching White Christmas

I didn’t grow up watching this Christmas classic, but it’s a film that’s fully ingrained itself in my holiday season as an adult.

And it’s a movie I’ve never watched alongside anyone. I’ve always enjoyed White Christmas solo on a snowy afternoon or during an evening wrapping gifts. It’s such a lovely movie and one that makes me weep every time.

Holiday Baking

This is a tradition that is close to me no matter who is in the kitchen. I like to bake with my mom whenever I can. I also had a fabulous time baking cookies with my nephews and sister-in-law last December.

But I always enjoy taking some time to bake on my own during the holidays. While I love making pioneer molasses cookies and spritz with my mom, I have a few bakes I always make on a just-me day in the kitchen: chocolate-almond mandelbrot, white fruitcake (it is delicious) and babka.

Christmas Crafts

Crafting might just be my favorite part of Christmas—especially when paired with a Christmas movie or Christmas audiobook. Every year I tackle a project or two—sometimes for gifting, sometimes just for fun.

A few years back, I was in Christmas cross-stitch mode. Last year, I sewed zippered pouches for most of my family. This year, I made woven star ornaments (a project I’d bookmarked at least two years ago). At the end of the season, I never regret being up to my elbows in thread.

It might be late in the season, but I hope you still find some time for yourself!

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My Strange Tradition: Groundhog Day Cupcakes

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Happy Groundhog Day, all! We might be getting six more weeks of winter, but that’s OK because I brought treats: my signature groundhog cupcakes.

I know what you’re thinking.  No one celebrates Groundhog Day, idiot. Yeah, well that’s sort of the point. It’s an underrated and goofy holiday, why not give it a little love? That’s what I thought when I started making these silly things ten years ago. TEN. That is an absurdly long time for something so wonderfully stupid.

Thing is, I almost didn’t make these cupcakes this year. Well, I wasn’t planning on it until I got a super sweet text from one of my oldest friends reminiscing about their cute little faces. I can’t resist nostalgia, so I decided I had to whip up a batch (sorry you can’t enjoy them, Molly!).

Here’s the lowdown on the recipe. It’s from Cupcakes! from the Cake Doctor, a book I picked up at a church book fair back in high school. This book spurned my then-not-yet-passé interest in cupcakes. And the cute themes sparked a short-lived interest in cake decorating. Although I’ve only made probably four recipes out of this whole book, it somehow developed into some sort of totem for me. It’s my Midwest mom cupcake book, my silly high school baking cookbook, a book I used in college for my demonstrative speech in COMM 101 and a book that started my favorite absurd tradition. And it makes cupcakes super simple because every recipe starts with a cake mix (that’s what the Cake Doctor does – it’s her thing).

Here’s what you’ll need for the cake:

  • 1 package German chocolate cake mix
  • 1¼ cups buttermilk
  • 1/3 cup oil
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract

And the frosting:

  • 4 cups powdered sugar
  • ½ cup butter, softened
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 tbsp. cocoa powder
  • 3-4 tbsp. milk

And the decorations:

  • Chocolate jimmies
  • Shaved almonds
  • Chocolate chips – mini brown M&M’s work too
  • Mini chocolate chips

Making the cake is easy breezy. Just mix together all the ingredients with an electric mixer or stand mixer for about three minutes – stopping halfway to scrap down the bowl. Then fill your cupcake liners ¾-full. I like to use a disher or ice cream scoop to make portioning easy, but a spoon does just fine too. Bake at 350°F for 22-24 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the pans and let cool.

The frosting is just as easy. Simply beat your softened butter with an electric mixer until it gets nice and soft. Then add in your powdered sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla and about three tablespoons of milk. Beat this together until combined. If the frosting looks too stiff and powdery, add in more milk a little at a time until it gets that nice frosting consistency. If you find the frosting is too runny, just add in a little powder sugar at a time until it firms up.

Then comes the best part: the decorating. To start, just frost the cupcakes as usual with an offset spatula. This does not need to be too finicky – I wouldn’t even bust out a pastry bag for this. Roll the frosted cupcake in the chocolate jimmies. Word to the wise: don’t frost all your cupcakes first. This frosting has a tendency to dry a bit as it sits, so if you wait too long you’ll lose all that sticking power.

Once you’ve got that done, I’d recommend grabbing a pastry bag with a wide, round tip. A zip-top bag with the corner snipped off works just as good – no need to get too futzy if you don’t have to. Fill this with the rest of your frosting and pipe a round dollop of frosting on each cupcake for the groundhog head. I’d say the head should be somewhere between the size of a quarter and a poker chip. Once the heads are finished, insert two almond ears into each along with a chocolate chip or M&M nose and little chocolate eyes. With that – you’re all done and you have a little repetition of groundhogs (which is what the internet tells me is the name for a group of them – that or coterie).

I realize writing this on Groundhog Day doesn’t give you much time to whip these up for your Groundhog Day movie night, but I’ll say that this recipe is good any day of the year.

Happy Groundhog Day and big thanks to my friend Molly!

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O Pioneers [Molasses Cookies]!

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When it comes to Christmas cookies, I don’t mess around. In fact, every year I take a whole day off from work just to get some baking done. It’s just so much more enjoyable when you have the whole day to make eight batches of award-winning cream cheese pillows.

This year, I started my Christmas bake-athon with the old timiest recipe I have and one of my family’s most loved cookies: pioneer molasses cookies. These cookies are simple – no fanciness or flourish here – just a good, hard working cookie that makes the holidays complete.

Now, why are these the old timiest? Well, the original recipe – a favorite of my grandma’s – calls for melted lard. Lard. So that tells you something about the era. But this 1930s original also just isn’t really like recipes of today, mostly because the original calls for a whopping six cups of flour, and also because it has no sugar (outside of the molasses). None. But it’s still a good cookie and a solid option for when you want to make something simple and not too sweet – and also something that makes you feel homesick for another time.

Here’s what you’ll need to make these old fashioned faves:

  • 3 cups flour
  • 10 tbsp. butter, softened
  • ½ cup molasses
  • ½ cup boiling water
  • ½ tsp. baking soda
  • ½ tsp. salt

And for the frosting:

  • 2⅔ cups powdered sugar
  • 3-4 tbsp. water
  • 1½ tsp. vanilla extract
  • Red and green food color

To make these, start by creaming the butter and molasses. Then alternate adding dry ingredients with the hot water. This should form a good, albeit sticky, dough pretty readily. Once it’s mixed, chill for at least an hour.

When you’re ready, flour your chilled dough lightly and roll out to ¼” thick. You can use cookie cutters here, though I prefer just to slice these into rectangles with a pizza cutter. Like I said, these cookies are pretty simple and rustic, so I think a simple shape works well. Bake for 12 minutes at 375°F. Cool on a wire rack or brown paper.

To complete these, I recommend a simple frosting. Simply mix the ingredients above – bear in mind you may have to add a little more water or sugar to get the right spreading consistency. Once you’re satisfied with this basic frosting, split the batch in two and color with red and green. Then frost your cooled cookies.

They aren’t the most Pinterest-ready cookies out there, but the sight of these red and green squares always brings me a lot of joy this time of year.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

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K.I.S.S. Holiday Traditions

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Anyone that knows me well can tell you that I’m a sucker for traditions. What can I say? I like the routine, the nostalgia and the fuzzy feelings.

But in the past few years, I’ve realized that maintaining every single tradition while simultaneously adding new ones is not realistic. The FOMO of the holidays quickly turns into yuletide burnout, and it’s not fun. So last year I took a new approach: K.I.S.S. Keep it simple, stupid. It’s not the greatest mantra for the holidays, but I like it because it makes me think of this:

Image result for keep it simple stupid the office

Anyways, keeping it simple last year turned out to be exactly what I needed. After running out of gas pretty early in the season, I let myself coast on the traditions that made me feel good while skipping out on others. It was a valuable lesson for me. I learned that focusing on a few things that made me really happy was infinitely more satisfying than maintaining every tradition at the expense of my semi-valuable free time and sanity. And I also learned that foregoing certain traditions to make room for new family is a good thing! And it gives you all sorts of new, positive feels.

In light of this K.I.S.S. revelation, I wanted to share with you a few traditions, both old and new, I’m happy to keep.

THE OLD

Wrapping Gifts

Since I’ve been in high school, I’ve had the tradition that I cannot wrap any presents until December 1. This, I realize, sounds like no big deal. But as someone that really enjoys wrapping and checking things of my list, it’s a big deal and exceptionally satisfying. And when I think of the holidays from that time until now, a lot has changed – living at home, living in dorms, college apartments, a commune (yes, really) – but wrapping gifts December 1 and onward has been a Christmas constant that makes me happy.

Cookies

My mom makes the best Christmas cookies. Period. Since I’ve been a kid, she’s maintained a semi-regular lineup of cookies and candies – spritz, cream cheese pillows, raspberry meringue kisses, ting-a-lings and way more. Many of these recipes come from vintage Wisconsin Electric cookbooks and have been filling Kaminski and Michalek bellies for generations. Making (and eating) this regular roster of treats is a tradition I intend on keeping up with for life.

Crafts

The holidays sort of kick my crafty spirit into high gear. The excitement of the season and the long cozy nights make me feel like sitting down and making something silly – not something useful or essential but just plain fun. It’s not often that you get to add extra glitter to everything, after all. Every year the level of craftiness and the number of projects change, but I always try to make time for a little something. Last year I spent an obscene amount of time on Etsy looking at vintage Christmas plastic canvas books. I never got around to making these little Christmas villages, but this year I’m going full boar into this weird, 80s craft. Plastic canvas is the next big thing, folks. You heard it here first!

THE NEW

The Tree

Growing up, my family always had real trees. I fully anticipated myself having a real tree as an adult because I thought fake ones looked, well, fake. But then I realized there’s a big difference between a fake balsam fir and a fake white, iridescent unicorn tree. When I found mine, I pretty much fell in love with the kitschiness of it all (and the fact I can leave it out until February). Since moving into our home, Michael and I put up the tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving so we get to enjoy it for weeks and weeks.

Crafter Hours

Years ago my friend Kat showed me the putz house DIYs on Retro Renovation’s website, and I immediately called for a crafting party. We’ve created two or three houses each during these post-work, snack-filled get-togethers, and I just loved it. Crafter hours are a good way to catch up with pals while also making some headway on holiday crafts. When you add the snacks, these parties are a win-win-win.

Wrapping Gifts Pt. 2

For the past few years, I’ve volunteered to wrap gifts at a nearby Barnes & Noble. All the proceeds go to the Wisconsin Humane Society. Like I said, I love to wrap gifts, and if I get to do it for a cause I love – all the better.

THE LIKE NEW

Day After Christmas Party

Every year, my great-aunt Mary threw a post-Christmas party at her house (now my home!). I have really fond memories of these shindigs. There’d be pizza or Chinese food, a few games and relatives I hadn’t seen since the prior year. These parties were never elaborate, but they were always a highlight of the Christmas season. Once I moved into our home, I knew I had to keep the tradition alive. So now every December 26, Michael and I host a Mary-inspired soiree with PBR, hot toddies and more cookies than you can fathom. It’s probably my favorite tradition of all.

• • •

To give you an idea of the traditions I’ve forgone, here’s a short list: making handmade watercolor Christmas cards (tedious), crafting every gift for EVERYONE (please stop), spending all day baking a bouche noel (huge time suck) and sewing Christmas outfits (frustration of frustrations).

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St. Nick’s Day

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It came to my attention some years ago when talking to a friend that not everyone knows about or celebrates St. Nick’s Day. I remember being in the Boston Store offices, mouth agape saying “You don’t know what St. Nick’s Day is?” in the most incredulous tone I could muster. Turns out this little tradition is a bit more Wisconsin than I thought.

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For you newbies, St. Nicholas Day is December 6. If you went to Catholic school like I did, you learned about St. Nick himself and how he’d leave coins in shoes for the needy. Something like that. It’s been a while. But either way, this story translated into old timey children leaving their shoes out and having them be filled with fruits and candies every December 6. And that translated into stockings which got filled with treats for kids like me in the Midwest.

And growing up, St. Nick’s was a big deal. Like really big. My mom imposed a fairly strict no gifts after Thansgiving policy growing up – meaning if I saw a Puppy in My Pocket in the checkout line, I couldn’t get it, and no matter how much I begged, I wouldn’t be seeing that new Littlest Pet Shop until December (I was really into small toy animals). When the Advent calendar went up on December 1 (the same calendar I have today #traditions), it seemed like an eternity to December 6 and some sort of new trinket. But when St. Nick’s Day finally came it was a day to rejoice. Extra bubblegum (every year, even though my mom hates gum)! Reese’s peanut butter cups in a candy cane! Marshmallow Santas! A Looney Toons nightshirt! YES!

This tradition is something I still celebrate today even though I’m 27-years-old. Michael and the cats all get a stocking and we open them up in the morning. It’s great! So many treats! So many surprises! This year was a particularly good year – Michael got the Beach Boys Christmas album and I got an ice cream sandwich ornament. Big wins.

And before you even ask, no, Christmas Eve/Christmas Day stockings are not a thing. Why would you get extra presents in a giant sock when you already have gifts under a tree? Consolidate or get a jump and put that stuff out 19 days earlier. Geez.