Happy Solstice!

Hooray for the shortest day of the year! Light your candles, celebrate the light for it's a'coming back before ya know it.

Yeah, that's right, Gentle Reader--we'll be back on Daylight Savings Time in a matter of weeks.

(Yes, I know that's not true, but the switch will be here before you know it.)

The winter solstice also marks the beginning of Pancha Ganapati, so everyone here at Chez Boeckman-Walker is abuzz. Blame Ganesh--he's all about the sweets and the candy and the buzz.

A Home for an Elephant God
I shared yesterday with you, Gentle Reader, a chapter in the tale of this year's gingerbread shrine for Ganesh to reside in during this five-day celebration of the five-faced elephant god. Well, I have the second and final chapter to share with you today. Instead of making you read, I'm just going to show you some photos. Enjoy!

I was busy in the kitchen while the boys decorated Ganesh's temporary domicile. I suspect next year I'll have to enter the boy in the Texas Culinary Academy's annual gingerbread house competition--he's got some mad gingerbread skills. Watch out, Food Network Challenge, because my kiddo'll be ready for ya before ya know it!

What Ganesh would think of his shrine is anyone's guess. He'd probably condemn it because the walls appear like they might collapse at any moment. Oh well....

Day One of Pancha Ganapati
We kicked off the first day of Pancha Ganapati with the fun of laundry, breakfast and the perusal of the weekly ads. But then we here at Chez Boeckman-Walker kicked the celebration into high gear by getting our acts together to decorate the holiday tree.

Last year, World Market kindly had a load of ornaments from India, so we scored a gaggle of elephant and even Ganesh ornaments, along with some other nifty, nice ones. Not all of those ornaments survived last year's celebrations (we do have one rambunctious boy and one rambunctious cat in da house, after all), but we still had a nice assortment for this year.

And we only lost two of the survivors while decorating this year!


"Watch me break this ornament!"
This year, we added candy canes to the tree decor. They seem fitting since Ganesh does like his sweets, plus the candy canes we bought have red, blue, green and yellow stripes--all colors that are part of Pancha Ganapati. Perhaps one of these days, I'll learn how to make Indian sweets (I've got recipes for them out the wazoo but am too lazy to try them) and somehow make them into ornaments, but until then, candy canes and regular ornaments will have to do.

Our tree has no star or angel. Instead, we put our Pancha Ganapati stand-in (a five-headed Ganesh statue is kinda pricey) atop our tree, and each day, we drape him with that day's appointed color. The first day's color is yellow.

To end our decorating festivities, the boy got his first Pancha Ganapati gift. While the "true" tradition is to make the kids wait until the final day (which just happens to be Christmas Day) to open the gifts they receive on each day of Pancha Ganapti, we let the boy open his there and then.


After all, there's no way this boy could manage to wait to open a gift given.


And we think Ganesh would highly approve of this gift.
After these activities and a rousing hour of kickboxing, we loaded up into the car and headed off for a wonderful lunch at Rangoli. Nothing like some fabulous Indian food to kick off Pancha Ganapati!

Here are some more picks of our morning fun for your viewing pleasure, Gentle Reader.