the education of henry

Almost Christmas

2025-12-21

This was a busy week. We did all the usual school stuff: botany, sociology, history, math, gym, food labs, computer skills, and literature...and we met up with friends, went sledding twice, and delivered a lot of cookies and cakes.

Monday

We did school in the morning, and then in the afternoon we met Jonathan at the park and went sledding.

Tuesday

Mom started prepping for more Christmas baking.

That's a lot of butter....

...and now it's a lot of dough.

And some caramel sauce.

Mixing up the preferment for the French bread we are making tomorrow.

Wednesday

Time for Food Lab: French Bread

Checking my dough.

Working on math while my dough is rising.

Time to work the dough.

Kneading the dough.

Covering the dough to let it rise some more before baking.

Scoring the bread.

I carved "1415" into the big one.

Baking up nicely.

They look beautiful!

And they tasted great, too!

Thursday

I worked really hard and finished all of my school for the week, so that means this was my last day of school before Christmas! And in the afternoon, Jonathan and Caroline came over to exchange some presents.

Jonathan made me a tri-corder and a phaser.

We got Jonathan a Star Wars shirt with national park-style stickers for different planets.

And we got them the baking books we've been using and some simple baking tools.

Jonathan also made me a Klingon blade - which was super cool.

So, technically I still had Food Lab: Mashed Potatoes to do before I could start my vacation.

For supper, I made biscuits.

And some mashed potatoes...

Mash, mash, mash!

The mashed potatoes were great!

Friday

Mom was busy baking and getting things ready for doing deliveries this weekend. I had the day to play with LEGO, aside from doing a little reading. When Dad got home, we had pizza - which Mom made from scratch (yes, she made pizza dough along with all the other things she was making in the kitchen). And then for our movie night we watched Bridesmaids.

Laughing at the movie - if you've seen it, you can probably guess what we are laughing at.

Saturday

As if Mom was not baking enough already, she made blueberry muffins in the morning, as well as more pizza dough.

Chocolate crinkles.

Time to decorate the sugar cookies!

More pizza dough.

Cookies are done!

Sunday

In the morning, it was time to pack up the treats for delivery! Mom and Dad did that, I was playing with LEGO.

All ready to go!

Oh, and Mom made some buns, too.

We did a couple of deliveries and then met Jonathan, Nick, Kellan, and Annika at the park for some sledding. The sun was out and it was decently warm, so it was a great to hit the hill. We had a lot of fun!

Taking a break from sledding.

The Moms having their own little party.

And then we went home and watched some Christmas movies.

For reading, this week I read A Christmas Carol, which I really liked. I don't have to write the paper on it until the week after Christmas, so that will be a nice break. Dad and I are listening to Life, the Universe, and Everything, the third Hitchhiker's book.

For documentary viewing, we watched Murderball, a documentary about wheelchair rugby. It was really good - the game is really brutal, lots of smashing wheelchairs. We also watched The Biggest Little Farm, which was about a couple who started a farm and rejuvenated the land. It took them seven years to get it really going, but it was worth it. Their farm is amazing! And we also watched Anthony Bourdain in Las Vegas.

We watched some movies for fun this week, too. As mentioned, we watched Bridesmaids, and it was really funny. And kinda gross - but that was funny, too. And it is the time of year to watch Christmas movies, so we watched Love Hard, about a mismatched couple that needed a little help to realize they were meant for each other. One of the plot points in Love Hard was that the woman in the movie thinks Die Hard is the best Christmas movie. We watched Love, Actually as our second film in our Christmas-movies-with-"Love"-in-the-title double-feature. I really liked both of the movies - they were a lot of fun. And the next night we watched Die Hard and Die Hard 2, because, you know, they are Christmas movies.

And that was my week - take care!