santa-shaped ice cubes

okay, this is shameful. i haven't updated my blog since march, when i was in france. unfortunately, i am no longer in france. fortunately, i am procrastinating, so here goes a holiday-themed story, inspired by a picture i found this morning: 

i am currently sitting at my desk in middlebury, vermont, where the november weather is finally starting to arrive. by this, i mean i'm wearing ll bean's wicked good slippers that make me look rather like peter pan or an elf at the north pole without the red and green restive ensemble. (i will take a moment now to say that both slippers are for the left foot, as my sister and i both have a pair - a fact that robin will probably vehemently deny via text two minutes after i post this - and when i left for school, i could only find two out of four of the slippers. what are the chances that they are both for left feet? my high school stats teacher could tell you.) also, two sweatshirts, and trying not to sneakily indulge in leftover halloween candy that i'm trying to make last until thanksgiving break. there are approximately four apples snitched from the dining hall at various points throughout the weekend, but reese's peanut butter cups are just that much more appealing.  regardless. it is most definitely fall, for i wear leather gloves when i ride my bike to work in the mornings so that i don't spend half my shift typing with ice cubes that used to be fingers, and my summer shorts tan is officially faded, which might be the only upside to the transition into fall. i wear less freckles and more tights with my sundresses, and the looming tension of midterms and end-of-the-semester workloads can easily be overturned with thoughts of thanksgiving turkeys and food comas and my mom's collection of tiny santas that take up residence on the shelf on the porch, so whenever you drop your keys into the basket you inadvertently cause st nick or father christmas or pere noel to rapidly faceplant to the ground, during which you 1. decide if he's breakable 2. really really hope that he's not 3. hope that the kitten arrives at that exact moment to save the day and snatch up father christmas like she snatches up the last of your sanity when you're trying to type and she sits on the keyboard, as if to say "thesis? what thesis? i'm more important." 4. while trying to sort out these rapidfire thoughts and failing and flailing, avoiding knocking over the other forty-seven santas just waiting to plunge to their imminent death. why, you might ask, is this so important, if there are forty-seven other jolly santas smiling back at you, as if to say "knock us over, we dare you" ? last year, my sister was washing dishes (actually that is probably not a factual statement - it is far more likely she was eating some strange combination of pasta and barbecue sauce over the sink) and knocked over a miniature snowman who was standing surveillance by the soap dispenser.  now, there are far fewer snowmen than there are santas, so the repercussions are brutal.  after attempting and failing to blame the snowman homicide on the kitten, she received a giant bag of coal on christmas day, her sentence for "killing christmas." harsh, you might say, after only an isolated incident. BUT NO. my sister has a gruesome history of "killing christmas" singlehandedly, and she is reminded of her acts every year, when we put out porcelain mugs in the shape of santa heads. this is a terrible description of what are otherwise rather cute, smiling, grandfather-like mugs, and i apologize and have just now come to the realization that i will never be an announcer on the home shopping network or jewelry television. damn. there goes another career option. my failure to describe these mugs is rectified by a photograph, the one attached above.  these mugs have been in our family for years and years and years and years, and we were to never touch them, under any circumstances because they were very fragile. so there they sit, six in a row, like festive ducklings just DARING us to touch them. one day, when i am six years old and my sister is the ripe old age of five, parents nowhere in sight, for they would have surely put a stop to this idea before we even spoke a word, my sister has a stroke of brilliance and decides that the absolute coolest thing we could possibly do on this particular afternoon is to make santa-shaped ice cubes. GENIUS. there has never been a better idea in the history of the universe. giggling like mad scientists on the brink of a very exciting discovery, we carefully pull one mug out of the lineup and rearrange the others as if to hide the fact that we kidnapped one santa, and fill the mug with tap water, placing it in the freezer and shutting the door slowly, slowly, to make sure santa stays put.  for approximately two minutes, we loiter guiltily around the fridge, whistling to ourselves and pacing in circles, the epitome of faked innocence, as we ponder the eventually GLORIOUS outcome of santa-shaped ice. we then promptly lose interest, for naps or dust or watching squirrels out the window or anything is infinitely more exciting than thinking about water turn into ice.  a few hours later, a yell comes from the kitchen, as my dad opens the freezer in search of some ice cream and discovers the ultimate disappointment - worse than freezerburned mint chocolate chip - a broken santa mug, squeezed in between the ice packs and eggo waffles, its pieces fused together, stuck onto the head-shaped ice cube, our ultimate goal. my sister's eyes widen dramatically, as do mine (the pair of us should have probably been in cutesy holiday hallmark commercials or a made-for-tv movie remarkably less violent than "you'll shoot your eye out, kid!", for if we were, we would be in hollywood at this very moment, rather than at school, blatantly procrastinating schoolwork by reminiscing childhood stories) and we promptly burst into tears, for how are we supposed to know that water expands when it turns into ice, effectively shattering a precious family heirloom mug as well as any possibility of getting twin ponies for christmas that year.  after some yelling and some scientific explaining and some tearful promises to never use antiques as an ice cube tray, i don't care about the fun shapes you can make, the ice cube debacle is over. until next christmas and the christmas after that, and the christmas after that, when we pull out the santa mugs, five instead of six, and say "remember when...?" just as mistletoe and quoting national lampoon's christmas vacation word for word and the forty-seven mini santa statues will forever be a required part of the holiday season, so will the inevitable science lesson on how to make ice, every single time we bring out the santa mugs, always five instead of six.