My Favorite Winter Holiday
by Ann Chaney
December 8, 2022
I bet everyone is thinking this will be another tribute to the joys of Christmas or the welcoming of the new year. Not so fast. I do enjoy Christmas. Who doesn’t like presents? Love the food and time with family and friends. As for New Year’s, I spend those days decompressing after all the excitement of Christmas. No watching that Swarovski crystal ball drop seconds before midnight in Times Square for me.
I took a poll. I asked my family what is their favorite winter holiday besides Christmas and New Year’s. My ten-year old granddaughter, Carolina, didn’t hesitate… Pi Day, March 14th!
Funny story:
My husband, John, decided he wanted to create “a special time with Carolina”. Carolina loved and still loves pumpkin pie. He decided they would make a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving.
Banned from the kitchen I wasn’t present when John re-learned nothing is ever simple with a five-year old. Carolina raising her voice telling him it wasn’t her fault was the first indication something had gone wrong. I found the two of them in the kitchen wearing clumps of pumpkin filling on their clothes and in their hair. The refrigerator, sink, countertops, even the stove had their fair share of the orange stuff. Oh, and the ceiling and floor too. Who knew a KitchenAid had that much power?
It seems someone, and to this day I don’t know who, pushed the lever on the mixer to full blast. I want to take credit here for thinking ahead. We cleaned the kitchen and them before pulling out the second set of ingredients.
Not daunted, John has hosted our granddaughters for the last five years to make their pumpkin pies. All other responses went to the wayside as I adopted Pi Day as my favorite winter holiday. Full disclosure here. I’m not a huge fan of winter or pumpkin pie! I like to visit the snow, but I always have an end date for coming back to warm Florida.
A little history:
Pi Day was founded in 1988 by physicist Larry Shaw. March 14th represents Pi= 3.14. A bit of trivia is March 14th is also Albert Einstein’s birthday. Rather bizarre that one of the greatest physicists (IMHO) in the history of the world was born on this day, don’t you think?
In our family, we use Pi Day as an excuse to indulge in our favorite pies. Pumpkin pie is front and center on the dessert table. I’m a pecan pie girl while my husband is a lemon meringue devotee.
John has a system for making pumpkin pie. He lays out all the ingredients. Carolina, our ten-year old, measures for her pie while John handles measurements for 5-year old Isabelle. Yes, each girl makes her own pie. Yes, we eat a lot of pie in the month of March into April.
I Googled “Ways to Celebrate Pi Day” for other ideas on what to do to celebrate the day. Just baking and eating pie seems lame. I mean really?
Some ideas:
- Exercise: Do repetitions to mimic Pi. Three reps of jumping jacks, one rep of pushups and four reps of sit ups. Cute idea. Let’s face it, eating all that pie means we’ll need to work off those carbs and fat.
- Scavenger Hunt: Again use 3.14 to come up with number of items for the hunt. Three pencils, one trashcan, and four stickers. Remember, I have to work with a 5-year old here.
- Create Pi-Artwork: Greeting cards with Pi puns.
- Pi Bar Graph: Pi is an irrational number which means it’s a decimal with no end and no repeating pattern. A bar graph will look like a city skyline. Currently, there are 31 trillion digits. Imagine how big your bar graph would be! There are mathematicians who spend their lives working on PI digits. I think it will take more than one mathematician to plot all 31 trillion, don’t you?
Holidays are about coming together with those you love and cherish. Creating memories to get us through the hard times, because there will be hard times in our lives. No one get a pass on the hard times. I believe it’s the memories of the good times together that gets us through those rough patches. No matter which winter holiday is your favorite, I wish you joy and peace as you celebrate with your loved ones. Happy Pi Day!
Ann Chaney writes historical romance novels set in Regency England in the early 19th century. A nomad, a volunteer, a dreamer and an obsessive organizer best describe Ann Chaney. In the last 36 years, she and her husband have moved eleven times. Her professional career included serving on active duty in the US Army for seven years and working 30 years in various administrative roles in primarily Human Resources and university administration. Her first book, Dangerous Pursuit won the 2016 Historical Unpublished category Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery & Suspense. In 2019 the book was designated as a finalist for RWA’s 2019 Golden Heart contest.
