Snowflakes & Pancakes
Every year, we take certain days to wind down a bit and have some fun, and we try to do it by pairing two Christmassy concepts together in a clever way that we like to call “Rhyming Hygge.” It's meant to be more cozy, relaxed, and easygoing than some of our elaborate dance parties and seven-course dinners from around the world. The first one for this year is “Snowflakes and Pancakes”.
The first written records of pancakes come from the ancient Greeks and Romans. Around 500 B.C.E., Athenian poet Cratinus described “a [flat cake] hot and shedding morning dew.” Some 600 years later, in the late second century C.E., Greek physician Galen included a recipe in his "On the Properties of Foodstuffs" that’s similar to how Russian blinis or Canadian griddlecakes are prepared today. And for the centuries since, pancakes have remained popular. Our family is no exception and loves them as well, especially in the colder winter months when those snowflakes happen to be falling.
This morning, we started our festivities with “Elf” Sugar Cookie Pancakes and pancakes made to look like Santa Claus. We also made some snowflake-shaped pancakes. As the day went on, we took a break from pancakes to shift our food focus to snowflakes, enjoying tortilla snowflakes for a mid-day snack and a snowflake pull-apart pizza for dinner. We eventually returned to pancakes by using snowflake “cake pans” and a pancake mix to whip up a Christmassy dark chocolate peppermint dessert.
For activities, we had some fun with pancake trivia and riddles and a Pancake Pile-Up Relay Game that the kids loved. But we really leaned into the creativity of the snowflake for our activities. We put up window clings and crafted snowflakes out of wax paper, popsicle sticks, and pipe cleaners. We also watched Blippi’s Snowflake Scavenger Hunt and read Daniel Tiger’s “Snowflake Day”. With the kids asleep, we unwound with some Snowflake Sudoku and a Snowflake Martini. And to make the day extra special, we even had some snowflakes drifting down on us throughout the day for an unexpected surprise.
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