Day 356: Hazelnuts

For those of you who've followed along since the beginning, the story I'm about to tell will ring a bell. As you know it's Christmas time and all of the fun little things we do at this time of year are in full force. Things like making, baking, and eating gingerbread cookies, decorating oranges with whole cloves and red ribbons, and having a beautiful red wooden bowl full of whole hazelnuts to eat while sitting in front of the Christmas tree or watching TV. Have you guessed where I'm going with this yet? I suppose I'm not being completely obvious so I'll give you a small hint. What do you get when you crack open a hazelnut and discover not one but two whole nuts inside the single shell? That my friends is called a filipin.

Well, just a few days ago we were sitting on the couch. Carl was cracking hazelnuts open faster than we could eat them and them suddenly he said, "Oh! Look here what I have!" He had a filipin! So we set a date and time and kept chomping down nuts. I tried my hardest to ingrain the time in my head, as part of the rules of the game are that you must remember the date and time without writing it down. This makes it more challenging and especially when you are getting up there in years and can't remember things so well any more (me). So just to refresh your memory, once you've set a date and time, when that date and time roll around, the first person to say, "filipin" wins that game.

Today was the day but I could not for the life of me remember the time. I thought it was nine a.m. but I wasn't sure. So I waited until lunch time and I called my husband. As soon as he answered I simply said, "filipin!" And he said, "Nope, not now, you just forfeited that one." Darn. Really? I asked if he was sure and he said yes but after some discussion we realized the time I thought was actually correct, but he thought it was p.m. and I thought it was a.m. So in the end we called it a draw. We have another game in play right now and I definitely remember the time and date for this one. So look out Mr. Ekstrom, I'm coming to whisper "filipin' in your ear very soon!