Ice folly

Shovel snow off the ice. Plunk down on a log. Pull on your skates and play crack-the-whip until your shoulder socket aches and your cheeks cherry up. Fresh out of a skating pond? Make a substitute that keeps in the fridge.

1 small box Berry Blue Jell-O

1 cup boiling water

2 cups ice cubes

Cool Whip

Spearmint trees (jellies) or green fruit roll-up strips

Gummi Bears

Wafer roll cookies

1. Dissolve Jell-O in boiling water. Stir in ice cubes. Continue stirring for 3 to 5 minutes and then remove any leftover ice cubes. Pour into a clear pie plate. Chill until set.

2. Just before serving, decorate with Cool Whip as snow around two-thirds of the edge of the pond. Stick in a few spearmint trees.*

3. Decorate with skating Gummi Bears and a wafer roll cookie as a log.

* Lacking spearmint trees, we experimented with long fruit roll-up strips and shaped them into cones. We affixed them to Pirouline wafer-roll cookies, which served as trunks. To maintain the shape of the trees, consider using a little frosting as glue (we cheated and used nonedible staples).