Festive Update

Christmas preparations are going swimmingly so far. I sent Robin to the post office with two big boxes of gifts for the relatives, which I always think is the hardest part - shopping, wrapping, finding the correct size box, packing, finding the tape, digging for addresses. Jack helped me wrap all the presents this year. I have one stocking still left to make, and 1.5 socks to knit. We are having pre-Christmas on Saturday with some friends who will be out of town for the holidays. Ham, here I come! My sister will be here tomorrow night, in time to bake more cookies and wrap more gifts and have light-saber duels with Jack while Mommy puts the finishing touches on Robin's Christmas shirt. Jack's vintage 1978 Millenium Falcon is stashed in the laundry room, waiting for me to buy a whole lot more wrapping paper. Three kinds of cookies have been baked.

So really, what more is there to do but sit in front of the fire, eat popcorn and read Twilight?

Silk Velvet Jacket

I was browsing around on Wists and saw this:

a 1930s Fortuny stenciled silk velvet short jacket. And I thought "That looks like something a pregnant woman could wear!"
So I searched Ebay for silk velvet and found 3 yards of a blue and pale gold print velvet for $15. Far more reasonable than the $12,000 that the Fortuny is going for.

The construction is simplicity itself, and I may, if I'm lucky, have it done in time for Christmas Day dinner!

Deck the Halls

We spent a busy weekend picking out our tree, decorating, making cookies and enjoying the snow. We also went to a great dinner party and had currywurst and spatzle with cheese, perhaps the perfect winter foods.
Homemade stockings for Jack and Robin. I'm still working on the rest.

Decorated white pine Christmas tree. I think it still needs a few more lights.

New red velvet curtains in the dining room keep us toasty while we're eating.


I made the browned-butter Spoon Cookies from Gourmet with a four fruit preserve filling. They are so delicious, but you must wait at least 24 hours before eating them. They turn into a melting buttery cookie with a toasty brown-butter flavor. Nest weekend: almond toffee and ambrosia macaroons.

Christmas Whirlwind

I'm so excited about Christmas this year. I sometimes feel, like everyone else who celebrates a family-centric holiday involving gifts, decorations, cooking and visitors, overwhelmed by Christmas. But not this year. First of all, we are staying home, and some of our family are coming to stay. This, to me, is the best kind of Christmas. We have a big house; it is no inconvenience to have guests. I like my own fireside best of all.

I have big plans for Christmas cooking, involving filet of beef and 5 kinds of Christmas cookies:
ambrosia macaroons
chocolate almond butter toffee
cut-out cookies
cinnamon pecan shortbread
brown butter cookies

Some of these will go to the cookie exchange.
The lights are up, the garland is on the mantlepiece, and the tree will be coming home soon. Christmas gift shopping is still looming, but I am looking forward to it.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

My main thought is: Thank God for mashed potatoes and gravy. We had the best Thanksgiving dinner I can ever remember, at Robin's brother's house in Tappan, NY. Turkey, the aforementioned potatoes and gravy, dressing, rolls and butter, homemade cranberry sauce, squash baked with nuts and pomegranate seeds, a salad of collards, lime juice and red peppers, and pie. Pumpkin, apple, cherry, and, my contribution, chocolate cream. There was wine, but I had sparkling cranberry-apple cider and Jack had milk. So, so delicious. I could eat it all over again right now.

New York was fun: we went to the circus, ate at a great place across from Lincoln Center (crab cakes and those thin Belgian frites, Jack had homemade shells and cheese, cheesecake for dessert) and made a trip to the Cloisters on a gorgeous sunny day and took a nice hike up through Fort Tyron Park. We took Rick and John out for dinner the last night we were there. It was an Italian place in North Yonkers, we had a cold antipasto with bread and olive oil, and then chicken with sausage, mussels fra diavolo, pork chops, homemade meatballs with penne & lobster ravioli.

Jack played with his cousins and wore himself out. He enjoyed his plane rides very much and seemed unfazed by New York in general, despite having left there when he was very small. I got a tremendous amount of reading done, mostly Dorothy Sayers, did absolutely no work, and came back with a great desire for a jasmine plant and a Meyer lemon tree.