Home for the Holidays Daily Update: December 26

Laaaaaaaaazy days with a baby.

Home for the Holidays Daily Update: December 25

We never did get around to buying a Christmas tree, so we passed gifts from under the palm tree that we put lights in last night. Mom normally keeps it front of the windows, but strung with lights, it looked very "Christmas Tropicale". It was surprisingly charming. Maybe we will get a holiday palm again next year.



Christmas Dinner Menu:

Grilled Marinated Shrimp with Cocktail Sauce, a la 1964
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Brown Sugar Glazed Ham
Roasted Winter Root Vegetables
Smashed Red Potatoes with Horseradish and Chives
Challah, served with butter (rendering all the work unkosher)
Brandied Cranberry Sauce
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Winter Citrus Salad
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Flaming Christmas Pudding

Home for the Holidays Daily Update: December 24

J. and I drove my grandma to my parents house from Kansas City. Every time I come back to Kansas, the wide openness of it all takes my breath away- flying down I-70 at eighty five miles an hour, we pass a car maybe every five minutes. Arriving at the homestead, it's disarray and madness. Last week my parents had no electricity because of an ice storm, while at the same time remodeling their kitchen. The kitchen was completed, but none of the holiday arrangements were. So J and I flew to the store, mixed and baked and got a little bit tipsy doing so- but everything was ready by Christmas Eve.

I would never say it out loud, but all the mixing and baking and wrapping and decking and twinkling shininess of Christmas makes me all nostalgic and emotional.

Home for the Holidays Daily Update: December 23

So, Christmas is a big deal in my family. There is a lot of eating, general merriment, and of course, repressed passive-aggressive tendencies because everyone becomes eight years-old again when you go home. Kidding! Our family would never be passive-aggressive: it's just that if you didn't eat so much, you would be thinner. That's all I am saying and I am saying it because I love you.

That's right, up front they get coffee in real mugs and employees at least act like they give a shit about you. Viva la revolucion, when the working classes will break through that flimsy curtain and take the real china and free drinks that is rightfully theirs.

J. and I got bumped up to first class, where I drank many a Baily's and coffee out of a real coffee cup and stared out the window, regretting that I don't get to fly more. Then, on our connecting flight, we sat in coach, where we belong, and I felt warm and fuzzy about the fact that I no longer travel for work.

What is the lesson here, children? Booze makes all the difference.