Christmas cheer

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Friday Randomosity: December Backslide and Some Festive Stuff As Well

December, for all its holiday magic, has been less ideal in other ways. I feel like I’ve lost any and all (admittedly questionable) momentum I’ve built at any point in the year. Maybe it’s been channeled into stamping, licking, and addressing a million holiday cards, I don’t know.

On the holiday end of things, I am, of course, doing my Last Minute Panic about gifts. My husband and I bought my kid’s one and only Hanukkah gift on the afternoon of the first night of Hanukkah, and then wrapped it quickly while she was getting the candles set up in the menorah. (And then it was the wrong size, so I added “exchange pajamas” to my holiday to-do list the other day and the same jammies were not available in store or online in Carla’s size, so I ended up getting her some Snoopy Valentine’s Day ones.) (They are SO SOFT but they don’t match the socks we got her, which are no longer available online.) (Oooh, I didn’t see that they have Hanukkah socks!)

The stocking stuffers seemed unbalanced, so I got my dad these engraving pens to go with his spicy peanuts, but I also added a tube of hand cream because I noticed his hands were so dry the last time I saw him, which meant that he had five items for his stocking and everyone else had only three… and then I got my mom these watercolor pens to even it out a little, and then I threw in a pizza server because I have a problem. And then I found myself in an Urban Outfitters and ended up buying these socks for my mom. Of course, NOW I feel like my husband’s stocking is going to be the emptiest but I am out of ideas, and, I think, out of time. And also THIS IS SO DUMB WHY DO I DO THIS EVERY YEAR.

(My husband, who is usually The Voice of Reason, did text me yesterday about another gift for the cat, so at least I’m not the only one who goes a little insane this time of year.)

I am getting distracted. Oh yes, I was about to list my failings as a human this month, above and beyond the regular.

Let’s see. I don’t think I’ve walked outside more than handful of times since Elisabeth stopped holding my hand.

After NaBloPoMo ended, and San and crew stopped holding my hand for that, I have pretty much abandoned my book blog once again. And listen, I know it probably makes zero sense to you why I even have a separate whole blog just for discussing books, but it makes sense to me and I am currently choosing to be stubborn about it. Which means, apparently, neglect.

While moving an armchair to make space for the Christmas tree on December 1, I borked my back and haven’t worked out since. For a few days, I walked slowly on the treadmill to at least get some sort of movement into my days, and then that practice became covered in piles of snow and shipping boxes like everything else.

Yes, I have completed (COMPLETED, hear that, Suzanne????) my gift buying, but I only just got the last couple of gifts for out-of-towners in the mail yesterday. Hopefully they will arrive on time. I STILL have yet to get some of the holiday cards in the mail, AND I under-ordered so some people are getting cards from Trader Joe’s and Aldi – which are, to be fair, very cute. If you send holiday cards, and some of those cards go to other bloggers, do you send out different cards to each set of people? I kind of like the idea of having a special set of cards just for blog friends, but I barely got one holiday card ordered in time this year so perhaps that’s an idea for Future Me.

I do have tiers of recipients, though. No, “tiers” is not the right word; that implies a hierarchy, and this is not a matter of A List, B List, etc. My card recipients diverge along different information branches, maybe??? Like, this year I printed out a mini-Christmas letter that I stuck in the envelopes of people who I thought would actually care about the minutiae of my family’s year. Mainly that consists of my aunts and uncles and a few of the residents of our old neighborhood. I did not think that the handful of my husband’s high school friends with whom we exchange cards would miss such a letter, nor would any of the families of Carla’s classmates or my old coworkers. People in my inner circle already KNOW all the stuff in the letter, so it felt redundant to include it and I didn’t, but I feel sort of bad about that. Am I overthinking this? I am overthinking this.

Sleep continues to be a huge pain in the ass. I am managing to use my CPAP approximately four hours a night, but I have been more aware of it lately and more likely to rip it off my face in the middle of the night. Also, through ALL of November, I woke up at 4:30 every morning. Did I exercise in that “extra” time as I had planned? No, I did not; I wrote blog posts. BUT, I was pretty excited to have adjusted my wake-up time so easily. In December, I slid inexplicably back to waking up at 5:30. And then there have been a few mornings where I’ve slept until close to seven! It feels decadent but a) I’m not getting GOOD sleep during those extra hours and b) I don’t have enough time in the day as it is and c) I STILL manage to be a floppy tired mess by nine pm, regardless of when I wake up.

The cat continues to be Extremely Fluffy. When we brought him home, the cat breeder noted that he will have two “shed” events each year – once in the spring and once in the fall – but I am beginning to believe his whole life is a shed event. He does that adorable / alarming cat thing where he’ll be sitting or resting contentedly and then will suddenly leap into action, and each time he leaves a puff of fur in his wake, Looney-Tunes-style. I brush the beast daily – sometimes multiple times daily – and yet I am constantly picking up little tumbleweeds of fluff that decorate our dark floors like some ephemeral species of flora.

“Meowp, meowp!”

Seriously. There is fur everywhere at all times. I will vacuum the floors and then a little puff of fluff will drift down gently from the sky where apparently even the air is participating in a shed event. Even though I looked at them with great interest, I did not buy myself the laundry pet hair removers or the little purse lint remover. And yet as the days pass, I grow more and more aware of how completely covered in cat hair I am. Maybe there’s still time?

My beloved housecleaner is pregnant, and admitted the other day that she’s been suffering from morning sickness. While she has been my housecleaner for nearly a decade now, and therefore probably knows me better than anyone on the planet, we have a fairly distant relationship. Not cold or anything, but professional, which feels right and fine. But now that she’s pregnant, I feel SO BAD FOR HER. As someone who suffered from intense morning sickness for most of my pregnancy, I cannot imagine, say, CLEANING TOILETS. And yet, I don’t want to infantilize her or pathologize her totally normal condition by saying “no need to clean toilets for the next seven months.” The best I could come up with was say, please let me know if you need any accommodations, and please do only what you can do. I really hope she will speak up if she feels like something is too much for her. (Obviously, I recognize that she might be totally fine and happy to work as she normally does and I don’t want to over-emphasize something in a way that feels demeaning or sexist!)

Do you remember the palm plants I bought earlier this year for our sunroom?

They were glorious when we first got them!

I brought them inside earlier this month, once the cold started to hit, and THEY TRIED TO PERISH. Like, one day they were flourishing and the next day they were all brown and crispy. It was Quite Alarming, especially because they were Quite Expensive. I did some googling, and I took three immediate actions: 1.) I moved them into a slightly sunnier place. 2.) I hacked off all the dead portions, which left a bunch of stalks and a couple of sickly green shoots. 3.) I heaved them into my sink and let them soak in water for 15 minutes, to re-hydrate the root ball. Then I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Okay, I also bought some fertilizer specific to palms and ferns and fed the plants accordingly. And then I got a teeny little humidifier and have been humidifying the plants for a few hours each day. They look… well, they still look terrible, but they look much better than they did when they first alerted me to their imminent demise.

Green and perky, with some new growth.
I think the tallest stalk, which seemed to be hanging in there, needs to go. It no longer seems to be among the living.

Speaking of plants: my husband occasionally buys me flowers for our anniversary. This year, not wanting to assume either way, I gently reminded him that most flowers are toxic to cats, and our cat has not got that memo and likes to chew on any and all plants in his realm. On our anniversary, my husband came home with this – and then put it together for me. The “putting it together” was a little gift for him, and the permanent non-toxic flowers were a little gift for me.

Leo is Not Allowed On The Table, and yet no matter where I stood or how often I deposited him onto the floor, he was CERTAIN that I was trying to photograph him. (The plants in the tiny pots are teacher gifts and only temporary, lest you are worried for Leo’s safety.)

How is everyone feeling in your household? We keep getting ominous emails from Carla’s school, listing the number of students who have reported influenza diagnoses. First email about one kid on Tuesday. Second email about two more kids on Wednesday. Third email (also on Wednesday) about four other kids. No emails yesterday, but then this morning Carla cheerfully told me that lots of her friends were out with “the barfing sickness.” Well. She only has a class event, a schoolwide talent show, a birthday party, and a sleepover one more day of school to survive and then she’s on break, so I’m sure we’re in the clear!

Okay, that may be the limit of my Non-Holiday content at the moment. I am really just steeped in Holiday Mode, you know? One thing I have not done – or even really thought about – is bake any sort of cookies. Maybe now that I’ve got gifts figured out (YOU ARE DONE SHOPPING, SUZANNE) (except maybe for something else small for my husband’s stocking?????) I can turn my attention to baking. I’m not really in the mood to do a cookie plate this year, but I do have a hankering for some big, soft molasses cookies. I would be making them right now, in fact, except I am out of both ginger and cinnamon.          

Maybe baking cookies will be an item on my Winter Break To-Do List? My kid is going to be off school for fifteen days, and my husband is taking nearly two full weeks off, and I am giddy with the idea of so much time together. However, I know that two weeks could easily go the way of each of us zoning out in front of our separate screens, which would feel wasteful and depressing to me. To head off this potential issue, I am trying to encourage my family to come up with a real list of things that we want to do during the break, fun things and work things, together things and separate things. So far, we have “try special sundae at local ice creamery” and “make ice cream” on the list. (My in-laws got us a Ninja Creami for our anniversary, and we want to break it in.) We should probably have some non-ice-cream to-dos as well, and I would like to exercise and write every day, have at least one family game night, clean my kid’s craft room, and put up a gallery wall. (Yes, I am still trying to get my gallery wall after all these years.) It would be nice to do something outside and to do something with my parents and possibly something with friends or neighbors, but it may be overly ambitious to include other people in our winter break plans. I also have this vague idea that I want to organize some of the drawers and cupboards that have gotten a little out of control, but… that’s not urgent.

I got a delightful surprise in the mail yesterday. It’s an ornament from my childhood best friend, featuring quotes from one of our shared favorite movies. We used to drive around listening to the Clueless soundtrack together and we have watched the movie, together and separately, about a million times. It was SUCH a fun treat to open and then hang on the tree.

Okay, I’ve said all the things. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and that any and all ongoing holiday prep goes smoothly.

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Friday Randomosity: Holiday Detritus Edition

It’s Friday, my house is a mess, there are wrapping paper scraps literally everywhere (LEO), I have overcommitted to Fun Things that currently feel less like fun and more like stress, so let’s get into some bullets.

* In addition to overcommitting to Fun Things, Past Me also apparently set up eight thousand appointments for the weeks leading up to Christmas. Last week was the dentist which led to yesterday’s repeat visit so I could get a filling. After several teeth extractions as a child, and a lifelong issue with getting properly numb from anesthetic, I get severe anxiety about going to the dentist. Yesterday was no exception. I hadn’t had a filling in decades, and all I could think about was getting those huge, painful shots in my mouth. Now that I am a grownup, I understand that it’s okay to TELL THE DENTIST a) that I am anxious, b) I have trouble getting numb, and c) WHEN I AM IN PAIN. Either dental practices have dramatically improved since I was a kid, or my childhood dentist was not very good (or some combination of the two), but my filling experience was as good as could be. The shots hurt, but they weren’t as unbearable as I remember, and it took the dentist maybe ten minutes to remove the cavity. The rest of my time in the chair was with the Filling Specialist. The worst part about the experience (outside of the anticipatory anxiety) was the music. They turned on some instrumental Christmas music which turned out to be an epic rendition of “Jingle Bells” that lasted the entire forty-five minutes I was in the chair. That is too much “Jingle Bells.” Way, way too much.

* Most of my holiday gift-buying is complete; my husband and I have a date this weekend to go shopping in an actual physical mall to find the final couple of items on our list. So now I am turning my attention to the monetary gifts we give out every year: sports coaches, tutors, special teachers, mail person, trash collection, hair stylist, housecleaner. But I am – as usual – dithering about amounts. The mail person and trash collectors are easy, because I just give them gift cards in the $10-$20 range. Others feel less simple. Usually, like for the hair stylist or the housecleaner, I give what amounts to double their normal fee. But this year, my daughter started seeing my hair stylist, too, so I suppose I should combine our typical appointment costs and give that? Also, for the first time ever, my hair stylist has had the same assistant working with her for the last three or four times I’ve gotten my hair cut and colored. Do I give the assistant a separate gift, or does my hair stylist give her a portion of whatever she gets? And, if the latter, do I need to bump up the gift a bit to account for whatever she distributes to others? The other thing that’s stumping me is people whose normal fees are weird numbers. Like if your normal fee is $35, then I would give you a $35 gift. But $35 seems like a weird amount for a gift, doesn’t it? Should I just round up to $50? But that’s a BIG roundup. If your normal fee is $90, somehow $100 seems like a much nicer gift than simply doing an extra $90. I am overthinking this, right? But what would you do?

* By the way, if you have a Trader Joe’s near you, mine has an assortment of cute holiday cards for ninety-nine cents apiece (a STEAL for any card, let alone a cute one). I bought a big handful of these cards to accompany the money gifts.

* Should I get bangs? This feels like a non-sequitur, but I was just thinking about my hair stylist and how last time I visited her, we briefly discussed Forehead Minimization Tactics, and she said she thinks I would look good with bangs. I haven’t had bangs since elementary school. I don’t think I could DEAL with bangs, honestly. But also, more and more lately, I have been staring at the immense freckled and beginning to crepe expanse of my forehead with despair.

* Speaking of despair, I have a Fancy Event coming up in January and I need Fancy Clothes to match. I’ve been looking at dresses for months now, refusing to try anything on, hoping that I would somehow magically shrink to fit one of the many many beautiful dresses I already own and have kept lo these many years. And now the time has come when I have to face reality and buy a new dress. Nordstrom has a bunch of dresses I’ve had in my digital shopping cart for awhile. I really like this one; it’s fancy, the fit-and-flare style typically looks okay on me, it’s not too short. I don’t love the straps, though; I feel as though my bare shoulder days are behind me. Also, it’s more than I’d like to spend on a dress I may wear ONCE. But then again, maybe if I buy a higher quality dress, it will fit me better? This one is pretty, and has sleeves. I like the color, the price is decent. It also looks itchy, and maybe too short. I love the look of this one – I swoon for a navy dress – and it also has sleeves. And it’s VERY on sale. But is the neckline too restrictive? Does it read too youthful for a middle-aged mom? I like the look of this one, and it looks elegant and very comfortable. The pattern is not exactly my typical style, and I’m worried it’s slightly too casual for an event with cocktail attire. Which one would you suggest I try? I’m toying with buying all of them, trying them on, and returning three. I’ve done that before, but it always makes me nervous.

* This is kind of a dumb, low-stakes question, but what is the protocol for food procurement when you’re meeting someone? I met a friend at a bakery the other day. I wasn’t sure when she would arrive, and she had declined my offer to get her something, so I ordered my little pastry and drink and was standing in line to pay when she got there. But then it felt awkward, like I hadn’t waited for her? Standing in the bakery without buying anything would have felt awkward, too, though. I can also imagine grabbing a table, waiting for her, then going to place our orders together, and feeling awkward about THAT. (There is something unbearable to me about paying for something for myself and NOT for the other person.) Clearly I will just feel awkward about anything and everything.

* Here’s another dumb thing I am feeling awkward about. As I mentioned, my husband and I are going to The Mall this weekend. I rarely go to malls, but I realized we will be in the proximity of several stores that have something I want very badly: a cake stand with a dome. The thing is, I put this on my Christmas wish list that my husband sends around to all his family members, so there is a chance I might be getting one for Christmas. I don’t think anyone (except perhaps one person) who takes part in this gift-list-sharing process really feels like the items are Must Buys, they are more like suggestions. Plus, we haven’t received any gifts addressed to me at all. So it’s a small chance, but it’s still a chance. But… should I take advantage of being in The Mall and just buy myself a cake stand??? This one is kind of exactly what I’d envisioned, and it’s on sale. Or this one is so simple and elegant. I like this one, too, with the marble base. I should just wait until after Christmas, right? I should just wait.

* Leo is loving Christmas. Or hating it, it’s kind of difficult to distinguish between the two. I made the mistake of bragging to Elisabeth recently that I make my own bows out of wrapping paper. I do do that; it’s fun and the results are cute, but they take FOREVER to make. And, of course, Leo thinks they are for his personal entertainment. Or he takes them as a threat to the safety of his home and targets them for immediate destruction. Hard to say. Pride goeth before the fall and all that, I guess.

All right, that’s all I’ve got this morning. I have a Fun Thing today, plus cleaning, plus at some point I still need to address and mail our holiday cards.

What’s on your mind today?

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Post Christmas Cookie Swap + Baking Giveaway

Hello my dear internet! I hope you had a lovely Christmas and/or start to Hanukkah and/or that you Made It Through. (I have been thinking about those of my friends who have lost spouses or parents this year, those who may be struggling with complicated family or health issues, and those who are still grieving many-years-ago losses, and how grief at the holidays feels particularly bleak and awful. I know you are making it through the best way you can and I hope there are brighter days ahead.)

Drastic tone switch.

I am just stuffed-enough full of holiday food that I think it’s the perfect timing for my much-delayed Cookie Swap post. I am able to admire and appreciate all the cookies, and bookmark all the posts and recipes, without feeling the need to IMMEDIATELY LEAP TO THE KITCHEN. Although I do still have a significant amount of butter leftover… Hmm….

Thank you to everyone who sent me scrumptious photos. Let me know if I have misattributed anything or linked to something incorrectly and I will fix it tout de suite.

Cookie Plates

For a variety of Reasons, I ended up making my cookie plates in the wee hours of the morning this past Monday. Carla and I delivered them later that afternoon. Five cookie varieties made it onto the plates:

Here is my assessment of the final products:

  • Chai Sugar Cookies with Eggnog Glaze: I have made these before and the cookies are wonderfully soft and pleasingly spiced. In years past, the eggnog glaze has been more like an eggnog clump, so I added more eggnog this year until it was truly glazy. But, in True Glaze Form, it then leaked off the cookies, so it’s not a cookie you can glaze at the last minute; you need ample time for the glaze to dry/harden. Delicious, though.
  • Chocolate Snickerdoodles: This is an old favorite, and Carla requests these often. I love them, too. But my husband thinks they are kind of a niche cookie. He took a big plate of assorted cookies to work and the chocolate snickerdoodles were the last cookies standing. I think they are chewy and delicious, with a wonderful mix of chocolate and that little bitter bite of cream of tartar that makes snickerdoodles so surprising and different.
  • Basque Cheesecake Bars: This was a new-to-me recipe, and the bars turned out to be delicious. You should know right away that I used gingersnaps as the base instead of graham crackers. (Actually, I didn’t have enough gingersnaps, so I added in a sleeve of graham crackers, too – about a 2-to-1 gingersnap-to-graham cracker ratio, which was delicious.) This recipe was simple but also a little scary to execute, because you have to let the cheesecake develop this richly caramelized top and it looks (and smells) burnt. The end product was so yummy. The recipe produced a staggering amount of cheesecake; we have so much left. (FYI, a cheesecake bar or two makes for a very festive breakfast.)
  • Cranberry Lemon Bars: This was a new-to-me recipe and I would like to try it again, but it wasn’t my favorite. I loved the twin bright flavors of lemon and cranberry, and I loved how easy it was to “make” the lemon “curd.” But the cookie layer seemed a little greasy to me and I felt like it was too tender and not cookie-y enough. These are also difficult to cut in a way that makes them look nice on a cookie plate. EDITED TO ADD: After a couple of days in the fridge, these are much better than I originally thought.
  • Mint Swirl Sugar Cookies: This was a new-to-me recipe and it worked, I think, but was also VERY LABOR INTENSIVE. Rolling all the little balls and shaping the cookies was very time consuming and I don’t know that they were pretty and swirly enough to make it worth the effort. Nice peppermint flavor, though. I didn’t have any red food coloring so I used green. I also found that the cookies as directed were much too large for my cookie plates, so I halved all the little balls. This means I have approximately ten thousand remaining cookie balls, un-swirled, that I will probably end up tossing.

Cookie Problems

The main issue I had this year (besides too much time making cookies that wouldn’t ever make it on the cookie plates) was that my cookies were all so flat. They tasted good, but I like a thick cookie. I did some googling and think that maybe my problem was overcreaming the butter and sugar. For some reason, I thought the more creaming the better… but apparently there’s a point at which you deplete the butter/sugar mixture of air and this can result in flat cookies.

But THEN Jen (HI JEN!), who bore the brunt of all my cookie woes via text, noted that she had also suffered from Flat Cookie Syndrome this year, and suggested it was an issue with the butter itself. Apparently butter manufacturers are increasing the ratio of water in their butter and that can result in flat cookies. Argh!

Cookie-Related Giveaway

Y’all, I took part in three major cookie operations this year. The first was at my house, with Carla, her friend, and my friend. The second was an impromptu get together at the neighbors’ house where a friend and I rolled, cut, and baked approximately nine billion sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies for eleven children to decorate. The third was my private middle-of-the-night cookie session during which I baked until the wee hours in blissful, uninterrupted silence while everyone was sleeping.

The first two cookie events were centered around cookie decorating, and required rolling pins. The rolling pin I used was a hand-me-down from my husband’s late grandmother, the kind with a big cylindrical barrel in the center and two handles on the sides. It’s fine, but pretty utilitarian. I don’t think I’ve ever considered that there might be rolling pin variations, or that a rolling pin could be aesthetically pleasing in addition to being a useful baking tool.

But then, my friend arrived at my house for the first cookie venture with an unexpected and delightful gift for me: a new rolling pin!

I had never once considered wanting a rolling pin, and I was nonetheless DELIGHTED by the rolling pin she brought me!!! It was so beautiful! And French. Oooh la la! So now I have MY OWN ROLLING PIN in addition to the inherited one!

This is all to say that I want to spread the rolling pin joy.

If you are interested in having your very own French rolling pin, tell me in the comments and I will randomly draw someone’s name at… some point. (Let’s be honest, I am not great at Making Firm Commitments these days, so it might be a while.) And then I will send the winner their very own French rolling pin!

You do not have to have participated in this cookie swap to participate. Nor do you have to like cookies or bake cookies. Rolling pins are good for many other baking projects besides cookies and I do not judge.

AT LONG LAST, THE COOKIE SWAP!!!!

It was so delightful to get photos of delicious-looking baked goods in my email! Here is everyone who participated (and if I didn’t include you, it is PURELY USER ERROR and has nothing to do with you or your cookies, so please resend and I will add to this post) and a couple who I forcibly included. Once again, if I have messed anything up, please do not hesitate to email me at lifeofadoctorswife (at) gmail and I will happily make any updates you desire.

  • Elisabeth at The Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist baked the following, and added some notes on her experience with each:
    • Peanut Brittle Bars. Relatively easy, so addictive!
    • Saltine Toffee – This was the one item my teenage daughter insisted I make this Christmas. You can make the recipe with or without the peanut butter! This year I made some with the peanut butter layer (my personal favourite) and added crushed Saltines on top to differentiate from the more traditional “Christmas Crack” that skips the peanut butter step.
    • Peanut Butter Balls. I never follow a recipe exactly – I just take tiny tastes along the way until it has the right texture. Mostly that’s because once I start eating the dough, I can’t stop. Instead of dunking them in chocolate, I flash freeze them for about half an hour and top with a little spoonful of melted chocolate. Much less work than dipping!
    • Brown Sugar Fudge. This is my 10-year-old’s favourite Christmas treat. It is SWEET, but very delicious and smooth, unlike some brown sugar fudge which tends to be grainy. This year, I spread the recipe into a 9×13 pan so it was relatively thin and cut the fudge into fun Christmas shapes before it had completely set. Any of the remaining scraps I rolled into little fudge balls since the fudge was still slightly warm and pliable.
    • Fall Chocolate Chip Spiced Cookie. These are the only actual “cookies” I have made this holiday season. I have frozen dough so I can pop a few in the oven on an as-needed basis. I think I’m going to be needing them a lot. Goodness, these are fast becoming my favourite cookies and it’s all thanks to you, Suzanne!
  • Ernie from No Small Feet produced Christmas Cookies and Rocky Road Fudge Bars.
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  • Gigi from Gigi Rambles whipped up some Peanut Butter Fudge, Almond Bark, Gingersnaps, Peanut Butter Cookies, and Chocolate Chip Cookies for her cookie plate.
  • Steph from All for the Love of You, her wife Beth, and their culinarily talented younger child North filled cookie plates with Buckeyes, Pizzelles, Pinwheels, and Gingerbread. (North also made almond butter chocolate chip cookies and an apple crumb cheesecake!)
  • Jen texted me photos of the beautiful sugar cookies she decorated with her kids.  

It was SO MUCH FUN to see what everyone made, and to have the extra little joy of thinking about my blog friends while I was baking. Thank you so much for “swapping” cookies with me! And don’t forget to enter the rolling pin giveaway if it suits your fancy.