decorating is one of the best parts of any holiday

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Five for Friday: It’s Almost Christmas! Edition

How many hours of TV watching is still considered “acceptable” while one’s child is on winter break? Asking for a me. 

Carla is feeling nearly back to normal. No fever since Sunday, and no more sore throat. Just a little sniffle and a bit of congestion.

We have SNOW this week, which is delightful!!!!! Probably because I am not obligated to drive in it. But I loooooove snow. I think it is supposed to warm up in the next couple of days, so it may not linger. But it’s so lovely while it’s lasting.

  • Carla and I spent FIVE HOURS running errands on Monday. Five. Hours. It was… not pleasant. She is a real trooper, though, and maintained her good humor throughout. Me… not so much. Somehow, despite the marathon, I still need to go to the grocery store and I really really want to go to the garden center because I continue to have Porch Panic about the state of my front stoop. It is so dumb, but I feel like the dead mums (which I panic bought three days before Thanksgiving, by the way; they were beautiful and lush at that time) are emanating a Gross Dead Vibe and the entire neighborhood is whispering about me behind my back. (Going to a neighborhood Christmas party and having one of the neighbors teasingly ask why we don’t have any lights up didn’t help. THEY ARE PAYING ATTENTION.) Maybe I could just swirl some twinkle lights festively on the dead mums and call it a day???? I still would need to purchase twinkle lights though. I also have a strong urge to buy more poinsettias. I have two small ones, one of which is trying to die already, but I want MORE POINSETTIAS. Part of this is a case of Christmas Décor Envy, which I developed while attending the aforementioned holiday party: the hosts’ house was GORGEOUS and every inch of it was bright with Christmas magic. There is no point in comparing oneself to other people – and in reality, I have no idea WHERE they store all their Christmas paraphernalia, and I have only a creeping horror in my bones to hint at what kind of time and energy is required to dress the house in such a fashion – but still I WANT MY HOUSE TO BE A WINTER WONDERLAND. Poinsettias would go a long way toward helping me achieve that goal, right? RIGHT? 
  • The real problem, I think, is that I have no idea how to decorate this house for Christmas. The living room is weird, so our Christmas tree is weird. It was kind of a battle, to be honest, to figure out where to put it. And I was the one who gave in, which makes me feel crabby. It’s a very open space, with really only two full walls: the other walls are the kitchen (which is a partial wall separating two doors) and the stairway/entryway which isn’t even enclosed; there’s a balcony that overlooks the living room. The longest wall isn’t even a wall wall, it’s a wall of windows. And the other wall is taken up by cabinets and the fireplace. So there’s no REAL place to put the tree. We ended up putting it in the middle of the wall of windows, which I think at least makes sense symmetrically. (My husband and child wanted the tree off center, which just felt wrong in so many ways.) My big idea was to put the tree up against the stairway, but my husband hated that idea so vehemently I think he might have simply declined to celebrate Christmas if I’d pushed. (I still think it would look great.) Also, we are planning to get new furniture for the space, so NEXT YEAR it will be even weirder, but my husband said not to think about that now. (Does he know me?) And that’s just the living room! It’s definitely the most Christmassy of all the rooms. The other rooms have… nothing. Which feels so unfair! (The party host had FIVE CHRISTMAS TREES. That is more Christmas trees than I could ever handle, but maybe I could handle two????) I could fill the piano room with poinsettias! What I really want to do is to line the doorways with something festive (yes, I know I mentioned this already) – I originally thought pine garland. And I have seen so many Instagram videos of people putting shower tension rods in their doorways and decorating them with pine garland and ornaments etc. that I have started thinking that’s a viable idea. (Keep off the internet, kids.) My mother suggested ribbon, which sounds not only economical but also less dusty (and less of a pain to store) than pine garland. But I am not crafty like my mother is, so who knows. I did end up buying some bow-things at Joann Fabric (70% off!) (I also got a box of Hanukkah candles for next year, also 70% off, so perhaps we will have enough candles to light the menorah FULLY every single night of Hanukkah next year lol cringe.) and a spool of ribbon and I’m going to see what I can do. It may be very Preschooler Makes a First Ornament, but it will be Something.
  • Where I have excelled, at least in volume, is baking. I have made not one but TWO batches of cranberry crumble bars, and they are still by far my favorite Christmas treat. They are just the perfect combination of buttery/tangy and crunchy/chewy. Carla wanted to bake, and her very specific baking request was snickerdoodles with buttercream frosting, so she made those. She really wanted colorful buttercream, and while she was rummaging around for food coloring she found the box of candy eyes we used last year and so she went wild with the eyes. Very Christmassy. I wanted to make molasses cookies, but they turned out a) completely smooth, not crackly like molasses cookies are supposed to be and b) very dry and crumbly on the inside. I tried to save them by adding an eggnog glaze, which I think does help, but… meh. From my online troubleshooting, it seems like my oven is the problem. (My understanding is that the crackly tops come from a combination of rolling the dough in sugar to dry it out, and having a nice hot oven.) I am pretty irritated with our ovens. Yes. We have TWO OVENS and neither of them seems to heat appropriately. SO FRUSTRATING. You should have seen how pale our Thanksgiving turkey was. It was cooked through, but it needed some time on the Jersey Shore with a bottle of baby oil. 
  • During our marathon errand day, Carla came across a selection of dog toys. She promptly burst into tears because she wanted to give them to all the dogs in our old neighborhood. Listen, I am a heartless bitch when it comes to I Really Need That tears. But I got a little misty, too, and I allowed her to buy them. She wanted to use her allowance, but then I had a discount situation that made them free. A Christmas miracle! She wrapped them and I texted our old neighbors and we spent an afternoon going from house to house, giving dog toys (and cookie plates) (although they were last-minute cookie plates, so they were on Hanukkah dishes because that’s all I had) and lots of pets. It made Carla’s day, although I think it also made her sad. It’s so hard to find a balance between honoring her grief by allowing her to visit these old neighbors, while also helping her to move on. I don’t think I’ve got it right. But it was lovely to see our old neighbors, who EACH had a little gift for Carla.  
  • Stocking stuffers have been procured. I feel as though I didn’t give you the full story, on Monday, when I alluded to shopping for stocking stuffers and how difficult that would be with Carla in tow. The thing is, I ordered stocking stuffers for Carla (and for my husband) long ago. Or at least long enough ago for them to have arrived already. However, my parents are spending Christmas Day with us, and I feel super awkward about them coming to our home and NOT having stockings to open. It is probably very silly, especially because they are minimalists at heart. But my desire to have Stocking Equity overruled my knowledge of their minimalism, so I got them stocking stuffers. (We have anonymous stockings that we set out for guests, so they will have stockings as well.) And also, I had NO IDEA what I wanted to get for stocking stuffers. The only thing that I really wished I’d learned about earlier was this flexible screwdriver bit. My dad would use the heck out of that bit! It’s so handy! But alas, I only learned about it on Monday when a YouTube ad interrupted my workout video. Next year, for sure. What I really needed to do was wander around a store and happen across the exact right stocking stuffers. And I got the chance during Carla’s music lesson and found a bunch of stocking stuffers that will hopefully be fun and/or personal-ish enough while also not making the recipient feel too guilty about throwing them out. So now there will be Stocking Equity and I am super relieved. 
Kohl’s is the place to go for stocking stuffers. I also got everyone candy. And Carla, shockingly, will get a bunch of other stuff because she is spoiled beyond belief.

Well, that’s it for me before Christmas, I think! I still have the grocery store/garden center to visit, and I still have to wrap some presents. (And Santa has to wrap gifts AND stocking stuffers – WHY, Santa, WHY did you begin such an arduous tradition????)  (Then again, maybe this is the last year Santa will visit our house, and I will henceforth be sobbing about NO SANTA GIFTS????? Parenting is so fun.)

Oh, by the way, I just have to include this here. Carla went to the orthodontist this week (yay, braces in our near future woo) and the orthodontist was very chatty about Santa. He said he sets TRAPS for Santa, to which Carla reacted with scorn. “Do you want to HURT Santa?” she asked, voice dripping with disapproval. No, the orthodontist just wants to SEE Santa, in person! “Why don’t you set up video cameras?” Carla suggested. Oh, but the orthodontist has tried that. And it didn’t work! Didn’t capture a thing. “That’s because Santa deletes the footage,” Carla said, and she might as well have added, “you idiot” because that’s what her tone conveyed. 

SANTA DELETES THE VIDEO FOOTAGE. You heard it here, folks. Don’t try to mess with Santa, even via digital surveillance methods. 

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Seven Snapshots on a Sunday

Carla has been home with me since the Friday before Thanksgiving, and finally goes back to school tomorrow. My husband took Thursday and Friday off. We’ve been watching movies together and playing games and doing our separate creative pursuits. It’s been lovely spending time with them and I know I’ll feel a little sad when the house is empty. But we have all of today together, although I think it will be mostly a day of laundry and cleaning and preparing for our houseguests.

Here are a few snapshots of what started out on a low note, but ended up being pretty lovely. 

`1. Carla decorated the table for Thanksgiving.

We put out a selection of cheeses to munch on while cooking. I am partial to the caramelized onion cheese (right most) from Trader Joe’s. And yes, those are Hanukkah plates we used for the cheese and crackers.

2. We were in the car and Carla was marveling at how gorgeous the sky was.

She asked me to hand her my phone and this is the photo she took. I love that she is so attuned to the beauty of the world around us.

3. The only finished room in our house.

My husband and I finally hung artwork up in our bedroom and it finally feels finished. It’s smaller than our previous bedroom, but I love it. I am also loving our flannel sheets, which are SO soft. It is very difficult to get out of bed in the morning when I’m so cozy in these sheets! I still don’t have a lamp for my bedside table, but my husband ordered some this weekend.

4. A funny tweet (if one with questionable grammar) that I sent to my best friend and her other best friend.

My best friend and I have slowly been rebuilding our friendship and it’s such a relief and a comfort to me. The three of us are going to plan a Zoom call, 2020 style, later this month since we all live in different states. I don’t know why we don’t do them more often, but we got out of the habit.

5. My breakfast for the past three days.

These are the only Thanksgiving leftovers I care about: garlic goat cheese mashed potatoes and gravy. (With plenty of pepper.) For some reason, the gravy didn’t turn out particularly well this year. My mother saved it, but it wasn’t the rich, dreamy gravy of Thanksgivings past. Some combination of me messing up the proportions and our new oven not cooking the turkey and pan veggies to the deep caramelized brown necessary for developing rich, delicious pan drippings. But Past Suzanne was smart and ordered a container of mushroom gravy from Whole Foods, and it is QUITE delicious. Especially when paired with mashed potatoes.

6. I can hardly believe it, but our holiday cards are IN THE MAIL.

The only reason we pushed to get them out so soon this year is because they are serving as change-of-address notifications, too, and I’m hoping they reach most people before they send their own cards. We’ll see if that calculation works in our favor. But they are OUT. Woo! This is literally the only thing I have done to prepare for the holidays.

7. The very first hint of Christmas around my house.

My mother is much better at being on top of holiday planning than I am. This beautiful wreath arrived the day after Thanksgiving. It smells like Christmas! That doesn’t mean I am ready yet to decorate, but I am ready to think about decorating, which at least is a step in the right direction.

Happy Sunday, Internet!

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Friday Randomosity: Fall and Follow Ups

HOW is it October already? And am I destined to repeat some form of that query every month, every season, every year, with increasing levels of incredulity until my skeleton is staring vacantly at the sky? Probably asking, “HOW have I decomposed already? Feels like only yesterday I was fully fleshed and today I am nothing but bones!”

I am feeling a surge of randomosity today. 

  • After having felt Very Down for a couple weeks solid, I finally feel like my mood is on the upswing. I attribute this shift partly to the fact that I am on a strict media diet, and have forced myself to stop looking at updates on the Gabby Petito case and to stop reading about the many, many other missing people in this country. But the main source of the improvement is a date night with my husband. We have been on – checks notes – ONE date since 2019, and that date was a quick lunch while our daughter was at a birthday party. Turns out that some time alone with my person – outside our house and away from our normal habits and responsibilities – is a real mood lifter. Last night’s date wasn’t even anything FANCY; we went out for fast food burgers, which we ate on a bench outside the restaurant. Then we got milkshakes and drank them while walking around, looking in shop windows and chatting about nothing. Then we went to our all-time favorite date night destination, Barnes & Noble, where we tried to pin down our next audiobook by handing one another books that we have on our individual To Be Read lists. I lean heavily toward Mystery and Thriller and my husband is more of a contemporary literary fiction kind of guy, and there is a very narrow overlap in our interests. A friend of mine said very bluntly, “Man, you two are boring,” but I really enjoyed our time together! We both love books, so why not spend an evening together among the stacks?
  • Because I can and will talk about books all day, I will tell you our top three audiobook contenders: The Rib King by Ladee Hubbard, Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh, and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. We had a gift subscription to Audible that expires this month, so we are looking for a new book to “buy” with our last credit. Unfortunately, neither of us loved the reading style of the Rib King narrator, the Moshfegh got some reviews that turned my husband off to listening to it, and we somehow already owned the Tartt. So we are back to square one. If you have an audiobook to recommend, please let me know!

  • Every time I think about or talk about The Secret History, a modified version of the little Ted Lasso ditty starts playing in my brain. Donna Tartt, doo do, doo doo dodo, Donna Tartt doo do, doo doo dodoo, Donna Tartt.
  • Speaking of Ted Lasso: I rewatched the entire first season as part of my recent efforts at self-care and it was just as lovely as it was the first time around… but – perhaps because of my mood, perhaps because of what I have seen of the second season – it felt a bit more melancholy this go round. I still love the series with my whole heart, though. 
  • In quick updates about distressing things: 1. My root canal has been set for November. My husband had a light day, and was able to reschedule his patients (sorry patients!!!!) so he could be with me for my appointment. Nitrous oxide does nothing for me, and my husband said he would want to be sedated for a root canal no matter how “not a big deal” it is, so I am doing the conscious sedation and my husband will be there with me. HUGE RELIEF. Except for the part where I have to get a root canal. 2. My mother-in-law got the final results of her pathology back. Her cancer is at stage 1A, which means they caught it very very early and the prognosis is good. But the type of cancer is extremely aggressive. So, even though we initially thought she would only need radiation, she will be undergoing both radiation and chemotherapy to hopefully zap any tiny fragments of the cancer that escaped the surgery. Her doctors are very positive but of course the news is upsetting and stressful. 
  • Her doctor said that only radiation is necessary. He is an expert in her type of cancer, and he has conducted research on post-surgical adjuvant therapies, and has found that doing radiation vs. radiation and chemotherapy makes no difference in the short- and long-term recurrence rate. So his recommendation would be only radiation. However. He presented her case to a Cancer Board at the hospital, and the other experts who were on the board all pushed for chemo as well. AND he said that in his experience, the stress of not feeling like you are doing “all you can” can be worse than the chemo. Hence my mother-in-law’s decision to do both. My husband says, based on the research, he would only do the radiation, if it were him. But I just don’t know. I don’t think you DO know until you are the person in the situation. I kind of think I would do everything, too, just so I wouldn’t sit around thinking, “Dammit, if only…” should there be a recurrence. Which of course is a form of magical thinking. But it’s so hard when it’s your life at stake. 
  • CHANGING SUBJECTS DRAMATICALLY: I have made my first candy corn purchase of the year. Man, I love candy corn. 
  • Usually, I don’t put out fall décor until quite late in October. But this year, I’m getting the Halloween itch a little earlier than usual. If I didn’t have Real Things to do today, I might dedicate some time to putting out the ghosts and maybe buying some mums. 
  • Here is where I call on your plant knowledge. My summer planters did not turn out the way I wanted them to. I wanted them to be full and to have these tiny white flowers and yellow petunia-style flowers spilling down the sides, with these big spiky plants in back for some texture and height. And some little hot pink flowers in there for added color. Perhaps part of my problem is that I have no idea which flowers I planted, nor how they tend to grow; I typically walk through the garden center and grab things that look pretty together and do a quick check to see if they are deer resistant (although our local deer laugh in the face of deer resistant flora) and then stuff them in a planter and hope for the best. Anyway, I am ready, now, to move on from my summer failure into fall florals. Who are we if we cannot draw strength, if not knowledge, from our errors and stride forward with renewed purpose. What remain of the white flowers will have to go. But I don’t know what to do with the tall spiky plants. From an aesthetic standpoint, they are different heights and girths which bothers me; I want symmetry on my front stoop! But they, unlike the white flowers, are thriving. So I don’t necessarily want to euthanize them in their prime. Plus, they might look nice with some bright yellow or orange mums in the foreground? Can I… DO that? Remove some of the things in the planters but not all? And add new plants without disrupting those that are already growing? What do I do here?
  • Don’t even get me started on the planters in the back.
  • Carla has decided to be a witch this year. We ordered her costume – which she picked out; she had a lot of specifications for the ideal costume, including “sparkles” and “big sleeves.” It arrived yesterday and it is amazing. Except that the glitter gets EVERYWHERE. My entire kitchen floor sparkles. My husband washed my face with a wet paper towel – yes, like I was a toddler – before our date because I somehow had glitter all over me.  She told me that she is a witch of glitter and sparkles and I think that summarizes her personality and her effect on people pretty accurately. 
image from amazon.com. Carla not pictured.
  • The Christmas Fret has set in pretty hard, especially since a friend expressed Extreme Shock that I hadn’t yet started my holiday shopping. I know, I know – supply chain issues, postal service delays, etc. etc. This weekend, I plan to badger my husband into picking out some things for Carla, just so we have SOMETHING. But I absolutely cannot think about what to get my husband. His birthday is next week and I had to scrape the darkest corners of my brain to figure out what to get him for THAT, so I am completely tapped out for Christmas. 
  • What are you having for dinner tonight? I am making taco pizza. I have been looking forward to it since Wednesday, when I finally got my act together enough to plan meals for the remainder of the week. Not the weekend, though. So who knows what will happen tomorrow or Sunday, food wise. Not I.

Well, I have run out of randomosity steam. Hoping your day is going well so far, and that your weekend is relaxing and enjoyable.