Once upon a time, I cared what the things I wrapped for Christmas looked like. I wanted to wrap like Martha, with perfect corners and tape so ideally placed its like a wisp of smoke: magic! You know…the beautiful paper that was tasteful, but colorful – whimsical but classy? You know. Martha.

There was a time I got close enough to see its zip code: I’d learned to size the paper for minimal waste, to fold those corners damn near perfectly and curl the crap out of some ribbon. That was about five years ago, in a time I fondly refer to as the “When I Still Gave a Crap” era which was ended with the “Before I Realized I Sucked at it and There Was No Use” milestone.

2006 may have been the last time I really tried and I justify the absence of effort since deftly: if I love you, then you love me and you know me and you get that it’s not about my wrap job scoring a 10 with the Russian judge, it’s that love thing.

This year, I wrapped half his presents in brown paper with packing tape…but I admit I still used pretty ribbon.

Maybe I only half quit?

I’ve guarded this recipe for years. Based on what? Ego? I didn’t create it. Greed? Hoarding deliciousness and good times? The need to be needed (as we all do), if only for booze once a year? Who knows, I’m an idiot.

Tis the season for “screw it” and for sharing the love.

First, pour yourself a drink. Red wine will do, my recent preference is a Bogle Cab. Next, turn on some holiday music to get you in the spirit, light some candles and do what I didn’t do – move the bar stools away from your prep area to ward off curious kitties.

Collect ingredients:
1 cup Half & Half
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon chocolate syrup
3 eggs (or substitute with Egg Beaters)
1 can Eagle Condensed Milk
8-10 oz Jameson’s Whiskey

Throw them all in a bowl and blend together until foamy – then sample. Add more booze to taste. Note: make sure it’s a bowl you can easily pour out of without a mess. I have (when making only one batch) used the blender, but prefer to use a mixer.

When it’s all happy and foamy, serve yourself a glass on the rocks and commence on-line holiday shopping. Later, serve to your guests the same way, or chilled from the freezer.

If you need the step by step, I photographed the process. I know, it’s complicated!

Some recipes I’ve seen call for instant coffee for that extra punch, I don’t use it. Some call for almond extract or the like for a little something different, I don’t do that either. I make it the way it says to above, and have been known to load it into decorative recycled bottles from Pier 1, throw an ornament around the neck of the bottle and deliver.

HT to my friend Tami, who unwittingly inspired this post (among other things).

Happy Holidays!

I find myself both festive and funky during the holidays. Our loft is already over decorated: red velvet accent pillows on the couch, giant artificial red mums in a fantastically large silver vase on the dining room table, a wee tree (twee, thank you) decorated with little red velvet bows and tiny silver stars on the kitchen island, pre-lit garland wrapped around the tall palm I’m shocked is still alive, more garland and fake poinsettias donning the window baskets on the patio – all this in 1000 square feet.

Turning on the television has always been the first thing I do when I get home, but right now it’s lighting over priced and festive smelling candles in jars from a store in the mall I’m ashamed to admit I went to.

There’s cinnamon and a hint of pine wafting through our space and it. Is. Delicious.

At the same time, I’m preparing for the weeks of solitude that mark the span of time from my birthday to the new year.

I’ve done this for years – this sabbatical thing. Since my mother and father passed at during my 21st and 23rd years, respectively. During my 25th year, after my first major crash and burn relationship, my sister (seester) sent me a book that introduced a new dance step to my routine: one that taught me dancing alone can be fabulous and wild and magical and mysterious, and needn’t be cause for pity from onlookers.

With one foot in each place, I’m on the edge of the holiday dance floor wondering which I’ll choose this year, or if one will choose me.

I get all geeked up about buying or making gifts for loved ones and beat myself up at their always inadequate wrapping jobs as well as what they are. Always heartfelt, I question their reception – like the year I sent my siblings each a framed reprint of the only photo I have of us together as children with my parents and heard not a word.

If nothing else is certain, this is – I’ll make my Irish Crème and consume it by the liter, I’ll ponder my navel and catch up on the movies I meant to see this year but didn’t have the time for. I’ll devour a pile of books I’ve been hoarding and avoiding and maybe I’ll even write.

It’s a special time I look forward to with great anticipation and over hyped expectations every year, and every year something different comes of it. A break in my exile to see friends, an unexpected road trip, a technical project or shooting spree (cameras, not guns, silly)…or nothing at all.

So don’t mind me as a I waffle and wane, as I abruptly jerk between giddiness and gloom. It’s just the holidays and me missing my folks, my siblings, my innocence and my youth in a place called “home” that no longer exists.

Despite being on my sabbatical, I’ve had little time alone this year. I’m not complaining, exactly. I’m adjusting. Committing to life with someone means compromise…sometimes a lot of compromise.

But now? Now he’s off playing his annual poker game with his golfing crew and I’m sitting on the cold concrete stoop in the sun and unseasonable temps. I’m wearing socks Kim’s mom knitted and Crocs and sweats that match neither. I have mascara from last night still holding lashes in place (albeit not in the shape intended) and giving me that crazed NY hipster look that completely clashes with my otherwise hideous hair and outfit.

I can hear a plane thousands of feet above me taking people home and away, and a few birds chattering and probably asking each other why they didn’t migrate. A MARTA train is rolling down the tracks just far enough away to sound romantic and rumbly, and I am trying to find peace of mind away from the cats for reflecting.

It’s been a hell of a year for us, mostly in a good way but with a lot of upheaval and growth in unexpected places (including but not limited to my waistline). We staged the house, we looked for houses, we made offers and we were disappointed. We moved to an apartment we looked at more houses, we looked at land in North Carolina and we were disappointed more. We bought the condo and worked for several months with a team of amazing people to make it into a home.

We lost Amber and brought Monty home. We struggled with The Mc’s moms deteriorating physical and mental health. I let go of some friendships and rekindled half a bijillion old ones, making new ones along the way. I got sucked into facebook and twitterville, and enjoyed every second of it. I took a metric shit ton of photographs no one will ever see, and knitted far less than I intended. My blogging atrophied, possibly the side effect of happiness, but more likely the side effect of being too busy to sleep and always having a kitten in my lap if I was home long enough to sit down.

I brought my relationship with the Big G to a new level, and branded my skin to celebrate it. I washed the gray right out of my hair, and let it come back like a college aged child on summer break.

In the next year, I don’t know what I’ll do or who I’ll be on the other end but I know this: there will be more love, more laughter, less taking myself so damn seriously at work (and IRL), more travel, more reading, more knitting and more photography.

There will be more time with friends and hopefully family, marking the miles and the days with laughter that makes your face hurt and stories that will keep me warm when I’m old(er).

I hope the same for you. I hope that this year you feel more love in your heart than you ever have. I hope that the world brings you unexpected and wonderful surprises. I hope that any bad is washed over with waves of good and that our soul is able to recognize it when it’s presented.

Happy new year, everyone…and thanks for keeping me company on the ride.

My family had what I can only assume was a standard tree decorating day somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My folks and the four of us kids would gather around and we’d pull our ironicly fake tree out of the box and color match the branches to the holes. We’d help dad unravel the lights and run them down the hall from the living room to the end where my parents bedroom was, one by one trying to find the broken lamps to replace. We each had our favorite ornaments mom would hand us to hang, and the last step was my brother Brian’s little electric train – complete with engine, coal car, freight car, passenger car and caboose – that would round the bottom of the tree.

On Christmas eve, we were allowed to pick one present from under the tree to open, and I’m sure my parents hoped; to silence us enough to sleep.

Christmas morning the first act of the day was to “find” baby Jesus (he stayed in one of moms decorative woven Indian baskets until then) and carry him to his manger while we sung happy birthday. The nativity set is brown and ceramic, with my parents initials etched with the date in the bottom of Mary, Joseph, and the manger. They made the set when they were first married, before children, before relocation to Alaska and before the electric train.

The tradition ended as my family dissolved somewhere older than five and younger than thirteen. The gap solidifies that I will never be asked to recount our family history at a reunion.

I still have some of the ornaments, but I’ve long since stopped putting up a tree, this year I got more festive than I have in years past and bought a rope of garland with lights built in. I wrapped it around my banana plant/tree and piled gifts around.

It’s the first year in many that the nativity isn’t out – it’s somewhere in the back of one of our storage units – and that I won’t be carriying baby Jesus to his manger…but I will sing and I will close my eyes tight to remember those years of innocence and to reflect on what the holiday was intended for.

I’m thankful for what’s left of my family and for the new family I’ve formed with The Mc and my friends. I’m thankful for my health, my home, and most of all I’m thankful for Gods grace.

Tomorrow we’ll go to a movie, maybe have a beverage at Limerick Junction (as we did last year and the year before with friends), dinner at Atkins Park or a trek for Chinese. There may be lime sherbert and Creme de Minthe to sip out of fancy glasses in the afternoon, like my dad used to make (looking to my siblings to tell me if we got the Creme de Minthe too…?) and a lot of lounging about in pajamas. Tonight I’m going to roll around in the darkness and take snaps of Christmas lights.

What are the traditions you’ve hung on to? What are the new ones you’ve created?

I shouldn’t be posting. I shouldn’t be on line. But I am.

A few snaps while I’m here, along with happy happy holiday wishes for those of you who haven’t given up on me yet and still come back…

For those who aren’t, who were, who won’t, who are, who had, who have…

Love ya’ll, hope you have a happy day.

2007
2005