Looking Back

It was a beautiful Christmas.  The trees..

 ...the tags.  

Thank you Des for teaching me how to make them, and for giving me the confidence to go off in my own directions.  Next year we're having another gift tag making workshop...in July.  Mark your calendar.

Our party was great fun - 

and there was barely a scrap of food left.  That made me so happy!

Leslie made chocolate mousse with real moose.  Oops, I mean with real gold leaf sprinkled on top.  It was fabulous and gorgeous.  It disappeared so fast! 

Everything that would hold still got garlanded and lit and wrapped with ribbon:

Brit and I made peppermint bark, and granola, and butter toffee, and wrapped them with cellophane and bright ribbons.  Gifts for her friends - I think we have a new tradition.  Brit?

Early in the season for inspiration we went to the Flower Mart.

 And to Ron Morgan's.  He is walking talking inspiration.  If you go to one of his classes and don't come away inspired, you weren't paying attention.  

It was a Christmas filled with friends...

...and family.  

It was a wonderful year.

The Gift of Memory

Long before Christmas, a box arrived from my friend Aileen.  You'll remember her, so many of my favorite things to cook have come from her.

She has decided not to have a tree anymore.  After years of collecting ornaments.  And she decided to give them to me.  Lucky me!

Thank you Aileen.  Every time I look at our tree I think of you - of biking in Morocco, of picking green beans at Round Swamp.  Of biking to Shelter Island coated in bug spray.  Of my first cosmo (but not my last), and the recipe you coaxed out of the reluctant bartender.  Of long summer evenings listening to the waves and watching the fireflies.  

Thank you.  For your memories, for the memories we share.  

It is the most wonderful time of the year.

Last Thoughts on Christmas

I'm not as bad (or good depending on your viewpoint) as my friend Sue who puts up eleven trees (!) but I did have three this year - a garden tree, a kitchen tree, and a traditional tree. And a garland hung with travel ornaments. But this year the kitchen tree was my favorite. As I was hanging the ornaments I thought "this would be better if the ornaments were related" and so:

Breakfast:

Milk, pancakes, toaster, and lots of caffeine.

Baked things and sweets:

cookies, cakes, ice cream. 

Junk food:

Hamburgers and hot dogs, french fries, pizza and pretzels.

Cheese and wine. 

And you have no doubt noticed cocktails sprinkled liberally all around the tree.

So my friend Cathy comes over and I show her (she also thinks this sort of thing is fun. If you don't, then why have you read so far? Go mess something up). 

Cathy takes a tour around my tree, gets a big smile, and says "It's just like your day!"

I so love my friends. Thank you to everyone who made this the Best Christmas Ever.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - again

Last year we were a bit woodsy - birch logs and white hydrangeas, candles in the snow (okay, candles in the kosher salt, but try singing that) and lots of sparkly silver. Ron Morgan taught me that you need sparkly things and light colors, or the table just dies after dark. 

And we had reindeer! Lots and lots of sparkly reindeer.

But this year I was bored with birch. Several trips to the Flower Mart with different friends I came home with all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff. And thankfully it all came together...

...and it glowed at night thanks to all I've learned from Ron.

It even looked good with the buffet stocked - 

(about 80 people and yes I am still tired, but I had a great time at my own party).

So thank you to family and friends for making this the Best Party Ever. And thanks to Scot Meacham Wood for his party tips (listed on my older post). I would add a few:

1. Make lists. Lots and lots of lists. Lists of what needs to be done day by day. Revise them as you think of new things, get behind, get ahead. If they're neat you can actually read them.

Grocery lists - first list all the stuff you need for one dish, then the next. Then revise the grocery list so all the produce is together, and all the dairy...sounds obsessive but it will save you going back to the grocery store for the one think you just didn't see on the list. I made three trips before I got this one thru my head.

2. Get help. Serving, cleaning up. Be a guest at your own party. Better to be enjoying your guests than cleaning up after them.

3. Said this before, will say it again. Set the table 2 days before. Put post-it notes on all the platters with what's going there the day of the party. 

Do the flowers the day before. If you do they will fall into place. If you're fighting with the flowers when your guests arrive you will look like a deer in the headlights, they will be uncomfortable, you will be weeping...

4. Put food in multiple locations. Avoid the gazelles-around-the-watering-hole syndrome (thank you Scot). 

Have multiples of dip dishes and trays so the old one can be whisked away and the new one plopped into place. No washing up in the middle of the party, no scooping new food into messy dishes - it makes a huge difference.

5. And here's my lightbulb moment: get prep help. I don't usually have parties catered; I like to plan menus, to cook. But I was slicing my way through the eighth potato on the mandoline and chopping my way through the seventh bunch of green onions when it occurred to me: I can get help with this!

Happy Holly Daze. Try to remember to enjoy it - it will be over all too soon. 

The trouble with Christmas trees

...is that they can take over your life. And you garage, and your closets...

I have a friend who puts up eleven trees. She starts the day after Thanksgiving and has a crew.They are beautiful (the trees, not the crew), and the ornaments are so thick that you almost can't see the trees.

I'm not in her league, but I do have three trees and I'm contemplating a fourth. The main tall tree...

a kitchen tree (in the kitchen, of course)

with food-ish ornaments. Don't laugh, this is the season of ish. 

and a garden tree, of course.

I wonder how this guy really trims this tree? I'm guessing a much taller ladder...and someone to climb it.

 All just out of camera rangeWhen I first saw this shot, I thought the tree was on the table and he was a really tiny guy. 

And you think I have a Christmas tree problem!