Tag: #Holiday

  • ODDS and ENDS: The NYC Christmas Myth, Cookies, and Mass from the Vatican

    (Midnight is when the day begins…)

    One of my family’s Holiday traditions is for us to watch an episode of Hawkeye each night leading up to Christmas Day. It’s a fun miniseries, that is silly enough, and also plays the right emotional notes for the Season. But one thing that I have noticed watching it year after year is that the production designer went out of their way to make New York City look as Christmas idyllic as possible, especially in their use of snow. There is snow on the ground and falling all the time in the show, which hasn’t happened in NYC in close to twenty years. I think I had one Holiday season, maybe 2007, where there was snow on the ground, and fun snow showers that would pass through. I’m not knocking the designer’s choices with snow, as if you want to make the City look Holiday picturesque, that’s how you do it. It just makes me miss, maybe mourn a little, that the world has changed enough now, that even up in here in the Northeast, snow at Christmas is a rarity.

    Does anyone else think of a chocolate chip cookie as a Christmas cookie? Not that you’re wondering, but I do. My Ma didn’t do a ton of baking, but around the Holidays she did, and that was pretty much the only time she’d make chocolate chip cookies. Yes, she would do sugar cookies, and scotch cookies, and sometimes oatmeal as well. But the chocolate chip was the winner in our house.

    I’m not a very religious person. I was raised Catholic, but as soon as I could get away from the Church, I did. I have many, many issues with the Church, and as I have gotten older, and had a daughter, the more I am sure that I won’t be returning. Yet, every Christmas Eve, I can’t help but watch Midnight Mass from the Vatican. A deep through line of Catholicism runs in me, and for that reason, the traditions and history of the Church still are interesting to me.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Still Cleaning, Thanksgiving, and Wrong Week…

    (You got to hide your love away…)

    I’m still processing Trump’s victory, what this says about us as Americans, and at the end of all of this contemplation, I am going to have the cleanest kitchen in The Five Boroughs. I know what I’m really doing; trying to put order back on the world of chaos I find myself in. It’s working, as any good therapy does, but it will still take time. Deep down, I sort of do hope that I am over reacting. That Trump’s term will be a big nothing burger of incompetence and gaffs, but the economy improves and we all go on with our lives. But I also know nothing is really over. And there always is a tomorrow to try again. Not the most encouraging thought, but it’s all that I got right now. That and I have some grout to scrub.

    Thanksgiving is not too far away, like less than three weeks. This is the holiday that I look forwards to the most. I love making food with my family, and taking it easy. The kid is old enough now to start making her own dish for the event. And it’s an all day event in our home; A special baked good breakfast of some sort, noshy lunch, and then the dinner when everything is ready. Each year it runs a little different, as we like to keep evolving our Thanksgiving menu, adding this dish, or retiring that side. But as I get older, it’s the time with my family that means the most. Planning together, shopping as a family, putting all the pieces together starting the night before and the day of. All that time shared together.

  • The Thanksgiving Blog

    It is Thanksgiving-Eve, and we have started the preparations in our little California home. I started cutting up vegetables and getting the dips and sauces ready. Tonight, my wife will start making the pumpkin pie.

    In the morning, whenever we decide to get up, but it should still be early. We do have a kid after all. So, when we get up early, we’ll watch the Macy’s parade with the kid and then after that, we start making everything for the meal. It takes however long it takes us. Sometimes we eat at 1pm, sometimes we eat at 8pm.

    Our other tradition is that we stay in our pajamas all day. We go out shopping earlier in the week and everyone gets a new set. Holiday theme is preferred, but not mandatory.

    The goal for the day is that we all take it easy, stay relaxed, and enjoy being with each other.

    All of that is good and well, and fun and silly, and the way we celebrate the holiday.

    But what has really hit home with me recently is that I do have so much to be thankful for. With all of the changes that have come into my life this year, some planned others not so much, I now see with clarity the importance of friends, and family; the people we choose to share our lives with. That these relationships are what truly brings meaning and value to life. I am thankful for them.

    And with that…

    May it be a wonderful day for you, and Happy Thanksgiving to All!

  • The Holiday Season

    For me, the whole “Holiday Season” starts with Halloween, then Thanksgiving, Christmas, and ends with New Years. The big four, and now with a kid, they take on a different meaning and purpose.

    But there are the old annoyances, and that would be the car commercials. And I’m talking about the higher end car commercials. With the people waking up Christmas morning with a silver (and they are all silver or white) car parked in the drive way, and being so over whelmed and amazed at this gift. And there is a big red bow on top of the car.

    The two things that annoy me about the commercials, other than the fact that I will never own a luxury car, is how is the car delivered in the driveway whereas the gifted car recipient is unaware that it is there, and two, where do they get the big red bows? Does the car dealership give them out complementary along with the purchase of the car? The dipping sauce to the car’s chicken nugget, so to speak.

    In my mind, I see the story of the wife being confounded, after having purchased the Lexus December to Remember sedan, as she is unable to secure the perfect red bow for the car. “It’s the bow that will tie the gift together for Kevin,” I hear her confessing to her friend on Facetime as she races to another Party City, hoping that they are not sold out of bows.

    But having now done a google search for “big red bow car commercial” I have discovered this site. At least they are made in the USA.