Holiday Traditions? Bring 'Em On

I can't say I'm one for traditions. I've spent Christmas in Orange County, Berkeley, San Francisco, London, and Cornwall. And that's just in my adult life. I've done Christmas trees to chili pepper lights, Nutcrackers to Christmas crackers (including the silly paper hats inside). I've eaten eight-course meals and leftover baked potatoes.

The important thing about these places and experiences is that they all captured the spirit of the season. I've been fortunate to be surrounded by wonderful family and friends wherever I've ended up for the holidays. I love going with the flow of whatever the traditions are where I happen to be.

Can you guess that I'm the child of two cultural anthropologists?

Be it walking down the street and catching the winter light reflecting off a festive ornament hanging in the midst of autumn leaves (left), or making silkscreen holiday cards to send friends (below), there really is something magical about this time of year.

My silkscreens are somewhere in an unpacked box in the garage, so I think I'll skip making hand-made cards this year. But I'll still figure something out to share the spirit of the season and connect with the people in my life. (I'm very much in the camp that favors sending tangible holiday greetings instead of an email, and I have even been known to send dinner party invitations by snail mail--yes, in this century.)

Every year is different. This year begins a new phase that's especially exciting. It's our first holiday season in our new house, and we're hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas at our place.

Don't worry--I have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.

I'd better get cooking... Happy Thanksgiving!

-- Gigi

With Gratitude

I love holidays. I especially love Thanksgiving.



And for me, it’s all tied up in the food. In our house we celebrate with both tradition and new experiences. Some dishes always stay the same, roasted turkey, old-fashioned stuffing (bread, celery, onion and spices), sweet potatoes mashed with marshmallows on top, pumpkin pie. And then at least one dish is always new, smashed cauliflower, bourbon corn pudding, fancy mashed potatoes.... I’m not sure what it’s going to be this year.

There is such satisfaction in preparing a meal of thanks. Bustling around the kitchen on and off all day, the warm air redolent with mouth watering scents: sage, butter, and onion from the stuffing, the savory aroma of roasting turkey when we open the oven to baste the bird (every twenty minutes) until the breast is covered in a crisp brown shell and the pan is replete with dripping juices, the overlay of cinnamon and nutmeg and allspice from baking pies. The sounds of the Macy’s parade and football drifting on the air.



When my kids were little, Thanksgiving was a difficult meal. They liked the sweet potatoes (really they liked the marshmallows) and maybe the mashed potatoes but not much else. As it is my favorite holiday, I couldn’t stand that they weren’t completely in love with it. So, as a way to get them involved in the process, I had each one pick a dish, and then we prepared it together. It took exactly one time to make this practice a standing tradition.

Now cooking the meal is a family affair. My husband does the turkey and the kids and I cook the rest. Every moment of the day centers around creating a banquet of thanks. Emotions swirl in the air as heavily as the scents, sadness for relatives far away, the loss of our loved ones, gratitude for our own health and happiness, and underneath it all, thanks for the abundance we are blessed to have.

Hindus believe that your body absorbs every nuance of the food you eat. So it is very important to cook with joy, to imbue every stir of the spoon and every pinch of spice with love and gratitude. As we cook the meal, so we celebrate the day, counting our blessings, be they big or small, trying to acknowledge and honor each one. And at the end, we have a really incredible meal together.

Happy Holidays!



Lisa

L.G.C. Smith

I love the winter holidays. There are so many directions I could take this, and I have to pick just one? Oh, to be Martha Stewart and have decades worth of television segments in which to develop my vision of the holidays.

Food. Decorating ideas. Crafts (though I know my limitations here). I could write about safety tips for lighting real candles on the Christmas tree -- yes, I light 'em up when I have a fresh enough tree, or I want to scare someone.

There are all my slow food old-fashioned holiday recipes, and my new-fangled gluten-free ones. The picture above is a slow and GF Buche de Noel I made last year. There's my abstract Advent gift tree made from bamboo stakes, ribbon, and wooden beads, glue-gunned and tied together, then hung on a shoji screen.

Or, I could go the cultural commentary route. A childhood spent moving between American suburbs and non-standard places like Guam and assorted Indian reservations makes it easy to notice cultural weirdities. Like the enthusiastic Christmas light displays filled with Santas, reindeer, snowmen, and elves that filled the Filipino and Korean contract-worker housing enclaves in the tropical Western Pacific. Or my mother-in-law's 'stuffing,' which consists of tiny cubes of buttered, baked white bread. Nothing else. Bizarre.

Or the way we have these competing public conversations about holidays whereby the exact same experiences inspire loving behavior of the highest order in some folks, and angry condemnations of hypocrisy and gross consumerism in others. Or, why it becomes a mark of a more sophisticated holiday aesthetic to forego the classic Santa-suit red and Christmas-tree green color palette for, say, pink and turquoise. I can go highbrow or low. It's all good.

I could go the spiritual route because I love that stuff, and you can get away with it in public sometimes during the holidays. No matter what one's religious affiliation or lack thereof, holiday good-will embraces all comers. And personally, I love Advent. Love , love, love it.

When I was a kid, my mom made sure we always had an advent wreath. The year I was seven, my Sunday School class at the Presbyterian church in Window Rock, Arizona, I made a red construction paper cover for a tiny Advent book of folded, mimeographed pages. Inside was a Bible reading, a Christmas carol, and a single simple sentence that a second grader could memorize to say as we lit each week's Advent candle.

The next Christmas, my aunt gave us another little book called the "Advent Chain of Stars." It had a paper star to cut out and hang on a wide ribbon, one for every day of Advent, along with a little story to go along with it. For years we used these two simple books every day of every Advent season, and I loved the way the created the anticipation of waiting for a promise from God. I wouldn't say my sense of God is quite what it was then, but those daily, family observances of Advent helped me find deeper meanings to Christmas. They still do.

No, I haven't decided what to write about. I find so many holiday ideas, images and icons productive and fun to play with. Like a total sap, I know I'll catch myself singing "It's the most wonderful time of the year" as I put together the gingerbread house with my sister and her daughter, all the while thinking about cultural reproduction and negotiation.

Bella Andre's New Moon Holiday

Thanks so much to Rachael for asking me to be a guest here today! She told me I'm supposed to talk about the Holidays, but really, don't you think that's too much to ask when NEW MOON (the movie) IS OFFICIALLY OUT TODAY?!?!

Yeah. I thought you'd agree.

So, here's the thing. I, like most people on the planet, read all of the Twilight series. (And am dying for Edward's POV Story to come out....what I've read online is mind blowing. Anyone know a date for release?)

And throughout, I was Team Edward. Not even a glimmer of Team Jacob. Didn't understand a damn thing about Team Jacob. Had words with my editor about not getting the point of Team Jacob. (How fun is it that one of the facets of my job is to talk about these characters with my editor?) Wondered why the author even tried to make us think Bella would consider being with Jacob? When really, he was just a sweet kid who turned into a wherewolf at some point because of some ancient curse.

When Twilight hit theatres, I watched (and giggled at some of it). And still, no love for Team Jacob.

Until I saw the first preview for New Moon. And um, here's the thing. It turns out I'm a sucker for thirty pounds of muscle. For a guy who says things like, "I know what Edward did to you. And I would never hurt you." For a guy who rescues the heroine out of the ocean and then levers himself over her on the beach so all of his lats and pecs and triceps and biceps flex just so. (On a side note, don't you kind of think the guy on my HOT AS SIN cover has it going on in a very Team Jacob kind of way? Love the wet t-shirt....)

And just like that, I've switched sides.

Now that I've got that off my chest, I can return (start!) with the whole holiday theme. In fact, going to a New Moon matinee next week is going to be my holiday gift to myself. I'd love to know what your gift for yourself is going to be? And if you haven't thought of one yet - if you've been solely focused on what to get everyone else - I say, why not put yourself at the very top of this list this year? Seems to me that we're all so busy trying to please other people, that we often forget to please ourselves.

One more thing - if anyone happened to go to the midnight showing of New Moon - tell all!


Happy Holidays!
Bella Andre
http://www.bellaandre.com/


GIVEAWAY: I'd love to give a copy of WILD HEAT (the first book in my Men of Fire series) out to someone who comments!


HOT AS SIN (2nd book in Men of Fire Series) blurb:
Sam MacKenzie is a wildland firefighter with few peers. He's utterly fearless - there's no one waiting for him at home, no reason not to risk it all. Out of the blue, the only woman he's ever loved - the same one who ground his heart to dust ten years ago - shows up begging him for help. Dianna's sister is in big trouble somewhere in the rugged Colorado Rockies, and he's the only person Dianna knows with the skills to track her sister down.

Working together on their quest to find Dianna's sister, they soon realize there's a killer on the loose and his true target isn't Dianna's sister...it's Dianna herself. Using his extreme outdoor skills, Sam needs to track down the killer, before he loses the woman he loves forever.

HOT AS SIN ~ out now! ~ www.BellaAndre.com
"A breathtaking, terrific, hot, hot, hot romantic suspense." ~ Allison Brennan
"A love that burns up the pages." ~ Brenda Novak

Gift Anxiety

--Adrienne Miller

I don’t want anyone to panic, but there are only 35 days left until Christmas, people. Sure, it may seem like enough time now, but it’s not. It never is. Not when I have him to shop for. 

That’s right, I have massive gift giving anxiety. 

Not for everybody. The kids are relatively easy. Just open up the Amazon toy page and pretend you’re a kid again. For everybody else there are the trips to the bookstore and See’s candies. And I’m not sure words can truly capture how much I love Target. 

I love buying presents.

Unless they are for my darling husband, Tom. Because when it come to presents Tom is  like Mr. Miyagi and I’m...well, I’m not even Ralph Macchio. I’m like when they brought in the girl for the fourth movie (by the way, do you remember it was Hilary Swank? Ya. Me neither.)

He knows the little things that thrill me, not just the big, shiny things (though I do love me some shiny things). 

Things like bad english translation - enter the Violence Action Figures with all their awesome phrases like, “Small child might cause suffocation” , “One both hands to make it have an extra are stuck respectively” and “Nice Ho Liquor”. He saw these and thought,  “Adrienne will love these and keep them forever and for always”...and I did.

Or when he found he could buy me a Scottish title by purchasing a piece of land on a highland wildlife preserve. Now most people just give their spouse’s real name...those people lack vision. When given the decision of what great honor to bestow me, Tom thought back to a conversation we had months earlier about what our pope names would be and dubbed me “Adrienne, Lady Awesome”.

There are other cool prezzies: the ostrich plume pen, the Doctor Who sonic screwdriver replica (are my geek stripes showing again?), but the best has to be the time he got me trapeze lessons. That was the gift that told me how much faith he had in me. It takes a special kind of love to believe your overweight wife, the one with the crippling fear of heights, when she declares in the middle of the circus that she can “totally do that”.

So, I ask you, what in the world am I supposed to get him in return? Somehow a new sweater just doesn’t cut it. It doesn’t help when I ask him what he wants. I either get, “Oh, nothing in particular,” which leaves me scratching my head, or “I’d love a Ibanez BTB570FM” which means there will be no surprises come Christmas morning.

In the end, I know the gift giving problem lies with me. You know those people I mentioned who lack vision? I’m afraid I’m one of them.

Hazardous Holidays

Nothing says Christmas like a tale of disaster.

Okay, it's true.... I have sappy, bring-tears-to-your-eyes tales from my childhood...complete with warm cocoa and footie pajamas reading stories featuring Santa and Rudolf. We had the tree and presents and friends and family and everything one might expect from a beautiful, indulgent, fortunate Christmas. And when my son was young, I recreated those scenes: I tied the bow on the dog, hoisted the angel atop the tree, and brought in a mound of presents. And of course we loved all the great holiday shows: Peanuts and the Grinch (tops in my book) and It's a Wonderful Life, and the fabulous campy antics of that wacky quartet in A White Christmas.

But one of my fondest memories of my youth is when I escaped from the family festivities one Christmas afternoon with a bunch of other adolescent malcontents and went to see that unbeatable double feature of damnation: Earthquake and the Towering Inferno. Now that's a holiday.
Maybe it's partly in reaction to all the joy (genuine and forced) around me, but I like to celebrate the season with a smattering of mayhem and End of Days and imminent cataclysm. And clearly I'm not the only one: I am never alone in the theater on Christmas Day.
Here are a few other catastrophic favorites: The Poseidon Adventure (the original, of course), Airport (hole in the cockpit...Classic!), The Andromeda Strain (blood turns into powder! Gnarly!), and who could forget Soylent Green? (It's PEOPLE!!!)

I realize I'm giving away my age. Yes, I was raised during that golden era of disaster movies: the 70s. More recently there have been some pale imitations: The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, Volcano, Deep Impact. They don't have the same oomph, exactly, as those early calamitous movies...but the smell of popcorn and Red Vines never changes.

(Looking for a movie the whole family can enjoy? Fargo is always a crowd favorite, even though you have to re-create the theater at home. And it's not really a disaster movie per se, but the leg-in-the-wood-chipper scene makes it say "holiday" in my book.)

This year? Wanna see stuff get destroyed? I recommend "2012". They seriously blow s**t up, and then send the rest (Los Angeles first) to the bottom of the ocean. Awesome.
And if you're looking for me on December 25, I'll be at my local theater, the venerable Grand Lake (complete with a Mighty Wurlitzer), at the matinee for The Road, a post-apocalyptic world where hottie Viggo Mortensen still reigns supreme.

That's my kind of holiday movie.

Rachael is Sparkly

Sometimes I think I should try harder to be a grinch. I'm often (but not always) surrounded by them. People make very, very good points about holidays lights going up right after the 4th of July. And it's true, it seems like we just finished summer, and we're eating turkey for dinner next week, and then the Christmas shopping season will be upon us (BOOKS FOR EVERYONE!), and then eggnog will keep us merry, and then POOF! it will be all over again.

Sometimes I do a good job of hiding my excitement. How crass. How commercial. How gauche.

But inside, my heart is doing little shiny sleigh-bell cartwheels and hoping it will snow in the East Bay, like it did once when I was about six (I'll never forget my disappointment when Mom told Christy and me it was snowing and ushered us outside to look at the flakes -- I could barely see them, and WHERE WAS ALL THE WHITE STUFF? The world just looked like the world! I could not make a snowman! She was full of crap!).

Last year was hard. It was the first year without my family's holiday center: our mother. She'd died over the summer, and we were terrified to do it without her. We weren't grownup enough to hold the traditions without her. No one could cook the stollen, the lebkuchen, the fruitcake, the plum pudding but her. Who would play the piano while we pretended to not want to sing? I felt sick every time I thought about it, and I was grateful that I had to work (and felt guilty about feeling grateful -- good times).

But on a fluke, in early December I went to New York on a cheap flight found online with some friends. We found our holiday spirit. We tried to make it to the tree lighting in Rockefeller Center and failed to make it through the crush of the crowds, but found beer instead. We marveled at the skating rinks. We watched the lights go up all over town. We listened to carols being piped out into the cold air. I visited my agent and my publisher for the first time in my life:


I remembered again what that happiness felt like, that excitement that came from looking at sparkling lights reflected in happy, loving faces. And I found it, when I went home for a Christmas that had been delayed until the day I could get home after my shift, for a Christmas that had been made less traditional and more about being together, remembering. It was hard, but good.

And still surprisingly sparkly.

Wistful (kinda) rhymes with Mistletoe

by Sophie





Holidays




If you ever doubted that holidays are all about traditions, go get yourself a couple of teenagers. Their awkward loping famished selves will confound you with their refusal to conform to any standard, expectation, or societal norm 360 days of the year, but just try changing one tiny little detail of your family holiday practices and prepare to be run over in a raging whirlwind of adolescent angst.

Put a plaid bow over the fireplace instead of the red velvet...try a new stuffing recipe for Thanksgiving...serve a frittata for Christmas breakfast instead of cinnamon rolls. Go ahead, try it - and then stick your fingers in your ears to protect them when your little sugars scream -

"BUT THAT'S NOT THE WAY WE ALWAYS DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Well, I've learned that lesson. Yes ma'am, I dutifully drag all the boxes down from the attic and follow the holiday blueprint from years past, and it's all worth it too, for that sparkly little moment when the kids wander into the living room on Christmas morning and for a moment - if you squint - you can see them standing there in their footy pajamas, dragging their teddy bears along the floor.

Traditions glue one year to the next, and ease the passing of time and the relationship of all our past selves with the present and future ones. But inevitably there comes a day when it's time for change. Everything changes - we don't doubt it, but for some of us the transition is more demanding, more raw, more shattering than for others. I don't do change well...but even I can see, looking through the wrong end of the telescope, the one that makes close-up things look very far away, that change can be good.

Do you remember when you were a young adult, spending your first holiday away from home? Maybe you were with friends or a lover, in a strange town. Maybe you couldn't afford much. Maybe you were a little more homesick than you cared to admit, but I bet there was a moment when you realized hey - I can do this. Even without the gold star your dad always put on the top of the tree - the Willie Nelson Christmas cassette - the cookies your mom made with the rolling pin from Poland - - even without any of that, it was still Christmas, and it was still magic.


I remember standing a little forlornly in my first high-rise apartment watching my fiance rig up our tree and thinking of everything I missed, when he said "Well, we'll just start our own traditions." He came home the next day with a $14.99 ceramic nativity set from Ben Franklin and we set it up on the coffee table. I thought it was funny. It was badly painted and tacky and I figured I'd start collecting a real set - you know, the Wedgwood set you buy piece by piece over two decades - as soon as we had a little money.


But that never quite happened. We moved around, we grew up, we had kids. Every year I got that box out, with its cast-styrofoam bed that the pieces molded right into, and set up the nativity with a three-dollar bag of raffia "hay" from Michaels. Every year I put it away in January, shaking my head and thinking how I really had to find something nicer for next year.

But then suddenly twenty years went by, and that ugly set had pride of place every December. It was as much a part of the holiday as the stockings I sewed myself or the handprint plaster preschool ornaments. I am certain that my kids would be horrified if I ever suggested replacing the awkward misfired plaster wise men and camels and baby Jesus with stately bone china.

Until they find themselves out on their own one day. It won't be so many years now. The thought makes me terribly sad in a way; I can't imagine Christmas without them. But I'm excited for them too. They'll miss that ugly old nativity, but they have their own discoveries to make.