We have had a quiet Thanksgiving at home - unusually quiet, since I have lost my voice completely. Laryngitis: no fun. However, we managed to cook and eat:
Turkey
Cornbread stuffing
Cranberries (recipe courtesy Ed Flesh, whom I mention because he died this year and because he was a very nice man ( Read more... )

I have decided that the writer of The Twelve Days of Christmas was obsessed with birds. After all, one sees a partridge, hens, calling birds, turtledoves, geese a-laying, and swans a-swimming. It's possible also to include the pipers piping in the festive bird count. Honestly, through day 7, the only non-bird gift is FIVE GOLDEN RINGS ( Read more... )

Christmas dinner was excellent and the company was great ( Read more... )

A rundown of the first day of Christmas, so far ( Read more... )

This year, a Turkish student, one of the worst students in the class, wrote a letter to Santa that really brought the Christmas spirit home to me. Read all the way to the end. Trust me, it's worth it.

Dear Santa Claus ( Read more... )

This is my annual plug. Please consider donating to Toys for Tots this year. A lot of kids would not have gifts (some wouldn't even have toys) if it weren't for this program and others like it. These kids need high-quality toys, not cheap knockoffs - and a rubber ball (for example) doesn't cost a heck of a lot of money, but can bring a lot of ( Read more... )

After I wrote that last entry, I looked at myself in the mirror and realized what I have. I felt much, much better.

When I got home, I found all three of the items I bought with the amazon.com gift certificate I got for Christmas/Yule from melebeth. Hooray ( Read more... )

My original intention was to record this Christmas season in its entirety here, but that proved difficult this weekend. Yesterday, we rinsed the henna out of my hair. My hair looks amazing. It's got a rich reddish brown color instead of the dull brown that it had turned because it's been going grey for the past several years. It's also very ( Read more... )

We slept late yesterday. Then we had bread pudding, watched silly TV, and took a nap before picking up A. We let A. drive us back to Wheaton and went to Starbucks and Giant. Then we headed straight to Brookside Gardens for the Garden of Lights. It was well worth the $20 per car. We saw the model trains as well as the amazing lights display. ( Read more... )

Happy new year, everyone.

I worked today. There were few students, but I hope the ones who were in class got a lot out of it, for all that.

I've been thinking about 2009 as a year ever since melebeth mentioned something about its not being so good ( Read more... )