eggnog & trees

I took this from Swistle.

Eggnog or hot chocolate? Hot chocolate. I haven’t had eggnog in years, I was never a big fan.

Does Santa wrap the presents or leave them open under the tree? The presents are wrapped by us. (Or by the store, if we’re lucky.) Does this mean some people don’t wrap presents? I’ve never heard of naked presents under the tree. Unless they’re huge or unshapely or alive perhaps?

Colored lights on a tree or white? Candles! Seriously, real candles are the only way to go. So Very Beautiful. You need a fresh tree for this, but this is why most people here get their trees only a couple of days before Christmas. I understand real candles are illegal in the States? 

Do you hang mistletoe? My parents usually get some mistletoe in the forest, but there doesn’t seem to be any hanging around the house this year.

When do you put your decorations up? Some things are out a few weeks before, but most decorations get put up just a few days before Christmas, like the tree. It’s all in the same box, that’s why.

What is your favorite holiday dish? I have had both fondue and raclette in the past few days, of course. Mmmhh. Our traditional Christmas Eve menu is champagne, shrimp cocktail (with avocados, on a bed of fresh endives), red wine, fondue chinoise (beef cubes cooked at the table in vegetable bouillon, not oil; my mother cooks fish, not beef), with different homemade sauces, and freshly backed rolls, then fancy ice cream, yummy frozen cakes, and homemade Christmas cookies for dessert.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We open all gifts on Christmas Eve, it’s the European way. When we were kids there were a few small gifts in the stockings from ‘American Santa’ on the 25th.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? We do not have a match-y catalogue tree. Real candles. Many ornaments collected over the years, some that we have had since we were kids, some of them handmade, some of them falling apart a bit. Real candles. Our tree is messy, soulful, and uncoordinated, that’s how we like it. Oh, and it’s real, not plastic. 

Snow: love it or hate it? Love it. Especially from inside looking out the window.

Can you ice skate? I can, but I don’t.

What is your favorite holiday dessert? I like all desserts, especially my mother’s traditional holiday cookies, they are all just divine.

What is your favorite holiday tradition? Making a batch of cookies, sitting around with the family.

Candy canes: yum or yuck? I like the idea of candy canes, and I like them on trees, however, I don’t like the taste.

Favorite Christmas show? What’s the one with Jimmy Stewart that always makes me cry? It’s a Wonderful Life. I love sentimental Christmas movies that make me cry.

These answers are mostly based on my parents’ house where I am right now. My husband and I will forge our own traditions when we have children. That will be fun. When we are in NYC we don’t have a tree, just a few decorations. We are not religious, nor do we like participating in the shopping frenzy. We do celebrate when we go to one of my husband’s siblings’ homes (they have the kids and the traditions) but we just don’t go to the trouble ourselves. The idea of schlepping a tree up to our small studio just is not appealing to me right now.

heavens & stilts

I have always loved the Bread and Puppet Theater and now I have an extra special relationship with them since I feel like Peter Schumann “married” my husband and me by serenading us with his band right before we went to City Hall. 

We just got back from watching their wonderful show called ” Tear Open the Door of Heaven”.

A Bread and Puppet show usually starts on the sidewalk in front of the theater where Peter Schumann’s orchestra loudly plays lively tunes, while Peter dances his special tipsy ballerina santa dance, welcoming the audience to the theater and delighting passers-by.

The show itself was poetic and powerful. Peter Schumann was very involved as a performer. In fact, for the first part of the show he was alone on stage manipulating cardboard cutouts and paper maché puppets. The audience was so captivated by the simple storytelling you could have heard a pin drop. 

Some of the dance interludes included a forest admiration dance, danced by a NYC rushhour crowd; a deforestation dance, danced by the deforestors to make room for their cars; and the dance of the foolish woman, who tries to bring back to life the child victims of the bombardments on Gaza.

(Peter Schumann as Uncle Sam on high stilts. image credit: breadandpuppet.org)

Bread and Puppet is also performing “The Dirt Cheap Money Circus”, which is a bit more kid-friendly, but still very poetic, political, and powerful. Kids love these shows too, so if you have a kid, go see it. This year the circus features the billionaire bonus celebration dance, the logic of the US Healthcare System, the history of humanity, and the removal of a mountaintop.

Playing through Dec. 13th at Theater for the New City.

gospel & rock

We saw The Kinks at the Town Hall yesterday. Okay, it was former Kinks singer-songwriter Ray Davies performing with The Dessoff Chamber Choir, but still, THE KINKS! It was a baby boomers concert, I think I was the youngest person there, and that never ever happens anymore. When legendary Mr. Davies ran onto the stage, the audience went wild. I was a bit apprehensive about the choir’s involvement, just because it was a difficult concept to wrap my brain around. As it turns out, 60s rock and choral arrangements work together perfectly. Who knew? It was a fabulous concert. Really brilliant. 

Here are The Blind Boys of Alabama, progressive southern gospel music superstars, whose wonderfully harmonious concert we went to a few weeks back. When spirituality meets humor, magic happens.

I was sitting so close to the stage I could have reached out and touched their patent leather shoes.

apples & cleansing

Yesterday was Day 10 (aka the last day!) of the grand Master Cleanse experiment. After Day 3, it just kept getting better and easier, and I always had plenty of energy, just as I had expected. Today, I’m easing in with only raw fruit and vegetables, freshly pressed orange juice, water and herbal teas. On the way to the hospital early this morning, I ate a banana, which practically made me break out in a sweat. Drinking only liquids, my stomach has shrunk a bit and this rather small banana was almost more that it could handle. Later in the day, I was at an orchid where I picked many juicy dark red macoun apples and sampled one. (I LOVE picking apples!) It’s extremely satisfying that a banana and an apple (plus lots of liquids, of course ) can be so filling. For dinner I’m planning to have some fennel and a carrot. This cleansing fast has been a great and very liberating experience for me and I have been recommending it to curious friends. Maybe I will even make it a yearly custom.

happy pumpkin

I’m not a big fan of Halloween. I don’t  slip into a fabulous costume and run from one party to the next. I last wore a costume (punkette; think mid-eighties: teased hair, dark lipstick, dramatic eye make-up, safety pins) and went trick-or-treating at age 11, many many years ago. Of course I think trick-or-treating is fun for kids. However, I’m astonished at costumes I have been seeing in stores lately. Everything seems so… inappropriate. Slutty cowgirl, slutty fairy, slutty witch, all in children sizes. Who buys this stuff? I feel nostalgic. Whatever happened to the homemade unpolished clown or robot costume?

charlie & cleansing

I am doing the Master Cleanse. This is my first detox cleanse ever. I have been feeling a bit blah and listless lately. When a friend did this detox a few years ago she felt great and  praised this particular cleanse enthusiastically. I am on day 4 and I feel good. Not great, just good, and that is good enough for me. This cleanse is a difficult challenge. But it’s totally doable. The Salt Water Flush is not as bad as I thought it would be, and this morning I drank it in about 10 minutes. It undoubtedly helps that the “Lemonade” (a mixture of water, maple syrup, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper) is really delicious. It’s so tasty that when my husband tasted some of my concoction, he decided to do it too, which helps a lot. He actually feels great, not good. Days 2 and 3 were difficult for me. The second evening I told him he smelled like yummy fried chicken. 

Food is important to me. I go to the Farmer’s market at least once a week, I cook all the time, I love to eat delicious, healthy food. I miss the ‘ch’ foods I eat daily (cheese and chocolate). All I’m ingesting during the detox is the “Master Cleanse Lemonade”, water and the occasional herbal tea. As I said, this is a challenge, but it’s also extremely empowering and satisfying. Days 2 and 3 are the worst for most people, and then it gets a bit easier every day. So I fully expect to feel great in a couple of days.