frumiousb

Christmas had gotten busy so quickly that I hadn't had a chance to post pictures of our fabulous cookie baking day. Thanks to bezigebij, nikkyb, coco_keesses, and T.

( more pictures )

champagne
caramelized cauliflower soup with foie gras
chablis for with the main course
roasted chicken with nutmeg served with turnip gratin
cheese and port for dessert

we're expecting the lovely miss nikkyb to join us

house is warm, and smells nice.

Merry Christmas to all! If you don't celebrate Christmas, then I wish you a wonderful seasonal holiday of choice. If this is just a Wednesday for you, then I hope that it is the best damned Wednesday of the year.

I'm in Sweden, enjoying the heated hotel room. Outside my window I can see the lights of the big Christmas tree that they put up in Helsingborg every year.

It's not an easy time of year for us, so I'm clutching to the symbols with both hands.

Seeing the tree this morning made me want to say "Thank you, world."

I'm afraid that you may be in for some entry volume today. It's the second Christmas day in Holland. B. is sick in bed with a bad cold. I still am having serious hip/back problems (doctor isn't open until tomorrow). So it seems a good day to process my pictures from Rome and catch up on book reviewing.

Very happy to have our cats back. They were at their grandhumans' house. Somehow they've come back home with the notion that it is okay to sleep under the covers of the bed, something that they never did before.

Getting back to my original purpose of Counting My Blessings, I wanted to note this Poule au Pot (chicken in a pot) dinner that I made before we went to rome. I used the Delia Smith recipe, but there are many many lovely versions of same out there. The photograph isn't very elegant, but this recipe is confirmed as an integral part of our winter repertoire.



Je veux qu'il n'y ait si pauvre paysan en mon royaume qu'il n'ait tous les dimanches sa poule au pot.

I'm actually fairly happy to be on my own tonight. I'm puttering through my little private rituals of Christmas. I put up my mismatched sentimental tree. I plastered my Dad's Christmas plastic sticky things to the balcony door. I've put the Santa hat on the Thai Goddess mask that hangs in the kitchen.

I even have Christmas soap. I feel that this is the ultimate in being a grownup somehow-- Christmas soap.

I cannot hang my ornaments without at least some feeling of something pricking. My eyes or my knees or my heart. If last year was supposed to me Bart and I and the happy frog in my belly, then this year was supposed to be her first Christmas. I don't want to dwell on this part of things, but those ghosts are there. The Christmases that never happened and never will.

This year, instead, I am teaching myself how to love my old ornaments again, and how to hang them on the tree with joy. I am reminding myself that I love the glitter of Christmas lights, and Christmas music. I am enjoying the clean smell of tree, and the row of seasonal candles. I may even bake some cookies before my sister arrives. Who knows?

We hold it in ourselves to be our own good family. And in the end, the nature of the world dictates that we must have that hard learning. All things pass, even good and important and beloved things. We must mourn. But we also need to have these rituals of hearth and home.

To reach for the wall with the green electric cord, and even if my hand trembles, light the lights.

I wish you all comfort and joy in the coming year. I wish you light.

I'm not a big believer in Christmas cards, for a variety of reasons. But since my sister went to so much trouble to create this little thing online, I felt that I could share it as the frumiousb household Christmas card to the world:

click here.