Category: Holiday

And in with 2017

Lauren2 Comments

Joey and I have very different ideas of the perfect New Year’s Eve.  While his involves friends, family or crowds in general, and doing something that really feels big and celebratory, mine involves a good meal and some kind of low-key activity that allows me to be in my bed shortly after midnight.

I felt like we’d been doing that celebratory thing for years and I was ready for a quieter start to the new year.  (Go figure that the one year we didn’t have solid NYE plans was the year it landed on a Saturday night.)  So I made a dinner res, we picked a movie, chose a brewery within walking distance to that movie and lo and behold, we ended the night in our pajamas in our very own living room.  Hardly exciting, but to me, it was so perfect.

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You may not have NYE plans, but if your nails look like you do, then it’s all good // Dinner at ChoLon involved those French Onion Soup dumplings and we haven’t stopped talking about them since // Post-Rogue One beers at New Image Brewing // Starting 2017 with my #1: PRICELESS

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I’ve started many New Year’s Days with a hangover so starting one with coffee, waffles and Harry Potter is much preferred.  My sister and Wayne got us a waffle maker for Christmas and we had major success using it.  I think it’s all in that flip feature.  Harry Potter Weekend is what I live for ♥  I feel like I usually catch the last 4 movies, but I caught the first four (they skipped MY FAVORITE one: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and I was only semi-livid about it) and I forgot A) how teensy they all were when the series started and B) how good the third movie is!

 Let’s hear it for the families who celebrate actual New Year’s Day.  My mom pulled out all the stops — Mom, aren’t you exhausted after Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s?! — and I made an actual gluten-free/dairy-free pie that tasted pretty good and, more importantly, looked beautiful.  Pretty proud, in case you couldn’t tell.  Afterwards we all watched The Grand Budapest Hotel and for a second I forgot how shitty the end of 2016 was and felt like 2017 might be alright.

My resolution is to take more human face photos — which doesn’t necessarily mean less food photos — and I think I’m starting out strong.

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We started the Monday that felt like a Sunday with breakfast at Stowaway.  I got a Mushroom + Thyme Tartine and holy moly, it was so good.  I’d like that for breakfast every day forever, thank you.  Mostly Monday was a quiet day of grocery shopping, black-eyed pea cooking (for good luck in the new year!), getting my haircut and watching When Harry Met Sally.  Because, even though Carrie Fisher is probably best known as Princess Leia, let’s not forget she was also Rolodex-toting, “he’s never going to leave her”-repeating Marie, who “will never want that wagon wheel table” and I love her so much for that role.  Please let all the good food in this post be a sign of things to come in 2017.

2017, please be kind to us.

Christmas 2016

Lauren2 Comments

When I think of Christmas 2016, I will think of the hellish month that led up to it.  I will think of the deep undying sadness of those days and the way Joey and I dropped all usual holiday priorities for things and people that were much more important.

I will think of the way we spontaneously volunteered to cook Christmas lunch for 15+ people, never having hosted that many people or even cooking a turkey before.

I will think of the week leading up to Christmas.  Of the supportive and understanding conversation I had at the book swap I went to.  Of the dinner I shared with Lori, Adam, Chad and Joey.  Walking through the Renaissance Hotel all decked out in holiday glitz.  Of the show we all attended that was so so inappropriate but also so so funny and how good it felt to laugh that hard.

I will think of the way Joey and I slow danced to Amos Lee in our living room.  How I stood in the doorway between our hallway and kitchen later that night, surveying our little home and our Christmas tree all lit up and feeling so fortunate and happy.

I will think of Joey’s grandma telling me she liked the restaurant I picked for Christmas Eve breakfast and realizing how much that kind of approval means to me.

I will think of how much work and preparation went into that Christmas lunch.  How many things we crammed into Joey’s truck to make it all happen.  How Adam, Steve and KJ got out the crystal, ironed the tablecloths and napkins and set the tables.  How Joey cooked the turkey perfectly, mashed the potatoes like a pro and made gravy like he’d been doing it his entire life.  It could not have gone easier or smoother and I could not have done it without this amazing person that uncomplainingly commits 100% to anything I get us into.

I will think of Lori and how she does so many things that make the holidays what they are.  She takes us to shows and dinners and movies and showers us with gifts and attention.  I could not possibly dream up a more loving mother-in-law.  I am not worthy, but I am so grateful.

I will think of my own mother.  Of how, even at 27, she makes Christmas feel just as special as it did when I was a little kid.  It has taken me this long, but I finally realize how much she puts into these holidays and how she does it all for us.  She is a saint and I love her so much.

I will think of Christmas Eve with Joey’s family.  How hard we all laughed as a present wrapped ten times was passed around the table, each of us taking a turn trying to open it with oven mitts on our hands.  There is a steady and reliable positivity about this family that is joyous to be around.

I will think about sitting in my brother and sister-in-law’s living room, passing around old pictures of my family, laughing at hairstyles and fashions of the past then watching Trolls with my niece and nephew.  I may have been way too into that soundtrack.

I will think of the hedgehog-shaped mittens Sharon bought Kyla, Javaiah and I just before Thanksgiving and how I could feel her there with us, even if just in spirit.

Mostly, I will think of that amplified feeling of love that was all around.

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