The Little Holiday Tree That Could.

Our Chez is still dressed to its' holiday nines. A combination of sheer laziness and THE POLAR VORTEX, i.e. it is too damn cold. Although at this point, what we have up are outside lights on one tree, two inside trees and plastic bins of "stuff", like ornaments, decor, etc. that just need to be taken to the basement. It just all seems like a lot (when really, it's not). 

#FirstWorldProblems <cubed>

My favorite new thing this year was a hack I discovered at Home Depot in the fall. Way before any normal person would think of decorating, but clearly well into what retail establishments felt was OK to have. I have since found out that Pinterest was all up in this idea ages ago, but since I do not Pinterest (or pin, as is the preferred nomenclature), I thought it was totally brilliant and totes new. 

Enter the Little Holiday Tree That Could. 

Holy Hosting, Batman.

In the last two weeks of the year, the Chez will have hosted 4 gatherings. The smallest a group of 7, the largest a group of <approximately> 36. We love to host gatherings and house guests, and are really lucky to have a home large enough to accommodate both with relative ease. But wuf. 

To date, three gatherings have happened: two were potluck, which was super fun, and by virtue, fairly stress free. The one for my family's holiday gathering was the simplest of them all though. I have a smallish nuclear family, and with Mi Madre living out of state, it was the 5 Nashes + my brother-in-law (Spouse's lil bro), who was visiting from out West, and his sweetie, who arrived on Christmas Eve.

This year, keeping in mind food preferences, and my family, I went with a menu of two soups, a delicious artisan made bread loaf, and butter. 

For the meat eaters, our friend's fantastic Green Chile Chicken Noodle soup and for the vegetarians, a very easy Red Lentil soup, recommended by a friend at work. 

Spouse and his brother hit up the North Market on Christmas Eve Eve Day and bought a fabulous light sourdough loaf from Omega Artisan Baking that turned out to be perfect. Crusty (but not hard) on the outside, and wonderfully chewy and dense (but not too dense) on the inside. Held up super well to the soups, a great companion to the Kerrygold (unsalted) butter we had decided on, and poof, by the end of the dinner, was gone, baby, gone. 

I had previously made the Green Chile Chicken Noodle soup, as Reverend Al swears by it for when one feels icky, but had never made the Red Lentil. Both are simple and really flavorful, esp with hacks. And I have to say, quick to make. 

Putting a Personal Swing into the Holidays.

When Spouse and I were married, the favors we gave to our guests was a 2-CD set: one was a mix of romantic/mushy songs and the other was a mix of holiday tunes.

Since that year, I've carried on the tradition of just a CD mix of holiday tunes, and gift it to family and friends. While the CDs for our wedding were a mix of his music and mine, my general rule for the holiday mix I do annually, is I can only use "my" holiday music. I've relaxed that a bit, but 92% of the tracks are guaranteed to be just mine....I may whork a little bit (he's got some really choice tunes). 

(The CD is really a present from both of us, as I receive at least 6 "new"* holiday CDs every year from Spouse, so while it may be classified as "mine", he had a hand in a lot of what I have, and use.)

The CD comes in really handy. 

An expensive yogurt batch.

I made a batch of yogurt last night. 

Nothing remarkable about that, really, except that the previous two batches were utter failures, so I felt much relief and joy that *this* batch worked. 

Enter Genius Spouse, who chimed in with, "Sweetie, for your yogurt, do you need consistent temps? Maybe that's the issue, since we turn the furnace down each night". 

Dammit, Beavis. 

He's completely right. I've been wrapping the warmed crock in two thick, nice beach towels, and leaving it to chillax on the kitchen counter, but we like to sleep in a fairly chilly house. Plus even though it's technically not winter until Saturday, it has been winter for a few weeks.

I also suspect my I-have-no-idea-where-I-even-got-it-or-when thermometer may be biting the dust. I was farting around with it while heating the milk on the stove, and it seemed to have differing opinions of temperature at times. I realize I'm imprecise when cooking, but there is a time and place for preciseness. Fermented foods are up there. 

A Little Holiday Music.

One thing I've learned over my time with Spouse is that there is a $hit-ton of holiday music out there. He loves this area of music more than is possible to relate to you using human language. 

With songs ranging from the sacred to the profane, from the morose to absurd, from traditional to extreme - not to mention every single genre you can think of - between the two of us, we have at least a little bit of all types. It's pretty amazing what you can find, when you start looking. 

When people ask what my favorite holiday tune is, I have to request a genre, because I have favorites in every area. 

Novelty tune: "I Want A Hippopatamus for Christmas". I love this song so much, that one year, Spouse found a concrete hippo and bought it for me for the holiday. I named her Gayla Peevey after the young lady that sings the original song. 

This is my Gayla Peevey. 

Yep. It's Going to be *that* kind of week.

First, I forget to add ricotta to my roasted veg lasagna. 

Then, new batch of yogurt fails to take. Wah wah. Not sure if the left-over from last batch that I used as starter was bad. Maybe my thermometer was off. The joys of fermented foods. Sometimes, it just.doesn't.take. 

Owel. #FirstWorldProblemsForSure.

The silver lining is, because I ran out of energy last night to make a new batch of Spouse's bfast burritos, I got up early and made his fresh, then emptied dishwasher, reloaded it, started it, put lunches together for both of us (mine without yogurt though, which does make me sad). In short, I was way more productive by 7:30 a.m., than I normally am. 

Here's a panic inducing thought: three weeks to the christmas holiday. Egads.  

Hope everyone else's week is going well.

It's beginning to look a lot like Thanksgivukkah.

Thanksgiving in one of my favorite holidays. The food is delightful, the concept simple yet elegant, and there's no major decorations/presents/buying crap pressure. 

This year we get the special addition of the first night of Hanukkah, so that November 28 becomes the Super Holiday of Thanksgivukkah. 

You had me at latkes, thanks.

Add in the rest of the winter holidays: Saturnalia, Solstice, Christmas, Festivus (you know for the rest of us), Kwanzaa, Hogmanay/New Year's Eve, New Year's and with all of them falling within 35 days of each other, and it is the express lane of holidays. Pretty interesting.