Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Future?

Two years ago, Honey gave me my first digital camera for Christmas, a Cannon SD800 Elph, and I've run with it. I was never much of a photographer, but thanks to the miracle of digital photography, it's rapidly becoming a hobby of mine. I'm teaching myself how to compose shots. I have a photographer friend with whom, some afternoon I'm going to go on a photo safari, and at some point, I'd like to get a consumer copy of Photoshop so I can edit my work. Thanks to my new hobby, I've begun looking at the mundane with fresher, more curious eyes. It feels good.

One of the gifts I got for Christmas this year was an all-in-one printer/scanner/photo printer. I've taken all these wonderful photos, but they still live on my laptop, or in some cases, cyberspace. It would be fantastic to finally start framing some of them and dressing the very naked walls of our house. Yesterday, I spent about an hour and a half scanning old photos from my childhood. There are hundreds more to go, but I knocked out quite a few. Including some from Christmases past. The image on the right is one such photo. It's from 1988. (I'm the amber-mopped tomboy in the orange tie-dye shirt, near the center.) Our family flew down to Mexico City to spend the holiday with our many cousins there. It was the first time I'd been on a plane since I was pre-literate, and I remember being afriad to fly. Then the downing of PanAm 103 a day or two before our departure convinced me that our deaths were imminent.

It's inevitable this time of year that my thoughts turn to past Christmases and reviewing old pictures certainly aid the nostalgia. Christmas isn't as fantastical for me as it once was, and I'm trying to figure out why. It's not the Santa thing. I never believed in Santa. If not yet the why, I can at least pin down when Christmas started losing some of its pixie dust. Junior high.

1988 was probably the last truly exciting Christmas for me. I was 12. Before we flew to Mexico City, we stopped in Dallas to spend Christmas Eve with my mom's side of the family, like we did virtually every Christmas Eve. I played with my cousins, we ate the tamale dinner Grandma fixed us, watched whatever Christmas special was on TV, played board games, unwrapped presents ... Christmassy stuff. When we got to Mexico, the party really began. At my cousin Carlos' church, we played with no-bullshit pinatas; no papier mache Sesame Street characters. These pinatas were star-shaped, with shells made of terra-cotta and filled with sugar cane and peanuts. And they were massive. And there were many. When a piece of pinata pottery fell on my brother's head, he sought my mom's arms for comfort until he realized that every other kid was getting beaned by breaking pinatas, and went back in. Pinatas are not for the permission-slip happy American weak in Mexico. For days we were surrounded by family. We ate good meals every night. There was laughter everywhere. The gifts we got were either homemade - like the crocheted clown doll my aunt made me - or typically Mexican-craft like the leather purse I got. I was introduced to new traditions like Dia de los Tres Reyes and la rosca. The former is also known as Epiphany or Three Kings Day, the traditional 12th day of Christmas when the wisemen's visit is celebrated. La Rosca is the bundt-like cake served on January 6, though we did ours early, on the first (we ate several, come to think of it); a baby charm is placed in the cake and whoever gets it has good luck. In Mexico City, I was tickled to discover that for every kiosk set up on the city square with Santa offering to listen to Christmas wishes, there were two or three kiosks of the magi offering to do the same. Christmas is when you get your little gifts, there; Epiphany is when you get your "real" gifts. It's something we kind of adopted when my family went broke. Our gifts were never huge to begin with - a cassette from a band I liked was usually the extent of it - but extending the gift-giving until Epiphany bought my family a little time time to buy on sale. 1988 was a Christmas brimming with non-stop celebration. It was the last one I can remember like that.

Within a month, we'd moved across the state; Dad had entered the ministry full-time (an overall great move for him, but a damper on Christmas from then out) and there was no doubt about it: puberty had completed its angsty takeover of my body. From a celestial high to a rocky low. There are many things I like about Dad being a minister: he's a good preacher; he's a great listener and a wonderfully sympathetic man; it's his passion; he's knowledgable about context (and thus not literalist). However, the one thing I really don't like about him being a minister is that he's tied to whatever church he's serving for Christmas Eve.

When I was 13, I was devastated to learn that we would not get to drive up to the panhandle or to Dallas to spend the evening with mom's entire family as I had every Christmas Eve of my life until that point. We had to stay put for our church's candlelight service. I love Chistmas Eve candlelight services. After all the happy songs, the readings and prayers, when the lights go down and the sanctuary is filled with scores of tiny flickering flames and we're all singing "Silent Night" and then the accompanist stops so that we're all just singing a capella ... damn, there are few things finer. But to be compelled to stay? Couldn't this church just wing it without a minister for Christmas? Come ON! Christmas EVE! WTF?

From then on, Christmas became less magical. The songs in school, the games and the family hoopla began disappearing. We had to stay put, so Dad could preside over Christmas Eve services and we lived in such a remote part of the state that no one ever came to visit us for the holiday. (Which made me mad, as we often piled into the car on Christmas morning to drive 10 hours across the state to Dallas. Only to miss half the cousins, as they'd all returned home; and to miss the tamales, as they'd all been eaten. Why couldn't they reciprocate?) Christmas 1993 was a lovely anomaly, however, because 8 or 9 of our Mexican cousins came up and partied with us in our burg. They visited for a week. We spoke so much Spanish in the house that I actually dreamt in Spanish. (Era fantastico!)

These days, we have no set family gatherings with our extended families. His sister lives nearby, so we often visit her family. But I often feel something just one-off is missing. Our nephews have no cousins with which to play, so they either disappear to play on the computer or whine for attention. We adults don't play board games; we just talk about work and life and it's just ... a visit. My family lives in Texas, and with Dad unable to travel due to ecclesiastical duties, it's incumbent upon us to visit if we're to celebrate Christmas together - which we've only done once in the 10 years Honey and I've been Christmassing together. But even there, my brother just watches football and we just ... visit. No music and merriment. Honey's parents live on the West Coast. Sometimes they come out for Christmas or we go there, but it's just ... a visit. Once we played poker with his dad and nephews, and frankly that afternoon saved Christmas for me. It was so good to play something. My brother is marrying a girl from Wisconsin. He's up there now. She wants to never spend Christmas away from her family, so I have no idea if we'll ever get to see him for the holiday again. Which sucks. The older I get, the more disconnected I feel from family fun. Even when we see family, it seems so chaotic and not as cheerful as it used to be. I really, really miss playing boardgames with aunts and uncles. I miss the tamale buffet. I miss the cheesy holiday TV shows playing in the room where the kids are (ahem, please not around the adults). I miss poorly banging out "Joy to the World" on whosever piano is available. I think it's time to start some new more mobile Christmas traditions that bind us together. But I don't quite know which or how.

Honey and I have an accidental tradition of listening to David Sedaris read his "Santaland Diaries," either as we trim the tree or on Christmas Eve. Maybe I'll learn to make tamales like Grandma and insist on that wherever we go. Or maybe insist on more boardgames or puzzles. I love boardgames at Christmas. Christmas, for me, is about three big things: glittery cultural accoutrement, the breathless anticipation leading up to Christmas morning, and cozying up to family and enjoying eachother. Each feels like they're falling shorter as I grow older. I want to learn how to get the magic back.

I'm a Wreck Because of a Stupid Wreck

Right now would be a good time for a cry, but I can't quite bring myself to do it. Today sucked. I wish I could say it was a bunch of big, consequential things, but really, it was a bunch of little things that all revolved around a medium-sized thing and aggravated by some other things. Things! Things! Things! ARGH!

To begin with, it was rainy all day. Rain in the winter rarely inspires happiness. I began my day with a visit to my therapist for the first time in months. It was good catching up with her, but visiting reminded me of how in limbo I feel right now and I've got elephants in my room to deal with and the biggest one I really have very little control over and the other two I'm not sure I'm managing well. Basically, it sucked having to confront the uglies.

After therapy, and a light lunch, I headed to an exurb of the city to buy cheap liquor for my husbands' employees. He's a really good boss (IMHO) and gives his employees rum for the holidays each year. I'm happy to play Santa. But it was raining, and though I'm familiar with the route to this banal bedroom community, I hydroplaned instead of turning with the curve of the highway and crashed up on the median, head-on, driving over the reflector. I really think this threw me off all fucking day.
A stupid hydroplaning wreck.

I was rattled and humiliated. As soon as my car came to a stop - which it wasn't doing AT ALL as I applied the brakes - I called Honey. Don't know why; I probably should've called 911, but I was unhurt, the car was out of harms' way of other cars and the airbag didn't even deploy. I was bracing for it to, but it didn't. Fucking wreck. I could see it coming and I tried to stop it and there was little I could do. (How much of a metaphor for my health concerns these days is this, by the way??) I'm just glad I was in the outer lane that bordered the median, otherwise I would've almost certainly hit another car.

I called 411, since I wasn't hurt, but was placed on hold and as soon as I ... wait a second, I should've called 311 in a non-emergency. Shit. I couldn't even remember that. Anyway, as soon as I was hanging up with them to call 911, a fire engine pulled up behind me. The fireguy who looked like a short Dennis Quaid walked me through getting unstuck from the median, inspecting the underside of my car for damage, and refilling oil. I felt like such a dolt. Yeah, I was going too fast in the rain and I've not checked my oil level in months. Ugh. Driving off, I felt a mild tug on the driver's side front wheel, so Honey called to tell me about a nearby garage which was a few blocks from the liquor store.

But still, my plans were thrown off. Instead of getting to the liquor store, getting the rum and returning to do some shopping for Honey and family, as well as some much-needed proofreading, I had to take my car to the shop to make sure I'd survive the ride home. As it was near a mall, I decided to walk up to the mall, in the cold winter rain that turned my umbrella inside out at one point, and do a little shopping there. But I hate shopping malls, as a rule, and particularly during Christmas. I bought a few things for Honey, and then started looking for a new bra for me, but didn't find any in my fantastic new fit-just-for-me size. And I really hate that exurb and that mall. And it blew having to be stuck here when I knew the store I wanted to visit today was no where near this bloody leech-town.

The good news is that, though my front end was indeed thrown significantly out of alignment, the repair was manageable. Less than $100, which I guess is all I can ask for. The liquor store had all the rum I needed and gave me a discount. And I still had time to make more truffles when I got home tonight to bring with me to my show. And Honey, dear, sweet Honey, cleared his schedule for the afternoon and came home early to make sure I was alright.

But this stupid wreck threw off my groove for the whole bloody day. It began to feel like everything I touched broke. Seriously: two items I handled at the mall either broke or somehow didn't work right afterward; as I left for the show tonight, I dropped a glass bottle of tea on the floor as if it were a water wiener(almost shattered, but not quite); and during warm up, I screwed up a song for the team. Yea, me! I was going to have a good show, though. I could feel it. However ... As a whole, our show went well, but I wasn't pleased with my performance. My contribution was good, objectively speaking, but it just didn't feel good to me at all. What sucked worst was that after the show, people were so happy with how well it went and I just felt like I was was this side of awful. Frankly, I fell quickly into Debbie Downer mode and knew I needed to extract myself from people before I could really be a pain in the ass and they'd seek to drown me. So I fled. Not before feeding a few other people some chocolates.

It was such a minor wreck. The kind of thing people would normally blow off after the even. But it jarred me for the entire day. And I really wish I could just cry right now and have it done with, so I can have a good day and a good show tomorrow. Blech! Maybe I'll watch that video on YouTube about the British guys and their pet lion. That makes me cry.

3BT: avocation, aspiration, admiration

It was cold and alternately weeping rain today and into tonight. So, it feels like a good time to sit back and reflect a la Clare, on three beautiful things that popped out at me, today.

1. After an aggravating morning, I decided to call one of my best girlfriends, who lives a good 4 or 5 hours away, on my ride into work. She'd just loaded her kids in the car and was driving the 4 year old to preschool. I vented and ranted and she chimed in and offered her ear. We had a good visit, and we said our goodbyes as I pulled into my office driveway. Moments later she called me back. Her daughter had apparently asked who she was on the phone with, "Aunt Molly," she'd replied. "I want to go to Aunt Molly's house after school!" That turned my morning around

2.
I came across this today. A cousin of mine died almost 13 years ago from MD. This young man (who's already survived my cousin by 4 years) looks physically very similar to my cousin, though he has more use of his upper body, and more muscle mass, than my cousin did. Though I don't know if my cousin ever felt suicidal, there's no doubt in my mind that the mental anguish he carried must've been intense. However, like this young man, my cousin pursued all that his financial and physical resources allowed during his short time here. Seeing this interview reminded me of S and that being blessed is really a state of mind.

3. At a party tonight, a colleague told me that she loved some sweeping dance move that I and another performer improvised in a show a few weeks ago. Apparently, she's a ballet nerd and thought that we looked graceful and that I looked like I knew what I was doing and it just took her breath away. We didn't, of course. But I love that for once gravity was not my nemesis and I was evidently, if even accidentally, swanlike!

Chocolate Nutballs - The Recipe

Apparently, I made a few mouths drool with the talk of my chocolate nutballs and their picture. I've gotten requests for the treats themselves - only one of which I honored, because she happened to be in my kitchen and knows I'm easily overpowered - but I think Joe had the best idea: post the recipe.

For the last 5 or 6 years, I've been on Texas Monthly's weekly recipe list. Of the scores, if not hundreds of recipes I've gotten in that time, I think I've attempted only two or three. This recipe is one of them, reprinted here, complete with the text from the email, but the links are not hot:

You’ll find more recipes online at texasmonthly.com. You can also share recipes and food questions with other TEXAS MONTHLY readers at the Recipe Swap.

Chocolate-Grand Marnier Truffles

Recipe from Sierra Grill, Houston.

1 1/4 cups heavy cream
16 ounces Nestlé semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup Grand Marnier or Bailey’s Irish Cream
Zest of 1/2 orange 1 1/2 cups pecans, ground or finely chopped

In a heavy, nonreactive pan bring cream to a boil. Immediately remove from heat and stir in chocolate and butter until smooth. Add liqueur and orange zest and chill overnight. Shape into 3/4-inch balls and roll in pecans. Makes 6 dozen.

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After my first attempt, I hesitate to call what I made truffles. Hence, labeling them chocolate nutballs (because I am nothing if not mature and referential). The consummate engineer, Honey had a good idea to help me create more attractive treats that I'd be proud to call truffles and not "nutballs." He suggested that instead of rolling them between my palms like I'd do modeling clay, that instead I seek some silicon mold of half-spheres - like a novelty ice-tray - and let the chocolate chill in that. Then when it's all chilled, marry the spheres together, maybe with a little water at the seam. Since I'll be out and about today, maybe I'll swing by Sur la Table and see what they've got in that vein.

With only half the chocolate mix, I believe I made about 55 balls, following the 3/4-inch ball rule. After Darla made off like a bandit with about two dozen of them, Honey decided we needed to make them bigger and rolled the rest of the chocolate into balls about 1.5" to 2" in diameter, mixing them not only with nuts, but with confectioners sugar. Good idea. Since these balls are bigger, they're more satisfying and I, for one, am less tempted to mindlessly pop one in my mouth as I am when they're smaller.

Though we had Bailey's at home, I opted to use Grand Marnier because it gave me an excuse to buy it. Insted of Nestle, I used Ghirardelli 60% cocoa, because we had a few bags of that lying around. I grabbed another bag of the Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet and a bag of their milk chocolate when I was at the grocery store Wednesday. I'll try those next. When I feel like I've gotten the process down pat, I'll try darker cocoa, white chocolate, fair trade chocolate, rum, kahlua, cordials that a friend brought me from the Caribbean: all sorts of variations until I'm known as the truffle-lady .... not just a little nuts.

Chocolate Nutballs - Tunes for Tuesday

Inspired by Virginia Gal's post of favorite Christmas songs, I decided to create my own list of some of my favorite Christmas songs. Not included are some favorite carols like "O Come All ye Faithful" or "Hark the Herald," mostly because I love singing those with a full congregation, or a group of people in the cold, holding candles. Better sung together than heard recorded.

I must admit that I don't have very many favorite Hanukkah tunes, mostly because I don't know many. Five maybe. I do like Woody Guthrie's Hanukkah songs. If anyone knows a bunch and wants to introduce me to them, I'd love to learn. I love singing songs of joy and happiness in the cold, bleak time that is winter. Makes it bearable. (This is why January and February suck: no good happy-fun-shiny songs to get us through.)

As for the chocolate nutballs? I tried my hand at Grand Marinier truffles this afternoon. I still have a few dozen left to make, but thought I'd share a photo with you good folk. It'll follow after my music summary.

1. Happy Christmas - John Lennon. "Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear ... War is over." What more do we want out of Christmas and the new year?

2. Baby, It's Cold Outside - Leon Redbone/Zooey Deschanel. Wanted the Ella Fitzgerald version, but decided on this. I love the seduction of this song - he gently begs; she's coy. And you know they're gonna do it all night long! Plus, I think her voice - which I find both fascinating and irritating - works well in this.

3. Mary's Boy Child/Oh My Lord - Boney M. This is just a great, jubilant carol to begin with, but I'm drawn to the Carribean disco.

4. Fairytale of New York - The Pogues. Aww. Angry Irish at Christmas. How adorable!

5. Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses. Lonely hearts re-connecting to save Christmas? Yea!

6. Christmas is All Around - Bill Nighy (as "Billy Mack"). From "Love Actually." It's a dumb re-imagining of an already silly song. Which is why I enjoy it.

7. Santa Claus Got Stuck in My Chimney - Ella Fitzgerald. Oops!

8. Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You - Billy Squier. Like Christmas Wrapping, fun to bop along to.

9. Baby, It's Cold Outside - Ray Charles/Betty Carter. I enjoy that his begging is more overt. And I really love this song. In the search feature, Mixwit misguided me and said this was Nina Simone singing with him. Not the case, apparently. D'oh!

10. Do They Know it's Christmas? - BandAid. One reason, and one reason only: Bono singing, "Tonight be glad it's them, instead of you!" I thrill on the guilting. Who better to deliver that line than Bono? HY-larious! The reminder to consider the less fortunate during the season is fine, but being told this by a bevy overpaid egomaniacs is so wonderfully 1980s. 1980s!!

11. Merry Christmas from the Family - Robert Earl Keen. Everyone in Texas is related in some way or another to this family. If you can't identify a relative that would fit in this song, you ARE that relative.

12. The Christians and the Pagans - Dar Williams. The first song I ever heard from Dar Williams and ended up turning me on to her. I like that people try to find a away to relate through whatever commonalities they can.

13. Elf's Lament - Barenaked Ladies. Union now! Hermione Granger would love this!

14. Baby It's Cold Outside - Tom Jones/Cerys Matthews. Did I mention I REALLY love this song. (When I'm a megastar, I want to record this, not sure with who yet.) I like the disparity in their voices. He's so lecherous and she sounds not only juvenile, but mentally unstable. It's so predatory!

15. Happy Christmas - Polyphonic Spree. Just a cover of the first song. It's overly orchestrated and the end cacophonous, but who cares? I like this band.

16. Six to Eight Black Men - David Sedaris. Not a song, but a great story. Go ahead. Give yourself 15 minutes and give it a listen.

Here are the long-awaited chocolate nutballs!