The Holiday Season

The Christmas season completely snuck up on me this year. This was the first year that I didn't have a true, designated winter break -- a vacation of somewhere between ten days and two weeks to revel in the season. Instead I was forced to condense all my reveling into the weekends and evenings in between... Work.

Wait.... is this what it means to become and adult? Was that a rite of passage? If so, I'm ready to go back in time and become a joyous kid again. Elementary school, anyone?

BUT FEAR NOT! I defied the odds and still managed to enjoy myself. Occasionally.

Here are some of the things I did to celebrate:

1. Sugar cookies. I had a new old friend come over to bake with me. This is, after all, the season of new old friends. Or, in other words, it is the seasons for renewing friendships. As an added bonus, the cookies were delicious, and the batter PARTICULARLY excellent. I may have tested quite a lot of it. For poison.

The problem is: I wanted to make Christmas cookies but I don't actually own any cookie cutters.... I'm not a very "crafty" person... So I say to my friend, "Not to worry! We can use a knife to cut shapes out ourselves and it will be even MORE crafty and original than just simply using a cutter shape! The day is saved." So we rolled out the dough (I DO own a rolling pin, so that's something) and got to work.

THEN it turned out I was absolutely terrible at cutting out shapes. As I say, I lack "crafitness." (read: any artistic talent whatsoever). It didn't help my ego that my friend turned out to be an incredibly skilled cookie artiste, carving Christmas trees and snow men and snow angels with ease. Please see this cookie sheet as evidence:

I really think the two cookies in the bottom right are clear indicators of our skill levels. I drew the snow angel, of course. Not. 

2. City Bakery hot chocolate. Actually, my new old friend introduced this to me as well. Now I'm an addict. I like to refer to it as CBHC for short and drink it at least seven times a week... aka once a day. It is so thick and rich and chocolatey. Not too overwhelmingly sweet, just how I like it. In fact, I have to stop talking about it or I'll need to run across town right now this instant and get my fix (City Bakery is at 18th st. just west of fifth avenue. Go. Go now).   

I wish I had a picture of the hot chocolate to illustrate my love, but alas I can never resist drinking it long enough to take a photograph.

3. I got this tree: 

And I helped drag it home from the tree stand. Living in New York, that's more of a process than you'd think. We don't have a car to throw our tree atop of. Of course, that's why many city tree stands offer delivery...

Also, I wish I could say that I helped decorate this tree.. but I only managed about four ornaments. My mom, the decorator extraordinaire, handled the rest. The result: magnificent. Can you tell?

4. I got these presents:

OK, to be fair not all of these are for me... Some of them are from me...  But the point is: we said we weren't going to go overboard this year and then we failed miserably.

5. I got myself the best present of all. 

An iPhone 5. 

What did you think I was going to say? World peace??