Category Archives: Christmas

I figured I ought to do a gift guide too

It seems like many bloggers do gift guides, telling us what to get people we (evidently) don’t know at all. I wasn’t going to do one, but today I saw that “The Onion” had so I really didn’t want to feel left out. (Also, I would like the crate of otters, just FYI.)

Okay: obviously this is just all stuff I want, as all gift guides are, right? But let’s pretend I’m giving you ideas for people you know. Or at least, if that person you know is very much like me.

Here are my top Gift ideas for Christmas 2013.

1. Kittens! Who wouldn’t love a bunch of kittens?

2. Money. That way your recipient can buy something they really need, rather than having to return your gift first.

3. Amazon gift cards. I know this sounds a lot like money, except that you use it to buy goods or services rather than just risk losing it when your wallet gets stolen.

4. A new car. I feel like all the people in the TV commercials…for cars…get brand new cars for Christmas. Don’t you want your loved ones to feel as special?

Plus you always need a giant bow for it.

5. Cow Figurines. One can never have too many.

7. A brand new TV. In fact, that’s what I recently got myself, thanks to a nice Cyber Monday sale, or some catchy day of that week. I guess everybody goes back to work after Thanksgiving and spends all their time shopping? (I get confused as to what it is people actually do at work, as I either pay violin or teach children, and both are very active things to do while working…)

IMG_8541 

32 inches of fun.

Anyway, those are my gift ideas for you to get your loved ones. I’m sure this list will be a great help!

P.S. Read this: 33 of the greatest things that happened on Tumblr in 2013

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

 

IMG_8525

I had my annual Cookie Swap Party over the weekend. There were only 7 people there but it was great fun and we still ended up with plenty of cookies!

IMG_8534

Please ignore the dirty plate. I don’t know what is wrong with me. That did contain spinach artichoke dip though, so it was a winner.

IMG_8520 

I made Cranberry Orange Poppyseed Shortbread cookies. They were delicious, albeit a bit smaller than I think I would have liked.

IMG_8533

I also made this pomegranate jeweled white cheddar, toasted almond and crispy sage cheeseball. It was delicious!

Other menu items: Apple cider in the crockpot (take apple cider, add some cinnamon sticks and a clove studded orange, simmer for 4 hours) and Sweet and Salty Pecans.

IMG_8527 

No tree this year but a lovely garland on the built in bookshelf.

IMG_8515

After I cleaned off the table for the party the cat wasn’t sure what to do with herself.

IMG_8508

I don’t like taking selfies from so far above but it was the only way I could fit all the words in. And my face, which is important so you can see where my zits are. I bought this sweater at Old Navy during a pre-Thanksgiving sale for ridiculously cheap. I can’t decide if it’s ironic when I wear it or not. Then again, I get paid to teach and play the violin, and make a few measly $$ shilling Tide Pods and Wendy’s Sandwiches and Yogurt…so maybe I am following my heart.

PS This weekend I am running the Hot Chocolate 5k here in St Louis. Any readers doing it too? I’m hoping it isn’t too too too cold, and I’m just not even checking the forecast beforehand.

Boxing Day?

I don’t really understand Boxing Day. 

But I feel pretty good post-Christmas.  The trick is to get the melancholy out of the way pre-Christmas, then post-Christmas feels great.  Another good trick is to plan a couple of vacations in January.  (This is at least the third year in a row I’m doing this, and it seems to work really well.  After that, February is short, March can be another vacation over spring break, April is always the busiest month, May you are almost there…and then June is my birthday month and the end of school! Don’t lecture me about living in the moment.  Life isn’t short, it’s the longest thing you do.)

Oh, and now a wedding anniversary.  And I’d better not forget my husband’s birthday like I did our anniversary the other week  (I couldn’t figure out why Chris was so insistent on us having a fancy dinner the night of the second in Chicago—he kept insisting and I kept saying it didn’t need to be that night as it was our travel day and there were other days we’d be there and finally said in a loud, cross tone “What is your obsession with the second?”  He was silent for a bit and then said “It’s our anniversary.” Needless to say, I made a reservation somewhere nice.  To be fair, I hadn’t technically forgotten our anniversary as it hadn’t happened yet…no, I can’t rationalize this.  I totally sucked and forgot.) 

All of these things can help with post-Christmas blues.  (Except forgetting your anniversary.  Don’t do that.)

After eating enough to gain 7.8 pounds yesterday (a fact my trainer thought was both ridiculously disgusting and impossible to believe, even though HE told me he lost 11 pounds over the last two weeks in order to be able to overindulge a bit this week…that doesn’t sound crazy or anything—I hope he’s reading today) I figured a good workout was in order.  That and it was already scheduled.  Lunges on the Smith machine, front squats, dead lifts, kettlebell swings.  I feel like I’m forgetting something but I really think that’s it.  Maybe I was slow today or we did extra sets? 

I probably smelled strongly of Ham the entire time.

image

I wore a festive headband.  It was in honor of Boxing Day AND the snowstorm that was predicted that totally missed us.

photo

Post workout, in the car.  I was cold. 

I actually had to get dressed in regular clothes, including pants that buttoned for a rehearsal for this jazz concert I’m playing on—I feel so COOL when I play with jazz musicians, even though we all know that’s not true.  (Also, children, being cool is NOT important in life.  Being smart and nice is.)

image_1

Christmas present.  I don’t have a Toms problem or anything.  PLUM CORDUROY THANK YOU LESLIE!

Last thought for tonight: We finally watched Moneyball.  Why did we wait so long?  Second favorite baseball movie!!  (First favorite is of course Field of Dreams.)

What’s your favorite baseball movie?  Or, top three?  I think my third favorite is A League of Their Own.

You are not a cow

It’s important to note that I often refer to my cat as “the ham” or “the fat ham”.

ham

Christmas was great!  I got home late Christmas Eve because of work the night before so we wanted to sleep in a bit.

image_2 image_1

image

Churches like poinsettias, don’t they?

Anyway, we woke up and made coffee.  The plan was to make a cooked breakfast (rare for us—hash browns, sausage, coffee cake, and mimosas), open presents, make a couple side dishes and then in the mid afternoon head over to our friend’s for Christmas dinner and hanging out.

photo

Props to Leslie for continuing my cow tradition. I opened this and exclaimed, “I don’t even know what this is and I love it!”  Leslie gave me some other random things, and my favorite thing was a pair of purple corduroy Toms that I’d asked for.  I’m pretty excited about those.

My parents sent some gift cards, Vanessa gave us a new soap dispenser (there was an incident on Thanksgiving) and a lovely poster of the St Louis Skyline.  Chris got me a gorgeous pair of diamond earrings, so he wins Christmas this year 😉  What, I’m generally not shallow, but I’m a girl!

image_5

Leslie sent the cat a catnip toy.  This is the most clear picture I could get of her playing with it.  It quickly became her new best friend and then she fell asleep.  Chris made the mistake of touching the toy and it was naturally completely covered with saliva.  Gross.

We went over to our friend’s Jon and Laura’s for Christmas dinner.  It was awesome!  First of all, (I’ve probably said this before but I’ll say it again), Laura is one of the best cooks I know and best hostesses.  Secondly, they have an adorable 8 month old baby who is just starting to elbow crawl and is absolutely the cutest thing (with the possible exception of the fatness) and we got to play with him as much as we wanted.  (Key word there, wanted 🙂  For as many times per week I get asked when we are having children—and yes, I get asked this a lot– I feel uncomfortable admitting in a public OR private forum that, yes, I do generally love babies.  And kids.  That are not my own because I do not have to take them with me.)

Okay, tangent over.  Baby: cute and fun.  That’s all I’m saying.

photo

Carving the ham is a serious job.

Here are some poorly lit food photos:

image_2

(clockwise): potatoes, truffle mac & cheese, green beans, ham, corn pudding.

image_3

My plate of food.  If only that were all I ate.  Unfortunately there was a starter of cheese and salami and I was already pretty full by dinner.  This did not stop me from having seconds.

image_4

Out of about 5 photos somebody took of us, this was the best one.  I’m blaming the lighting?  Or the wine…all around.

image_1

And then it was dessert time.  Yes, that is three desserts for six people.  And homemade ice cream.

It was a wonderful day.  We felt lucky to have such good friends who would invite us for Christmas when we weren’t even related (and not even a pity invite, they genuinely wanted us to come—or are really good actors!)  And then we went home and passed out.  And I weighed myself and realized I’d gained 7.8 pounds over the course of the day, which truly made me realize how much I ate (gross!) and explained why I had felt so awful for the past few hours.

image

Ladies and Gentlemen…I present my husband!

At one point we were sitting around the table and I could barely sit up.  The baby was on the floor and I realized my best bet of being able to lie down without being super rude or admitting complete food failure was to get down on the floor with the excuse of playing with the baby.  This was a brilliant move, by the way! It culminated in me sitting in a comfy chair with him trying to get him to sleep reading “Are you a cow?”  Spoiler alert:  he was not a cow.

photo (52)

I feel better this morning.  That is, I’m still completely full, and I am so not eating breakfast, possibly never eating again, and I’m about to head to the gym to work out but that will be hard because I’m pretty sure my entire body has turned to flab.

At least all the overeating holidays are behind us, right?  Hopefully I can still fit into a shiny dress for New Year’s!

Note:  my book giveaway is still running: enter now!

Tell me about your Christmas in the comments (or if you don’t celebrate Christmas, you can talk about that as well.)

Christmas is about the memories

Driving home from my second (of three) church services today I started thinking about memories from Christmas.  I heard somebody say once, you aren’t planning a wedding, you’re planning the memory of a wedding.  I think many holidays and special events are like that.  Sure, live in the moment, all that jazz, but honestly, that’s for the day to day.  Holidays are for the memory making, right?  I turned down a Christmas Day gig because I wanted my Christmas Day memory to be of waking up next to my husband and hanging out with him all day long.  I can work any day.

Tantillo199

(I wanted this to be on our Christmas card, since it’s a Christmas themed photo, but somebody vetoes it.)

Memories from childhood

Singing around the piano

Loading up the car and driving to PA and OH. 

Grandma Miller trying to give us bags of sandwiches and Mom trying to get her to not bother.  Us eating those sandwiches in the car AND stopping for lunch.

Playing endless games—Acquire, Rook, Pit, Dutch Blitz, Monopoly

Playing violin duets with Leslie—for the family, for the church, for ourselves (Christmas Trio and the medley, need I say more?)

Eating so many cookies and candy in Ohio one year that I had to throw up…in the kitchen sink.  Gosh, I remember I felt better after that!

Ice skating, playing in the snow, having fun with siblings and cousins

Date pudding and 7 layer salad

Leslie crying over her presents when she didn’t like them (I probably did this too, but that’s not MY memory) 😉

Memories from a little bit older:

Coming home to see how much Carrie had grown

Dad joking (I think) that we should just keep all the presents wrapped and save them for next year

Cheese grits and cinnamon rolls

Being up late playing violin at various church services

Spending my first Christmas NOT with my immediate family.  That was really the point I realized I was an adult, and my siblings too—when we started spending Christmas elsewhere—like we are again this Christmas

Getting snowed in on Long Island and driving overnight from New York to St Louis in an overpacked Honda Fit with two of our best friends.

Losing my grandfather to pancreatic cancer (not all the memories here are happy ones, but I can be grateful for the happy memories of him from all the years before—I can’t think about past Christmases without thinking of him though.)

Interesting fact:  I never believed in Santa.  No one in our family ever did.  I was probably that kid who ruined it for the other kids…I didn’t realize until I was older that there were actually kids who believed in Santa—I assumed it was all a facade.

Anyway, thanks for reading my blog today, yesterday, in the past, and in the future!  Merry Christmas to you!

Tantillo263

Everybody needs a little Caturday

I have a busy day ahead, but I thought I’d pop in for a quick Caturday post, since it’s been awhile.

I know, I know.  Regular readers know that technically in my world, every day is Caturday.  Some people I meet in real life are surprised to learn I actually only “own” one cat.  (Does anyone really “own” a cat?)

image

I love the “no arms and legs” look.  WHO SET THAT CAT DOWN HERE?

image_2

This was a funny picture to me because I feel like she should take up more room on the chair than she does.  Odd, right?

photo

This is Albergo, my sister’s cat.  He is in a box. She sent that to me with the caption “First I had a box.  Then I had a cat.”

image_1

And this is not a cat at all, but our Christmas Tree.  We decorated it last night.  I loved coming downstairs this morning and seeing it again!

I’ll leave you today with this picture that made me giggle.

catsnowman