Monthly Archives: December 2021

Christmas

Less than a week away!

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I think it would likely make more sense to have more time off BEFORE Christmas, i.e. swap Christmas and New Years, to get ready for the holiday. In fact, that should go for all holidays. What ends up happening is that we get so busy and stressed out leading up to the holiday that by the time it gets here we are just so tired, and perhaps don’t enjoy it as much as we’d want.

That being said, I’m enjoying everything, I’m just ready for a break. I hear the Senate is off, but the rest of us are still working. There’s two more days of school, and I’m working until Christmas Eve as usual. I do have Christmas Eve Eve off though! I’m playing with Mannheim Steamroller tomorrow, and I have two more early morning classes this year.

The weekend has been fun. We went out to Nixta on Friday night, which was nice. We’ve watched entirely too much Yellowstone (for us that’s like 4 episodes over two nights, binge tv watchers we are not), and we watched two sets at Jazz at the Bistro last night. We had bought tickets because Sean Jones was playing, and then it turned out that a friend of my sister Carrie’s, a fabulous pianist named Aaron Diehl was playing as well. We loved the performance and had a great time.

The Clark Terry Centennial Celebration Band.
Selfie! This is the new autograph, right? And proof of meeting someone, of course.

This morning I’m getting ready for friends to come over for a little brunch. It’s basically my quartet, except the personnel has changed a bit since Eliana had her baby and we also haven’t been meeting anymore. But we have a concert with the St Louis Chamber Chorus this afternoon and we thought it would be great fun to get together beforehand. I made an egg casserole with spinach, mushrooms, and goat cheese, and the others are bringing things. (I’m also setting out a few other things, a small cheese ball that was in the freezer from cheese ball making last weekend, and some dilly snack mix I made for sharing and snacking, plus probably fruitcake cookies.)

Tonight we are meeting friends to walk down Candy Cane Lane, which we have never done. And this week we are having dinner with Louie’s family, hanging out with my friend April (woo hoo!!!!) and of course, getting ready for the holidays. We are traveling south, and I’m excited.

Since the holidays are coming up and you might have more time to read, a few recommendations:

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo. I almost put this one down after starting because I found the writing style annoying. I’m glad I didn’t because I ended up really enjoying it. So many characters, so different than myself, such a great read. Really really good.

Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult. It’s a novel set during the beginning of the pandemic, which is…maybe too soon right now, but it’s really good.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston. Light, fun, unique, a little sci fi.

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. Strange and different. Cloning is bad?

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty. Makes you feel glad your family is less dysfunctional. Communication is important!

That’s it for now! I’d better finish getting the house ready for guests and bake an egg casserole.

Random thoughts

Christmas Time Is Here

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It’s been a busy month, but in a good way!

I’ve realized that when I don’t hang out with musicians as much I don’t experience the whole FOMO about gigs and stuff. Musicians are always, oh are you playing the such and such on Sunday and then you feel like if you aren’t that you should be, and that can turn into a vicious cycle. I’ve played so many gigs here and there and everywhere, and they all run together…spending a Saturday morning rehearsing with yet another church choir can be perfectly fine, but it’s not what I spent my childhood practicing for!

In any case, I’ve been busy doing all manner of holiday things plus the usual teaching up a storm.

Last weekend we finished celebrating Hanukkah. We found it tough to fit in lighting the candles each night after work, but it forced us to give that time, to stop working, to relax, and to sit together with the lights. I teach from early until late, and Louie works all day as well, hoping to finish his doctorate by the end of next summer, and weekdays are long as a result.

We attended a Jazz at the Bistro show with Keyon Harrold. It was packed, which is both fun and a little scary, as always. (They require vaccination OR a negative covid test, but that doesn’t guarantee anything, does it?)

Work wise, we did “open house” all last week at my before school job, which meant that each day some parents were there and the kids performed solos for them. This is no small feat, and very exciting and stressful for the students, to perform a short piece from memory in front of a group of people! Though I have some things to work on in my group teaching, I was overall pleased with how my students did.

Other happenings this week: we went to see A Christmas Carol at the Rep on Thursday night. I really enjoyed the production! I don’t think I’ve ever seen the play live, and it was a lot of fun. I only took one photo there, but it was very interesting, because I didn’t realize that so many of our traditions come from Victorian England. Or, that is, I probably did know but forgot, as I am prone to do.

It was fun to see a few actors I knew from my Runaway Cupcake days as well.

Saturday morning I attended a party that a student’s mom invited me to. I went with my friend who is their piano teacher, and we stayed for a bit. It was mostly outside and was a hot chocolate/cookie decorating party. I took home a small box of cookies to decorate and enjoyed chatting and eating spinach mushroom quiche baked in bread.

We had friends over Saturday night for eggnog tasting. I’ve made 4 batches of eggnog over the past year–if you add enough alcohol it will keep in the fridge indefinitely. It wasn’t a super scientific process, but the overall favorite was this recipe, which I made in January. I used Jim Beam Bourbon, Grand Marnier, and Xo VSOP Brandy instead of cognac. The second favorite overall was this recipe, made in October, though I don’t know which rum I used, I think whatever I had on hand. The other two batches were the same recipe from Serious Eats, from July and November, and while everybody liked them as well, they just weren’t the favorites. I suspect the Grand Marnier recipes had a bit more oomph, and the longer aged one with spices was just more complex and delicious. We have more eggnog left so we may do the testing again on a few more people, but the basic gist was that aged eggnog is tasty!

You can see everybody had the four samples of eggnog to taste. We labeled the cups 1 through 4.

We also ate goodies: cheese ball, nuts, latke cookies, and so much more. I have been lax on my picture taking lately and I didn’t get a photo of a whole tray of cookies I put together (sad face) but you are probably tired of cookie photos anyway. We took a break from snacking to attend the Garden Glow at the Botanical Gardens, which was very well done. It was a nice night for it: cold but not so cold that wearing a coat and hat didn’t keep you warm enough.

We waited in line for a while to go into the house, so we watched the light and music show about 3 or 4 times through! The lights project onto this house. This was during the Nutcracker music.
We waited in line a few times for pictures and made strangers try to take our pictures. Louie got nervous after one woman fumbled and almost dropped his phone so I insisted they use mine as it is super protected.

Coming up this week is the last full week of teaching, woo hoo! No specific holiday festivities planned this week, but I have a concert this weekend my quartet is playing on (with the St Louis Chamber Chorus).

Today is a day off. I’m enjoying a slow start, a relaxing day, and planning another batch of cookies before starting to package them up for gifts. (I wrote gifting first and then said, what, no, no, I’m not doing that.)

Phoenix

December?

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I managed one post in November, yay me!

Happy belated Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah!

We traveled to Phoenix over Thanksgiving.

Wearing masks at the St Louis Airport.

I’d been stressed about getting ready for the trip for a variety of reasons. Leading up to it I had a busy weekend with a gig and three student recitals (in person!). They all went well, but I was exhausted overall from the year. Then I had to teach a morning class right before we went to the airport, so I had to be all ready to go by 6:30 in the morning and then trust Louie to finish up getting ready to leave the house empty for several days. He picked me up at work, and we got to Sky Park, through security, all that with no problems.

We flew Spirit Airlines since it was significantly cheaper than our other options. You are only allowed one free personal item, so we decided to pay for one checked bag (up to 40 pounds only, which wasn’t an issue for us but if you are considering it, just an FYI). Mask wearing on the flight out seemed pretty good, but the way back was NOT GREAT, and at one point the pilot came onboard threatening to land the plane in Amarillo and boot people off. It got better for a short period of time but several people near us took their masks off to “eat” and then never put them back on. When we landed back in St Louis mask wearing at the airport was about 50-50. Phoenix airport was very good about it though.

Anyway, we spent Thanksgiving week visiting my sister Leslie and her family, and my sister Carrie flew out to visit as well. It was nice to see them together, the weather was lovely, we made a huge meal, we ate that huge meal for at least three more meals, and it was nice to have a few days off teaching!

We did a short hike on Thanksgiving morning to work up an appetite!
Everybody except Carrie on the hike. Carrie took the picture.
At the playground on a different day. Carrie is picture, far right. Luca is swinging.
Oh, here was Carrie doing a proof of actually being there. I left my phone in the car because my pockets aren’t big enough so I had to depend on the kindness of others to share photos.
Chocolate bourbon pecan pie
Pumpkin pie
Old Fashioned Cream Pie, my favorite.

As pictured, we made three pies. We also made turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, corn casserole, green bean casserole, brussels sprouts, and cranberry relish. I think that’s everything?

In addition to just hanging out, the hike, and the aforementioned playground, we went to Zoo Lights at the Phoenix Zoo. It was really cool! So many lights all over.

I loved this style of lights/decorations. There was a whole path of animals like this, set up in various habitats.
Lights reflecting off a large pond.

We flew home on Saturday in order to save money, so I was able to decorate on Sunday. (And catch up, clean, laundry, etc.)

Nothing to see here, just a Christmas tree with a large cat in it.

Anyway, I’m sure December will fly by! I’m finishing up the semester, a few more weeks of teaching, makeup lessons, open house performances at school, some extra gigs but not too many, and a few parties/social events.

We are doing the Garden Glow one night with friends and having an aged eggnog tasting afterwards–what snacks go well with eggnog?

Anyway, 22 more days until Christmas break! That actually includes two days off, which long time blog readers know is rare for me. Thanks to the pandemic for pushing me away from so many gigs, for cutting down on the number of gigs, and for making me see that having a day off here and there is nice…though I definitely have some creep of pre-pandemic busy-ness returning…I think it’s okay.

How was your Thanksgiving? What are you doing this month to celebrate the holidays?