Yearly Archives: 2013

After checking out a few excellent Christmas books at my beloved library to enjoy this season (and not all of them for adult readers either!), picking up some delicious stuffed-crust carry out pizza, watching a couple episodes of Parenthood (our new addiction), and playing a few rounds of Wheel of Fortune on the Wii on Friday night, I hunkered down on the rug beneath the twinkling blue and white lights of our Christmas tree, swaddled myself in my favorite cozy blanket with a toasty and relaxing lavender hot wrap around the back of my neck, a plate of cranberry orange bread, and a steaming mug of hot tea nearby, and dug into a Christmastime mystery novel that takes place in a NYC bookshop. As far as chilly Friday nights go, I would call this winning. It’s in these moments of quiet reflection that I look around and remember how thankful I am to live in a home full of love – warm, safe, healthy, and dry – with a roof over my head, food to eat, a job I love, and a family I love even more. Things aren’t always easy, but the abundance of blessings never cease to amaze me.

On Saturday we visited a Christmas festival packed with gorgeous wreaths, freshly-cut trees, glittery ornament making stations, a lights & sound display, model train exhibit, and petting zoo of sweet animals. Ted most appreciated the model trains and I could have pet the alpacas all day. After our fill of free merriment we took off for an outdoor Christmas celebration of more of the same plus a toasty fire, hot drinking chocolate, some business-to-business carolers, and local shop browsing in the South Wedge. It’s always nice to just, simply, enjoy the season together. A hand-in-hand walk in the chilly air bundled in warm coats, the refreshing smell of pine, a free sample of drinking chocolate, an earful of carolers…it doesn’t have to cost much, or anything at all, to enjoy being together this season.

The rest of our evening wasn’t quite as great as we’d hoped when an unexpected surprise came our way, but as always, we found ourselves simply thankful to be safe and healthy and together. To make up for the chaos and frustration of a less than ideal evening, we made some comfort food – chicken pot pies with tall glasses of milk and wine, checked into our pajamas, bundled up in blankets, turned on The Incredibles, and promptly fell asleep in the living room for some much-needed rest.

In the coming weeks we are looking forward to more holiday merriment – enjoying a few drive-in or walk-around light displays, a small handful of Christmas parties with friends and co-workers, calling our families often, some cookie baking and milk drinking, eyeing pretty holiday crafts and ornaments, sending and receiving holiday cards, taking whiffs of fresh pine from trees and wreaths, partaking in joyful Christmas movies and music and books, enjoying the follies of playtime in the snow, peppermints and hot cocoa, roaring fireplace fires, nuts and nutcrackers, church, spreading peace, cheer, and goodwill, and quiet Christmas reflection – a holiday season that doesn’t thrive on commercialism or shopping or crowds or money, but that only requires love and joy and gratitude.

I think this might be a good place to start:

(The Christmas Wish by Lori Evert – available at your local library or independent bookstore – and Christmas in Paris tea by Stash – available on Stash’s website…thanks mom!)

What are you looking forward to the most this holiday season?

Early last week our sweet blue crayfish Ace unexpectedly passed away. She was born in our tank as a teeny tiny, microscopically small and nearly translucent little baby to our first crayfish, Maverick, over a year and a half ago in Cincinnati and, like a champ, both she and Gigi survived the 10-hour move to Rochester (a rare and impressive feat in the cray world). It’s always hard to say goodbye to any pet, big or small. She saw a cool little girl and we’ll definitely miss her, but we are also happy to welcome a new little girl and her six fishy friends (and possibly a few yellow and orange mollies we may be inheriting soon) into our aquarium family.

Meet Cider!

Cider is a 6-9 month old orange clarkii crayfish. And she’s pretty spectacular as far as crayfish go. She’s our first not blue crayfish, so that bright pop of orange in the tank is quite a change and really stands out. She’s very inquisitive, likes to be out in the open, and isn’t much of a hider, which is good because she’s not that great at blending in.

But she is great at several other things, namely eating all.the.time (she was halfway through a large fish at least half her size when we first saw her at the aquarium shop…and she hasn’t slowed down since. We feed her multiple times a day and she’s absolutely mastered the art of begging for food. You thought crayfish didn’t beg? Wrong.) Cider is also an expert at detailed exploration, climbing everything in sight (plants, rocks, the tank walls…), continually relocating gravel in her tank to suit her personal tank decoration style, trying to squeeze into places she doesn’t fit, and quietly sneaking up on and terrorizing the six harlequin rasboras who share her tank. She’s actually very entertaining to watch and we’re so very happy to have her!

Like the proud parent I am, more to come later…

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{thredUp, Gap, Loft, Express, La Salon Bianca, Aerial Arts of Rochester}

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The items above are a few things I’ve had my eyes on for quite some time. If someone asked me for a Christmas List (and, really, only our parents still do), that’s what would be on it. A little of this, a little of that. Wants, but not needs.

It might come as a surprise to some people that we don’t really do Christmas presents anymore. Not for each other, not for our families. We usually send out Christmas cards, and perhaps a tiny thing here or there, and I do love to bake and mail edible treats to family around the holidays, if time and resources allow. But that’s usually about it. And we certainly don’t expect any gifts in return at Christmastime from our own families or friends either.

It’s not a matter of not loving to give or receive presents. We all love gifts – who doesn’t love gifts? We love giving them just as much, if not more, than we love receiving them. But as we get older, we’ve discovered several things:

1. Gifts for everyone are expensive. Ted freelances, so his income is very sporadic and unpredictable. I work at a non-profit theatre, where I love my job but I certainly don’t do it for the money, and we have medical bills to pay. Simply put, we could be thrifty and save all year (and we do), but we still wouldn’t have the money to buy gifts for each other, or everyone else, every year. It’s not a reflection of how much we love or care about our family and friends, it’s not a reflection of our spending or saving habits, and it’s not a reflection of selfishness or generosity. It’s just the way it is.

2. Nobody in our family really needs anything that they could not go out and buy on their own if they really needed, or even wanted, it. We know that’s not the reason to give or not give presents. But, very fortunately, everyone in our family has enough. Us included. All our basic needs are met. Everything else is just an extra, or a want, or something that can wait a while. And while we wish we could indulge those wants for each other and our families and friends, making sure needs are met comes first.

3. On that note, we realize that they are many, many hundreds of thousands of people in this city, in this state, in this country, and all around the world whose needs are not met. Because we are fortune to have what we have and to have what we need (and we know our families and most of our friends do too), we’d rather use the little bit of money we can scrape together during to the holidays to help make sure others needs are met – and so we do that instead. Adopt a family, donations to particular cause or charity, buying a few necessary items for a person we have found out is in need, purchasing food for the soup kitchen, donating our time, gathering physical donations – whatever it is, we’d rather put time and money toward those who need it than spend it shopping or spending where there is not a need. So that’s what we do.

4. It sounds cliché, but for us, it really isn’t about the presents. Christmas is about the spirit of the season. It’s about being together, enjoying what we have, enjoying each other, and enjoying wonderful experiences rather than things. For some of us, it’s really about Christ too. Presents are nice,  and its human nature to want – nothing wrong with that. But, for us, there’s so much more to Christmas than just that.

There’s no right or wrong way to do Christmas. This is the choice that works best for Ted and I, as a family. And there are plenty of other valid choices out there too that work for other families. But this is how we Christmas. Ted’s extended family, for a while when everyone would get together at Christmas, did a gift card exchange where each person purchased one $25 gift card and gift cards were traded around in some fun fashion (Wii game contests, board games, etc.) amongst all who were present – so everyone spent $25 on one gift card and everyone received one gift card – a system I liked as well. I know many families couldn’t imagine a Christmas without a tree full of presents. I know families who don’t do presents at all. I know families who only do presents for children, and others who only do charity donations, and others who only do holiday cards, and still others who spend their money to travel to see one another instead. To each family their own.

Do you have any holiday traditions regarding gifting? What does your family do?

This weekend brought us, what I’ll consider, our first real snowfall of the season. We had some snow last week too, but it didn’t really stick. It snowed most of the day on Saturday, temperatures plummeted to the teens with wind chills in the single digits, and we actually had to finally turn on the heat in the house, use a snow brush and ice scraper on the car, buy a new tall-truck-friendly extendable snow brush for Ted’s truck, and tread cautiously on sidewalks and pavement because of ice. I also had to officially pull out my snow boots, knee-length down feather winter coat, gloves, hats, earmuffs, thermal under layers, and my footed pajamas (don’t hate – they’re amaaazing). It’s also the time I year I start considering a car wash membership so we can prevent rust on our vehicles with all the salt from the roads they’ll be kicking up for the next 4 months. I try to hold off on all this hoopla as long as possible by living in denial that winter could actually be here again already, but alas – it’s apparently time to put away the peep toe wedges, dig out the holiday teas, and face the fact that fall is over.

There are a few trees left in Rochester that still have beautiful, brilliant red, yellow and orange leaves on them. They’re stunning against the white snow. A gorgeous sight to behold. While fall falls away, I’ll hold on a little longer by playing catch-up and sharing a few posts containing the last of our fall adventures this week.

The first weekend in November Ted and I decided to take a quick, surprise trip to visit family in the Cleveland area. Cleveland is only about 4 or 5 hours west of Rochester, so it was a completely random, manageable, and fun trip. We left early Friday afternoon, drove in some pretty substantial and wild winds (ah, lake effect) to Erie, Pennsylvania – halfway between Rochester and Cleveland – where we met up with Ted’s cousin’s daughter Michaela, who is in college at Mercyhurst. We carpooled with her the rest of the way to Cleveland where we enjoyed some good old-fashioned high school eats at the local Dairy Queen and then surprised Michaela’s mom, dad, and two brothers Marcus and Martin by showing up at Marcus’ last football game of his high school career (he’s a senior). It was a perfect, chilly fall evening and we had a blast sitting on the bleachers, bundled in sweatshirts and blankets, watching Marcus play some Friday night football, and catching up with Ted’s uncle, all the cousins, and their kids. And the game had a wonderfully exhilarating ending with a, literally, edge-of-your-seat last second win for Marcus and his team. Oh, and the celebrating that followed! It was so nice just to be out of the field after the game to surprise Marcus, and with all those kids – so many of them seniors – enjoying an important and thrilling moment in their high school lives – their youth, excitement, freshness, and love of life was just totally palpable. It was such a beautiful reminder of all of the fun of my own high school years and high school friends.

The next day, which wasn’t nearly as beautiful as it was freezing cold, windy, and pouring rain, we stood outside by the bleachers, cloaked in as many layers as possible beneath massive umbrellas for three hours, watching Martin’s last football game of the season. Martin’s team also pulled off a win – though they had a pretty nice lead all along. Unfortunately, the awful weather dampened some of the celebrating and excitement of their win. Overall, we were really glad we could spend a few hours with everyone and catch both of the boys last games of the season. It was totally worth the trip! Thanks for putting us up for the night guys! :)

We stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant, where I had the best hot and sour soup of my entire life, before the drive back home. The soup was so good that I actually ordered more to take back home with us to Rochester. It was so good that the guy made each bowl fresh on the stove, not pulled from a stock pot. And it had delicious meat in it, which is pretty rare in a hot and sour soup. I’ve been dreaming about this soup for the past three weeks, guys. It was that  good and I’m pretty sure we’ll be making a special trip there every time we find ourselves in Cleveland. The drive back, though rainy, was beautiful as well because all the fall leaves were totally brilliant – pretty much right at peak, so poor Ted got to listen to “look at tree!” the whole way back home. The hazards of being married to someone who loves fall as much as I do, I suppose.

At home we finally carved up our pumpkin (using autumn-shaped cookie cutters – leaves, acorns, apples, pumpkins, etc.) and I roasted a batch of pumpkin seeds (salted caramel pumpkin pie flavored! so good!) and enjoyed it with some fresh apple cider. Such a great ending to such a great weekend!