Just a short message to all who celebrate Christmas (and those who don’t, but like the decorations, lol). I love seeing my tree up and take far too many pictures of it. I have nearly 12 years represented here, although I’m missing a couple years.
2008-2012 (mysteriously missing 2009)
I’m an ornament collector (I can stop any time, I swear). Every year I either buy new ones or my kids buy me one or two. And don’t even get me started on the socks they give me. Last year was doughnuts & llamas (not on the same socks, however).
2013-2016 (cameo appearances by Tenka & Zak)
This year I went a little crazy buying sea life ornaments. If you look close enough at 2021, you’ll see a couple jelly fish, a crab, a seahorse, a sea turtle, and a couple of flamingos, one dressed as a mail carrier and one as Santa.
2017-2021 (2018 MIA, photo bomb by Tenka)
I hope you have a lovely end of 2021, no matter what holidays you celebrate.
December is my favorite month. Besides the holidays, it’s my birthday month. As a kid (and even as an adult), it seemed to take forever for my big day to roll around. My sisters’ birthdays were earlier in the year, so they got to celebrate long before me.
Even though I was a December baby, I always got a separate celebration and gifts for my birthday and Christmas. My mom and grandma loved to party and always made my birthday a fun day. Mom would often make a “Barbie doll” birthday cake. That’s me on the left with my older sisters.
We would make a piñata out of paper grocery bags decorated with loops of tissue paper, then hang it outside and smash it with a stick until all the candy fell out. So much fun.
Christmas was another high point in December. My grandma would put up a tree. For years, we had one of those odd aluminum ones with a color-changing light that shined on the metal tree from below. Also, my papa a fake fireplace for Santa that my papa made. What can I say? Not too many fireplaces in Los Angeles.
My sisters and I couldn’t wait until Santa came. We’d go to church on Christmas Eve and wake on Christmas to piles of gifts filling the living room floor.
My dad was Jewish, but he went along with the Christmas joy. Later, when I married my Jewish husband, we started celebrating Hanukkah. I learned to love latkes (yummy) and lighting the Hanukkah lights.
It was a different kind of joy when my boys were old enough to memorize the Hanukkah prayer in Hebrew before lighting the candles. They took turns on the eight days of Hanukkah, and they loved it when they were the one to light them on the eighth day when all of the candles were blazing.
I do love decorating my Christmas tree every year. I particularly like unusual ornaments, and always look for new ones. In addition to the owl, fairy, and octopus shown in the picture above, I have a porcupine, a Chinese dragon, a narwhal, and a gecko licking a candy cane, among others.
Do you have any favorite traditions from the holidays? Feel free to share in the comments.
With the November and December holidays approaching, I’ve been thinking back to how we celebrated in the past. As I was growing up, every holiday get together took place at Grandma’s house. From New Year’s Day through New Year’s Eve (including all the birthdays), everyone gathered at Grandma’s for too much food and drink, and sometimes way too many presents. After dinner, we’d often crowd around the dining room table for a poker game.
How I learned the crucial life skill of playing poker
By the time I had my first son, my mom and stepdad had bought a restaurant overlooking Mono Lake, and Grandma moved up there with them. After that, we celebrated at least Thanksgiving and Christmas in the dining room of the Mono Inn. It was a long drive (7 hours) with a toddler and a baby, but so beautiful once we were there.
Left, the family restaurant, middle, the restaurant dining room with all of us crowded around the table, right, Mono Lake CA
All those years that Grandma hosted the holidays, she did all the cooking. When I was old enough, she’d let me do the relish tray, but other than that, it was all on her: the turkey (for Thanksgiving and Christmas) or ham (for New Years and Easter), the mashed potatoes or potato salad, the yams or her incredible baked beans. She did it all. Amazing.
The dessert table, as if we had room after a huge Easter dinner. It’s possible I made the bunny cake.
How do you do your holidays? Always in the same place, or do members of the family trade off? Let me know in the comments. It would be great to share stories.
Is it just me, or did someone mess with August and make it last twice as long? Between triple digit heat here in Northern California, wildfires, and the ever present pandemic threat, I thought August would never end.
There are two other things I thought might never happen. One, I thought the fruit on my Flavor King pluot tree would never ripen. Two, once it did ripen, I thought I’d never get all the fruit off the tree.
In my last blog post, I talked about a Very Naughty Squirrel that stole all the fruit from my pluot tree. That tree was my Flavor Supreme, which only produced about a dozen pluots (it rarely produces much). The other pluot tree, the Flavor King, ripens much later in the summer. And this year the Flavor King exploded with fruit.
With all that bounty, you would have thought that Very Naughty Squirrel would have had a field day. But there has been no sign of any pilferage. For some reason, Mr. VNS doesn’t like Flavor King pluots Considering how much fruit there was, I might have welcomed a little thievery.
Whenever I’ve gone out to harvest, I’ve brought in the same enormous amount. And I swear to you that when I’ve gone out the next day, it looked like the tree had replaced the fruit I’d picked with a fresh batch. I brought in the last of it over the weekend, and I’m a little afraid to go out there again. There might be more.
I shouldn’t complain because these pluots are the most delicious fruit I’ve ever tasted. And the jam I make from them is like nectar of the gods. I just never thought I’d have such a large harvest that I’m sneaking bags of pluots into other people’s houses. 😉
I did can some (which was a disaster—can you say “exploding fruit?”). I plan to make more jam. And of course we’ll be eating fresh pluots like there’s no tomorrow. As good as they are, I don’t think we’ll get tired of eating them. I’m just worried they’ll overripen and go to waste. So, does anyone out there have some great recipes using stone fruit? I’m sure anything that calls for plums or apricots would also be good with pluots. If you have any suggestions, leave a comment.
I grew up in Los Angeles, and in all my time there I didn’t see much wildlife. Up here in Northern California, critters are everywhere—turkeys, ducks, and geese waddling down the road, the occasional deer in the front yard, skunks and raccoons causing a ruckus.
Then there are the squirrels.
Squirrels that climb my oak tree. Squirrels that use my back fence as a superhighway. Squirrels who bury acorns that sprout a million little oak trees in the spring.
And squirrels that strip my pluot tree of every last fruit. Grrr!
Full disclosure, they only stole the fruit from one pluot tree. What broke my heart was that it was the FIRST TIME that tree produced more than one or two fruits. I had lovingly wrapped each of those pluots in tiny stockings (like the ones you use to try on shoes) to protect them from the birds.
That didn’t slow down the squirrel at all. The furry invader ripped the pluots off the tree and left me tiny stockings and pluot pits all over the yard. It only spared one lonely pluot. Apparently the branch was too skinny to support even a squirrel.
I ate the pluot. It was delicious. Which only made me sadder for the others.
And that squirrel wasn’t finished. It discovered my tomato plants on the other side of the yard. And it stole not one, not two, but three of the four tomatoes on my Early Girl bush. They weren’t even ripe! Who eats an unripe tomato? At least before dipping it in breadcrumbs and frying it?
An uncouth squirrel, I guess. I even caught him in the act, up in my oak tree, chowing down on the tomato.
It’s too late for this year, but what do you do to keep squirrels from making a buffet of your garden? I’d love to hear from you, even if it’s just to share your favorite recipe for fried green tomatoes. Drop me a line with your ideas. Next year, we’ll show those squirrels who’s boss.
