We've had a lot of local tragedy this holiday season and no one has been feeling very holiday-ish. Our usual foodfest/staff party was postponed until January, and I had to work a lot and so didn't get very creative. Christmas Eve dinner was a POOFed hunk of leftover ham, a nice asparagus casserole, baked potatoes and three-layer cornbread. All good, but unremarkable. We went to The Kid's for Christmas Day and she put together a nice brunch. She's newly gluten-free and made a really good cranberry/apple cake. Came home and made a very excellent frittata with the last of the ham. My miss AND hit this year was those darn caramel cheetos. I wanted to make some Goose Poop for our Storytime kids and messed up the recipe. The first time I made them I used margarine and thought they were a bit oily so I decided to try butter. After they were in the oven, realized I'd left out half the butter. This time they were amazingly good...light, crispy coating. Addicting. It was fun watching people's reactions when they tried them. Doubt...raised eyebrows...then, "Oh. Wow." And they'd always reach for more, hehe.

The weekend after Thanksgiving everything changes to Christmas in our family. Always has. We have 2 grandchildren whos birthdays are Christmas eve, we wind up putting up balloons and multicolored streamers in the dining room, its comical, because all around the rest of the house its Christmas. Its the way it turned out, this is the season they were born in. Since its the start of Christmas season go for it, I would wait on putting up the tree though. I agree with others, silver and golds and sparkles would really bring in the festive elegant glow an anniversary party should have anyway.

Hits: -New jute LR rug, it pulled the room together far better than expected and bonus points for being super-soft. Have to watch out for lounging felines when we walk through because cats evidently think it is a 9x12 cat Tem(purrrr)pedic and are ALWAYS stretched out somewhere on it -New recliners; they not only are totally comfortable but look so elegant and NOT reclinerish. Love, love, love them. Bonus points that I can at long last have cream chenille upholstery on LR furniture, woohoo. Although I have had sheets of aluminum foil on the seats for several weeks since the cats seem to migrate from the rug to the chairs if I let 'em -(Stolen from someone else) My holiday decorating this year was gorgeous, at least in my eyes :). Found some beautiful holiday pillows on sale at Pier 1, some lovely wreaths, all in my color scheme and everything appeared so festive . My sister told me that my niece said 'mom, the tree looks like it came out of a magazine'. The cats had no interest in the tree,they were sacked out on the jute rug Misses: -Huge expensive miss on new dining room table and chairs. Ethan Allen stuff and expensive enough that I just cannot get rid of 'em immediatly but I misjudged horribly on size. The table is far too large for the space and now I don't even have room for a tiny table or buffet. The chairs are bulky and pretty darned uncomfortable to boot. I made the mistake of buying for max capacity (holiday gatherings, annual club dinner at my home) without really thinking through the reality that 99.999% of the time the only people dining at home are my husband and me. Really, it's like that scene from Citizen Kane every night, him at one end and me waaaaaaaaay at the other. Luckily whichever one of the cats that has roused herself from the jute rug usually sits on an empty chair with her cat head poking up, so at least we've got a bit of visual comic relief -Still have several rooms of shame, including my son's room, the florida room and our office. I have a long standing goal of decluttering which didn't happen once again in 2014. However 2015 is looking promising: son is living with girl friend, daughter is moving out and I hope to get rid of miscellaneous extra furniture plus REALLY get in and toss out lots of detritus. Hope springs eternal. Cats love jute. That is all

Several years ago, my sibs and I used to have cooking contests. The first one was desserts at Easter one year. When my brother arrives he offhandedly says "is presentation part of the score?" To which I say "yeah, sure." Turns our he has made a cake under a caramel brittle dome. Totally duped. The next time, we were all ready for this new challenge. I don't recall what everyone else did, but I made little boat shaped cheese tarts, with phyllo sails. I put them on a silver tray. I made a shore line out of malt over cream cheese, a pretzel stick dock, wet dill strands for seaweed, including some wrapped around a white lifesaver. I think I still lost!