21 posts tagged “christmas”
May you find joy in the little things around you.
I wish all my Vox friends and acquaintances all the happiness and comfort that could possibly come to you, whether it be in family, feasting, furry friends, or a simple mug of hot chocolate or the smell of pine boughs.
Love to you all,
Laurie
At our Christmas party for the members of our organization last week, I was talking to a member from Montreal, and she had a drink in her hand but I didn't. She asked where was my drink and could she get me one. I said I didn't drink, so she asked, "What are your vices?" I said "Chocolate, for one." So she said, "I'll send you some chocolate next week."
Today, this came. It's about two feet by 18 inches:
It's the Ultimate Collection from Godiva, sent by the member, grateful for our services, for the whole staff (of 16) to enjoy.
Here's the description:
One glance at the sheer span of this impressive gift box and you know you’re onto something grand. Unprecedented in size and unmatched in scope, our Ultimate Collection is a new way to lavish the VIPs on your holiday list with a luxurious chocolate experience like no other. All told, 36 assorted chocolates, 20 assorted signature truffles, and 23 assorted biscuits are included. Large enough for full-scale holiday entertaining. 79 pcs. (2 lbs., 1.45 oz.)
And we polished it off, in one day.
Blood Orange Madeleines. Recipe from the thick, glossy, free, Food & Drink magazine put out by the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario), which has given me great results with every recipe I've tried from it.
Despite my doubts about the orange puree,
which tasted bitter by itself (ever chew on orange peel?), added to the sweeter batter,
it seemed to work.
Let me also say that I'm glad I paid the extra $4 for the non-stick pan. Saves greasing and flouring all the little grooves. And they pop right out with a little nudging.
Then when you half-dunk them in dark chocolate for a finishing touch, they rock.*
* There's a texture to them that's like when you have orange zest in a recipe, so I was aware of little bits of peel. After I finished one, I had a very slight bitter peel aftertaste. The recipe says that using a blender is better to puree than a food processor. Well, I had a food processor, so that may have been it. They're still damn good.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah and the joy of all other winter festivals and delights to my Vox neighborhood. You're the best, and it means a lot to me to be part of this community. It was extra wonderful to get to meet that wonderful bunch of you in Boston as well.
Thank you to everyone for all your support and celebration for my book this year. I hope there will be many more to follow.
I wish you all the best the new year can possibly bring.
Laurie
P.S. As a special treat, for those who have read Godblog (or those who want a bit of the flavor of it), I'm posting a deleted scene from the novel in the Hero of the Teeming Masses group. It's a public group, so anyone who wants to can look at it. Quite appropriately, the scene takes place on Boxing Day.
Just had to share photos of the gingerbread mini-cupcakes as they were revealed in a tray of goodies to my coworkers this morning.
I don't know what that fog patch is over the shortbread -- it's not on any of the other pictures. That's the easy-peasy fudge recipe fudge on the right.
Close up:
I didn't have time to frost them at home, so I brought my can (yes, canned) of cream cheese frosting, or icing, as we call it in Canadia and my sprinkles and some food coloring with me to work and mixed up the green and did them quickly at my desk. It's also less of a mess to tote naked cupcakes on my walk to work. For the family get-togethers Xmas Eve and Day, I'll do more like this, and some with light blue icing and white snowflake sprinkles.
No sugar cookies made the trip as planned, because even though I put them, properly cooled, into an airtight container after I made them, they were stale and hard as rock last night. So I'm doing another batch (from a mix again) tonight.
Also, on the way home today, a woman who cut me off on the sidewalk pulling out of a gas station actually rolled down her window and apologized, then I managed to catch Sodapop about to urf on the rug and got some newspaper under him before he did. It's a Christmas miracle!
I need one thing at the huge downtown mall. It's the closest place I can get to for the desk calendar I want for a friend. The one gift I forgot about till the last minute. I only have to stop in one store, I don't have to traipse all over the mall. Being the last weekend before Christmas, of course, the mall will generally be a zoo.
Do I walk over:
1. Today, when the streets and sidewalks have just been cleared after a huge dump of snow yesterday, and the sun is out, but the temperature is -14 C (or 6F for you counting in Fahrenheit).
2. Tomorrow, when another dump of snow and high winds will be in progress, but it won't be quite as frigid, and more people are likely to have stayed home because of it?
3. Monday after work, when it's that much closer to Christmas and people will be more panicky, and selection might be reduced. But the weather will be clearer and warmer again.
Thoughts?
We had a big snowstorm in Toronto today -- about 6 inches of snow fell, with high winds. All kinds of workplaces, including mine, closed down early. This gave me a start on my plans for the weekend, making sweets for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with the family, wrapping presents, and maybe even some writing. We're getting a bunch more snow on Sunday, so it's a good weekend to stay tucked inside.
On the sweets front, I did some cake truffles that I've posted about before. Orange/French vanilla with white chocolate coating, and lemon with dark chocolate coating. With the extra white chocolate, I made orange-flavored white chocolate almond bark, and when I ran out of almonds and still had a bit of dark chocolate left, I made dark chocolate cashew bark with a hint of lime. It was an experiment, but it's pretty good. I still want to make gingerbread cupcakes and shortbread cookies this weekend.
Here's my wrapping done tonight, while watching my favorite Christmas movie, Die Hard. I watch it every year, usually on Christmas Eve day, but tonight seemed like a good time, since I had to pop away from the TV to find boxes things would fit in, and extra tissue paper, and so forth and it didn't matter if I missed a few lines because I know it off by heart now. Here's the result of my wrapping:
Orange is my favorite color,and Ikea had orange and red paper this year. Score! There aren't any bows on the gifts yet, just post-its identifying them, because I have to take them in bags on the commuter train on Christmas Eve, and bows would just get crushed in the bags.
I'll do proper photos of the cupcakes when I make them, because it will be my first time trying this recipe. Catch you later...
I never hear my favorite Christmas song anywhere, I heard it in the first scene of the movie Toys (which I hated) in 1992 and it blew me away. I've never heard it on the radio or anyplace at holiday time since. I think I turned the movie on on TV maybe once after that so I could commit it to memory. I had no idea who sang it, it just seemed to be some unnamed character who only appeared in that production number sequence. This morning I realized I couldn't bring it to mind again. Thank dog for YouTube.
Here's "At the Closing of the Year", and now I also know the performers are Wendy & Lisa, and Seal even appears in it(!).
I'm starting to feel very Christmassy, since I did some baking and candy-making yesterday. I made fudge (yes, mariser, the chocolate chips/butter/condensed milk recipe is yummy, almond bark and sugar cookies. And I have a good deal of my Christmas shopping done.
Now I have to crack on to writing today before I can do any more kitchen stuff.
After spending yesterday in total sloth grazing on snackage while watching all three Lord of the Rings DVDs in extended edition (an annual tradition with my friend), today I will be industrious. I want to start the new year with a tidy place, so this is clean-up day. And in that spirit, I'm now posting a few odd bits and pieces that have been hanging around in my head or in my photo file.
1. I tried to post this one a few days ago, but in that particular moment, Vox crapped out on me. Anyway, the sign says, "You can get badly hurt by an electric shock if you go inside." Guess he found out.
2. I saw this on the road the day after Halloween.
A David Lynch moment, only it turned out to be rubber.
3. This was my Christmas card this year:
The inside said, "Well, it makes THEM merry."
4. Christmas Eve day, though I usually do the 10-minute walk, I took a cab to the commuter train station because I had so many things to bring with me to my sister's/my mom's: My big knapsack, a couple of big bags with food and gifts, and a gift bag that didn't fit into the other bags, and purse. As I get out of the cab, near the entrance to the station, putting stuff on the ground till I can load up properly, a guy about fifteen feet away notices and asks "Do you need a hand?" I did, clearly, because I'd already used the cab. And he wasn't skeevey-looking. And I was about to say yes, but then I had this thought that since my bags clearly had Christmas gifts in them, what if this person just grabbed a bag of gifts and ran off? So I said "No, thanks, I've got it." And succumbed to my mistrust, my failure to allow myself to be dependent (however briefly) on someone else, and perhaps even missed an opportunity to meet a nice man. I am still kicking myself for this one.
5. The first anniversary of my dad's death was this Christmas (Dec. 27, actually) and at my mom's place on Christmas Day, she showed me a poem that a friend of hers had included in her Christmas card. Here's a link to My First Christmas in Heaven, I'm not posting the whole thing -- go on and read it if you want. I'm not a believer in the Whatever High Atop the Thing, or angels or people looking down from heaven, I usually hate obvious sentimentality and rhymey-dimey poems, but these lines in the piece just nailed me:
"I hear the many Christmas songs
that people hold so dear
But the sounds of music can't compare
with the Christmas choir up here."
See, my dad loved to watch Christmas choirs on TV and beautiful singing would actually make tears roll down his face. So mine did, too.
Okay, I'm off to clean now.
In a few hours I'm off to the family Christmaspalooza (Eve at my eldest sister's, Day at my mom's) and it's dubious if I'll have any internet connection, so consider this my virtual Christmas card to my Vox peeps.
I wish you joy.
(Outdoor tree in a park in my downtown Toronto neighborhood.)
