Pre-Christmas

As the year begins its race to the finish line, there are a few events in our lives that signal the coming of the Christmas season.  Black Friday is not one of them.  Holiday parties and festive epicurean creations on the secular side, combined with the spiritual warmth of Advent and Christmas concerts are some of those events that mark this time of pre-Christmas.

It started with the Old St. Pat's annual Deck the Hall concert.  The metropolis symphony orchestra joined the 85-voice OSP concert choir for three sold out evenings of candle light performances.  Of note was the Cathedral Christmas medley and Arvo Part's Bogoróditse Djévo.  Everyone did a fantastic job, especially those who dedicate arguably the most time to this endeavor, the ones who are not paid to sing (nor pay to sing), but the massive volunteer choir who rehearse twice a week since September.   Also of note was Megan's party afterwards.  As always, her brilliant personality and friendship make for great hostessing and party fun.  We left around 2:30 -- you can only drag your feet so long!

Next in the list comes the baking, the cooking, and the purchasing of more butter than we buy in the remaining 11 months of the year -- though it turns out you can use too much butter.  Now vanilla you cannot.  Especially if it's pure Mexican vanilla, or, better yet, comes from the bean itself (shown below).  Aimee found a great recipe (especially so if you know my tastes) for Vanilla Cherry Chocolate Chip cookies.  In addition to this, she made lemon sugar cookies featuring lemon zest and juice.  Both recipes made an appearance at the annual Heineman Christmas Cookie Exchange party up in Skokie.  

The baking continued as we readied ourselves for the annual Castillo gathering.  Aimee made a cherry pie for this one and it was wonderful.  Below is a picture, along with a few shots from the evening.

Aimee and I with Jaclyn and Chris

Our most gracious hosts

Next on the list was our dinner with Ed Foley.  A brilliant man who is smart (a triple domer!) yet grounded, passionate yet quietly insightful -- he deserved nothing less than Aimee's homemade lasagna, featuring Giada's béchamel sauce (oh, thanks for the cookbook again Jenny, we use it all the time).  

Surely something must mark the season for Crowley too right?  I think it's when her sweater comes out.  Here she is, with a defeated look:

Much less benign are the boots though, and I think our video from last year (when Atlanta got hit with an ice storm) is worth a repost:

Coming up -- Christmas!  Cabaret!  And a trip to visit our missed Atlantans in January!