Boxing Day is part of Christmas that I have come to appreciate more as a grown-up; because obviously as a kid the day after Christmas is merely the furthest possible day from next Christmas and is therefore rather a disappointment after the frenzy of Christmas itself.
Now I think I prefer it! It's so much calmer (well, not that Doc and I actually did anything exciting for Christmas this year) and there are still all sorts of little treats to still be enjoyed.
We went to Randy and Laura's house to play board games, and were introduced to "Chaostle" which is sort of a simpler version of Dungeons and Dragons. Not that I would notice any major differences having never played actual DnD, but this was pretty fast moving and I enjoyed it a lot.
I took loads of photos of the epic battles - Then when I looked at them later, it seemed that almost all of them featured either the Dragon or the Unicorn, so I thought I'd use the only skirmish that was between these two mythical brawlers (I believe the Dragon won here).
There must be something about me that suggests that I enjoy home-made baking, because for Christmas I was given a dozen banana cherry chocolate chip muffins and a gift basket of assorted cookies. We finished off the last of the biscotti this morning, so I'm going to have to try out a recipe so we can make more of them.
Tasty little devils!
For Christmas the Assistant Chair of my department gave me a spa set, which is bubble bath, body cream, an eye mask and DUCKY SLIPPERS - I hadn't previously thought of Ducky Slippers as being a staple of a good spa, but now I shall demand them!
I'll give you two guesses which of the cats is a bit freaked out by these, and is very much on her guard whenevr I'm wearing them.
One of the joys of on-line shopping is when you get an unexpected bonus item, and this is all the more true when it's something fun. I received a small box of daft gifts* today and, when I opened the box, a finger monster was on top of a heap of bio-degradable packing peanuts.
I particular appreciate that who ever it was that put him into the box was thoughtful enough to give him a snack; don't worry, the packing peanuts are made from potato starch, so it's probably safe for monsters to nom on.
*Since moving to the US I almost dread the annual office gift exchange, because it is so tricky to gauge what might be a good gift for a colleague. I can't fall back on that standard of impersonal British gift giving - A nice bottle of something.
It occured to me this morning that I had not yet decorated the house for Christmas, but at the same time I'm right in the middle of reading "Miss Minimalist" (on my Kindle) and it just feels wrong to glitter the whole house.
So I compromised and hung up the faux vintage ornaments I bought in Boston last year on the twig arrangement from Halloween, then I added in a couple of other ornaments to balance those out and that's that.
I love the faux vintage ornaments almost more then I did when I bought them last year, they are delightfully tacky and rather adorable in their own very plastic way. Doc C is a particular fan of the angels, who are all holding their hands out in front of them in the manner of fisherman describing the one-that-got-away. They also all have black eyes, which gives them quite a creepy alien-being ambience.
Finally, on the dining table, I've put up the sad little Christmas tree beloved by Charlie Brown and all those who get a bit tearful when watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965) ...*cough*Doc*cough*...
Halloween may be over for another year, but I still have photos to show you!
Bwa-ha-ha!
The Dessert Buffet of Halloween! Quake with fear at the coconut macaroons, almond cupcakes with chocolate icing, pumpkin tarlets, spiced butter cookies and chocolate frogs!
The Flamingoes of Halloween! In plastic champagne glasses no less!
The Dozen Battery Powered Candles of Halloween!
Last week I bought some very elegant willow branches to arrange in a vase with a few whisps of cobweb, but it really didn't have much of a visual impact. Yesterday it occured to me that I wanted to make it a much bigger, and wilder.
So I went outside to collect small fallen branches from the maple tree at the front of our house, and added those to my arrangement. It looks as though I have a winter tree growing out of my bookcase now.
That's much more what I was hoping for!
This is one of our Halloween Party invitations, in fact I do believe this was the first card off the production line.
Let me walk you through my process.
Step One) I hand coloured the flamingo, because I didn't have any card in the right shade of pink; so I used a sickly shade of lilac and cross-hatched it with a hot pink gel pen. Then I used my iPod to find an image of a plastic flamingo, and traced the outline onto greaseproof paper; I used that tracing to make a template which I drew around. Finally I cut out ten flamingoes, by hand, from the now pink card and hot-glued cocktail sticks onto the back of them.
Step Two) I used a round cookie cutter as a template to draw ten circles of the same diameter onto the mottled grey card stock, and then I hand-cut those out too. They were then stuck onto the invitations, trying to get them all in roughly the same position.
Step Three) I cut out ten strips of white card, and used a Martha Stewart paper punch to get the fence cut-outs. I folded the strips in half and stuck the back half onto the card so that the fence folded around to the front of the invitation.
Step Four) Having not found any suitable grass (I was really hoping to find bento grass food dividers, but then I remembered I live in a tiny town on top of a mountain in North Carolina), I was going to cut it out of green card. Then I found a packet of acid green shredded paper which I bought at Easter to pack cupcakes in boxes with and then never used - It's the perfect colour, and, hello, it says "Easter Grass" right there on the bag! Perfect! So then I had to pull out individual clumps from the tangle inside the bag and comb it out using my fingers, line it up and cut it in half before hot-gluing it to the card. Once in place I trimmed the grass, so it wasn't covering the moon.
Step Five) I hot-glued the flamingo to the card so it was silhouetted by the moon.
Step Six) I folded the fence up over the bottom of the grass and the base of the flamingo's stick, and hot-glued it into place.
Step Seven) Place in a row on the mantel piece to check quality control and uniformity across the production line.
Step Eight) Force husband to admire the damn invitations you've spent hours making.
And I still have four to finish.
It being the first day of October Doc C has allowed me to kick off the Halloween decorating - It also helps that we got paid yesterday, because I needed one or two things to get this party started!
I'd already arranged the dried rosebuds, assorted foliage and ribbon (which all came from the lovely bunch of flowers I was given by a colleague who does weddings - So this is a recycled bridesmaid's bouquet!) onto the vine wreath, but it needed more. Specifically it needed moss, fake cobwebs and plastic spiders. The plastic spiders are rings that come in packs of 50 from the dollar store, but I had to get 2 packs because they ar a mix of the black spiders that I wanted and bright orange spiders which did not really work for this particular project. I wanted to make this look like a really lush wreath had been left on the door for years and was disentegrating, but was still just about being held together by the cobwebs -Actually the rosebuds kept falling out when left to their own devices, so the cobweb really is integral to this project.
With Edith's help (how do people manage to do any sort of DIY craft project without a cat around to helpfully try and eat everything?), it took me about forty minutes to get the whole thing finished and now it's on our front door.
I then spent a couple of hours watching old episodes of "CSI" and cutting the rings off the backs of the orange plastic spiders that I deemed totally unrealistic for the wreath. I then poked a whole in the back with my handy bradle and then stuck a cocktail stick in each one. I now have orange spider cocktail sticks, perfect for my Halloween party snacks and drinks! Thanks Martha!
Today's plans to stay in my pajamas and play "Portal 2" all day were modified slightly when it became clear that I needed to get more baking soda and vinegar to unclog the drain in the bath, so I got dressed and we went into town. Now if we were forced to go into town for boring things, then we were also going to look at Halloween stuff. I know it's barely even September, but the Halloween goods are on display already and I need to get the good stuff before it runs out. I've learnt from previous years that leaving the Halloween shopping until the day before results in a disappointing amount of orange plastic junk, and none of the good chocolate.
This year we are having a cocktail party with the theme of Suburban Nightmare, this only requires a very simple costume for me which I already have pretty much got together, and so now I'm focusing on the menu. I definitely want to make cupcakes with something poking out of them, and I think that something is going to be a miniature bone or two. I bought the mold this afternoon, and have successfully made two white chocolate skeletons.
I also got mini-cookie cutters to make hors d'oeuvres of grave stones crackers and cheese slice ghosts; as well as a baking tray which is supposed to make molded bone-shaped cookies, although I'm thinking of using that to make bone-shaped cheese straws.
Doc C is also getting into our theme, and has had some really good ideas for the decorations and ambiance of the house. This is going to be such a fun project to work on with him!
We got a whole bunch of things ticked off my "To-Do whilst in England" list today! This included some of the more important items, such as a visit to a Norfolk beach, have fish and chips on said beach, go for a walk and then have a cream tea in a proper tea-room.
The picturesque seaside town of Aldeburgh provided all this and more, and it was a lovely place to go for a stroll with my parents. The tea-room was even having a tea-cosy beauty contest, but fortunately they were a bit too busy to press us for our votes because it would have been a very difficult decision.
I also managed to track down a Vivian Westwood t-shirt printed with a picture of Blackadder's "absolutely divine and regal, and yet and at the same time very pretty and rather accessible" Queenie, and a Liberty print silk scarf; both of these delightful items are on sale to raise money for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day next week. I'll definitely wear the scarf, but the Queenie t-shirt is going to be stretched on a canvas frame and hung on the wall when I get home.
Speaking of Elizabethan beauty, here is Aldeburgh's cinema and gallery which happens to be housed in a gorgeous Tudor house. I've always liked the incongruity of that.
Mum had a meeting this morning so she took me into Norwich with her, and turned me loose for two hours. It's always disconcerting to realise how much a city has changed, but I could still find my way around without too much difficulty.
One of my first stops was Waterstones, where they had a Dalek plonked next to the escalator apparently browsing the Classics section. He was suitably grumpy, and threatened to exterminate me, which was thrilling. There was a sign taped to the front saying to please be gentle with him because he was very old, but I don't know why he was there or if he was an original cast member or anything really. Still, a DALEK!
Then I went to the bank to see if I could remember what the PIN for my cashcard might be. Now sometimes when one is writing a blog one has to consider the likely audience, and I know this week that Doc C will be reading this, so I'm almost reluctant to blog about this... But I thought it was funny, so bugger it!
I put my card into the ATM, and typed in the PIN that I thought was most likely. The machine happily brought up the screen asking how much money I wanted, I decided on £50, whereupon it told me by card had expired and spat the thing out. Oh. Hmmm. Good thing Doc C gave me his cashcard and PIN before I left, eh? That worked beautifully, so I do have access to British currency whilst I'm here. Hoorah! Iknow that Doc will now fret about what i would have done had he not lent me his card, but I'd have been fine. If necessary I was thinking I could have transfered the money into Mum's account and she could get it out for me. No problem, just a touch more complicated.
"Chocolate crosses? Yep - Aisle five, middle shelf, in between the Winnie-the-Pooh Marshmallow Pops and the Snickers mini filled eggs. I think the bubble gum pooing chickens are on the next shelf down."
I just do not understand.
This is high romance in the Alien Spouse house - Marmite on toast with a heart cut-out and a cup of tea.
We moved the furniture around in the living room, so that we would have more room to move when playing with the PS3 Move. When we did that it meant the vases of Christmas decorations were in odd places, so I decided just to put them away a bit early.
Before I did though, I decided that I can't wait 9 months to see what my new Halloween decorations looked like on the black vinyl mini-tree. And they look fabulous. I cannot wait!
Whilst I was doing that Doc C was playing Bocce on the PS3, and then we swapped over. I played the gladiator game, for about 45 minutes. That doesn't sound like much, but I was competing for the bronze trophy and at the end of it I was an exhausted sweaty mess. It was worth it though, I fought 12 duels and I won ten of them. Raaaah! So much fun!
The Holyoke Building on Mass. Ave. always has a window display of festive figurines, all about a foot high and most of them are creepy as hell; however I was quite taken with African American Santa and his quite magnificent beard of ringlets.
This is the best time to buy Christmas decorations because they are usually all discounted by a ridiculous amount to get them off the shelves. I love it! Shiny things on sale? For ME!
Of course the only problem then is that you have to wait a whole year before you actually get to use your new treasures. I'll have to make sure I put these fabulously cheesy baubles with the rest of the decorations when I get home, so I don't squirrel them away "somewhere safe" and then forget I bought them for the bargain price of $7.
Are they not deliciously awful? I feel a childish delight in their glitter encrusted charms I have to say. These are part of a anniversary release apparently, and are based on vintage designs from when the company first started.
I also bought a box of Halloween decorations by the same company for $6, so I only have to wait ten months to hang these treasures up.
I think my favourite of these is the happy ghost with a pearl sheen, but the cat has really good fangs and the details on all of them are quite charming. I'm obviously going to have to hang the crossed bones beneath the skull, and I think they will all look great on my mini black tree. I cannot wait for Halloween! As ever!
This is the amigurumi I made for my work friend Amy's Christmas basket. She's based on a particularly terrifying small girl featured in the reality television series "Toddlers and Tiaras", who has become something of a by-word in our office for the majestic power of a well timed strop. It's worth pondering from time to time.
The blizzard finally made it's appearance, and so the University was closed today - Snow Day! Woo!
I'd made mincemeat yesterday, following a recipe in Nigella's "How to Be A Domestic Goddess" which is really easy to make and delicious. It's cooking apples, raisins, currants, almonds, lemon juice, zest, mixed spices, sugar and cider. Unless you forgot to buy cider, in which case why not improvise with that bottle of Chardonnay that's been lurking in the fridge? Also don't forget the rum, but you can skip the suggested cherries if you like. Basically you put everything in a large saucepan, simmer it until it goes pulpy and there you have it.
Today was clearly pastry making day, so we could have some mince pies and a nice cup of when Doc C had finished his grading quota for the day. These were gone almost as soon as they were cool enough to eat, but I've still got half the dough left and two-thirds of the mincemeat so there will be more tomorrow! YUM!
Doc C has always insisted on buying a live tree in a pot, rather than going to a tree farm and choosing one to be chopped down. He then tends the live tree throughout the year, and is very disappointed if they die. The little tree we've had for the past couple of years is still doing very well, and has grown to an impressive two foot high.
This year we've left it outside on the veranda and decorated it with white lights that we've put on a timer, so it's lit when we come home and turns off when we go to bed. It's very pretty.
This year we also bought another new fake tree(I've put up the tiny black tinsel tree as well!), which actually explained a lot about Doc C's attachment to little fir trees.
It's an officially licensed Peanuts product, and I understand that this is a reference to "A Charlie Brown Christmas". Charlie Brown finds a very scruffy looking tiny fir tree, that he decorates with a single red glass bauble which pulls the branches down even further.
Doc C was apparently deeply affected by the film as a small child, which I will get to see for the first time when it gets shown on TV next week. And, I promise, if Doc C cries I will be tweeting about it at some length.
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