On the 1st half of Christmas my true love gave to me...

Peter and I completed our first half of Christmas celebration with the Tullochs officially yesterday. We drank, ate and were merry as I hope that most of you were.

We played a bit of Christmas music as everyone joined in singing and the final gingerbread creations were quite incredible, thanks to Bernice for baking all the gingerbread.

Now next week we have round two Christmas down in Texas with the Wallaces. I'm guessing the weather won't feel as Christmasy. That's something that Peter takes issue with, in most if not all Kringle related tunes they talk about snow and only about a quarter of the world has snow around this time of year. For instance in the southern hemisphere it's full on summer right now but you never hear any sunny skies Rudolph wasn't needed this year carols. Perhaps I'll commission my Dad to write a song about the subject. "Springtime for Santa" "The weather outside is Righteous" "Summer Wonderland"

Happy Christmas EVE

So Peter and I have been out to the suburbs and back again. We got to see Brother Ian and Sister-in-law Lana yesterday for a late lunch as they continued on their trek from Arizona to Toronto. Tonight we are having some friends over for a secret santa gift exchange and a nice dinner. Then it's back out to the 'burbs tomorrow for Christmas with the Tullochs. We will visit my family the first weekend in January.

We did see some wild life out in Naperville though the beast was caught shortly after this running of the geese. 

We also made a gingerbread house and the world's tiniest snowman. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and I'll be back with photos and more to share soon!

Meet Treebert

Peter and I purchased him a couple of weeks ago. Oddly enough I am nearly 30 years old and this is the first Christmas tree I have purchased as an adult outside of my family home. It has been super fun having a tree this year. As last year Peter and I were in Costa Rica for most of December and we really didn't get that old Christmas feeling.

One day I'll get around to putting up photos of that trip and talking all about it but for now here is a fully decorated Treebert beaming in all his glory. By the look of the lighting through the window it's almost the same time as he entered our beautiful home.

And finally this is a photo of Peter placing the very first ornament on our very first tree! I gotta say I love that face!

I hope all of you have a lovely and very Merry Holiday Season!

Sparkle Skull!

While Peter and I were in Spain we found this amazing little jewelry shop where everything was hand made by a different designer. It was filled with the most unique and extravagant baubles and personal ornaments I have ever seen. Once one stepped through the door you would be greeted by a posed jet black female mannequin, arms akimbo in mid-air, wearing a floor length gown made of black silk roses, and the entirety of the mannequin's surface was covered in tiny red Swarovski flat back crystals. 35,000 crystals had been placed by hand by the artist is what the installation notes read. It was stunning. Upon our return Peter told me that he would like to make me something similar for my birthday. Here it is!

This is early morning with the light coming in from our east facing windows. The skull is certified long horn fresh from Austin TX via Ebay. After some 60 odd hours over the course of two and half months and nearly 5000 crystals glued to it's surface it is currently my most prized possession. Peter and I discovered, after he started work on this project, that there is a very famous artist (Damien Hirst) who also had a thing for covering skulls with crystals. 

Here is a full shot. As you move around the room the light refracts from different angles on the crystals and it sparkles. 

When I was younger I used to sit around getting depressed about feeling like nothing is original, that I could never write words, sing music, or create art that was completely unique and had never been seen or done before. It's a lonely idea but also completely untrue. As I've aged I have stopped trying to make something out of nothing and embraced being "influenced" (aka stealing) ideas from every creative source I could find. Unfortunately also as you age you start to have less free time to devote to artistic endeavors. My friends Loves It! say it best in their song Me Alone "it's the great debate to create or procreate" and it weighs heavy on my mind these days. But for right now this is my baby, now what should I name it!?

Cheddar, apple, bacon pie anyone?

It's better late than never to let you know that our Thanksgiving celebration was a huge success. Above is a photo of the delicious cheddar, bacon, apple pie that Peter made. If anyone would like to request one of these we need 48 hours notice. It's quite the process but oh so tasty! Also below is a photo of Ian and Lana producing some pre-dinner entertainment.

Unfortunately, per the usual, I did not remember to take any group photos once everyone arrived. Also Peter and I went on Friday evening after Thanksgiving to see the one and only Leonard Cohen. He was incredible. You know he's 7 years older than Bob Dylan and I saw Dylan perform 10 years ago and Leo's show was about 30 times better. He played for nearly 4 hours and can still hit notes that I didn't know were humanly possible. Unfortunately no photography allowed in the theater where we saw him but he's not much to look at these days, being 78 and all. Peter and I also celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary this past Monday....WOOHOO! So forgive me being a bit pre-occupied to write much these last few weeks. I'll be making up for it soon.

Here is a photo of the fridge before we started dinner. As you can see the lovely, definitely flightless, Norbert in the bottom left corner. This is after injection but before sauna. I inject my bird even though I don't deep fry. I find that it keeps the meat very succulent and tender. Also this year I incorporated a new thing I heard about via food network legend, Micheal Symon. I covered the bird with a marinated cheese cloth. Basically it's like basting it without all the harm of open the oven every 30 minutes. All in all a delicious meal and a great time had by all. Below is a photo of some fancy cocktail that our in house mixologist, Fancy Pete, was whipping up.    

From Left to Right: 

Bernice, Craig, Rob, Me and Peter