Good Thing Fourteen: Christmas Food Traditions

Monkey Bread--made by Dad.


Strata--made by Mama.


The family is capable of making real cranberry sauce. . . and we do. Even a really creepy creamy one that I think has horseradish in it. But we all love the canned cranberry sauce the best. Truly. And for the holidays we usually cut it into holiday specific shapes--turkeys for Thanksgiving, stars for Christmas. (My grandmother also always made bunnies out of pear halves for Easter. . . )


And then Pepper always hanging close by the table hoping for something to conveniently fall to the floor for her.

Good Thing Thirteen: Dinosaurs

Seriously. Is there anything cooler than dinosaurs? It's the first things that kids discover that are beyond belief. . . and yet are still real. Dragons used to live on this very earth and they were HUGE! And so they teach kids science and awe and linguistics (those are some long, complicated names those beasts have. Spell or pronounce this at 3 years of age: Dasygnathoides).

And if we're lucky, that awe and inquisitiveness sticks with us for the rest of our lives. . .

I'm lucky this year, because my niece and nephew have just hit their dinosaur phase. And so I got to spend time making dinosaurs just for them for Christmas. (*Shhhh, though. They don't open those gifts until tomorrow.)

Good Thing Five: Our House Looks Like Christmas

Every year, we hem and haw over whether or not to decorate the house. We don't have kids yet and we're busy and we always spend Christmas in Cincinnati with my family. But it's so nice to have a decorated house, right? The house is a little cheerier. It break up the monotony of the appearance of the house that we spend a lot of time in in the winter's of Chicago.

Anyhoo. We rallied again this year and got it done.

How is Christmas two weeks away?

We've been so busy this year that the whole Holiday season has sort of crept up on us.

But this weekend, we went shopping in town to all of our favorite groceries and butchers to pick up food we don't get out in the suburbs. The Vietnamese grocery on Argyle, the Greek shop just off Clark on Foster, the German grocer/butcher in Lincoln Square.

And as weird as that sounds, that will put me in the holiday mood. The holidays are all about love and gift giving and community and eating well. . . well, we're going to eat well all week!

The Very Brilliant Hollie Chastain

I had a great Christmas--wonderful time with family, nice to be out of town, and I received more than my fair share of amazing gifts. But one of my very favorite-est gifts has to be Hollie Chastain's print, "Something We Shouldn't Be Doing."

My sister gave it to me. . . and unlike most of the art I buy or am given that languishes in a pile for a year before I get it into a frame and hung on a wall, this one was framed right away--beneath a gorgeous deep grayish brown mat. I swear it glows. It makes you stop and think about years ago. It makes you dig deep down into your memory and dig up warm and nostalgic impulses. It's a joy to have in my home.

Check out the very brilliant Hollie Chastain's work in her etsy shop, and treat yourself to one of her prints. You'll be thrilled that you did.

Sale!: Final Christmas Shopping Day at Fivetrees

Since tomorrow--Monday the 20th--is the final day for the U.S. to shop at fivetrees and have items delivered in time for Christmas, fivetrees is offering a little sale.

When you check out, enter the coupon code holiday10 for 10% off your entire purchase!

Happy Holidays!

Where Did 2010 Go?

How is Christmas next weekend? This year was the most whirlwindy of my life. Anyone else?


We decorated, but just barely. I'm still getting gifts. Still making a few, too. Right down to the wire. I usually like to relax into the Christmas holiday beginning right after Thanksgiving, but this year has been a time machine of rushing.

The Joy of Gift Cards

So, Dan and I both received a generous number of gift cards this holiday season. And this past Wednesday, we vowed to try to spend the bulk of them while taking a long walk past all of the stores in downtown Chicago. So, our gift givers unwittingly gave us both a gift of money to spend in some of our favorite places AND an excuse to spend a whole day walking, holding hands and window shopping through one of the country's prettiest towns--as it turns out, in the snow and a lovely fog.

We took the train in and got off at the Brown Line Sedgewick stop--starting with brunch at Nookie's and then walking south down through the Rush Street District and then across the river and into the Loop.Does anyone know why the Sedgewick stop is so pretty? Why a mosaic artist was hired to decorate the first floor of the stop? It's certainly one of the prettiest stations in town now:

Then on to Brunch at Nookie's. Dan had some version of Eggs Benedict.

I had the 2x2x2.

Between the Rush Street District and the Loop, we passed by Pippin's--a lovely little Irish pub on Chicago Avenue that brought back a lot of memories from over a decade ago. . .

Pippin's serves free popcorn and a lovely Guinness. When I first moved to Chicago, right out of Undergrad, I had a job at Pearl Art Supply. I was making a pittance for part time work and almost all of my money went to rent, bills and trainfare. Back in those days, going out to dinner with friends once a month could wreck my monthly budget. But every now and again, I w0uld treat myself to a solitary Guinness at Pippin's after work. I'd troupe east on Chicago Avenue and spend 2 or 3 hours in the pub with my journal and more baskets of free popcorn than they likely should have given me with the purchase and nursing of one beer. It stunk having so little money, but I wrote and drew in my sketch book more than I do now. . .

Tiffany's Window. Would have been cooler if it was all cut paper as I initially thought, but the windows were still lovely.

And then down through the city, knocked out again and again by how beautiful this town is. . .

Wrapping up at Reckless Records for D.

and this whole amazing day because people gave us gift cards as gifts for Xmas. Lucky us. . . and Thanks!

Cool Christmas Gifts

Christmas was lovely and I received a number of amazing gifts. . . probably far more than I likely deserved. My two favorite things that are worthy of photographs are a print by Lisa Congdon that I have been coveting for ever so long given to me by Dan. So many of our vacations have taken us to northern places filled with birch trees. Her print reminds me of Maine and Door County and fun with Dan.

And Ma and Pa Stewart gave me a swift and ball winder, so that yarn ball making will happen so much more quickly than ever before. Yeah.



Plus, I am proud of a gift I gave--a cigar box guitar from SixSeis on Etsy. It is so lovely--a thing of beauty, with a quiet banjo-y sound that Dan is experimenting with as evidenced here:

Christmas Ornaments

I will never understand the folks who decorate Christmas trees the way they do in hotels--a selection of 5 ornaments repeated 100 times each all in the same color scheme. Like an interior decorator put your tree together to go with the oriental rug in your living room. Blech.

My peeps do it German-style (though, no actually lit candles on branches). Lots of traditional wooden ornaments from Germany, but also a million different ornaments collected over the years, made by me or my brother in school, made for us, made by the ladies of the family as party favors for the old big super-extended Christmas parties (a tradition, we probably shouldn't have given up on), things we picked up on vacations. Every year, Mom and I share the storiesthat go along with all of them. They're really important. . . part of the family history/mythology.

Check out some of my favs:

So 40's or 50's, this white reindeer with red eyes. In bottom of frame is a reindeer head I made for everyone as Christmas gifts years and years ago. . .

Cincinnati was Porkopolis, so pigs show up more than one might expect on Cincy trees. This was homemade by my mama.

All of the Other Days of Vacation So Far

Not really. But I have a new niece--since June. Yesterday in a court house in Ohio, she officially became a Stewart--her SS# and last name changed and she's ours forever and ever and ever. Apparently, after the judge gave my brother and sister-in-law a brief lecture on parenting, he turned to Morgan and said he had just one question for her. . . how have the last six months been? And she actually giggled in response! Really. Shut Up! So Cute!

Happy to say, that though Dan and I live far far away and haven't seen her since August, she liked us quite a bit and was nothing but happy and giggly in our company. We will be spoiling her rotten. . . even from afar. And every time I go home to visit, I believe it will continue to be a three way death match between me, grandma and great grandma to see who gets to hold her the most.

The perfect baby--see for yourself:

already a connoisseur of fine baby toys

uncle Dan got that baby good!

Zoo Lights

Dan and I decided that a good way to work some of the kinks out of my back (there's been some tragic back pain lately. . . but I'm on the mend. Sincerely) was to soak up some Christmas cheer at the Lincoln Park Zoo Light extravaganza. We soaked up cheer. I got exercise. We ate hot soft pretzels and cocoa and looked at some monkeys. It was a good night.


And Dan has begun his traditional thug-disapproval pose in front of all things cute and Christmasy. It's all for show. He loves the season. But it's so preposterous--this pose for photos at Christmas time--and it makes me laugh and laugh and laugh--which I'm thinking may really be why he does it. Last year, he posed this way in front of such things as a giant blow-up Clifford the Big Red Dog, a redonkulously cute installation of anime panda bear statues and a live nativity creche. Seriously, I know it's weird that I think it's so funny, but I come close to messing myself everytime.