Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Christmas Spirit....
...is now afloat in the land, as the Day itself has actually come and gone, and a certain peace seems to have resulted from the celebration of it...maybe because there was such turmoil from the three-day transit strike...maybe because of the sheer discomfort and anger generated by it...there was pain in the City iar, and it was cold, cold, cold....then, when the Strike was over, the weather warmed up and you could feel the muscles of the City relax...we seemed to float into the actual Holidays, and, looking back, I now realize, i stayed very close to home during that entire period of time....I hardly left the neighborhood at all!!! And maybe that is why i feel so relaxed and good...
It doesn't hurt, I suppose that i slept most of yesterday...whenever i got out of bed to do something, I would usually do it for a short while and then i fell back into our warm and comfortable bed for a couple more hours of sleep....I think i actually did catch up on much needed rest. Today I feel wonderful.
Christmas Day , starting at 2:00 was our Open House at Paul and Steve's and after spending a swell morning with my Yonka family around our shiny tree opening lovely gifts, I got ready for the Party day ahead and went down to P and S's to help prepare for the arrival of our guests...Naturally, they begna arriving right on time!
But that was okay because the day was meant to be relzed and full of talk and being together....Kathy R. was the first guest and she looked so pretty...as Steve continued to cook in the kitchen,I was able to sit with KR and talk and talk...she is such a fun woman...a new friend. Smart and talented.
From then on, the in-pouring of people wa spretty steady and I feel like I was on my feet schlepping lovely things to the various food tables for the next 8 hours! Stephen cooked his usual wonderful, luscious and delicious foods and not only did it all look wonderful, it tasted magically good! People adore to come to their home and EAT!!! The place filled up with people, but at a comfortable volume...my darlings Ed L. and Sandy L. arrived, surprising me, and I spent the next hours hugging them a whole lot.....everyone mixed wonderfully well together, jabbering away as if they had all known each other a long time1 That sort of social interaction always amazes me...people really do want to KNOW each other, don't they? And the vibrant yellow-orange and red living room that Paul and Stephen designed for the party they threw for our wedding a couple of years ago, is one of the warmest rooms ever for conversation and letting down one's guard...people sit on those gorgeous plush red microsuede sofas and open up to each other...terrific to see. It doesn't hurt that when Pat and Charles Y. arrived, they warm up a room and talk to any and all comers!
My in-laws are natural poeple persons!
While they chatted away, and Stephen and Paul kept cooking and serving, Peter and I rehearsed a Christmas gift we wrote for the guys...and when the time came, we gathered all the guests in the dining room, where the piano is, and performed THE FIRST NOE (with those two little dots over the "e") for the crowd! I may have to include the lyrics in my next blog, telling the story of when we drove to Bridgeport to hear Jane Siberry, and how we sang carols all the way, until Paul stopped us and informed us of how THE FIRST NOEL should really be sung! Hilarious...so we made it into a tale-told by-song, and including two newly minted T-shirts with the huge word NOE (with the two little dots over the "e") in bright red....I shall put the lyrics in my next blog...Peter's song to the lyrics is really good,though...so you will only be getting half the fun...but...you'll get the idea...the guests adored it!
And so did Paul and Stephen...the gift was received as it was given, with love.
And the party proceeded to break up, in time for the huge family dinner that Stephen was cooking as well...while guests from the Open House were leaving, I was re-arranging the tables with Paul and Stephne, creating sitting space for 16 (!!!) dinner guests! And so we did. I then helped to decorate the tables with candles, napkins wrapped in green and red "Save Darfur" and "Equity Fghts Aids" bracelets,(the gift of awareness for Christmas), sparkles and more candles...and so by the time dinner was ready and those guests were called to the table it look extremely festive and pretty. There was a votive candle in a frosty green holder at each place...my goal was to make it look like the tables at Hogwarts, in the Harry Potter films!!! It sort of did! So nice. Guests "oohed" and "ahhed". And the meal was gorgeous! By then, I was so exhausted from what seemed like miles of running around that large apartment serving, setting, chatting, pouring, etc. I sat and had a quiet meal next to my adorable husband.
After dinner,we adjourned to the living room and opened gifts! We got home by 1:00 A.M.!!! Whew! No wonder I slept yesterday away!!
And now we are here, in that "after Christmas" place, with Peter downtown at his Broad Street office, and me and my in-laws getting ourselves together for a good walk out in the cold December sunshine...we may walk up to St. John the Divine, a favorite place to all of us. or we may go the Guggenheim Museum...Pat has never seen it! At the very least, being in this amazing town gives us the choice of so very much to see and do! Either way, our spirits will be fed and our eyes delighted.
A final nice dinner with our lovely family tonight, then off they drive to home in Michigan tomorrow! Wow. Time and its flight!
And the New year looms. Again...WOW!
It doesn't hurt, I suppose that i slept most of yesterday...whenever i got out of bed to do something, I would usually do it for a short while and then i fell back into our warm and comfortable bed for a couple more hours of sleep....I think i actually did catch up on much needed rest. Today I feel wonderful.
Christmas Day , starting at 2:00 was our Open House at Paul and Steve's and after spending a swell morning with my Yonka family around our shiny tree opening lovely gifts, I got ready for the Party day ahead and went down to P and S's to help prepare for the arrival of our guests...Naturally, they begna arriving right on time!
But that was okay because the day was meant to be relzed and full of talk and being together....Kathy R. was the first guest and she looked so pretty...as Steve continued to cook in the kitchen,I was able to sit with KR and talk and talk...she is such a fun woman...a new friend. Smart and talented.
From then on, the in-pouring of people wa spretty steady and I feel like I was on my feet schlepping lovely things to the various food tables for the next 8 hours! Stephen cooked his usual wonderful, luscious and delicious foods and not only did it all look wonderful, it tasted magically good! People adore to come to their home and EAT!!! The place filled up with people, but at a comfortable volume...my darlings Ed L. and Sandy L. arrived, surprising me, and I spent the next hours hugging them a whole lot.....everyone mixed wonderfully well together, jabbering away as if they had all known each other a long time1 That sort of social interaction always amazes me...people really do want to KNOW each other, don't they? And the vibrant yellow-orange and red living room that Paul and Stephen designed for the party they threw for our wedding a couple of years ago, is one of the warmest rooms ever for conversation and letting down one's guard...people sit on those gorgeous plush red microsuede sofas and open up to each other...terrific to see. It doesn't hurt that when Pat and Charles Y. arrived, they warm up a room and talk to any and all comers!
My in-laws are natural poeple persons!
While they chatted away, and Stephen and Paul kept cooking and serving, Peter and I rehearsed a Christmas gift we wrote for the guys...and when the time came, we gathered all the guests in the dining room, where the piano is, and performed THE FIRST NOE (with those two little dots over the "e") for the crowd! I may have to include the lyrics in my next blog, telling the story of when we drove to Bridgeport to hear Jane Siberry, and how we sang carols all the way, until Paul stopped us and informed us of how THE FIRST NOEL should really be sung! Hilarious...so we made it into a tale-told by-song, and including two newly minted T-shirts with the huge word NOE (with the two little dots over the "e") in bright red....I shall put the lyrics in my next blog...Peter's song to the lyrics is really good,though...so you will only be getting half the fun...but...you'll get the idea...the guests adored it!
And so did Paul and Stephen...the gift was received as it was given, with love.
And the party proceeded to break up, in time for the huge family dinner that Stephen was cooking as well...while guests from the Open House were leaving, I was re-arranging the tables with Paul and Stephne, creating sitting space for 16 (!!!) dinner guests! And so we did. I then helped to decorate the tables with candles, napkins wrapped in green and red "Save Darfur" and "Equity Fghts Aids" bracelets,(the gift of awareness for Christmas), sparkles and more candles...and so by the time dinner was ready and those guests were called to the table it look extremely festive and pretty. There was a votive candle in a frosty green holder at each place...my goal was to make it look like the tables at Hogwarts, in the Harry Potter films!!! It sort of did! So nice. Guests "oohed" and "ahhed". And the meal was gorgeous! By then, I was so exhausted from what seemed like miles of running around that large apartment serving, setting, chatting, pouring, etc. I sat and had a quiet meal next to my adorable husband.
After dinner,we adjourned to the living room and opened gifts! We got home by 1:00 A.M.!!! Whew! No wonder I slept yesterday away!!
And now we are here, in that "after Christmas" place, with Peter downtown at his Broad Street office, and me and my in-laws getting ourselves together for a good walk out in the cold December sunshine...we may walk up to St. John the Divine, a favorite place to all of us. or we may go the Guggenheim Museum...Pat has never seen it! At the very least, being in this amazing town gives us the choice of so very much to see and do! Either way, our spirits will be fed and our eyes delighted.
A final nice dinner with our lovely family tonight, then off they drive to home in Michigan tomorrow! Wow. Time and its flight!
And the New year looms. Again...WOW!
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