Holidays = mainly food

Sorry about falling off the face of the earth - after that third party I was just done in. Since then, the holidays plus the end of the semester just filled up my time.

We managed to get out of Maryland less than twelve hours before the storm of the century hit. I don't know if that's what they're actually calling it, but the two feet of snow that fell last week were more than Maryland had seen in 70 years. I'm a bit disappointed that we missed it, because I love winter, but I suppose that helping to shovel out the driveway wouldn't have been quite as much fun

We spent the past week for my parents. Now that I'm grown, my mother and I have an arrangement: I do almost all of the cooking, and she does almost all the dishes. In the past six days I've made: homemade pasta with creamy pesto sauce, cinnamon pecan rolls, Challah, nachos, homemade macaroni and cheese, Thai peanut noodles, a full meal of tapas, and a mushroom lasagna. I may have to go home and recover by eating only salads.

So, now we're off to make (and eat) more food. Merry Christmas!

Partying with physicists

On Saturday night, twenty physicists dressed in their finest descended upon our house. I had set the start time at 7:30 so that they'd leave by midnight. After all, I need my beauty rest. But you can't stop physicists once they start celebrating (which might be because they so rarely get a chance). It was just before two a.m. before we got the last ones out the door.

There were a few mishaps. Early in the evening we accidentally put both hosts' cell phones, along with the door bell alarm, in a separate room and closed the door. Our next set of guests waited outside in the cold for twenty minutes, fruitlessly calling, ringing the doorbell, and throwing pebbles at our window. (Sorry, R and B!)

But in the end, every last scrap of food was consumed, many bottles were emptied, and many problems were solved (see the picture below).
B and I, after drinking a few chocolate-mint martinis. (I recommend them, even though they in no way deserve the name "martini".)
So, now it back to boring old life, where I don't wear glittery dresses, but where I do spend lots of quality time with my laptop and Word documents.

Advent

The house is decorated. Buddha and the kokopelli (more info on the New Mexican troublemaker here) are swathed in tinsel. I'm embarrassed that my Christmas decorating mantra seems to be, "The more tinsel, the better."

I've made and hung snowflakes, just as I do every year. This year I figured out how to make 3-D snowflakes.
And, for the first time ever, I made an Advent calendar for Andrew. When I was an exchange student in Germany, many years ago, my host mother made an Advent calendar for me. She sewed 24 little bags and put treats in each one.
Since today is December 1st, Andrew got to open the first one. I've used much better chocolate than those pre-filled cardboard calendars usually have.