Holiday fun

I'm in a tizzy of holiday preparations. Friday, I used the car share to finish up my Christmas shopping. Saturday was full of rehearsals followed by the Holiday Choir Concert. We sounded beautiful. There was also much baking for the dessert potluck that followed. I did find time on Saturday to get my Christmas tree. My friend Ellen agreed to help me transport and install it. I've got the lights on now (and I though of Dennis and Susan the whole time I was decking the tree all by myself). My apartment smells so good.

Sunday was all about the baking. I went to my friend, Sara's, house and we baked several different kinds of cookies. Much fun.

The rest of this week is filled with Solstice fun. I volunteered to help with the Solstice service on Wednesday. So I need to pack and get ready to leave for Christmas in the slivers of time that are left.

A whirlwind, but a happy holiday-joy-filled one.

Christmas spirit

It's good to be in St. Paul and away from all that crazy winter weather on the East Coast. Boston got 9 inches of snow? This is shaping up to be like last year when I had a much milder winter than everyone else.

I'm fully in the Christmas spirit. Decorations are everywhere (except my apartment - I'll get them up tonight, I hope). Need a second person to help with the tree, though. I've been catching the Christmas specials on TV. Family channel helps greatly since they've been showing pretty much non-stop Christmast stuff since the 1st. I hum carols under my breath when I walk. I've got about half of my shopping done. As a kid, you are all about the receiving, but as an adult, I think I may like giving more. I love picking out a really great gift for someone and imagining their reaction when they see it.

Potluck

Yesterday was a staff potluck (not all staff, just exhibits related folks, including design, development, the shop, etc.) Some tasty food and some scary stuff. I'm still not used to game meats showing up so casually. Boy these folks can cook them, though. This was my first real life encounter with the midwest "salad" which includes jello and whipped cream/cream cheese and many things that are counter-intuitive to a sweet salad. There were at least three of these. One was orange and had mandarin orange slices (sweet, like dessert, but not bad). One was white and I think had coconut. It was topped with pretzel bits. The last was green and was topped with sliced green olives with pimento. I chose to avoid that one. These dishes were in the minority, though. There were lots of veggies present. Big emphasis on the spicy, too. Also lots of wild rice, which is a signature MN ingredient. Someone made a dish I wish I had gotten more of. It had potatoes and corn and was subtly flavored with chilies. Delicious. I made my signature brownies (of course). I'm actually getting tired of making brownies, but it was cold and I had the fixings at home. I made a double batch and someone kindly cut my squares in half so there were tons of brownies, but when I went back to check later, they were all gone. Guess they were popular.