what do you know? santa came! good thing ben left this plate of stuff out for him and the reindeer (ben really gets into the santa thing.)

it's especially good that ben did this, because it alerted us to a problem we had somehow overlooked. when ben went to pick up the santa plate from the surface on which it has been lying -- a crowded little surface, full of candles, dried gourds, and other items -- it came up dripping with black goo underneath. HUH? we began lifting up other items to find the same -- smelly -- black goo. WTF?

the source of it all -- a pumpkin, a pumpkin from TWO halloweens ago, never cut, and which we thought had dried OUT. it was light, and it had never even shown a speck of mildew. well, now, we realized, it was a jellied mass on our counter -- and somehow we had missed this. but once we were moving things around -- there was no missing it.

so it was a bit strange to have fallen asleep on the couch watching james bond movies, been on the way to bed and suddenly be faced with a cleaning job that required most of a container of clorox wipes. however, we managed.



everyone gets to open a gift on christmas eve, of course, but just one.

now it is christmas morning and ben -- as a relative newbie to christmas -- has checked to make sure all the necessary traditions are in place. has the baby jesus been put in the creche? check! 24-hour marathon of a christmas story on the television? check! pierogies and kielbasa ready? check!

merry christmas to all!

the yearly trip to the polish grocery in port richmond -- to buy kielbasa and poppyseed roll for christmas morning -- is one of my favorite christmas errands, probably because it's one i've only ever done with ben, and is very "ours".

usually, i make the christmas pirogies with my ex-husband since he was very good at the dough. this year i decided, enough of that. i let him off the hook and ben bought himself a pasta maker. pierogie dough is a man's work. we will get to it tomorrow.

if you have an aversion to garlicky pork products, look away. we get three different kinds of kielbasa; we don't get the kind with juniper berries in it, because everyone except ben hated that one. today, we also got some liverwurst, which was completely different than the pink saltpetered stuff you get in a supermarket.

we are kind of in the thick of it now; most of our shopping and cooking is done, just the homestretch left tomorrow. the rest of today is just for relaxing.

my christmas gift from my friend lisa is always unusual and never disappointing. this year is clearly no exception!





two bright green, poseable mantids -- one clutching a festive bunch of castor bean pods, the other a mysterious thing lisa's card says is an "air potato" -- arrived today.





they are on the mantle and they are fantastic. fantastic! we have yet to name them. ben likes to name things, so i will wait until he gets home for dinner.

okay. tomorrow's actually the day we brought her home, but today is the one-year anniversary of me meeting ripley at the animal refuge. and so, to celebrate, we have been saving these special xmas-themed cat voodoo dolls for the girls. i handed them over this afternoon, to great applause.




for those of you who shop for dog and cat toys -- i can't say i know the name of this company but the toys are everywhere, and they are great. dogs LOVE the floppy limbs -- we love the sturdy construction (flannery's "burglar" doll lasted about two years, although ripley can get one of these apart in a day or two. she still likes 'em though.) and the designs are always so cute!



i wish i could have gotten more action shots but i was laughing too hard. the first ten minutes they had them, all both dogs did was hold them in their mouths and shake them back and forth hard enough to dislodge their own brains. it was the best!

(also, i looked it up, and the company is called fat cat inc. -- they get our highest approval rating!)

do check out ALL of our pictures from our trip to longwood gardens to see the christmas display. we had a wonderful time! we look forward to seeing the other seasons in bloom.

no, really. she wants to share it. go ahead. take a little nibble.

ignore the glowing green kryptonite eyes which are narrowed in possessive greed. really. she can't possibly eat the whole thing. and it's christmas. you know flannery. she'd really like to share it with you.

just come a little closer.

here she is looking a little less foreboding. you never know what toy flan is going to get dangerously obsessed about, and this is what it is this week.

this may be the very first ornament ben and i bought together. i love the little tin toy ornaments. this is our robot. resistence is futile.




this ornament was given to me ten or eleven years go as a gift from a pal. at the time, a holiday ornament seemed a very grown-up gift indeed. this has held up very nicely. it's rather atomic-age in design.




i have a collection of bunnykins figurines as well as ornaments from this series. i like these round, flat discs with the little illustrations on them -- but they are harder and harder to find! (and i missed an ebay auction last night by four minutes, darn it!)




my sister is the beatrix potter figurine collector, but i have this ornament, which is actually a box with a lid. apparently an "anthropomorphized rabbit" theme has emerged in my life, although it seems to have gotten started some years ago. this ornament was purchased at the old rizzoli booksellers on walnut street, where williams-sonoma is now. i miss that store -- if i could go back in time it's a place i'd take ben.




how funny, a little asian boy. there was a girl that went with this boy -- i think tim must have it.






tiny tots with their eyes all aglow will find it hard to sleep tonight... they know that satan's on his way! (from saks fifth avenue, the very den of the occult)




another tin toy. this one i've had much longer. an english double decker-bus, obviously.




...and, finally, this tiny pair of wooden clogs (believe it or not, until i took this photo, i NEVER noticed the word "holland" printed on the shoe!)

goodness, my strong preference for the color red is very clear in my ornament choices.

eight little fruitcakes shrouded in cheesecloth and embalmed in applejack. enough applejack that we do fear they will get up and walk on their own before long.

efficiency was the unexpected magical element of this holiday weekend. thanksgiving leftovers were dispatched and stored, and somehow the fridge looks BETTER than it did before we started. holiday cards are written and mailed. the house is decorated, and dried fruits are soaking in applejack for the making of fruitcakes.

tonight, sushi.

on christmas morning at tim's house, flannery got a whole lot of gifts.

here's tim putting together a rather exciting toy for shuler and zooey. they're spoiled too, getting gifts from both parents.






here's flan with her big squeaky lotus blossom toy.

santa has confirmed for us what ripley would like for christmas this year.





she wants hamsters. lots of hamsters. running. playing. o god. hamsters. look at them. moving. living. breathing. hamsters. now.

boy, you get one fresh wreath and one fresh garland, after years of artificial tree use, and you get overwhelmed. but in a good way.

we can't wait to trim the big juniper in the backyard and bring some of that inside, too. bathtub gin!

wow. it all just sort of swooped in, and then it was over.

i keep waiting for someone to ask me what i got, so i can say "spatulas".





alternately swilling pepto-bismol and drambuie, we undecorated today, so now the only festive remnants in the house are these organic ones (which still smell and look nice.) it's all about that return-to-normalcy: normal food, normal schedules, and a clean, spare look that we are craving.

i try to impress upon ben: it's not so much christmas day that's fun. christmas day is OKAY. it's all the time before christmas that is really fun. you can rent christmas-themed slasher movies like black christmas, for one thing.

our xmas-themed entertainments are fairly vicarious. never mind the fact that (even though i said i wouldn't blog this, it was just too personal and wonderful to blog, but i will mention it briefly) I GOT TO SPEND AN AFTERNOON AT QVC STUDIOS, HANGING OUT IN THE GREEN ROOM WITH ALL THE PEOPLE SHILLING WEIRD STUFF, FOR A WHOLE AFTERNOON, DURING THE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING SEASON (yes! yes! yes!) but nutcracker and other holiday programming? ick. after "helping" people choose tickets for various theatre events during the week, i don't have much urge to be out among them.

a holiday suggestion for some people who probably wouldn't even know who they were if i named them: when you donate money to an arts organization, you do so to support its programming and growth. you have not bought yourself a gal friday, concierge, or any other minion who will sit around happily fanning the tiny, weak flames of your self esteem. anybody who thinks they "should get special treatment" because they wrote a check is, in a word, small. in fact, the best way to identify a real VIP is in the fact that they rarely demand VIP treatment.

it's called class, people. and i guess there's a reason why they say money can't buy it.

flannery has never seen a gift hanging on the wall before. her grand-pére was here this afternoon, helping mommy do this. it's for ben. there's another one further down the hall. what could it all mean? why do we have to wait so long to find out?

i only ever get one or two new ornaments a year. here is our new robot from restoration hardware.

just a funky shot from inside our bedroom window.

the lights, the finial, the glass head of satan -- all like old friends. shortly after this was taken, ben set up the trains, lying on the floor like a little kid.