Did I Say That?

There’s a new app making the rounds on Facebook that generates the pretty little graphic below with a selection of status updates. It’s kinda silly, I realize, but it was fun to look back through all the stuff I posted through the year. There were a few recurring themes, including coffee, meetings, the Caps, beer, colds, and  travel — not necessarily in that order. Facebook clearly remembers more about this year than I do. Maybe I should just use  this for my Christmas letter…

Click to enlarge. It's much more legible that way.

10 on Tuesday: Holiday Food & Drink

There doesn’t seem to be an “official” 10 on Tuesday blog prompt today, but Hillary has come up with one that she’s using – 10 favorite things to eat/drink at the holidays – which works for me.

1. Christmas cookies. I may have mentioned this already.

2. Gingerbread lattes. My love of these is also well-documented.

3. Cranberry pecan bread. My recipe isn’t super-orangey like some are, which makes it extra tasty.

4. Cranberry salsa. It sounds so wrong, yet tastes so right.

5. Bailey’s Irish Creme. It’s a Christmas Eve tradition, and one of the two exceptions I have to my alcohol-and-dairy-should-not-mix rule.

6. Hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps. The other exception, and a delicious one at that.

7. Latkes. It’s been too long since I’ve had any, but as a New York girl, they still seem like a seasonal staple.

8. Chex Mix. The homemade kind, not the vastly inferior mass-produced variety, and made Grandma-style, wherein mixed nuts are replaced with straight cashews.

9. Stuffing. I like turkey and mashed potatoes and all that jazz, but the dressing is far and away my favorite part of the traditional holiday dinner.

10. Chocolate-covered cherries. My dad & I used to eat more of these than we should have.

And the Panic Sets In

Somehow, when I was busy doing other things, the year got away from me. Completely. Now, things that seemed very far in the future — say, both Christmas and my trip to Egypt — are less than two weeks away and I am not ready. At all. Even if I discount my work to-do list (which, alas, I cannot) the amount of things I need to accomplish by December 25 has me a bit daunted. Among the things on my list:

• Decorate my apartment for Christmas, at least a little. It feels a little bleak without a tree or lights or other seasonal stuff.
• Write, print, and mail my Christmas letters. Enough on its own, this also entails buying stamps and fixing my printer, since changing the ink cartridges seems to have broken it.
• Clean my apartment thoroughly enough that people can stay here while I’m gone. (My friends Julia & Michael are in the midst of a months-long home renovation and may stay here for a few days  in order to experience such luxuries as a kitchen and regular hot water.)
• Buy Christmas presents for my nephews. (I think just them, anyway. I’m pretty sure we adults have decided not to exchange gifts this year. If I’m wrong, someone please speak up.)
• Get my hair trimmed & colored, and get a pedicure.
• Go to four Christmas parties.
• Figure out what I’m going to wear for the wedding, determine what I need to buy to make it work, and then shop. (Fortunately, I bought a beautiful Pakistani shalwar kemise for Farin’s henna ceremony, so I only have to deal with one more fancy outfit.)
• Determine what else I need to bring on the trip, what — in addition to all the wedding stuff — needs to be carried on (in case my checked luggage goes astray), and then solve the problem of my woefully inadequate luggage.

That’s just a start, really. There’s plenty of errand running and other, smaller stuff that needs to happen, too. And thus, panic.

See why I baked so many cookies over the weekend? I was stalling. Denial, after all, ain’t just a river in, ahem, Egypt.