A Conversation About Dessert

"Make a remark,' said the Red Queen; "it's ridiculous to leave all the conversation to the pudding!"

- Through the Looking Glass

This is going to be a conversation all about dessert because dessert deserves conversation.  (So there, Red Queen; you clearly have screwed up priorities.)

This absolutely must be the best time of year for desserts.  Winter, I think, and Christmas especially, lend themselves particularly well to sweets.  I'm not sure why - maybe because we're all evolutionarily predisposed to put on weight in the colder months to keep ourselves warm - but I am not complaining at all.  (My jeans are complaining, but that's another matter entirely, and I'm of the opinion that clothing, like small dogs and sometimes boyfriends, is better seen than heard.  Don't you think?)

Anyway.  We're getting off topic.  Dessert!

Nom.  Dessert...

Sorry, mind wandering!  Dessert.  Focus, Betsy.

We're having a New Year's Eve party on Friday night and the only (only, ha!) nibbles that we're going to provide are desserts.  I really don't want to overload on chocolate and so have tried to pick out a variety of yummy things from my cookbooks and from around the web.  My parameters are the following: I need things that can be eaten easily with fingers and with minimal mess, but also I need one classic cake with which to inaugurate my lovely new cut-glass cake stand.  I'm thinking of making the following:

Spicy Gingerbread Cookies from Smitten Kitchen

Blondies from Smitten Kitchen without chocolate (gasp!) but with chopped dried apricots

Hummingbird Bakery's Banana Chocolate Cupcakes (via Baking Chalk)

And also I'm going to make the simplest but most amazing chocolate cookies that I used to bake (and devour) with the girls I babysat for in New York.  I don't have an image of them yet - never fear, one will be posted when I have lovingly pulled them from the oven if my flatmates allow them to last that long - so please do satiate yourself here with the recipe.

Chocolate Cookies

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1 2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla

Grease 2 cookie sheets.  Mix everything together except the confectioner's sugar.  Roll tablespoon sized balls of dough in your hands and then roll in confectioner's sugar.  Place 2" apart on the cookie sheet and bake in a 350*f oven for 10-12 minutes.

But wait!  You may notice that I haven't yet said which cake I'm going to bake.  (Look how observant you are, dear readers!  I am so impressed.)  That's because I'm dying to make a cheesecake but I can't since I don't have an electric beater and it's made me so depressed that I have stopped looking for yummy cake recipes and now I am literally about to curl up around my virginal cake stand and cry for its barrenness.  (Yes, I am waxing poetic about my cake stand, which, apparently, has been personified into a woman with a biological clock.  Deal with it.)  So: help me.  Help me!  Give me an electric-beater-less cake recipe.  Give me the best one you've got.  Please!  Thank you.

Merci / Danke / Gracias

You've been inundated this month with things that I love - I know.  Sorry.  But it's such a lovely and lovable season!  What other time of year gives you an excuse to buy two types of stationery?

Now, you epistolophobiacs (yes, that is a real word: it describes one who is afraid of writing letters) might have no idea what I'm talking about.  Two types of stationery?  Is this blogger mad?  No, my friends, I am not!  Because - behold - I have, in my sitting room, a stash of holiday cards and thank-you notes.

Therefore, as it is post-Christmas, you won't be surprised that this post is going to be all about... drumroll please... thank you notes!

Of course, you can craft gorgeous homemade thank-you cards, and if that's your cup of dee-eye-why tea then be my guest and ignore the rest of this post.  But if you like other people to dee-eye for you, then read on!

Sweet and simple wins the race with Daily Sip Studios' letterpress card.  Wait - did I mention it's letterpress?  Letterpress makes me swoon.

Luxury and multiculturalism are the names of this game - don't you have friends all over the world?  Smythson does, obvi.

A little over the top?  Maybe, but sometimes you just have to jump up and down and shout unintelligible gibberish and do a silly dance because you love your present so much - and when that happens, send one of these Sweet Harvey cards immediately!

This is perfect if you lack imagination - or if you have too much of it!  Either way, you can can have a (noun) with these fun mad lib thank-you cards from Earmark!  (I suggest that you keep the ones that you send to your grandparents G-rated...)

(Sidebar: you haven't received a Christmas card from me yet.  That's because I didn't get my act together before Christmas and so nothing has been sent out.  I'm doing New Year's cards instead - keep your eyes on your letterboxes!)

Featured Elswhere

I totally forgot in the chaos of Christmas - sorry, Stephanie! - but I was featured in the Little London Observationist blog's Listen to a Londoner series on Christmas Day!  Check out my interview here and be sure to browse the rest of the blog, too - it's an amazing resource for all things London, whether you're an expat, a native, or just a Londonophile!

Christmas Time is Here

What a wonderful English Christmas I had with Jon's family!  They brought me so kindly and wholeheartedly into their traditions and their celebrations - it really was special.

Jon's aunt and uncle and young cousins arrived on Christmas Eve day, and we had a big dinner all together, which culminated in the usual Christmas Eve: a reading of The Night Before Christmas by Jon's father followed by a rousing carol sing.  Throughout all of this, the candles were lit on the Christmas tree - it was beautiful.

We woke up early on Christmas day and trooped into Jon's parents' bedroom to open our stockings.  Santa was incredibly generous to all of us - especially to me!  Around noon we headed to Jon's other aunt's house for Christmas lunch.  What a spread!  We had turkey, stuffing, sausages, cranberry sauce, bread pudding, Brussels sprouts, leeks in cream sauce, roasted potatoes, and parsnips.  (Thanksgiving part deux!)  There were crackers at each place - apparently pulling a cracker is like pulling a wishbone in that whomever is left with the bit with the prizes wins.  (Why hasn't this come Stateside?  It's the perfect dinnertime distraction for kids young and old.)  Then came the opening of the presents, and if I had doubted before that Jon's family knows me and loves me I certainly don't anymore!

Today, the day after Christmas, is Boxing Day.  There are two stories about the origin of Boxing Day; one claims that it's the day when service people (or those below stairs) were given their presents, and another states that it's the day that churches distributes the contents of their almsboxes to the poor in honor of St. Stephen's feastday.

Yes, today is also St. Stephen's Day, which means we need a lively chorus of Good King Wenceslas!

Anyway, this being Boxing Day, after a hearty breakfast we went out for a long and bracing walk - another tradition, natch.  We trekked for about 5 miles and rewarded ourselves at the end with tea and cake in an Aldeburgh cafe.  It was a gorgeous day for a walk, clear and frosty.

Now, again following tradition, we're about to sit down for yet another massive meal with the whole family.

Oh, hey, look, Jon's bringing me a glass of wine.  I think that's my cue to sign off!  Merry Christmas all - I hope you're having a wonderful holiday with friends and loved ones.

Frock Fridays

In a surprising pause from my love of Christmas and its surrounding festivities, today's Frock Fridays features winter whites.  I feel like you can really only wear white in winter in warm and dry climes - I certainly wouldn't trust these shoes in the slush of a London sidewalk at this time of year - but they're still gorgeous!

[ dress / bag / shoes / earrings / perfume / lipstick / bangles ]

Twas the Night Before Christmas...

Can anything compare to the excitement of the Christmas Eve?  Everyone's running around preparing for the day itself: wrapping last-minute presents, icing the pudding, cleaning the house in preparation for hordes of company, singing carols around the fire, drinking a bit too much wine...

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas itself, but there really is something magical about Christmas Eve.

The cousins arrived today and it's been a bit chaotic, beautifully so.  I insisted that we listen to at least some of King's College's Nine Lessons and Carols, and there was a supreme moment when, while listening to the story of the Annunciation, Ned - all of eleven years old - turned to me and said, "This is really quite unbelievable, isn't it?"  Ah, Christmas faith!

Well, we do all know that Père Noel will be shimmying down the chimney later tonight to supplement the enormous pile of presents waiting under the tree - Ned's not questioning that!

Merry merry merry - and remember, the sooner you go to sleep, the sooner you'll wake up to find that it's Christmas Day!

Snow Em Gee

They're predicting a white Christmas - only 6 days away! - so the weather gods decided to practice this weekend.  We were on Oxford Street when the flurries started and within minutes the flakes were coming down fast and furious.  Even central London ended up with four inches or so by the time it was all over, and here in Clapham we've got about six.  See:

How lovely!  Though it's making traveling anywhere a nightmare - almost all flights yesterday and today were grounded and even transport within London is more or less shut down.

If you're trying to get out of London this weekend or in the next week, good luck!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

There's an article in the New York Times this weekend about Christmas stylists - decorators and designers who are brought in especially to make their clients' homes appropriately festive.

I had been drooling over all the Christmas images floating around the blogosphere - and I've been guilty of reposting some of them - but in the past week or so I've been getting increasingly frustrated with highly stylized photos of ideal Christmas interiors.  I mean, seriously; do you know anyone whose house looks like this at the moment?

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Or like this:

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I didn't think so.

Isn't the whole fun of Christmas decorating that you get to do it all yourself?  You make a lovely gorgeous mess of shedding pine needles and broken baubles and wrapping paper scraps flying all over the place, and you drape tinsel over every available surface and you have a wonderfully joyous time and then when you sit down to Christmas dinner at the end of the day - as we're about to do - you feel terribly satisfied that you did it all yourself.

Anyway, that's what I think.  I'm on an anti-stylization kick at the moment.  Indulge me!

our tree

presents wrapped and ready to go

Hibernation

This weekend's forecast is ideal for hibernating.  Tomorrow I'm going to sleep in and then spend the morning wrapping presents and writing Christmas cards - it's going to be heaven.  I do have to go to a work event in the afternoon, but that will be followed by a friend's Christmas party, so it all works out in the end.

If I were to hibernate, there'd be three key things I'd need:

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1. hot chocolate

2. socks

3. fire

Oh, I'm warm and cozy just thinking about it!

Tradition, Tradition

I started writing a really sappy post about traditions and family and Christmas, but it made even me throw up in my mouth a little bit and so I deleted it.

I do have lots of thoughts about traditions and family and Christmas, though, that mostly boil down to this:

I want some.

I want some traditions, I want some family, I want some Christmas.

I guess all of that takes time - it all grows organically.  (Especially for a nice Jewish girl like me.)

But, while I'm waiting for "organically" to happen, I'm taking tradition suggestions for the Christmas season.  So go ahead and leave me a post about your favorite family Christmas tradition, and then - hark! - maybe next year you will find that I have stolen it lovingly from you.  Unless it's creepy or weird, in which case it's all yours.  But if it's not creepy or weird, I might appropriate it.  I hope that's alright.

Okay, Jon says I don't need to steal your Christmas traditions from you because we've already started our own.  I don't know what he's talking about, but he insists that we do have traditions.  For instance, he declares:

We watch Love Actually and The Nightmare before Christmas.
We fight over what presents to give to whom.
We go ice skating at Somerset House.
We decorate a tree.

Ha!  I win.  This is all Jon can think of.  But when I cackle to him, he smiles at me and reaches for my hand and says, "We'll make our own traditions."

Damn.  We're back to the sappy.  Sorry, guys.

Monday Laugh

This map has been making the rounds of the blogosphere, but I share it here in case you haven't seen it yet. It's actually one in a series; click on the link below and check out the rest of the maps.

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Royal Wedding: Engagement Photos

Prince William and Kate have released their engagement photos!

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You might not get to be a princess, but never fear - you, too, can be Kate Middleton!  And then who knows what could happen!

Exclamation points all over the place!  Except for Lois Smith Brady, the party pooper, apparently.

(Not going to lie - I have a deep blue dress I call my Kate dress.  Not to be confused with my turquoise blue Michelle dress, of course.)

Tuition Fee Raise (Jon)

As mentioned in the previous post, this essay was written on Thursday by Jon.  Any views are entirely his although I may, a little bit, possibly, share them!

As a former university student who graduated this summer, I really should sympathise more with future students who are soon going to find themselves having to pay nine grand a year to fund their education, but all I can feel after watching today’s riots is apathy towards their predicament. When the Millbank tower (Tory HQ) was attacked a few weeks ago, I was horrified at both the sheer brutality of the protesters and, more importantly, the subversive manner in which authority figures, which should have known better, justified the action. I’m mainly thinking of the lecturers at Goldsmiths, who signed a declaration describing such actions as the throwing of a fire extinguisher from a roof ‘magnificent’ and stressed that the riots were genuinely caused by an outpouring of student anger rather than the demonstrations of a few thugs muscling in on an otherwise peaceful protest.

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I still believe that today’s troubles (which saw numerous police and protesters carted off to hospital, some with serious injuries) were started by the small minority that simply turned up for the sake of violence. But there are far too many students, lecturers, and politicians watching from the margins saying things like ‘I don’t condone violence, but....’ That qualifier really irritates me because people use it all too frequently and then go on to endorse violence (sort of like saying ‘No offence, but...’ to someone before you insult them) or, at the very least, go on to spout some ridiculous hyperbole about what the coalition is doing to the country; Goldsmiths fumed that ‘the real violence in this situation [is] ... the destructive impacts of the cuts.'

No. Violence is a pitched battle mounted in Parliament Square, or a statue of Winston Churchill being attacked by anarchists who couldn’t really give a toss about the vote itself. As the leader of the Opposition, the first thing Ed Milliband should be doing is condemning all incarnations of violence and insisting that democratic debate is how civilisation should resolve complex issues. Instead, whilst anarchists were raging quite literally across the street from him, he calls today ‘a sad day for democracy’, as if the coalition had staged a coup d’état and he’s calling for revolution. Given that his government introduced tuition fees and raised them every year whilst still in power, I also wonder where he gets the authority to take such a moralistic stance.

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Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to see anyone priced out of university or left with unmanageable debt (although I don’t think that this plan would bring that about).  But I just won’t support a point of view that seems to nudge and wink at a civil disorder that it ‘does not condone.’ I hope that that people will still be able to afford their education, and that money can be found to support those that can’t. In the meantime, I’m glad the proposals were passed today, if only because it shows that violence does not get results. Besides, in a few decades time, I imagine that many of today’s angry students will have utilised their education to become wealthy, and will subsequently become furious at the extent to which their taxes subsidise others. Just a hunch.  

Tuition Fee Raise (Betsy)

Jon has written a guest post on the violence surrounding the recent vote to raise tuition fees for university students - I'll put it up just after this - but I want to preface his essay with a bit of background for those of you who haven't been following the story.  I'll try to be as unbiased as possible!  (If you have further questions, check out this Q&A from the BBC.)

Prior to 2004, university students in England paid nothing for their education; they were entirely subsidized by the government.  In 2004, though, the government created a tuition cap, allowing universities to charge students up to £3,000 per student per year.  Last week, as part of the enormous budget cuts being proposed to combat the current recession, the coalition government in the UK narrowly passed a law raising the tuition cap to £9,000 per student per year.

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(As Not From Around Here points out, "Of course, it [university education] was never actually free, as there is a real cost associated with education.  But the funds to support universities were all central, meaning that each and every tax-payer contributed to the higher education of each student.")

Students have been protesting for weeks against the vote.  The protests have, almost since the beginning, tended towards violence, although it is important to note that the rioters are only a small and, generally, uninformed part of the larger student protest movement.

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Anyway, please do read the next post for Jon's views on the subject!

Electronic Kisses

A couple of weeks ago, Lauren posted about the conundrum of the texted x.  I hate to copy her - not because it's not a good post but because I vaguely feel like I'm plagiarizing - but, actually, this issue keeps coming up and so I want to comment on it, too.

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When you text someone - an acquaintance, a friend, a significant other - you close the text with an x, which technically is the electronic equivalent of a kiss.  After a heated confab with Jon and his sister Ellie, we've come to two conclusions:

1. There is no rule about how many kisses you give to whom.
2. If there were to be a rule, it would be that one gives one x to a close/friendly acquaintance, two to a chum, and three to a significant other.  If you receive an x-less kiss, that generally means the sender is mad at you.  If you send more than three, you're either very keen or asking a favor.

Like Lauren, I'm getting used to attaching xs to texts and emails.  I'm more comfortable with it than I was the last time I lived here, when I felt very prudish about showing such affection.  But I do still get thrown sometimes - like on Friday, when I received a work email from a high net-worth donor whom I had never met that we were inviting to a very posh event.  He responded to my emailed save-the-date with a casual yes followed by an x.  Oh em gee, email etiquette crisis!  Was I supposed to send him an x back?  Or pretend I didn't see it?  Or... man, I was not prepared to deal with errant electronic kisses at 5pm on a Friday afternoon.

How do you handle a texted x?

Dating in London

Danielle, inspired by Krista, has issued we London bloggerettes a challenge:  to post our preferred date spots.  I've roped Jon into helping me put together a list of our top five favorite places - thanks, Jon!

5.  Somerset House Ice Skating - there are a bunch of ice skating possibilities in London, but we think that this is the most romantic option.  It's a glamorous venue, a neoclassical building with a gorgeous courtyard in which sits the rink, and (this is a Betsy comment coming up) the skating is sponsored by Tiffany & Co., so your date might get some Christmas gift ideas if you're lucky!

4.  Vinoteca - this wonderful wine bar in Smithfield also serves amazing modern European food, which means that you can go early in the evening for a drink and, if you and your date manage to get along well, stay for dinner!

3.  Clapham Picture House plus Kasbah Restaurant - this is our classic date night plan because these two spots are in our neighborhood, but even if it's not the most exciting you have to admit that you can't go wrong with dinner and a movie!  The cinema has a full bar and you're allowed to take drinks into the movie with you (Jon's favorite part) and the restaurant is right across the street so you can head straight from the theatre to a delicious Moroccan meal (my favorite part).

2.  Victoria and Albert Museum and Café - one of our favorite museums in London, the V&A has something for everyone.  (We both like the new Medieval and Renaissance wing.)  You can wander around the galleries and be cultural until your feet feel like they're going to fall off and then head to the café for afternoon tea and scones.  It's all very civilised!

1.  Home sweet home - sorry to be sappy, but we think that nothing is better than a night in together, curled up together in front of Glee with Gü chocolate puds and glasses of wine on the coffee table.  Obviously, our flatmates have to be out for this to be ideal, but, you know, you learn to deal!

Can't wait to see what the rest of you ladies post - or, if you don't blog, please write me comments!

O Tannenbaum

We've just arrived at Jon's parents' house in Suffolk for the annual Christmas Tree Weekend.  The whole fam is here - his sister has just come home from uni for her holidays - and tomorrow we're going to dedicate ourselves to picking out and decorating the perfect tree.

(I love how The Telegraph describes the process:  "Hark!  Is that the festive sound of cars screeching to a halt outside a disused car-park, now renamed a 'Christmas forest' and filled with firs and spruces... And lo!  See the wincing expressions of the red-faced men and women who forgot to bring their gloves, as they struggle to carry their 7ft Norwegian spruce back to the car.")

And so, in honor of this epic adventure, I give you pretty pictures of Christmas trees.  Enjoy!

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And, of course, here's a bit of Charlie Brown:

I'll take photos tomorrow during and after the tree-decorating process - watch this space for more pretty pictures!

Frock Fridays

21 days until New Year's Eve!  Can't wait.  I love ringing in a new year - such a sense of possibility!

My favorite New Year's Eve was 2006-2007, the winter of my junior year of university.  Ten or so of us girlfriends from high school dressed up to the nines and had our own houseparty.  It was so great to just be with old friends, drinking cheap champagne and sporting party hats and dancing to cheesy top 40s hits - we had a blast!  So much better than spending an extortionate amount of money to get into a club, I think.

This year the boys and I are throwing our own New Year's Eve party at our flat.  If I wore the below outfit I'd be beyond overdressed... but it's fabulous, don't you think?  With a smoky golden eye and flushed lips and cheeks, obvi.

[ dress / earrings / ring / shoes / eyeshadow / lip&cheek color / lipstick / clutch / mascara / eyeliner ]

New Challenges

I say this every time I blog about work, but I'm going to say it again: I know I'm not supposed to blog about work and I'm going to do it anyway.  Just to keep you updated, you know.  (The things I do for you, dear readers!)

My boss left the organization this week, and, while the powers that be decide what they want to do about replacing her and/or restructuring my department, I'm taking over many of her duties.

What does this mean?  It means that I will have much more responsibility.  It means that, although I will be answering to the Directorate of the organization, I will have much more autonomy.

It also means that I will have an incredible opportunity to prove myself as a development officer.  If I get through the next few months, get us as close as possible to our fundraising targets, and get along with everyone on the way, I will officially be a development rockstar.

It's a bit daunting, but very exciting.

Wish me luck!

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Hark, Hear the Bells, Part One

'Tis the season to be jolly, and that means one thing: Christmas music!

Marie has already blogged about her love for Mariah Carey's Christmas songs and, after reading her post, I have this to say: word.

So, inspired by Marie's not-creepy-at-all obsession with Mrs. Nick Cannon (how's that for a pop culture reference - what up yo) and the happy memory of my sister's annual fascination with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, here's my ideal Christmas playlist (in no particular order):

1. Winter Wonderland - Aretha Franklin
2. Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
3. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
4. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - Jackson 5
5. Santa Claus is Coming to Town - Bruce Springsteen
6. Let It Snow - Dean Martin
7. Last Christmas - Taylor Swift
8. White Christmas - The Drifters
9. Santa Baby - Marilyn Monroe
10. Feliz Navidad - Jose Feliciano
11. The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole
12. Christmas Is All Around - Love Actually
13. Baby It's Cold Outside - Willie Nelson ft. Norah Jones
14. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Andy Williams
15. All I Want For Christmas - Mariah Carey

Okay, actually, I could go on and on and on with this list, so I'm going to stop here.  Wait, what's that, Jon?  You say I forgot something?  Oh em gee, you're right!  Dear readers, Jon and I give you Danny Elfman.

Oh man, I love Christmas music.  What are your favorites?

(Adam, I know you're going to yell at me for not including anything, you know, choral.  That will be another post.  I promise!  But let me tell you this for now: I've had Harry Christophers on repeat for the past few weeks.  Heaven.)

The Christmas Spirit

The holidays are officially here!

Actually, to be honest, the holidays have been here in London for several weeks, as AT mentioned in her blog recently.  "Without Thanksgiving," she notes, "there is no traditional date after which Christmas officially begins."  And so Christmas decorations have been popping up on the high street since Halloween.  Oxford Street and Regent Street strung up festive lights in early November.  Pre-Christmas sales have already peaked and waned.

Regent Street Christmas lights, 1960; via

I have to admit that I love the Christmas season and that I fully take advantage of the Christmas spirit.  What's that, you say?  A Jew celebrating the Christmas spirit?  Damn straight.

This might win me some anti-fans, but I don't think you need to believe in the birth of Jesus Christ to participate in the Christmas spirit.  I think the Christmas spirit is much less about a miracle happening (or not happening, depending on what you profess) and more about sharing joy and mirth and goodwill in literally dark days.  I think the Christmas spirit has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with faith - faith in our families, faith in our friends, and faith in humanity.

I went to a wonderful Hanukkah party today, hosted by a friend's friend's family in Hampstead.  Everyone was so warm and welcoming - they even invited me to their Seder in the spring - and it was just so lovely to share the holiday.  It felt like a homecoming of sorts, really; let me try to explain why with a little bit of personal history.

I went to preschool at the synagogue my family attended and was a regular - though reluctant - student at Hebrew school from the age of six through to thirteen.  I stopped going to Hebrew school after I was Bat Mitzvahed and only went to synagogue on High Holy Days.  However, I was president of my Episcopalian high school's small but active Jewish Awareness Club and I maintained a proud ownership of the religious and cultural heritage that comes with being Jewish.

For the first two years of university, this didn't change much - though, given that Jews are hardly a minority at Columbia and that practically everyone is an honorary Jew in Manhattan, I didn't really have to think about being Jewish while there.  I went home for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah or, if I couldn't take the time off from my studies, I'd go to JTS for services.  Except for junior year.

I missed High Holy Day services in my junior year of university and, much to my great surprise, felt incredibly guilty about not having gone.  I thought that, maybe, if I found a synagogue and went to a Friday night service, my guilt would be assuaged.  A family friend recommended a synagogue to me that was famous for its active 20s-30s group, and on a chilly Friday evening in October I headed down to 88th Street.  I really thought that going to one service would make me feel better - but instead I found myself moved to tears by the service and by the feeling of community that I found there.  I was hooked.

I went to the Friday evening service at that synagogue regularly throughout the rest of the semester - and even briefly dated a boy I met there - and, upon my return from my semester abroad in Paris, joined as a member for my senior year.

Unfortunately, I lapsed again when I left Columbia and didn't set foot inside a synagogue for two years.  (Oops.)

For some reason, though, when I moved to London I decided I wanted to find a synagogue.  After doing some serious research online - thanks, Google - I settled on a Liberal temple between work and home that, like my New York synagogue, has a vibrant 20s-30s community.  It's great: they organize Torah on Tap nights where we gather at a pub and study texts over beers, host holiday events (for instance, Hookah in the Sukkah), and hold a slightly more alternative service bimonthly on Friday evenings.  Also, they gave me tickets to Hight Holy Day services for free!  I have to admit though that I haven't been going to the synagogue as regularly as I'd like to.  Things keep coming up - but I think I need to make it more of a priority.

But when I do go, and when I am lucky enough to be part of celebrations like today's Hanukkah party, I am reminded how important my faith is to me.  I am reminded that faith fosters community - hence the homecoming comment.  And, to bring this post full circle, I am reminded that faith encourages the sharing of - dare I say it in this context? - the Christmas spirit.

And so, on this, the fifth night of Hanukkah and twenty days away from Christmas, I wish you this:

I wish that you are all, no matter what you believe or what religion you claim or where you are in your spiritual journeys, filled with the Christmas spirit.

Concert Tonight!

Hello, my darling followers!  I have for you a shameless plug:

My concert is tonight!

My chamber choir, Chromata, will be performing a selection of Marian texts composed from the 15th to the 21st centuries.  The concert is tonight at 7:30 at St. Mary's in Balham, right next to the tube station.

It's a great way to ring in the Christmas season - plus there'll be a pub session after, duh.

If you need to be inspired into coming, here's some of what we're singing:

a little early Ockeghem...

and everyone's favorite Rachmaninov...

The moral of the story is: if you live in or around London, come to my concert!  It will knock your socks off.

Now I'm off to bake muffins for the pre-concert rehearsal.  (How Christine of me!)

National Health What?

Warning:  this post is an overshare.  If you're one of those people who gets a little grossed out when an expectant friend puts their sonogram up on Facebook, stop reading now.

No, before you jump to conclusions, I am not posting my sonogram.  I am not pregnant.  In fact, I had sushi for lunch and am drinking a glass of wine at this very moment.  I repeat, I am not pregnant.

However, I am having a medical issue.  See, two weekends ago I started having severe pain in my mouth.  I won't go into the details, but trust me - the pain was off-the-charts.  It was so bad that I went to an out-of-hours clinic in Tooting, but they said that my mouth looked fine and I didn't have a temperature and so it was probably nothing serious and to just take over-the-counter painkillers.

Fast-forward to last Wednesday: I had my annual dentist's appointment scheduled (in DC), where they took some basic x-rays of my mouth and promptly sent me to the oral surgeon.  Wanna see what they saw?

I know you do.

Can you spot what's not supposed to be there?  Yep, that's right - the piece of metal on the right side in my gum next to my molars.  That's not supposed to be there.

It seems that when I had my wisdom teeth out three years ago, a bit of the drill they used broke off and decided to hang around in my mouth.  For three years.  A piece of drill.  In my mouth.  WHAT.

The oral surgeon in DC said that it must have shifted suddenly for some unknown reason - otherwise I might have never known it was there.  He couldn't take it out right then, though, because I had to go on antibiotics first, and so upon my return I visited my GP here in London to get a referral to someone who could.

Now, in the States getting a referral to a specialist would go like this: I would call up my doctor, ask whom they preferred for whatever treatment I needed, and then call that doctor myself.  Here in the UK it works differently.

I had to actually make an appointment to see a doctor in my practice to get a referral.  When I sat down with him, he asked if I wanted to see a private doctor or an NHS doctor.  "What the hell," I thought, "I might as well take advantage of the free healthcare!"  I picked the NHS, only to learn that I couldn't just make an appointment with an NHS doctor; the doctor at my GP had to write the NHS a referral letter and then the NHS would get back to me - within eighteen weeks.

Yes, you read that correctly.  Eighteen weeks.

[Expletive] no.  I am not waiting eighteen weeks to have an intruding piece of metal taken out of my mouth.  Are you kidding me?  Eighteen weeks.  For shame.

Private it is - though I still have to wait five business days to get the referral letter, will then have to book a consultation with the specialist, and will probably not have the extraction for another two weeks at least.

But still!  Eighteen [expletive] weeks!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

It's been snowing intermittently for two days now - where I live we've got a total accumulation of 3 inches or so but some parts of London (mostly the south-east) have much more!  It's supposed to keep flurrying tonight, but then I think that's it for now.

As I mentioned before, public transportation here can't handle the snow and ice.  Yesterday morning I caught the 7:52am train into work at 8:36am.  Today I decided to skip the train and head to the tube... where I found the station closed due to overcrowding.  Awesome.

But commuting chaos aside, it really is beautiful here in the snow.  Here are some photos I took this morning:

Thanksgiving Weekend Recap

Oh my goodness - so much to recount!  I totally overbooked myself on this trip home.  Unsurprising, because there were so many people I wanted to see, but not very restful or relaxing.

For lack of a better way to present the weekend, I'm going to share it with you in (mostly) photos.  Here goes!

THURSDAY - THANKSGIVING
It was such a wonderful day.  Amazing food, obviously - the menu included the turkey, two kinds of stuffing (veggie-friendly and sausage), cranberry sauce, brussels sprouts, baked sweet potatoes, roasted pumpkins filled with something yummy, apple tart, pumpkin cheesecake, and pecan pie. (And let me tell you, we veni vidi vici'd that meal.)  Another highlight was how well Jon did, considering he was meeting some relatives for the first time and considering how holidays with lots of family members can be pressure-cookers.  I ditched him with various relatives for long stretches (sorry, Jon!) and he was a rockstar throughout the evening.  I ended up passing out at 9pm - either from jetlag or from tryptophan.  Who knows?

Aunt Jo, Mom, and Sarah

me and Jon

Nana, arranging flowers

Uncle Seth, the official photographer

Sarah and Uncle Markie being culinary

FRIDAY - ANNUAL YOUNG ALUMNI REUNION

Friday, during the day, I ran errands and did a little Black Friday shopping - hello, 40% off at Banana Republic before noon!  Happily, I also got to spend a few hours with the girls I babysat when I lived in DC.  In the evening, Jon and I met up with Christian and Alex at a wine bar on U Street before heading to dinner in Dupont and then out to our high school's annual Young Alumni reunion.  I have to admit that, although I've gone to the reunion every year since I turned 21, it makes me more uncomfortable than anything else - I'm still friends with the people I want to be friends with, and the rest I'm content to gently stalk on Facebook.  That's normal, right?

Jon and Evo

Ashley and Christian

Jon and Christine

SATURDAY - THANKSGIVING SOIRÉE AT THE MORRIS'

This party, held the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, is an annual tradition at the Morris household, and I've been lucky enough to attend/participate for the past few years.  It's epic: over a hundred guests of all ages congregate to eat, drink, be merry - and sing Christmas carols!  The Christmas season doesn't start until we've belted out the Hallelujah chorus around the piano.

The Morris children - Ed, Gillian, and Rob

SUNDAY - RUNNING AROUND LIKE A HEADLESS CHICKEN

The last day in New York (oh yeah, we went up to New York for the weekend, sorry, might have forgotten to mention that) Jon and I ran around seeing friends and family - wonderful to catch up with you, Grandma and Aunt Ruthie!

MONDAY - TRAVELLING

Back to London!

All in all, an amazing trip.  I am so glad to have seen (most) of the people I miss so much!  Not sure when I'll be back in the States, but I'll keep you posted.