Purim Party Palooza!

NYE 2008

When I was in college, I had the most amazing animal-print sequined dress.  I have no idea what occasion was my excuse for buying it in the first place - not that I needed an excuse because it was absolutely fabulous - but I'm not ashamed to say that I wore it for any and every occasion, costumes encouraged or not.  Hey, I lived in New York City before the Great Recession and I was an invincible undergrad!  It's a miracle I didn't wear that dress to class.

I'm not sure what happened to the dress after NYE 2008, the last time I wore it.  I can't imagine that I donated it or trashed it; I'm hoping it's stashed away somewhere in my childhood bedroom.  Even though it's at least two sizes too small for me right now, I thought of that dress earlier this morning while planning my outfit for tonight's Purim party.

Purim is a festival celebrating yet another biblical story in which a bunch of people tried to kill the Jews but failed.  (I blogged about the historical/religious side of Purim last year.)  These holidays are usually marked with feasts, but Purim is sort of like the Jewish Halloween: we get dressed up in costumes, make a lot of noise, and drink.  Tonight, a few friends and I are heading out to Sixth & I's Purim bash in downtown DC, and I used that fantastic dress as my inspiration for my fantasy outfit...

dress / mask / bag / shoes

A Transatlantic Holiday PSA

Being in an interfaith transatlantic marriage means that Jon and I and our families get to celebrate twice as many holidays.  We do Hanukkah and Christmas, Thanksgiving and Guy Fawkes Day - the list goes on.  It's a lot of fun, and I love introducing Jon's family to my family's traditions (and vise versa, I think)!  But one of the hardest holidays to celebrate from the wrong side of the pond doesn't commemorating any national or religious occasion; it's personal.  It's Mother's Day.

This year, Mother's Day in the UK is March 15 - in the US, it's May 10.  Mother's Day sneaks up on you when you're in a different country than your mom.  You don't have all the Hallmark advertising around to remind you which Sunday it is, and it's almost impossible to find an appropriate card for such a specific holiday out of season.  And, if you forget to send a card on time, it's a lot more complicated to call because of the time difference and dropping by with flowers or bagels for a surprise visit isn't an option.

Jon, of course, planned ahead when he moved to America* and packed a Mother's Day card that he'll send to his mum back in Suffolk tomorrow  And now, thanks to the internet, you can find relevant cards from the US to post to the UK in time.  So consider this your heads up in case you forgot, British expats in the United States - it's time to get your Mother's Day card in the mail!

NaughtyLittleCards on Etsy

*That's one way to explain the British Mothering Sunday card in Jon's desk drawer.  Is it also a possibility that Jon just threw the contents of his desk in London into his suitcase when he moved over and this card is, in fact, a card that should have been sent in 2014.  But let's give him the benefit of the doubt, shall we?

London from Above

Now that Christmas is over and all the gifts have been unwrapped, I can tell you about the rest of our most festive day in London!  Before our mad two hours at the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland and bedazzled wander through Selfridges, Jon and I enjoyed one of his presents a few days early: drinks and a breathtaking view at the top of the Shard.

I managed to keep our reservation at Gong, on the 52nd floor of London's tallest building, a surprise for Jon, despite several conversations (instigated by him) about whether or not we might want to go to the top at some point on our trip.  We arrived at 2pm and, after having our bags x-rayed on the ground floor, were whisked silently up in the fastest elevator to the Shangri-La Hotel's main reception on the 35th floor.  Easing our way past stacks of high-end luggage, we gawked at the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows - but only for a moment, because we knew we were heading to an even more impressive vantage!  Our ears popped in the second elevator and we both laughed.  I think we were feeling a bit giddy, to be honest, but when we were ushered into the bar proper and shown to a table by a window our giggles turned into awe.

London is incredible from 52 floors up.  It's always incredible, of course, but seeing it open up below you like a map is really something.  Landmarks like Big Ben, St. Paul's, the Eye, and Tower Bridge are just as iconic from above, and it was glorious to see the city's green spaces dotted below us; we even spotted the transmitter at Crystal Palace!  There were a few clouds, but it was a brilliantly clear day and we could see all the way past the Thames barrier in the east.  (It's fascinating just how curvy the Thames is towards Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf!)  We enjoyed our drinks and the company, naturally, but were really there to soak in the view.

A note about our non-visual experience at Gong: Jon ordered the award-winning Black and Blue Swizzle, which he liked but which wasn't to my taste at all, and I played it safe with a yummy Bermondsey Bubbles.  I was told in my confirmation email that there's a £30 minimum per person, which would have been two drinks each, but we asked for the bill after one and our lovely waitress brought it without comment.  Given that it costs £25 for one adult ticket to the Viewing Galleries on floors 68, 69, and 72 just to look around, I think we got quite a good deal!

This was, if I do say so myself, the perfect Christmas present for Jon.  He loves architecture and urban planning, so the opportunity to take him up a Renzo Piano masterpiece and let him explain his beloved city to me was ideal.  He pointed out all the construction work that's going on at the moment, identifying buildings that have sprung up since I moved away and waxing lyrical about proposed changes to this neighborhood or that.  He was in his element!  Whenever we're on walks through London, Jon recalls the most random trivia - I have no idea where he learns this stuff, but I asked him if I can share some of his favorite tidbits here, and he emailed me the following with barely a pause:

Helicopters with only one engine have to fly along the path of the Thames if they're going over London - if you see one going directly overhead then it has to have two, just in case something breaks down! 

Crystal Place, one of the world's most spectacular buildings until it burnt down between the two world wars, is going to be rebuilt by the Chinese! Churchill is said to have wept when he heard about the destruction of the first.

 Speaking of foreign largesse, the "helter skelter tower" in the London Olympic Park is funded entirely by India's wealthiest man, Lakshmi Mittal. It came about when mayor Boris Johnson cornered Mittal in the changing rooms at Davos and "persuaded" him. Aesthetically, the tower is divisive - some people think it should be torn down and the earth underneath salted so nothing can ever grow there again. Others think it should be turned it into a kick-ass roller coaster.

The average Londoner's soul is no longer enough to put down as the deposit on a studio apartment, and now requires the blood of the first born and the ritual sacrifice of the family dog to guarantee getting a mortgage.

The West End has the highest concentration of bars, clubs and pubs of any city in the entire world.

The reason London has never had skyscrapers, until recently, is because there isn't any bedrock to support foundations - unlike NYC. London is mostly built on a clay floodplain - and one of the reasons why the city had the world's first subway network is because clay is very easy to tunnel through.

Why is there always some strange work of modern art on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square (as opposed to some bloke on a horse, as with all the others)? It's an open secret that the spot's being reserved for Her Majesty the Queen, on the sad occasion of her eventual passing.

There you have it, dear readers!  London from Jon's mind - and the top of the Shard.

To You And Yours

Father Christmas at Snape

On Sunday morning, Jon's mum* and I went for a lovely run around the heath, through the marsh, and along the river Alde.  The plan was - as it usually is when we go that route - to meet Jon and his father at Snape Maltings, where there's a little café, for a cup of tea before all driving home together.  When we rounded the corner of the concert hall on the grounds, though, we were surprised by how crowded it was!  There are always walkers around there and we expected the house and garden shop to be busy with a last-minute Christmas rush, but the masses of families with young children milling around were a bit of a puzzle.

Finally, we figured out what everyone was waiting for: Father Christmas!

You read that right, dear readers.  Santa came to Snape Maltings, Suffolk.  As he has every Christmas since Jon was a toddler, Santa sailed up the Alde in a century-old barge (his arrival dictated by the tide, of course, because that's what happens when you don't have your reindeer with you) to wave to everyone, booming "Ho ho ho" across the water.  I clutched my decadent hot chocolate in one hand and Jon's arm in the other, and we joined the the madness at the water's edge.  The parents around us seemed more excited than the children, to be honest, but eventually everyone got into the spirit of things; I heard one little girl, perched on her father's shoulders, ask "Is Father Christmas bringing me a present today, Daddy?"

Santa was welcomed by a brass band and disembarked at the quay so that he could hold court in his grotto at the Maltings and meet every child individually.  We made our escape before things got too chaotic, but it was such a fun surprise!

*I know that sounds totally pretentious and I'm sorry, but Jon's mother is his mum.  She just is.  My mother is my mom and his mother is his mum.  That's the way it is.

London's Winter Wonderland

Friday may have been our most festive day in London of this whole trip - for starters, I gave Jon the first part of his present, which I'll blog about after the 25th, and then we spent the end of a gorgeous afternoon at the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland!

Jon and I had been to the annual festival together only once before, in early December 2009.  We'd had a big night out the evening before and had crashed at a flat near the Bond Street station and, in the weak light of morning, still in our party clothes, decided the best way to work through our hangovers was by experiencing Hyde Park Winter Wonderland.  I have this very visceral memory of stumbling across Marble Arch, absolutely freezing because my tights had gotten ripped the night before and so I'd thrown them out, and blinking into the grim scene of mud, mud, more mud, and enforced frivolity before us.

We wanted a do-over.

So, along with the merrily heaving throngs, we approached the fair from Hyde Park Corner arm-in-arm and passed under an arch strung with evergreen branches and fairy lights that proclaimed "Angels Christmas Market."  (I grumbled about the missing apostrophe after the S, of course, but only for a moment because this was a jolly outing.)  After nearly three months in the States, Jon was desperate to legally drink outside on public land, so the first place we stopped at was one of the bars on site; I sang along as a live band played Sweet Home Alabama while Jon bought himself a pint.  We wound our way through the stalls, admiring the tchotchkes for sale and having intense debates about the merits of the varied food options.  After a  quick snack - Jon chose a pulled pork sandwich and I settled on a ham and cheese crepe - I found myself being strapped into the Star Flyer alongside my husband, who had somehow gotten me to forget that I'm terrified of heights.

I had to talk to myself through the entire 60-foot ascent because I was freaking out so much, but I did manage to open my eyes a few times as we swung around and I admitted for the second time that day that London is truly beautiful from up high.

Once our feet were firmly on the ground, we set our sights northward and came out of Hyde Park near Marble Arch.  We had a quick aspirational meander through Selfridges and took one last gander at the Oxford Street Christmas lights before heading home to dinner, bed, and Suffolk the next morning.

It really is the most wonderful time of the year, isn't it?

Frock Fridays: Animal Print

The other day, as Jon and I strolled the West End - London's shopping district, more or less encompassing everything between Marble Arch and Covent Garden - marveling at the festive lights and decorations, I gave in to the pressure of all the pre-Christmas sales.  Actually, I was only really lured into one shop: Hobbs.  I'd perused all their dresses online when working on last Friday's blog post, so I didn't think I'd be tempted too much by anything I saw on the racks, but you know what they say about hubris.  Unsurprisingly, I walked out with a little bag on my arm and a big smile on my face.

I'm absolutely in love with the dress I bought - for £49 down from the original £99 - and, in fact, am wearing it today!  (I'm taking Jon out for part one of his Christmas present this afternoon.  Check Instagram later to see both the dress in action and where we're going!)

Hobbs dress / Target blazer / David Yurman earrings / Assets tights / Blondo boots

Transatlantically Again Alphabetically

We're off tonight, dear readers!  Jon and I will head to Dulles straight after work to fly to England and I'm so excited.  My visit in August was full of complicated emotions (in part due to the continued uncertainty of our visa process but also because I let the stress and frustration of my lost luggage overwhelm the trip) and I'm beyond ready to relax and just enjoy spending time with our friends and family in London and Suffolk.

We're flying to Heathrow earlier than necessary for Christmas because one of Jon's childhood chums is getting married on Saturday, so it'll be a blast to start off our holiday celebrating their wedding with that crowd.  Beyond that, our dance cards are already pretty full!  We'll be in London for nine days and then will take the train to Suffolk to spend Christmas week with my in-laws; Jon and I have been throwing out ideas for outings and adventures since he moved over.  Let's go through them alphabetically!

Arriving with hearts full of warmth and Christmas cheer*
Baby - Jon's godson was born in late August and I can't wait to meet him!
Christmas lights all over town
Drinking pints in warm cozy pubs
Early morning runs through the heath in Suffolk
Fighting the crowds on Oxford Street
Gimel! (We'll be doing a Hanukkah night in Suffolk, and that's the winning letter on the dreidel.)
Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
Ice Skating at Somerset House, the Tower of London, or the Natural History Museum
Joking around with Jon's former flatmates (and our hosts for the first weekend)
Keeping track of my Weight Watchers PlusPoints - wish me luck
Listening to my friend Christine's concert with Siglo de Oro in Hampstead
Meeting up with old friends
National Gallery to see the Rembrandt show
Overly emotional, obviously
Presents under the tree (from family members)
Queen's speech on Christmas Day
Remembering to call my dad on his birthday on the 22nd
Stockings at the foot of the bed (brought in the dead of night by Santa)
Thrilled to be attending the opening night of Jon's cousin's theatre debut at Hampstead Theatre
Unbelievably grateful to be part of a family that has such meaningful holiday traditions
Vibrating purrs from Tiffy and Topsy at Jon's parents' house
Wedding bells!
eXclaiming how no one's changed and yet how everyone has
Yelling as we pull crackers at Christmas dinner
Zzzz (napping!) before the Doctor Who and Downton Abby Christmas specials

*I asked Jon to help me draft this post.  I rescinded the offer after "A."

For Unto Us

I've been going to evensong at the National Cathedral every Wednesday for the past month or so - it's such a peaceful, contemplative way to anchor the week - but today, when I headed into the nave from the narthex, I walked into an open rehearsal for the choirs' upcoming performances of Handel's Messiah.  I probably wasn't supposed to take video, but it was too gorgeous not to share!

If you're in the DC area, do go to one of the concerts: Friday at 7:30, Saturday at 4pm, and Sunday at 4pm.  (Buy tickets here.)  It's the most magnificent space to listen to Handel's well-loved oratorio!  In New York, St. Thomas Church on 5th Ave will perform the Messiah on the 9th at 9pm and Trinity Wall Street still has tickets available for its performance at Lincoln Center on December 18.  London, where The Messiah was first heard in 1743, boasts some phenomenal opportunities as well, including by candlelight at the Royal Festival Hall on December 13, at the Barbican with the Academy of Ancient Music on the 10th, and powered by 500 voices at the Royal Albert Hall on December 19.

Don't be surprised if the audience/congregation stands up for the Hallelujah chorus - it's tradition!

Penguins and Chocolate for Christmas

Christmas adverts are a unique phenomenon to the UK - there really isn't anything like them in the States.  Since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving across the pond, there isn't an event in the calendar to formally kick off the holiday season, and fervor starts building in early November.  I've already gotten an email about the opening of the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland and my friends on Instagram are posting photos of London in its full twinkly glory.  The real launch, though, at least commercially, are the Christmas adverts that the major department stores and grocery stores put out.

Jon calls it a competition; every ad tries to make viewers sob without making them feel like they're being manipulated.  Of course, every ad is selling a brand along with the story and, often, a specific product that's created solely for the purpose of the ad.  Case in point: the penguin in the John Lewis advert below costs £95 and sold out within days of the advert's launch.  And every hour Sainsbury's sells 5,000 of the chocolate bars featured in its advert, which benefit the British Legion.  There's a fine line between cynical commercialism and sentimentality - Jon mocks both of the below ads mercilessly, but they make me weep.  How about you, dear readers?  Do you feel played, like Jon does, or are you moved?

Happy Halloween!

Ghouls and beasts and winged things,

Vampires, witches, pumpkin kings;

But even scarier than all of that

Is a sweet little dog dressed up like a bat!

Drag Racing (In Heels)

Halloween doesn't usually make it even into my top five holidays list, but this week is pretty awesome!  Mom made a costume for Charlie - we bought a supercute one last week, but it was too late to get another one in the right size by the time we realized the original was too small.  Then Jon and Charlie and I are going to join the neighborhood parade on Friday, when they close a street near us and all the houses are decorated and the everyone wanders around in costume with candy.

And last night we enjoyed one of DC's classic Halloween traditions: the 17th Annual High Heel Drag Race!  Along with a few friends from work, Jon and I headed to 17th Street near Dupont Circle to watch the most fabulous ladies strut their stuff and then run their padded bras off to claim the honor of being DC's fastest (wo)man in heels.  It was phenomenal!

Next Year In Jerusalem

Chag sameach, dear readers!  Passover began at sundown last night.  Like Purim, the last holiday I shared with you, Passover celebrates a variation on a common theme in Jewish history: we were oppressed and then, with God's help, we became free.  (To learn more about the story, watch the absolutely brilliant a cappella Frozen version above.)

One of my favorite parts of the Passover seder, a ritual meal accompanied by prayers observed on the first and second nights of the eight-day holiday, comes at the very end, when everyone gathered around the table cries in unison, "Next year in Jerusalem!"  Of course, the spiritual hope of all Jews is to make aliyah and move to Israel, uniting the diaspora in the Holy Land, and this exclamation is, at its most literal, an expression of that, but there's a more significant meaning behind it. As chabad.org explains, "Jerusalem is much more than a city. It’s an ideal that we are struggling to reach."

The Hebrew name for Egypt is Mitzrayim, which means limitations, restrictions, obstacles. It represents a state in which our souls are trapped in our bodies, enslaved to material desires and tied down to physical limitations. It is a world in which righteousness, justice and holiness are held captive to corruption, selfishness and egotism.

Jerusalem means “the city of peace”—a place of peace between body and soul, heaven and earth, the ideal and reality. When our body becomes not a prison for the soul but rather a vehicle for the soul’s expression; when we live our lives according to our ideals rather than our cravings; when the world values goodness and generosity over selfish gain—then we are in Jerusalem, we are at peace with ourselves and the world.

The Jewish story can be summed up as a long journey from Egypt to Jerusalem. Beyond being just geographical locations, they symbolize two opposite spiritual states. The journey from Egypt to Jerusalem is a spiritual odyssey. Both as a nation and as individuals, we have always been leaving the slavery of Egypt and heading towards the freedom of the Promised Land. 

As we sit at the Seder, we note that another year has gone by, and we have yet to complete the journey. But we are getting there. We are that much closer to the Promised Land than we were last year. We have advanced a few more steps in a march to freedom that has spanned generations.

And so, regardless of your faith, perhaps you will say the words of the Haggadah with me:

This year we are here, next year we will be in the Land of Israel.

This year we are slaves, next year we will be free.

Passover on the blog: 2011, 2012, 2013

Distance Makes The Heart

I had a little meltdown at Target the other weekend.  Getting emotional isn't an uncommon occurrence for me at my favorite big box retailer - I feel the thrill of the collector every time I spot a new pattern or embellishment amongst the cardigans and this sort of thing makes me verklempt -  but I'm usually quite happy when I walk through the doors and even happier when I leave.  Last time, though, I got really sad.

Perhaps surprisingly, I blame the Valentine's Day cards.  Jon and I have been on opposite sides of the Atlantic on February 14 for two of the past four years; this will be our third Valentine's Day as a long-distance couple.  So I should be used to it, right?  And, actually, I'm not terribly upset about not getting to share the holiday as a commercial or celebratory occasion with him.  (That's one of the silver linings to being with a guy who tries to make every conversation loving even when I want to talk practicalities!)  But, somehow, the Valentine's Day cards lining the shelves at Target had me doing an infantile dance of frustration in the aisle, blinking away tears as I rejected card after card as being inappropriate or irrelevant for our situation.

Of course I agree with the sentiment of the card that said "I love being in your arms," but the message just felt bittersweet; we don't know when we'll next be together so I'd rather not focus on that sort of thing.  In the end, I found one that talked about how "my heart is always with you" (or something like that).  It was cheesier than I'd normally have picked, but there weren't tons of options at Target for a girl in a long-distance relationship.

Last night, even though I've already bought my card and posted it, I decided to have a look around Etsy to see what's available there.  I know at least a few of my readers are in their own long-distance relationships, so I thought it might be useful to round up some of the cards I liked best - cards that don't dance around the situation but are still sweet - in case you're still on the hunt!

clockwise from top L: SmartyPantsPaperCo / ChristinaMalta / StrangerDays 

 RowHouse14 / nearmoderndisaster / ellolovey / ChristinaMalta / 

DIY Valentine's Day Wreath

Jon got a little nervous when I excitedly told him that I planned to make a new wreath for every season and holiday.  He handled it quite well, all things considered; I know he was picturing explosions of festivity on our front door, which are, for the most part, terribly un-British.  (I think he might also have been slightly confused as I swore off crafty projects after our wedding, but brides say a lot of crazy things so let's just leave that one there.)  Luckily for Jon and our neighbors, though, I'm not skilled enough with DIY to go totally over the top with my creations, and most of the "wreaths" I've made have been relatively restrained.

When it came time to make a Valentine's Day wreath, though, I was faced with a challenge.  After all, it's a totally over the top holiday!  How could I keep my decorations subdued while still being festive and exciting while not exceeding my skills?  I searched Pinterest for ideas, and my options seemed to involve either eruptions of red and pink and glitter or more minimalist and yet somehow more complicated designs.  I wanted something in the middle, something easy enough that I wouldn't give up on in frustration, something basic enough that I wouldn't get bored halfway through, and something festive enough that it still felt worth making.  So, armed with a few inspirations - this one, this one, and this one - I hied myself to JoAnn, hoping to find bits and pieces that would come together to spark an original idea.

The way I imagined I'd combine my favorite pins was by using a red or pink ribbon with rosettes on it and then making an arrow to cut across the middle of the wreath, incorporating "love" or "xoxo" somewhere on the wreath.  In the end, though, the rosette ribbon I found was so narrow that I'd have needed 10 yards of it, bringing the cost of the project up dramatically, so I just bought a pretty shimmery red ribbon - at 1 1/2" wide and $1.98 per yard, it was much more economical.  I realized that it would be simpler to make the text part of the arrow rather than to curve it around the circle and, because I didn't want to use too many competing patterns or textures, I decided to use the same gunmetal cardstock for the letters as for the point and fletchings of the arrow.  And to jazz the wooden dowels for the arrow up a bit, I bought silver metallic paint and a sponge brush.  The total for the project was about $25 and it took less than an hour from start to finish.  It's not yet hung on my door, but do you want to see how I made the final product?

1. Cut the dowels to size; I measured the inside diameter of my wreath and cut one dowel down to that length and then cut a second dowel into thirds, so I had three 4" long pieces.

2. Paint the long dowel plus two of the 4" dowels.  (It took about 4 coats for me to be happy with the strength of the color.)  Set dowels aside to dry.

3. Wrap the ribbon around the styrofoam wreath, using a dab of glue on the back of the circle to secure the beginning of the ribbon and then again every few wraps to make sure the ribbon doesn't slide around. When you've wrapped the whole thing, cut the ribbon so that the end is at the back of the circle and secure with another dab of glue.

4. Using the ruler, trace out a triangle on the cardstock for the arrowhead and two rectangles for the fletchings.  Cut them out, then cut the two fletchings in half with a diagonal stroke.  Trace out the letters and cut them out as well.  (I practiced on scrap paper first to make sure I had the right size for the diameter of the inside of the wreath.)

5. Wedge the longer painted dowel inside the wrapped wreath.  (I didn't use any glue here; it fit securely enough.) Using dots of glue on the back of the letters, adhere them to the dowel, spaced however you want.

6. Draw a line of glue the length of the short diagonal end of one of the four pieces of fletching on one of the 4" painted dowels and hold the fletching to it, diagonal end to the wood, until it dries and holds.  Repeat three times so you have two pairs of fletchings.

7. Glue the arrowhead on the top of the second 4" painted dowel near the end.

8. Adhere the non-fletching and non-arrowhead ends of the 4" dowels to the outsides of the wrapped wreath with the glue gun so that it looks like one long dowel is going directly through the circle.  Hold firm until dry.