Weekends in Winter

Weekends during the winter always seem warmer, happier, cozier and longer. I don't know why. Maybe because we live in a neighborhood where people are always walking in and out of the house during the summer, the peace and relative quiet of the winter calms everything down a little.

We spend a lot of time cooking in the winter. This year, Dave is recreating his own version of Julie & Julia. In the original version, author Julie Powell aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook in 365 days.

Dave is going to cook all the recipes in David Rocco's Dolce Vita cookbook. It will  be Dave & David. Get it? I fear that Dave thinks this whole exercise will somehow ingratiate him to Nina Rocco (as noted here), but what the hell, at least I get to eat really well in the meantime.

Lat night, he made Filletto di Manzo Con Soffritto. If your Italian is a little rusty, that means, "Really, Really Good Beef Tenderloin with Onions, Celery and Carrots".

Admittedly, it probably tasted a little better than it looked, but delightful nonetheless. It was the perfect meal for a cold winter night. 



After dinner, we had our annual viewing of Elf. Honestly, at this point I could probably recite the whole movie from memory, but it never gets old.

Then we tricked out the tree.

Creative people can work wonders with a tree. I thought black Christmas trees were ridiculous, until I saw one I lurved. I’ve also found myself impressed by purple trees with bright green ornaments and white trees with ice blue ornaments. But, we're boring, so we go the traditional route.

As our last name is not Griswold, we use only white lights.

Ornaments fall into two categories: Glass, or Santas with Moving Legs. I have a collection of them which I receive as gifts or which I add to sparingly over the years with additions from all over the world.

You may be wondering why you've never known that I collected Santas with Moving Legs.

I have a theory about collections. Part of the fun, most of the fun, is in the hunt. I love combing through ornament displays looking for the elusive Santa. If I tell everyone what I'm looking for, then my well-meaning friends and relatives will inundate me with Santas with Moving Legs because they're all kind and thoughtful and generous and that's just what they do. But then the fun will be gone. So there might be about three people in the world that know about my Santas with Moving Legs. Until now. Now it's five, I guess.

Then we top it with a slightly, ahem, unusual, Christmas angel.
 

We may be boring, but I have no regrets.