At the Closing of the Year

So 2023 has come to a close and we are about to embark on the adventure that is 2024. The dead of winter is here. December starts in the fall, the most overrated season, and ends in the winter, the worst season. December days are short as they will ever be. I don't feel too down despite it all, because it's such a festive time of year. I love the holiday season (everything that comes after not so much) and it was a busy season for this household. 

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Theater has not played a big role in my life this fall. (See what I did there?)  It's becoming harder and harder to find plays to do. Community theater is becoming less and less about the community lately. Theater groups seem to want to play it safe by fully or partially pre-casting their shows. That means hordes of actors show up for whatever open casting calls are still out there.  A performer of my meager talents doesn't stand a chance when in competition with fifty other people, so I have had my share of disappointing auditions this season. There isn't much demand out there for a girl who does funny voices. I am 0 for 3 for auditions this fall.

I did get a small moment to shine when the Harrison Players presented a staged reading of It's a Wonderful Life radio play (I got to be the one pre-cast this time). I played Mary as a child and one of George and Mary's children. There is nothing like being asked to play children to make you feel less like you're getting old.  

Anyway, we had a lot of fun spending time with this huge cast. We served hot chocolate and homemade desserts and the Stepinac Chorus provided some musical background.  It was one of those happy holiday evenings full of warm fuzzies that everyone wants to associate with this time of year, but can't always achieve.

I helped fill the dessert buffet for It's a Wonderful Life by contributing a batch of brown butter snickerdoodles. (Sorry. I forgot to snap a photo.) I recommend the recipe for taste, but it does advocate for a lower baking temperature than I might normally bake cookies and they ended up on the flat side.

Kevin was recently cast in Arsenic and Old Lace with Curtain Call Theater. Will there be more theater coming for me in 2024? I doubt it. I am beginning to think maybe I should admit I am not castable as anything but a bit part player in Harrison. I think it might be time to retire from theater. If I want to perform I should stick to karaoke bars and dance recital snippets. Maybe I will change my mind, but right now I'm feeling a bit discouraged.

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Hanukkah came and went. We never make much of a big deal of it, but I do my best to make latkes during those eight days, even though my latke-making skills are lacking. I was improving for a while, but this years latkes weren’t that good. You’re not getting a photo.

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Last year I was tied up in theater and much of the family was away so I didn’t host dinner and I didn’t put up a Christmas tree. This year we wanted to host Christmas dinner, so despite the busy season, we needed to find time to get a tree. Our weekends were too booked up to go on weekend. Fortunately I work from home enough to spare an hour or two for tree shopping. We got a nice tree this year. Kevin says it’s our best one ever.

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Every year my dance studio has a holiday party. We used to do it in conjunction with the annual holiday party for the local senior center, but this year the senior center decided to have the party on a weekday, so we had to find another venue (the current studio space is too small to hold it there). Classes give short performances to keep their families up to date with what they are doing and we have whatever other types of entertainment students would like to do. I danced. I sang (Somewhere in my Memory from Home Alone). My friend Armelle sang and read story books to the kids. We ate a lot.

Franscene and I came close as we ever do to nailing our dance. I only had three major brain farts and we fell out of sync here and there. Otherwise we did well. 

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I finally saw a physiatrist for my chronic back pain. 2024 starts physical therapy. I put it all off because I have terrible insurance and worry how I will handle all the copays, but I have to think about what my mobility is worth. I had to dope myself with Advil to do that Christmas dance.

I'll be doing a lot of physical therapy in January and February. My medical bills are going to be high and that won't be fun. I hope they will be worth it in the end. My crappy insurance at least provided me with a free Apple Fitness+ subscription this year and I am psyched to use it.

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Christmas is a time to spend with chosen family as well as biological family. We spent the weekend before Christmas with our theater family at Anthony and Bill’s party.  So many of the people we perform with over the years are there and it’s great to catch up and celebrate with them all.  The party fell on the night of one of the major wind and rain storms that seemed to plague December, but the weather gods were on our side and the worst of it happened long after we left the party.

(Wish I were able to get more photos of all my friends. Apologies to those of you who didn’t make it in here.)

Continuing with the chosen family time, it’s not always easy to squeeze in time with old friends in this busy season, but Rich and I were able to unchain ourselves from the office and enjoy a pre-Christmas lunch, which I never managed to get a photo of.

Wish I could have spent time with more friends this December. Sadly some people live a bit far away. 

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I got my Christmas present from Kevin a week early.  On December 18th He took me to see Neil Gaiman perform A Christmas Carol live at Town Hall. That was a special treat. Walking to the theater among the NY holiday light displays made me almost forget my anti-NYC curmudgeon-ness and embrace the whole “Christmas in NY” thing.

The carolers created some atmosphere at the beginning of the show. They serenaded the audience milling around the lobby. As the theater began to fill they moved to a spot in front of the stage. It was pointless as they weren’t amplified and those of us in the nosebleed seats couldn’t hear a thing. At least they were back in the lobby after the show to sing us all out.

Gaiman’s reading was brilliant. He infused the story with warmth and humor. Dickens would have been proud. He even gave an encore where he read a humorous poem of his own.

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Then finally Christmas arrived. Parents, siblings, grandparents, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren, uncle and aunt (everyone at dinner plays at least one of those rolls). I skipped the food live blog this year. I’ll show what I served of course.

Nibbles and drinks, including champagne (a bottle I didn’t drink on the cruise this summer and took home with me to save for a family occasion).

For the first course I served my fennel, orange, and arugula salad with pine nuts. I never took a photo.

On the main buffet we had leg of lamb with mint chimichurri, turkey breast with port ginger cranberry sauce, caramelized onion and Gruyère bread pudding, green beans with mushrooms and crispy shallots (a sort of deconstructed green bean casserole), local artisan bread.

Triple chocolate pie, with coffee cream, pear almond torte (I made these) Christmas cookies (SIL made).

Family happy to  be together.

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I kept the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve quiet. I ordered most of our meals from CookUnity to give myself a break from making meals. We spent part of the week with the horses of course.

Don’t you love Riddle’s new winter blanket?

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I also wanted to have a "daycation". I like using some of these free days at home to explore the sites in the area. We decided to go to the Lasdon Park Arboretum for their Holiday on the Hill Train Show.

I love creative model trains and my favorite will always be the one at the New York Botanical Garden (with the one at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago a close second) but the last time we tried to go during the holiday break, the crowds were unbearable. We wanted something more low key.

The NYBG show has specially crafted buildings made from natural materials and covers several rooms in the Conservatory. The Lasdon show is smaller and less impressive. The scenes were mostly made from someone’s collections of Department 56 villages. However, they were thoughtfully and creatively organized and different scenes had a theme. The creators put a lot of thought into it. There were some themed trains as well.

The scenes included Rankin Bass characters, Disney, The Grinch, and Charlie Brown. Even Scooby Do’s Mystery Machine took a ride on one of the trains.

I always insist on the selfie.

We finished our date with lunch at the Muscoot Tavern, a place that walks the line between cozy spot and dive bar in the vibe department. The dining room is small and those close quarters made it a bit cramped and noisy. Service was friendly but a bit slow. I don’t hold it against them. We arrived when the kitchen was opening. We were one of the first tables seated, but we were also the first one served.

This burrata and prosciutto pizza with fig jam and marmalade was epic. I ate half for lunch and happily ate the other half for dinner. For all its flaws, Muscoot food is on point.

We came home and watched Maestro on Netflix. (It was well acted and often touching, but sometimes painfully slow paced.) It was a full day!

We closed out the year with dinner at one of our favorite Italian restaurants, Emilio Ristorante in Harrison. 

I had a burrata and arugula  salad with honey and hazelnuts, fettuccine with wild boar ragu, and a millefoglie.  

We ended the evening by opening the 2023 box to revisit the best times of the year (I'll make a separate blog post for it).

Happy 2024 to all my friends! I hope your holiday season was as joyful as ours.