Happy Boxing Day to everyone!

I hope everyone is enjoying these waning days of 2018, celebrating - or happily not celebrating - one or another of the traditions and festivities that have had so many of us in a whirl. I'm a day late, but I wanted to share our holiday card for this year, all the work of my brilliant wife. Gigi concocted it from disparate sources, adding and subtracting, zhuzhing. Why she thought to portray me as a squalling brat, I'm sure I can't say; nor can I explain why people we know seem to think it so apt...! Hmm...?

On Christmas Eve afternoon, our friend Stephanie stopped by to purchase a few copies of our book and brought a friend who was visiting from San Francisco. We all had a nice chat in the studio, we signed the books, and then the friend, Johnny, played the ukulele and sang a few songs for us - brilliantly. We were so surprised and delighted. How many people get to have an impromptu Christmas Eve petit concert right in their own living room...?

(No chance to take a picture during our "concert", but here's the setting, anyway.)

A little later we went out to my Mom's house for dinner with my brother and sister, nieces and nephews and all. We had a very fun time - but ate and drank waaay too much, causing us to be very sluggish on Christmas morning. But we had our coffee (her) and tea (me) and eventually were human enough to open the Christmas package full of fun things that her parents send each year. Then we had brunch - imagined quite specifically by G, successfully realized by me - and watched the 1987 filmed version of Dylan Thomas' "A Child's Christmas in Wales", probably our dearest holiday tradition, one that always makes us weepy at its sheer beauty, Thomas' remarkable use of language, the deep humanity of the thing.

Morels, a reduced cream sauce (heavy cream and the morel's soaking liquid), spinach, on puff pastry. Simple but decidedly "OMG!"

After some more cooking, we went out to Gigi's cousin Heather's for Christmas dinner and ate and drank some more. Now we will live off of leftovers - and try to fit into our clothes - until we go to spend New Year's Eve with some of our dearest friends, always the BIGGEST dining event of the year - wish us luck! And all the best to you, dear readers!

Maybe this picture discloses just too much about our relationship...? (Though I'm happy to say that G hasn't even a hint of a beard.)