First of all, Happy New Year! 2026 is a year of possibilities, and I don’t have a Major Project hanging over my head this year, so that’s cool. More on that later, there will be a 2025 wrapup and perhaps a Vision Statement for the new year.
The Christmas season really went very nicely. I was mostly prepping for my dad’s visit, and hosting Christmas Eve dinner. I certainly didn’t get cards out like I’d like to. (I think for future years, I might reboot my Christmas card process. I really like doing it for real and sending a lot of them and including a holiday letter, but I just haven’t had time or energy the last few years.)
The trees all made it up in time and they look great!
Ceramic tree, created by C’s mom (foyer), Tree Major (living room), Tree Minor (dining room), Tree Augminished (office)
I realized yet again while decorating this year that I have lots of ornaments that get lost on big trees because they’re teeny, and also some lovely crystal ornaments (a wreath, holly leaves) that get lost because they’re green. So maybe next year I’ll buy a small snow-flocked tree for the bedroom (Tree Demented) for the small and green ornaments.
This is going to be the big tree’s last season – I’ve already ordered a replacement, on sale. I suspect the new one will take about a third of the time to set up and fluff.
Not a lot else happened the week between the concert and Dad’s arrival. We had our company holiday party at the same midtown bowling alley that we had it at a few years ago. It was fun, but I missed the karaoke from last year. And I did a dry run of potatoes au gratin for Xmas Eve, having never made them before. They are a bit labor-intensive, but otherwise easy and they came out great. I also did a dry run of Pillsbury crescent rolls (in the popping can), and they came out OK, but were so sweet. I’d also bought Pillsbury corn muffins, and decided that the Xmas eve “bread situation” would be those, plus ordered bread from our local bakery. I was going to do a simple salad (bagged washed lettuce) and roasted vegetables (prepared washed broccoli and cauliflower) and didn’t need to dry-run those. And I’d ordered a fully-cooked turkey breast from Fresh Direct.
Dad turned 91 two weeks before Christmas, but he’s still in great shape and I’d done a road trip with him back in July so wasn’t that worried about him driving up by himself, particularly since he planned to do it in two stages. He left on Friday (from NC) and worked his way up to suburban Philly to visit my aunt. So his Saturday drive was just from there to NYC, and I was expecting him about noonish. He showed up at 9:30 am! (he’d woken up early and saw no reason to hang around the motel) We emptied the car, got him parked in a tight space across the street (with some outside navigating – I parked the car, he did signalling) and lo, there he was in my house. Made lunch, got caught up, and I took him out to the Queensboro for dinner.
Sunday, I made a frittata (incorporating leftover potatoes au gratin) for breakfast and we had snacks for lunch. The evening’s event was A Prairie Home Companion Christmas at Town Hall. I’d gotten six tickets, for us and my regular Christmas Eve guests, and one for my brother who didn’t come, so pulled in another friend. We met up first for dinner at Cafe Un Deux Trois, which is always fun. (although they announced just a week later that they’re closing! that sucks, they’re a great restaurant) I thought I’d given us plenty of time for dinner, but that turned out not to be true, as the restaurant was packed, service was slow, and some idiot Santa Claus organized a big restaurant sing of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” which slowed us down at a crucial time. But the food was all great (I had chicken cordon bleu and chocolate mousse) and we did get out of there in plenty of time to circle around to the next block to Town Hall.
I’d never seen a live Garrison Keillor show before, but most of us had been before, if not recently. This concert wasn’t broadcast, it was just for us, but it was lovely. The standard mix of jokes, monologues, various songs, fake commercials, and quite a bit of communal carol singing, which was really sweet. It was very much like I remember A Prairie Home Companion being, with lots of loveliness and home truths, but stretched far enough that it was a tad self-indulgent. But it was peaceful and lovely and we had a really great time.
Monday was bagels for breakfast, more snacks for lunch. We didn’t have any evening plans. Mostly Dad read while I putzed around doing house stuff. I dragged Dad out to buy wine and some groceries. We went out for Thai that night, which was nice. (I was prepared to cook for me and Dad, but ended up never needing to, which was just as well.)
Tuesday had two big items on the agenda. The first was the arrival of the Fresh Direct order, which I’d placed in plenty of time. But first! lo I get an email from FreshDirect – ‘there will be an item missing from your delivery. It’s the turkey that’s the centerpiece of your holiday meal. If you’d like a substitution…’ Well, fuck. Actually, similar had happened to C a few years ago – he ordered 3 duck breasts and only got one. So… fool me twice. Anyway, our local corner restaurant does holiday catering to pick up, and I usually have gotten stuff from them, so I just ordered their brisket, plus a lasagna, because why not. Done and done. This actually made the dinner a bit easier for prep, so that was nice.
Then I’d gotten tickets for the not-usual Tuesday matinee of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I liked the show a lot from its original Broadway run 20 years ago, and this production was getting great reviews. It included Justin Cooley (so charming in Kimberly Akimbo) as Leaf Coneybear, Jasmine Amy Rogers (Boop!) as Olive and Jason Kravetz (so many things) as the vice principal. Dad and I ubered in, not much of a problem and had good seats on the aisle.
If you don’t know the show, it’s a middle-school spelling bee, high-level enough that all the contestants won their local bee first. There are three adult characters and six kid characters (played by adults), and then four other spellers drawn from the audience. It’s a musical, and part of the fun is when the audience spellers get drawn into the songs and the dancing. And of course the contestants get knocked down until there are only two left.
It’s funny and wistful and melancholy. The funniest lines were often the “use it in a sentence” examples provided by the vice-president. Or just the words themselves. When Chip gets an unfortunate erection just before being called on, which he hides with his hat, his word is “acouchi”. The performances were lovely and my father really enjoyed it.
Back home in time for news and dinner. I think we’d been planning to go to the Spanish restaurant down the street, but we ended up staying in and ordering pizza.
Next up: two identical holiday parties!
The Toast Point Page 