Christmas in the Heart, Part II

It's the most frustrating thing, but kvetching about being treated like a baby just makes you feel (and appear) more and more like one. There's nothing for it. I'll just have to deal with being left out forever, but I can't talk about it or I'll be right back where I started.

On a less melodramatic, tantrum-y note, I've now had two requests that I explain Wigilia, so here we go. Wigilia is a Polish tradition. We have a big feast on Christmas Eve of traditional Polish dishes to celebrate something or other. I don't really know. All I know is that we have a big ol' traditional meal that's not traditional at all because my grandma changed a lot of the dishes because she doesn't like most of them.

According to Wikipedia, the traditional Wigilia menu includes:

Wafers

Fried carp and borscht

Boiled potatoes

Pickled herring

Pierogi

Assorted fruits, dried and regular.

But our family has:

Wafers (which you break before the meal, wishing each other happiness and good fortune. They're inadvertently delicious, maybe because at that point in the evening, we've all been to Mass and are ravenous. Wafers taste like delicious, delicious cardboard.)

Beef and barley soup (which is a major change because you're not supposed to eat red meat at Wigilia)

Cheese and sauerkraut pierogi (the cheese are much better but there are never enough. We also serve pierogi with melted butter and bread crumbs. As far as I'm concerned, that's the only way to do it. None of your "sour cream and applesauce" bullshit.)

Pickled herring (I give that a whirl once every two or three years to see if my tastes have changed. So far, they haven't. Pickled herring is nasty.)

Roast pork, asparagus and carrots, mashed potatoes

And for dessert, anise cookies. The best was the year when my Aunt Grace used aniseed extract and underestimated its power, so the cookies pretty much knocked you out with the anise flavor. It was intense. This year, the cookies were pretty mild but there was also cassata cake, which is one of the best kinds of cake in the world and also an example of the "hands across borders" deal that is my grandparents' marriage. Cassata cake is Sicilian (like my grandfather). It's basically sponge cake with liqueur and riccota cheese between the layers, with sliced toasted almonds on top. So incredibly delicious.

Around the pickled herring course, it's traditional for the younger generation to slip off and start watching "A Muppet Christmas Carol." This is a ritual in and of itself. We sing along (changing our voices when different Muppets sing), we do the Awkward Scrooge Dance, we make fun of this one really long scene that's a breakup song. It's great. I look forward to that all year.

Then, after the Muppets, my grandparents give us our Christmas presents and we have a wrapping paper war. This year's war featured my cousin Alex fashioning himself a makeshift visor out of a Watson's chocolates box and Emily and I squaring off in the center of the ring, each with equally bad aim. It gets...very heated.

The final part of the evening is one of my favorite Christmas traditions. The whole family settles down to watch "White Christmas." However, since that movie is like four hours long and it's usually pretty late by the time we even start, we only watch up till the "Snow" number. I've seen the beginning eighteen times, but I've seen the end only twice (it was on TV) and I have no idea what happens in the middle. They're in Vermont, right? There's sexual tension, right? They're doing a show or something, right?

I won't be posting about Christmas Day. The buildup is the best part, in my humble opinion.

Christmas In the Heart, Part I

Today is Christmas Eve, and my family has a time-honored tradition for the day. We always listen to David Sedaris' Santaland Diaries on the radio (which is proving more complicated this year, but I'm just playing it on my computer), go to Christmas Eve mass, and then to my maternal grandparents' house for Wigilia. I'll explain that in a bit, but first, we need to talk about Christmas Eve mass.

My family has a lot of feelings about Christmas Eve mass. When I'm in Buffalo, I go to St. Joseph's on a regular basis, because the priests support the LGBT community and make jokes in the sermons sometimes, but that church is unacceptable for Christmas Eve because every Catholic in North Buffalo, Amherst, and those even vaguely affiliated with the university crowds inside. One year we were stuck sitting in the foyer, accompanied by a bitter wind that blew in every time the door opened. As if that weren't enough of a problem, it's a children's mass that showcases the talents of every. last. child. We're talking screechy violins, high-pitched, off-key singing, you name it.

Then, for the past two years, we've gone to a different university parish. It's in a basement, and they attach the wrong melody to "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." Enough said.

But this year, we're going to Blessed Sacrament. When I was little, that was the church where we always went, and the only really bad thing about it was that in lieu of an organ, they had a woman playing the guitar and singing along to the hymns. Something about her voice just grated on everybody's nerves, but we pretty much had to grit our teeth and endure it.

One Christmas Eve (around the time when I seriously wanted to be an actress when I grew up), Emily commanded me to sing as loudly as I possibly could, to drown out the guitar lady's singing. Being a sixth-grade mini starlet, I took her at her word and belted "O Come, All Ye Faithful" with weighty force. Mid-way through the first verse, Caroline hit me in the arm and whispered angrily, "This is not your debut on Broadway!" I'm convinced that this incident caused my perpetual struggle with volume throughout my singing career.

Tune in for Part II. It's Sedaris time right now.

Taking a break from my Rites of Passage work by doing my other Rites of Passage work. Two days, two days.

Thank you note

Dear French professor,

I don't understand why you insist that our essay introduction be a laborious, lengthy process that maps out the essay paragraph by paragraph, but I'm glad you do. One page down and that was just the introduction. HEY-OHHH!

Sincerely,

Lily

Hold fast to dreams

THE JAZZ ENSEMBLE HAS A VOCAL COMPONENT. They let people sing! Jazz! With them!

Oh my God, oh my God. I've dreamed of singing jazz with a big band my whole life (except for a very brief window during which I was obsessed with Blondie and wanted to be a nouveau Debbie Harry). Last year I thought I would finally get to realize that dream when the band director at my old high school asked me to sing "Besame Mucho" with the band, but then she changed her mind and had my friend do it instead. I was bitterly disappointed, and I thought it was the last chance I'd ever have to live my dream.

BUT SUCK IT, MRS. KERR! Oh God I hope they'll consider letting me do it. I need to send them an email once Finals Madness is over. This is really incredible!

Adventures in homework

This week, I've drawn up a schedule of things I absolutely must get done. Every day has at most two projects to complete, and I am going to put on my cast iron pants and get things done. Today's projects:

1. French journal entry (check)
2. Flesh out my Rites of Passage rough draft (afternoon project)

I'm trying really hard not to let myself get panicky and strung out. It's hard because I'm not dancing (raise your hand if you're excited for the spring semester), so right now I'm listening to the Vince Guaraldi Trio, which makes me as limp with relaxation as a cat lying in a patch of sunlight. I've also heard things about coconut oil's relaxing properties, and since I have a lot of it handy from those awesome non-food cupcakes, I might as well give that a shot.

EDIT: As of 10:12 p.m., I am officially done with everything! And that's a darn good draft, if I do say so myself. 3, 076 words. Not too shabby.

The Mortmain's dinner party, remixed

Yesterday was Josie's birthday celebration, and as her present, my beautiful, awesome, tech-savvy girlfriend (who is reading over my shoulder as I write this) and I made her and all of our friends dinner.

Recall that none of my friends can eat anything, but Alice and I conquered this obstacle with aplomb. The menu:

Panang curry

Chana masala (Thank you, Unirondack, for teaching me how to make Indian food)

It was perfect! Everyone could eat at least one dish. Emily, my friend who can't have eggs, apples, grapes, peppers, onions, and so on, could have the curry. Abeer, who is vegetarian and halal and only eats Pakistani food and pizza, ate the chana masala, and Josie, who's gluten-free, soy-free, and dairy-free, could eat everything (provided she ate around the tomatoes in the chana.) It was a beautiful thing.

I'm not great at photodocumentation, but we all took a turn with the camera and while the pictures aren't great, the subjects are.

The birthday girl!

Me and Alice being silly (ok, just me being silly), and Emily, amused with our antics.

Abeer and Amy. What li'l cuties!

The elusive Steve

But I think the most successful part of the meal was the dessert. Emily can basically never have dessert, what with her frustrating food sensitivities, so Alice and I tried especially hard to find a dessert that everyone could have. In the process of our search, we stumbled upon a fantastic website called glutenfreesoyfreevegan.wordpress.com that was the answer to all our problems. This recipe for chocolate cupcakes was amazing! Not only could everyone eat them, they were actually so good people had seconds! I wasn't sure about using avocado in cupcakes, but they were fantastic. My only complaint is that they looked sort of weird. I didn't get a picture, but gluten-free baked goods tend to not change shape at all. Seriously. Sometimes you can see fingerprints.

Try this recipe for the non-food person in your life!

Motivation

All I want to do is read Little Women in front of a fire, wrapped up in a blanket and drinking hot chocolate. Soon. Soon. Soon.

Self-scheduled

So help me God, I am going to get shit done today. Since coming to Smith I've turned into a huge procrastinator, and it's really messing me up. I am going to go top the library today after Rites of Passage, park my butt in a chair, and work. This next part of the post is really just for me, so feel free to skip it.

Top priority: French devoirs. I have to write an introduction to an essay about Sarkozy's stupid and wrong position concerning nuclear power.

Next: Rites of Passage final essay. For that, I need to go to Forbes, get a library card, and check out The Great Gatsby. Then, I'll write up a rough outline of my essay about coming of age during the Jazz Age; childhood dreams and the ways in which Nick and Gatsby realize their dreams.

Finally, I want to do a rough outline of my final essay for French.

On your mark, get set, go! Time for class.

Freaking Friends

Today, I took Laurie Colwin's advice that she proffers in Home Cooking and indexed my friends. Josie's birthday is tomorrow, and for her present, I promised to make her dinner, which of course meant that I would make all of our friends dinner.

Geez louise, do these women have enough food sensitivities and dietary restrictions? I had to find gluten-free, soy-free, and dairy-free recipes, and that was just keeping the birthday girl's needs in mind. I have two friends that are halal, one of whom is so insanely picky she basically only eats pizza and Pakistani food, a friend that can't have onions, peppers, apples, grapes, or eggs, and several friends who are lactose intolerant. And it was my job to feed all of them.

Because I am kind of a loser, I found this irritating task an exciting challenge, and Alice and I set about searching the fabulous Internet for a solution.

It took about ten minutes.

God damn, I love the Internet.

Wild night

We all have heavy boots right now, but after Alice and I visited Erika last night, we got a relaxing dose of tryptophan from the hot turkey sandwiches at King/Scales and set out for Winter Weekend with Steve and Adriane, first at Cutter, then later at Baldwin. (I had other plans, but a fly went by and that was that.)

We had some time to kill before the party started, so I taught Alice and Kaitlin how to play poker. It wasn't very exciting because they were just learning and weren't really excited about betting or even raising bets, which is kind of important, but now they know how to play and that will be fun. I'm glad my roommate and my girlfriend are on good terms. I pretty much want everyone to be friends all the time, and it's nice when life works out like that.

Then we went to Cutter's Winter Weekend party. It really wasn't very interesting; everybody knew each other and we didn't know anybody, which was kind of grim. There was a chocolate fountain, but apart from that, there wasn't much we could do in terms of raising hell, so we left. The best thing about that party (for me) was that I finally got to wear this amazing dress by Chanel that my mom got at an estate sale for like twenty bucks when I was thirteen that I had never worn anywhere before. (Unless you count my room.)

So we went back to my room, passing Baldwin's truly incredible decorations as we went. (For reals. They were gorgeous. Black and white snowflakes and white Christmas lights. Plus it smelled like chocolate because the committee baked all of the refreshments in our kitchen. Have I mentioned that I live in the best of all possible houses?) There, my friends and I relaxed and I changed out of my very constricting dress. Steve and I had planned on going downstairs when the party started (and it actually sounded really fun) but she, Alice and Adriane had ordered sushi, and when it arrived, nobody felt like going anywhere. So we sat on my floor, eating delicious Chinese and Japanese food, and then everyone but me piled onto my bed.

I should say here that it's a running joke how quickly I become drunk-tired. My friends don't ever sleep, and I actually do, so they laugh at me when I get sleepy around 11 and start comparing myself to a swan and gnawing on Alice's hand. (Not connected.) So my friends kept saying all night that I would crash at 10:30 and get silly.

Imagine my surprise when I pulled up Spotify and started playing Frank Sinatra singing Christmas carols (at Steve's request), and in a matter of minutes, they fell asleep! I was the liveliest of the four of us by the end of the night. They looked so cute with their visions of sugarplums that I let them sleep for a while, but when Kaitlin came back from the party and seemed to want to go to sleep, I had to get them out of my bed.

Here's a tip. The best way to get Steve and Adriane out of your bed, play Alvin & the Chipmunks singing, "Christmas Don't Be Late" as loudly as your laptop will allow. It still wasn't easy; Alice and I had to pull off the covers and sing in their ears, but they got up, all right.

Oh, what a night.