A Mixed Bag of a Weekend

To say I'm fond of the holidays is a a gross understatement. The Christmas of 2009 was a pivotal turning point, where my Grinch heart grew thrice its size ( and more importantly I was not on call), and I could fully indulge in real holiday revelry. For christmas, Kris and I sat in our apartment in NYC, singing carols, while he cooked turkey and fresh cranberry sauce. We walked on Christmas Eve night at 2 am to look at the holiday lights in the snow, eating chestnuts, and singing songs to Swiss and German tourists with kazoos. Then we had a little Xmas Tree and put up stockings, which Father Christmas filled. We saw plays: George Bernard Shaw, Our Town, Brief Encounter in Dumbo.

Last Christmas was magical because I was here with my fiancee and was married right before I left for India for my wedding. So it had its own little magic.

As for this Christmas, I've decided to embark on finishing an old short story I started at the end of medical school. I scrawled it on a sheet of paper back in 2005 and certain pivotal scenes in it unfolded before my eyes, but yet I could not quite connect the dots in a convincing fashion....until this year. Somehow working as hard as I do, spending late-night hours in the laboratory, it came to me, how it would pan out and more importantly how it would end.

So this Thanksgiving vacation, I went to the River Market Antiques and collected ---for a lack of a better term--a crapload of Victorian and Art Deco postcards, paper dolls, and even an old French Edwardian magazine and an old art Deco women's magazine. From Spivey's, I bought an old Victorian boy's Holiday reader, full of such random, beautiful images---including a cradle-ship which was precisely a picture I was looking for the story. I also bought a copy of Little Lord Founterloy which also had some lovely, inspirational etchings.

My husband also most lovingly cooked all sorts of goodies: the most amazing, freshly made cranberry sauce I've ever tasted, roasted chicken, roasted potatoes, squash and sweet potatoes. He even cooked a variation of a Thai dish with quinoa instead of rice. We watched the most magical film Hugo ( a review of that later) and watched the inspired though flawed Muppets. We saw the lighting of the Plaza, and while some schoolkids tapdanced, we got OCCUPY-ied, which was sort of funny. I was like I hear ya---commercial Xmas is full of corporate greed, but let's not bitch about it while some kids flash some jazz hands at us.

Unfortunately, for me, I fell sick. But I finally finished the second part of my story: A Girl Called Battle.