When your birthday is three days before Christmas and you grow up in the United States, there is very little you can do to separate the day from the ever-eclipsing holiday mayhem.  There is the inevitable dual gifting you’ve heard about, I’m sure, coupled with an incessant round of holiday parties that tend to fall on your birthday itself, negating any possibility of a romantic birthday dinner sans red and green cheer.  I’ve always been ok with this though, preferring to look at it as merely a challenge to make my party the party of the season- the one people still feel the hungover effects of come Christmas morning.  When I was in my more “free-spirited” phase, the parties would be laced with glow sticks and body paints with all manner of eclectic music punctuating the reverberating cacophony.  The problem with those parties lie in the fact that no one would really remember anything about them either during or afterward, much less the fact that it was my birthday.  Now that I’ve got a burgeoning reputation as a social maven to uphold, a bit more organization and thought goes into planning each fete, and this year was no exception.

I went with a Mad Men theme, if you haven’t seen the show you ought to.  It’s set in the early 1960’s and filled with a cast of advertising execs on Madison Avenue and their wives/mistresses.  I chose the period for the attire and cuisine, thinking it would be easy and fun to transport ourselves into that world. I didn’t bargain on the fact that everyone would really get into the attitude as well, which is what made it a resounding success.  As many of you remember and some of you can imagine, a major focus is on the cocktails- drinking on the job from morning ‘til night is de rigueur a la Mad Men.  I so wanted to find a seven or eight year old to bartend, since kids back then would frequently mix drinks for their parents, but I couldn’t get anyone to volunteer their child, despite the major résumé-building potential!  Instead my dear husband Jonas transformed himself into a downright dandy bartender adopting the persona of a confident boss mixing up a bourbon concoction for a coworker before a “meeting.” 

I wanted my food and drink to match what likely would have been served back in the day so I went the class and sophistication route (ha ha) with homemade cheese balls, bonbons, rumaki, Swedish meatballs, a Roquefort molded salad mousse, deviled duck eggs, and Waldorf salad. 

Read more

A few years ago, starting in the month of February we purchased, gutted and remodeled our home with our own four hands (between Jonas and I, that’s four, right?).  We didn’t entirely plan on sub-contracting ourselves and consequently having to execute the whole nine, it just happened that every sub-contractor we hired kind of sucked and showed up late expecting lots of money.  Eventually it just became easier to hang the sheetrock, cut and lay the tile, cut and lay the hardwoods, engineer, fabricate and install the steel staircase, et cetera all on our own.  We typically started working when we both got off work, around 7pm.  We continued until midnight or more, went “home” to our previous residence that was about to sell, and started the whole thing anew the next day. 

Did I mention that we were also planning our international wedding, slated that May 24^th? And that our previous house had to hit the real estate market before it began its now ubiquitous descent (of which we were hearing rumblings, since I’m a real estate agent by day)? Yeah, there really wasn’t much of an option but to get to work, so we hit the hack saw hard those few months.  We hadn’t yet met the neighbors, but I could tell they thought I was something of an anomaly. I’d arrive at the house in Louboutins and pencil skirts but I’d come out shouldering 2x4’s two minutes later in coveralls spattered in paint and spackle. 

Read more

One post and two recipes- I must really be getting into the holiday spirit of giving, folks!  It all went down like this:  right about this time every year I get so steeped in festive cookies, eggnog, holiday muzak and mall madness that I simply need a break from it all lest I should find myself menacingly brandishing a meat cleaver at the next poor soul who steps into my kitchen. 

 At this moment, I begin to dream of the greatest Christmas I ever had, spent sunning myself on a Mauritian beach far far away from the hullabaloo of snow-drenched streets and plastic manger scenes.  At the first inkling of burnout I head to the laptop and search out last-minute fares to somewhere, anywhere but here to escape to for the holidays, knowing full well that I will spend it here, because I’ve already decked the halls, wrapped the gifts, and planned the menu for the big day.  I start to reason with myself, Linda, you hate to travel during the holidays, plus Bentley is too young to appreciate Caiphirina’s on the beach and mama in a bikini anyway. 

Read more