A Christmas Carol

It seems that Christmas is coming together quite nicely in the Rickey-Dillinger homestead. Mom has been what I would call a "giant of organization" this year. She has been in a real nesting mode, and got our new abode whipped into shape and really organized and tidy. Its a funny thing that when you start to organize, things you didn't even remember you had start to reappear! That's how it was with Christmas decorations this year, or should I say, Christmas keepsakes. To me, Christmas decorations constitute ornaments, tinsel, electric lights with at least one bulb burnt out, but aren't necessarily "keepsakes". Over the years, mom has collected beautiful Christmas coffee table books, and this year, those books "reappeared"! One was printed in England, and another one is a crazy book called "A Story A Day Till Christmas" which mom bought at a stationary store in Newport when my sister and I were growing up. It is supposed to be an advent book of sorts, meant to be a sweet and meaningful tradition passed down from a mother to her daughters. My mom, being the wild, crazy, and hysterical woman that she is, hammed up every story and made fun of every story and had my sister and I in stitches every night. In our family, laughing together is the best of times.

One book called to me this year. We have a version of "A Christmas Carol" that was printed in Italy. It has the most beautiful illustrations . Now, I've seen almost every version of "A Christmas Carol" you could possibly imagine...from George C. Scott to the Muppets, but I have never actually read the book all the way through, so that has been my Christmas goal: to read the book start to finish. Its not a very big book, so its an easy read to fit into the quiet moments between the holiday hustle and bustle.

To say that the book is a more intricate telling of the Ebenezer Scrooge story doesn't do it justice. The amazing details, the emotion, the beauty, and the profound lessons taught in those pages are incredible. No movie version (although there are many splendid movie versions) could ever paint the pictures that Charles Dickens was able to paint with words. What an incredible mind he had. Opening the book is like taking a trip through his mind, and it was a brilliant mind. There are certain people who blaze ahead of their times and burn too brightly to be truly appreciated in their time, and to me, he is one of those. Not a perfect man by any means, but an extraordinary one, who gave us many gifts and life lessons through his writing.

If you find quiet time this holiday season to make a cup of tea and calm your mind, I would encourage you to read "A Christmas Carol" in its original form. Though there are certain phrases here and there that probably only make sense to a Victorian Englishman or woman, the spirit of the book will inspire you.

Happy reading....and Merry Christmas.

Culinary Delights

It's been kind of a running joke in my family that I am the diva who can't really cook. Sure, I had about three random sure fire dishes: chicken schnitzel, turkey pie with red garlic mashed potatoes, and ramen. I don't know whether its my advanced age (over 25:-) or what, but I've turned a culinary corner. I now feel that I can cook, and that I can cook quite well.

I was talking to my friend Matt at work on Friday. He is a year older than me and his wife just had a little baby girl. We both served in the military and have similar stories of being injured pretty early off. Well, for some reason, we started sharing our experiences and how difficult it is to live with the residuals of an injury. Even though I've improved some, I know I will never be the same as I was before I joined the Army. We talked about things we love to do that we probably wont be able to do again. For him, its running in the morning (wow, I can't say I'd ever mourn not being able to run, but to each his own!) For me, its Irish Step Dancing. I took Irish Step Dancing for a few months several years ago, and I had so much fun doing it that I've always planned on taking lessons again. Now that my knees are all messed up, I don't see myself realisti cally doing that again. It was kind of cathartic for both of us to talk, and he brought up a really good point. He told me that even if you lose something you loved doing, the trick is to put all that energy into something new and find something new to love. For me, that has become cooking. Instead of being a chore that I really don't want to do, its become a little bit like art for me. The kitchen is a place for me to experiement, mess up, start again, and perfect something. Its something I can do and its adding a lot of joy to my life right now. Culinary victories are a big deal. In the past three days, I have made homemade alfredo sauce and my very first cake from scratch, and they both turned out great! However, the fact they turned out great isn't really the point. The fact is that I tried something that used to really intimidate me. I took the chance that my sauce would taste like paper mache paste and my cake wouldn't rise, and I found a new challenge, and something I really love to do. I guess when life hands you lemons you really do make lemonaide!