Budapest

Several friends of mine had visited Budapest over the past couple of years.  When I mentioned we were going there, they were thrilled to talk about how much they loved the city.  I agreed almost as soon as we arrived from Romania. 

The view from the citadel was worth the uphill climb.

Christmas Surprises

Before I arrived back in Lexington on Wednesday night, my mom told me that she really hadn't had time to do too much decorating.  She'd been busy working, choosing amazing Christmas gifts for everyone, and baking the best cookies of ever. (Not just the cinnamon cookies with the chocolate kisses, but the Italian flag cookies and Linzer tarts!)  Oh, and also she did all of this:

My mom makes this cranberry wreath and it always looks nice against our white front door.
I think she even made the bow!

Christmas Shopping in Ann Arbor

Around this time of year in Ann Arbor, I used Christmas shopping to procrastinate studying for finals.  I would bundle up in my big puffy coat and trudge down to Main Street, where the trees were always lit up and the stores were decorated for the season.  It got me into the spirit of the season more than sitting on the couch writing papers did, though the lights up around our living room on Hamilton Place were always bright and helpful.

I'd walk in the front door and have this waiting for me. 
My roommates were (and still are) the best.

The Polenta Story

Christmas Eve is one of the few traditional celebrations in my family.  All of my siblings come over and my dad makes polenta for dinner.  Polenta is a dish made from corn meal, water, cheese and butter.  It takes some time, since you need to heat and stir the ingredients until the mixture becomes mostly solid.  When my dad was growing up, his grandmother would make polenta in a huge copper pot whenever he and his parents came over for dinner.  To serve it, she would flip the pot upside down on a towel in the middle of the dining table.  Everyone would cut a piece from there.  In order to celebrate our French heritage – my grandparents emigrated from Europe in the early part of the twentieth century – my dad makes polenta on the holiday we always spend together.  It’s the one part of my French heritage that has survived through the years.  Unlike my grandmother, though, my dad serves the polenta on a plate.

Vive la France!

How Majoring in History Almost Stole Christmas

"Get the biggest aluminum tree you can find, Charlie Brown,
maybe painted pink."

When I got to college, I noticed that my Christmas seasons were getting a little dimmer.  I spent the lead-up to Christmas studying for finals, writing papers, and generally hiding in the library or Union Tap Room.  After Thanksgiving, I had my Christmas music playlist on constantly, but the Charlie Brown soundtrack can only put you in the spirit so much when you're facing multiple exams.  By the time I got on my plane to Boston, I had just started to relax, and then within days Christmas was over.


In the past two years, though, I noticed that there were other factors that were stealing my Christmas season away.  I studied twentieth century American history and while I loved my classes and there are a lot of uplifting stories in that time period, there are also quite a bit that, for lack of a better phrase, just bring you down.  After each lecture of my Cold War era class, I would come home and tell my roommates, "Yep, today was about atomic bombs"or "Yeah, we talked about the rise and fall of labor unions" or "Lecture today was about the Vietnam War.  I'm going to take a nap.  For a while."