"City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks...Dressed in Holiday Cheer"

"Hey Look! It's the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree!"

Is it just me or do tourists get stupider every year?

News Flash - it's one block over. KthanksBye

"Strings of Street Lights, Even Stop Lights, Blink a Bright Red and Green"

"As the Shoppers Rush Home, With Their Treasures"

Lyrics from Silver Bells by Livingston & Evans. I love that it describes the holidays in an urban setting! Yeah!

Snapped those pics last night on 6th Avenue. Love the decorations out front of the office buildings. In midtown the uniform is pretty much gray & black so it's SO nice to see some color during the winter. It looked beautiful with our first snowfall too :)

The last of our "Happy New Year" holiday cards were finished last night. Thanks to Tiny Prints for such awesome designs, as always. I celebrated with a glass or two of California's finest. The taller the glass the more bubbles you see, remember that for your New Year's parties. We're off to Mexico Thursday so I lift my glass in a toast to you. May your last days of 2009 be merry and your 2010 even brighter! Thanks for reading!

xo,

Michelle

It smells like the holidays

I am a firm believer that smells bring up memories, hopefully good ones this time of year. Since moving to Florida 10 years ago (holy cow!) my mom (i think) has enjoyed the open layout of the kitchen/dining room/family room in what was my grandparents house. I guess the formal term is a 'great room' with an attached small kitchen. While it's sometimes a little odd to celebrate a holiday so often associated with winter things in a place where there are palm trees in everyone's yard instead of pine trees but mom always makes it magical, like we were all little girls living back on Long Island again. I know we missed the snow our first Christmas there but I think not having to shovel was the best present our Upstate NY born dad has ever been given. Anyway back to mom - yum making her hot chocolate, cookies, and her 'magic' smelling mixture. No idea where she got the recipe for this but wow it's amazing. I wish I could knock down a wall in my little apt to get the smell to travel throughout and bring me back 'home'.

Fill a pot at least half way full with water. If you are like me and have a tendency to forget you have a pot on the stove, add more water to prevent burning - eek! Add Cinnamon Sticks, Whole Cloves and Star Anise. Add a liberal amount of cinnamon sticks but you can go easy on the cloves and star anise since they are so strong. Let simmer. Prepare to be amazed with a delicious licorice but cinnamon-y smell. Enjoy!

xo,

Michelle

"Lorelai Does Santa's Dry Cleaning"

Gigi: Why do you have Santa's clothes?

Lorelai: Because ... I ...used to do Santa's dry cleaning.

Gigi: Wow.

Ahhh how I managed to twist dry cleaning, Christmas and Gilmore Girls into one post is remarkable (if I do say so myself) so here I go.

Living in a 5th floor walk up with no laundry facilities in the building is um an experience. I have learned to love drop-off service where gasp, someone else does my laundry. I got over the weirdness factor very quickly when I realized it would save me precious time during graduate school.

We love our laundry/dry clean place and I think the sweet husband and wife owners love us too. My husband is a little like Santa himself every weekend carrying our huge bag over his shoulder down the stairs and across the street. And sometimes the dry cleaning & dress shirts too. He has taken it on as one of his chores and I can' t thank him enough for doing it faithfully every weekend.

Enter yesterday - picture me slightly hung over from work holiday party not wanting to get out of bed for anything. And him going to the office. "I'm leaving you the laundry slips. Can you please pick up my shirts & dry cleaning?" I must have mummbled yes because when I finally stumbled out of bed around 2pm there they were on the coffee table. Crap. Not only was my mouth dry, my head in some kind of dull pain but it was also starting to snow. So being the great wife I am I sucked it up, got dressed and went down to pick everything up right?

Wrong. You veteran wives are shaking your heads at me I know. Lucky for me the store was opened today, despite all the snow, and husband can go to work in a freshly washed & starched shirt. And I have learned a lesson about not putting things off.

xo,

Michelle

Holiday Breakfast: Huevos Rancheros

Before Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanza and New Year's come and go...here's one last post about the food fest that is Thanksgiving. We went to the movies & dinner at Maria Pia . Maria Pia had great Turkey & wine...my favorite! Really want to go back for a proper Italian meal there...looked so so good. While out and about I snapped this pic of the Empire State Building decked out for the night.

I suppose one of my favorite traditions is cooking breakfast the morning of Thanksgiving. Well, any holiday for that matter. And my favorite breakfast is anything to do with eggs. Especially, thanks to Yuca Bar, huevos rancheros. This is my go to recipe from the Food Network

The kinda lousy thing about buying a dozen eggs is well then you have a dozen eggs and when you're just cooking for two you have to try to figure out what else to make. But no brainer, let's make more eggs! So the day after Thanksgiving, when everyone else was in Black Friday Madness (or if you ask me, one of the layer's of Hell) I scrambled the remaining eggs, used the left-over bean sauce (yum so good) and made wraps.

What's your favorite thing to cook for breakfast?

xo,

Michelle