Satwinsolmas Eve Celebration with Family and Friends

So we pulled it off!! Thirteen people came together at our home to celebrate the cold, dark, sleety, snowy, dank and depressing depth of winter. Well...that was what it was like outside. Inside, however, it was a noisy, laughter-filled, cheery, colorful scene.

We arranged two tables end to end in our tiny great room, borrowed some extra chairs, and set out all the silver and most of our dishes for the gala event. The food was heavenly.

Martha and Heinz brought beef tenderloin, which they broiled to perfection in our oven. They also brought delicious gravy to go with it, and lots of red wine, a home made cheesecake, and lots of presents from family in California.
Lisa, Dave, Josh and Max arrived dressed to kill, and Lisa had made a beautiful English trifle for the occasion.

Ariel and Elliott R brought a fantastic green salad with Gorgonzola cheese and caramelized onions. I provided two kinds of squash with mango and cranberry chutney, sour cream, cheese and rosemary potatoes, and the obligatory green peas. Our two special guests, Tiberius Moran-Lopez and Jay Jackson, brought some great wine and beautiful flowers.

The festivities began immediately, with Heinz pouring wine and El making special drinks.

Martha and I were bustling around in the kitchen, preparing last-minute dishes and arranging all the food on the butcher block.

As folks relaxed and started in on second glasses of wine, the noise level rose at about the same pace as downright silliness.

We started with party hats and gewgaws from poppers, and quickly moved on to schpoonschnozzing.

Of course, Heinz is the consummate schpoonschnozzer, but Josh, Max and Lisa are not far behind in technique and presentation. My nose is way too short to even attempt the feat, and besides I'm also way too dignified.

After dinner, there was a feeding frenzy on the presents under the tree. Wrapping paper flew in every direction, ribbon tangled around arms and legs, shrieks of joy filled the room, the fire crackled and sparked, and the dog cowered under a chair.

Everyone got to unwrap something, so we figured everyone must have been good all year long, and we congratulated each other with ice wine and brandy.

The desserts were positively otherworldly, and we cleansed our palates with chocolate candy following the feasting.

All in all, a wonderful time. The party would have stood up well in Saturnalia days, in my opinion. Happy Satwinsolmas!

Satwinsolmas

We're hosting a big group the evening of December 24th this year -- popularly known as "Christmas Eve" -- our first time hosting family and friends at this time of year since moving here!

So I got to thinking about Christmas. I have to be honest, Christmas is stressful. In fact most people I know think it's a royal pain, mostly because of the commercialization of the event and the forced march we all seem to go through: finding just the right gift for 250 of our closest friends, writing hundreds of greeting cards, figuring out new recipes, sweating out the possibility we've missed someone on our lists, figuring out what to get that person who has everything, attending the numerous holiday parties where we don't know anyone, on and on. And on top of that, overspending.

But also I must reveal that I don't care for Christmas in particular, because I'm not your garden variety believer. I've decided that it's as good a time as any to bring out the silver and china, and have a lovely couple of days with family, all dressed up. Is this act of celebrating, when I don't believe in what it stands for, an act of hypocrisy on my part?

As I see it, it's all in the way you look at it. For thousands of years people have been celebrating at this time of year for various reasons. The winter solstice was and still is celebrated all over the world in numerous ways -- in fact, you can find a name for celebrations or events acknowledging winter solstice for just about every country in the world, from the Japanese Amaterasu to the Russian Ziemassvētki. Another familiar one (at least historically speaking) is Saturnalia (established about 217 BC), devised by the Romans to cheer up the people they had conquered.

Then along came Christmas. As far as I can tell, this time of year has been acknowledged by people all over the world for thousands of years, and Christians only began to popularize that time of year as the birth of Christ in the early to high middle ages.

So...here's my suggestion. Instead of Christmas, I think we should call this time of year something like Satwinsolmas. That covers pretty much everything. Has a nice ring, no? Roll it around on your tongue for a while. Sat...win...sol...mas.

For Satwinsolmas, you could do anything you want: worship, acknowledge, sacrifice to, or thank whatever or whomever you believe in; and then celebrate by giving gifts, lighting candles, preparing special meals, putting up decorations, throwing parties.

But in my mind, Satwinsolmas would NOT be a forced march. Instead, people could choose, or not choose, to participate. And no one would be persecuted for it! And guilty feelings would positively NOT be allowed.

Absence of guilt, freedom to choose. Celebrate. Satwinsolmas.

Thanksgiving, 2009 in Ann Arbor

We did the traditional Thanksgiving Day routine yesterday: Family members + turkey, two kinds of potatoes, gravy, pumpkin pies.


What was particularly wonderful: Martha cooked the turkey on the outdoor grill, which made it crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.


She added her famous timbales, popovers and cheesecake; and later in the evening, Lisa, Dave, Josh, Max, Elliott R, Ariel and Matt arrived, bringing along even more incredible desserts!



Heinz played the role sommelier and had chosen a particularly wonderful Malbec. Later in the evening he brought out dessert wines and tequila. (Doesn't everyone do tequila with dessert?)

Conversations ranged from politics to global warming to nuclear power plants...and everything in between. You never know what will come up at the family dinner table, but it's always a lively discussion, and we're always friends at the end!


We had a new guest this year -- Tiberius Moran Lopez, a nuclear engineering and radiological sciences PhD candidate at UM College of Engineering. I met Tiberius when he worked in the College's high school mentoring program a couple of years ago.

I brought my camera and realized it needed to be charged, so I missed some of the action. But these give a little flavor of Thanksgiving at Martha and Heinz's home...always a treat.

Barn Party! Friends welcome - Sunday, November 15, 4-8 pm

Well -- we're back on for the Andrews Barn Party, to celebrate the oncoming winter with an indoor gathering of friends. Elliott's thumb is much better now!

We hope our Ann Arbor / Detroit area friends and family members can come, even if only to drop in for a few minutes. The party will be an open house to celebrate the first place win of our 1937 Cord at the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg meet in early September.

Here are the particulars:

Date: Sunday, November 15
Time: (drop in any time, leave any time) 4 pm - 8 pm
Place: 20390 Waterloo Road, Chelsea, MI 48118
Phone: (734) 433-9411 (main house)
Cell Phone (Jill): (734) 255-0101
Cell Phone (Elliott): 734-474-3098

Directions: From Ann Arbor, take I-94 West toward Chelsea. Take Exit #159 to Chelsea. At the end of the offramp, turn left (North) at the stoplight. Continue north all the way through the town of Chelsea and continue on Main Street (also called M-52) to Werkner Road. Turn right at Werkner Road, and then take the first left at Waterloo Road. We are the 3rd house on your right. Follow the signs we'll have put up so you can drive directly up to the barn -- or if you like, park at the main house and walk up to the barn. Here's a link to an online map.

We'll have food, drinks, and music. Please invite anyone else you think would want to see the car!

cheers,
Jill