Seasons Gratings!

December is upon us, and while this is my favorite time of year, it goes fast, and it's often stressful or sometimes sad too. Here's a little story about how things go down around here this time of year.

A few years ago, Nipper Knapp and I lived in a live/work loft in downtown Los Angeles. It was great. I had studio space for my photography, we had a rooftop pool. Faaaaaaaancy. It did have some downsides though. Like the truck wash that was 4 stories below our window. Hello diesel fumes. And when business was slow, the workers would play soccer in the parking lot, and for some reason this involved A LOT of howling and cat calling. One time a truck driver hit Nipper in his car while he was parked outside the loft. Hit our car with his giant truck. When Nipper got out to get insurance info the guy went CRAZY, said he didn't hit our car, threatened Nipper Knapp and then drove away. Nipper got his license plate, which it turned out was FAKE. Yup. great neighborhood.

We got pregnant in the fall of that year we lived in the loft, so when Christmas rolled around, I was in prime end of first trimester barf bag raging hormone you'd better think twice before you speak to me land. We had 14' ceilings, so I was determined to buy the biggest tree we could find. We did. When we got it home, and standing up in the stand, which I seem to recall involved Nipper getting out his circular saw, I was too cranky to decorate it.

My mom was visiting for the holiday, and we were going to make Christmas cookies. I had found a new recipe that supposedly made gingerbread cookies that didn't suck. Does anyone else have memories of breaking a tooth on a christmas cookie that tasted vaguely of sawdust? The way that they made them delicious and not suck was that there were 7300 steps and ingredients, including rolling them out and then chilling them for 30 minutes before you cut them out. They were sticky and generally a pain in the ass.

Because mom had to decorate gigantor the christmas tree single handedly while I sat on the couch and complained, we didn't start the cookies until about 7pm. (I was a real peach, I know) Around midnight, we had batches and batches of undecorated cookies laid out on the table along with the squeeze bottles of fancy royal icing, and pastel dragees. I wanted magazine cookies, not some stupid homemade cookies. I had BIG DREAMS for these cookies! Things were tense and no one dared comment on our folly, lest the pregnant lady blow again. Finally, my mom said "Well, Merry Fucking Christmas!" I have never laughed so hard in my whole entire life.

Merry Fucking ChristmaHanaKwanzaSolstice everybody! I hope everyone has a great Holiday season with lots of laughs and love, and family close by.