A Very Cabrera Christmas

Even though our short trip home felt very short, we had a wonderfully fun time with our families and celebrated Christmas to its fullest!

Christmas Eve morning and afternoon was spent eating fish and lots of fish at my mom's house and enjoying the company of family. 

Then at 7, we joined AJ's family for 7 o'clock Christmas Eve mass. The church was decorated beautifully and I was so happy to hear Christmas Carols sung during the service. After church, we packed up the gifts we brought for the Cabreras and brought them to AJ's uncle's house. There, we had a big dinner of turkey, ham, green bean casserole, potatoes, and Panetone. We opened gifts around 11 at night and had fun watching everyone enjoy their presents. 

At about 12:30 on Christmas morning, AJ and I drove back to my mom's and promptly fell into a deep sleep in bed. I woke up around 7 and put on A Christmas Story and turned on the fireplace, enjoying the tree and the lights and the look of wrapped presents beneath the green pine. Once my grandmother came over, we all sat around the tree opening gifts and being happy to be together. 

Around 2 in the afternoon, we had our Christmas day meal of cavatelli pasta with meatballs, sausage, spare ribs, and beef followed by ham, sweet potatoes, and veggies. My mom made pie and we had many cookies to munch on the rest of the day. 

The following morning, my mom and sister drove AJ and I back to Boston. Even though Christmas is over, this time before New Year's Day still feels festive because its that in between time where not much gets done and everyone is still in the holiday mood. 

Celebrating Christmas

Since we started dating, AJ and I have been pretty good about splitting the holidays between our families as best we can but this year, since we'll only be home for two days, we're doing everything we can to maximize our time with both families!

What makes this a bit easier for us is the fact that our families have different traditions. Being from South America, AJ's family opens their gifts at midnight on Christmas morning while my family has always had the tradition of waking up early Christmas morning to open gifts. Growing up, my sisters and I always had to go to bed early on Christmas Eve so Santa could come. 

This means that this year, AJ and I will get the best of both worlds! And, because we want to see both our families on both Christmas Eve and Christmas day, we are doing just that rather than being with one family one day and one family the other. 

So, this evening we are hopping on a 6:51 Amtrak that will get us to Stamford around 10 (if everything goes well!) and we'll go straight to the Cabrera's home for the night. I'll go to my Mom's the next morning to help her prepare Christmas Eve dinner (which is eaten around 1 in the afternoon). We typically do the traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinner of fish, although we don't make 7! We'll eat an early dinner with my family and in the afternoon we will meet back up with the Cabreras to go to 7 o' clock mass. From there, we go to AJ's uncle's house for a later dinner (we'll be eating a lot I think) and wait until midnight to open presents! It will be very fun to see AJ's little cousins and siblings ripping through packages and boxes with excitement. When the festivities die down at his uncle's and everyone heads to bed, we'll drive back to my mom's in the middle of the night to sleep there so that we can wake up and open the presents under my mom's tree on Christmas morning! See, best of both worlds, really! My family also eats Christmas dinner around 1 o' clock so we'll spend the morning and early afternoon with them before going back to AJ's uncle's where all his family will still be. They spend Christmas day in their pajamas and make ceviche! That is a very good tradition in my eyes! So, we'll be back to spend time with them again before we spend the night at my mom's. We have to wake up first thing on the 26th and drive back to Boston because AJ has to work in the afternoon!

This is a photo from Christmas last year, a little over a month after we got engaged and it is so crazy to think how quickly the past year went by! How is it Christmas time already? I love this time of year and I always feel anticipation leading up to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day but this year is different because now the anticipation is less about gifts and the festiveness of Christmas morning. This year, the anticipation is all about seeing our families and hugging and kissing them and catching up! Not to mention, we'll get to meet this little guy!

My mom went and bought herself a Christmas puppy, Stuart! We can't wait to meet him!

Wishing everyone a very happy, joyous, and blessed Christmas! May all your days be merry and bright! Safe travels!

Christmas Literary Links

Spotted this at Brattle Book Shop today while strolling. Probably one of the greatest Christmas trees in Boston. 

I have two links (both from The New Yorker) for today as we're closing in on Christmas! I can't wait to be back in Connecticut, celebrating with family and sitting around my Mom's Christmas tree! This is such a fun time and I feel like it's coming and going so quickly this year!

The New Yorker put together a list of Christmas related readings. They're all great, but Jhumpa Lahiri's is really, really amazing!

Next, I know that every website and new site has published at least one (although probably 4 or 5) lists of the best books of 2014 and the best books to come in 2015. Most of them feature the same books but The New Yorker's is different. On this list, you'll find a variety of texts, including international books that I've never heard from but am definitely adding to my to read list. 

Happy reading!

Close to Christmas

My recent blog-silence is due to a few different factors. The semester just wrapped up so I was busy working on my final projects and grading final exams for the class I assisted. Christmas shopping. Spending two days straight baking for a Christmas party (because the first day was a failure). Wrapping presents. Writing thank you cards. And watching Christmas movies.

I'm not complaining  though, it was all fun stuff. In two days, AJ and I will be taking a late train to Connecticut two spend two short days celebrating the holidays with our families before coming back up to Boston with a few family members in tow.

The city has been feel pretty festive lately. After a pad thai dinner on Boylston the other night, AJ and I walked home down Comm Ave. It's filled with lights and we spent the whole walk pointing out pretty Christmas decorations on the exteriors of buildings and noticing lit up trees in windows. We did the same in the North End last night, there are some beautiful wreaths along Hanover. And today, walking down Newbury among Christmas shoppers, it started to snow very lightly and carolers were singing in the distance. It couldn't feel more like Christmas if it tried.

Christmas in Connecticut

My blog-silence over the weekend was due to the fact that, after working for two weeks without a day off, AJ took a few days off so we could spend a long weekend in Connecticut with our families. After a yummy dinner at Boloco, we hopped on Amtrak and got to Stamford around 10. AJ's dad picked us up with Christmas music on the radio and took us to his house where we slept and caught up with AJ's family.

The next morning, I ran some errands with my mom and had lunch with her before we picked up AJ again and headed to Kiwanis Park in New Canaan for our tree! This has been our tradition ever since we moved to CT. Everyone at Kiwanis is a volunteer and the money you spend on the trees all goes to donation. The trees there are all perfect and we usually end up buying the first one we see. This time, we got one that's about 6 feet tall and very full! The volunteers strapped it to the top of the car and we headed to my grandmother's house nearby to pick her up so she could spend the night at our house.

Once we headed home, we realized that the tree was probably not going to make it home so AJ opened the sunroof, grabbed the tree by the trunk, and held onto it that way for the rest of our drive home. It also started hailing at that point so we all got a bit pelted with ice but it's all in the name of a good tree!

We spent the rest of the day decorating the tree and my mom's house while watching Elf. My sister came home from Manhattan, too, to help decorate.

I'm really glad that we were able to go home to pick a tree and help my mom set it up. It's one of my favorite things to do and AJ and I have been doing it every Christmas since we met. I'm glad we could keep it up! I know my mom appreciated the help, too, and it wouldn't have felt like Christmas without picking out a real tree and stringing it with lights!

We had so much fun being home with our families and tried to fit in as much fun time with them as possible. Thankfully, AJ was able to workout his schedule so that we can be home for Christmas, too! We'll head home late on the 23rd, spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Connecticut and head back first thing on the 26th. I know we're lucky that even though we live in a different state than our families, we're still relatively close to them and it's an easy train ride to get home. But we are both so close to our parents and siblings that we feel we can never see them enough! We're very lucky to be able to go home when we can and we are especially blessed to be able to spend this holiday with them.

I hope all of you have great plans for this Christmas!

On My First Semester of Grad School

This past Tuesday I had my last class of the semester. And, while I still have two assignments to turn in next week and some grading to do for the professor I assist, it feels weird to be done with classes for a few weeks. Actually, I have over a month until next semester even begins!

photo

The semester went by crazy fast and I feel like I learned so much without even realizing it until now, when I think back on the semester. My writing habits have changed but could be improved even more and I think that I have gained a bit more confidence since my workshop (although I'm still waiting on my grade!) The other class I took focused on getting us prepared to teach in Emerson's first-year writing program so I learned a lot about pedagogy, teaching techniques, and theories that had never been part of my education before. It was an interesting class and I'm hopeful that one day I'll be able to use what I learned as a teacher. My final for that class is a semester long outline of a sample class...I should be working on that now.

Next semester, I'm changing up my schedule a bit. Instead of taking only two classes, I'll be taking three. And instead of having classes only at night, I'll have two that are a bit earlier in the afternoon. I'm going to try to get another position as a TA but with three classes I know my time will be a bit more limited. I am looking forward to taking lit classes and to seeing what other workshops will be like.

Even though classes are done, I still have work to do. Today I have to proctor a final exam for an undergrad class and then grade them before sending them off to the professor. And, like I said, I have some final assignments to finish up, but by Wednesday at noon, I'll be able to say that my first semester in grad school is officially done. Feel free to celebrate with me.

December Decorations

Well yesterday certainly did not feel like December! It hit 55 degrees, if not more, and the sky was clear during the day. I walked home from the gym in a T-shirt (although some people were still bundled up!) and then walked back to the gym because I forgot my keys on the elliptical.

Although warm weather is nice and makes me happy, it's disorienting to be so warm in December! I lived in Minnesota for a long time and we always got our first snowfall by Halloween. I'm used to December first looking like this:

I love to have a little snow fall on Christmas Eve or Christmas day, it doesn't feel like Christmas without it, so hopefully the forecast will show some snow soon! Either way, I'm definitely doing what I can to get in the Christmas spirit. Our teeny, artificial Charlie Brown tree is lit up and decorated, we put white lights around our window, and I have a few festive decorations on our mantle. I've watched a few Christmas movies so far (Home Alone, Miracle on 34th Street, part of Christmas Vacation, and part of Elf). Plus, all the wreaths and bows that are going up in the Common and on apartment buildings are really starting to make it feel like Christmas. The top photo is of the front doors of our building and I was so happy to find them decorated! Now we just need some snow to bring it all together.