Tag: christmas spirit

Trying to Finish Everything

“Everything” means the book and the rest of Christmas. With the book, after two or three extremely nervous weeks, I feel a little bit better. We are done with the first twelve chapters, meaning we already received the reviewer’s feedback and replied and/or made changes. We are making final edits on Chapter 13, and we have both Chapter 8 and 14 more than half-done. (We realized that we missed something after we were already on Chapter 11, that’s why it is out of order).

After those two will be completed, we will only have Chapter 15 and a Conclusion left; those two are small and do not require new examples (examples being the most time-consuming part). It is still a lot, plus we need at least one Appendix and a Glossary, and some pictures clean-up. So, it is still a lot.

Christmas. On Thursday, I finished decorating sugar cookies, partially in the morning before work, and the rest – in the evening.

Today, I baked one more batch of Russian Tea Cakes because I suddenly ran out of them, although I baked two batches at the very beginning of the cookies marathon. Also, I tried one more time to bake pumpkin and dates cookies. Last year, I didn’t like the results, but though it might be because I used my own pumpkin puree instead of the canned one, and I thought that the problem could be in the wrong consistency. This yeat, I used preserves, but I am still not sure whether I like the outcome.
I mailed the last batch of parcels on Wednesday; all the rest will be hand-delivered. And I am very glad that almost half of the parcels had already reached their destinations.

774 cookies. 118 sugar cookies decorated. 18 parcels sent. 15 boxes of cookies hand-delivered so far (or ready to be delivered), plus one giant box for the youth shelter.
… Now, it’s time to start packing the non-cookie presents 🙂

In Chicago

On Tuesday, I went to Chicago, mostly to deliver cookies for several people in the city. I was surprised and delighted to see that they put up a Christmas tree inside the Palatine train station.

There is way less people n the train that in was in October, but still more than in March and April.

Continue reading “In Chicago” →

Christmas Shipping

During the Christmas season, I try to ship my domestic parcels in the USPS kiosk, and I try to do it late at night when there is no line (they are open 24X7).

I planned to do it on Saturday, but since I didn’t have access to my car, I could no do it, and Vlad came only on Sunday afternoon, and after all the other things I had to address, I when to the post office late at night on Sunday.

Unfortunately, the outcome was expected: by that time, there were so many parcels left in the course of the weekend that the loading door won’t open. I thought that I could at least print the labels, but the kiosk screen was also stuck in the “Please wait” mode!

i did not want to stay in the line on Monday, so I finally learned how to use Click&Ship, and printed all the labels at home, and paid online :). I could even arrange a pickup at home, but I didn’t want to wait for another day, so I drove to the post office to drop them off.

Christmas baking – the second installment
Continue reading “Christmas Shipping” →

The First Part of the Christmas Baking

Baking alone can be considered a success because I ended up baking enough to send all of my long-distance shipments, and there is still plenty left. I will bake more next weekend, and I should have enough for all my giveaways plus something extra. At least, I hope so. There are so many people to whom I want to give cookies! 

I brought this apple-cinnamon filling form Finland
Last year, after baking kolacki for ten years, I finally figured out how to prepare the apricot filling the right way!
Continue reading “The First Part of the Christmas Baking” →

An Extremely Challenging Weekend

As I am trying to do a half of my Christmas cookies (without any help this year!), whatever is due with the book, house decoration, presents shopping and Christmas cards – and each of these activities is enough to take to whole weekend!

Since it’s me solo, I am doing smaller batches, so do not expect my usual cookie table 🙂

Christmas Card And Christmas Cookies

Whatever happens with the world, my Christmas cookies are here to stay:). This being said, it might be my 10th cookies giveaway campaign, but only the second one on the WP platform.

Here is it. First, I will be happy to exchange to Christmas cards with anybody in the world who would like to.

Second, I will be shipping my holiday cookies all over the world, as I’ve done for the past ten years.

  • First 10 requests from any country in the world, not including Canada
  • First five requests from Canada
  • Unlimited requests from the US not including Chicago and suburbs (I just have to know you, al least virtually:))
  • For Chicago and suburbs: unlimited pickup either at my house in Palatine or in Chicago Downtown on the week of December 14

Please send me a DM if interested 🙂

My Cookies are Finding Their Recipients:)

Un Saint-Petersburg
In Moscow

And I know that one is waiting to be picked up from the post office. Only three parcels are still on the way! Cookies rule 🙂

The Art of Gift Giving

On Sunday, our family will get together for Christmas presents exchanging. It’s not the first time we are exchanging presents on a day other than Christmas Eve (we are “the Eve family”). Due to both our family being distributed and members having demanding jobs, it happens quite often. Sometimes we get together before Christmas, sometimes – after. Sometimes on the right date :). In the course of many years, we learned that dates are not that important. What is important, though – that over the years, my children not only mastered the art of giving presents but are doing it better than I.

SInce 2011, we always recorded our Christmas gift-giving, in full or partially, and I spent the last hour going through these recordings. I will post a small fraction of them here, to give an idea, how did it look like in the past. It is looking more or less the same every year. Every year I am delighted to hear multiple “how did you know?!”

I firmly believe that Christmas presents should be special. They might be practical (like on several of these videos my children receive computers for Christmas). Still, they should be at least partially surprises, something a gift recipient does not expect to receive.

You will hear some Russian in the videos, but I hope that everything will be understandable regardless :).

Christmas 2012
Christmas 2012
Christmas 2013
Christmas 2014 – we had guests from Moscow,
and also Vlad lost his voice and could not perform his Elf duties

For the record, Vlad still wear that coat from the last video!

I stopped myself from watching these old videos, because I could easily do it till tomorrow:). Now I am going to schedule this post so that it would appear tomorrow morning, and then we shall see, how our gift-giving will go in the evening.

What I Did and What I Didn’t Do This Season

Many people told me that they are impressed with how much I managed to do this holiday season. Most of the time it is expressed in a rhetorical question – how I manage to find time to do “all that.” The truth is, this season I did less than I normally do. The reason why it does not seem so is that I knew ahead that won’t have time for all my usual activities, and I planned which of them I am going to reschedule or cut entirely. 

The moment Anna asked me: Mom, are you still enjoying your Christmas, or are you stressed out, I realized I need to watch for the latter. I can’t rush when choosing presents. I can’t rush when I wrap presents, because this is an enjoyable activity. I need to wrap carefully each and single cookie I am sending out because that’s the way I add my love to the recipe :).

And you know what? I am really happy with my season. I didn’t do any of the shows: either Welcome Yule, nor the Christmas Carol, nor the Nutcracker. And I am OK with that. I didn’t get a chance to listen to the Caroling at the Cloud Gate, not even once, and this is a little bit upsetting. But I am delighted that I had time to meet with many people who are near and dear to me. People are the most important, and for all the rest, there will be next year – this is not the last Christmas season! 

Mom and I had a subscription concert on Dec 20, it was a matinee, and it was one of the days when I  could not leave work earlier. I’ve exchanged out tickets for Sunday matinee, the same show. It was great since it was Dec22, and all shopping and packing was done. I could spend time with Mom, not thinking about other things in the background. I also delivered two more boxes of cookies:), and we had lunch with my friend Lena -2 (not to be taken for Lena -1 from Michigan).

Continue reading “What I Did and What I Didn’t Do This Season” →

Before I Get Back to Work and Life…

I’ve already posted this video on Instagram, but Instagram saves only the first minute. Here is the full version – all three minutes :). There are lots of things I am going to write about in the next several days, which will be relatively relaxing (but only relatively:)). Still, before all these things, I just wanted to say how much I love my house at Christmas and how happy I am to be able to spend this after-Christmas time here by myself.

I spent the last couple of hours sitting by the fireplace, catching up with my friends’ updates, and drinking hot black tea with Finnish blueberry liquor. And having some parmesan cheese with the most fantastic fig jam with ginger and cardamon, a Christmas gift from my friend.