holidays Archives - Cynthia Gellis

November 23, 2020November 23, 2020

Holiday Gratitude Practice

Since Thanksgiving is this week, of course I thought I would do a post about holiday gratitude. Not the most original idea, but something that I think is appropriate to take a moment for. Of course, I did write a post about gratitude last year, so the challenge is to see if I have something new to share with y’all.

In some ways, it might be harder to find things to be grateful for this year. Not being able to travel to visit family or hold big holiday get-togethers might be a real bummer. It has been a tough year for everyone and the anxiety that goes along with this global pandemic is no joke.

But in some ways, maybe all of this turmoil makes it easier to be grateful for all sorts of things that we may have taken for granted before.

When I was reading the post that I wrote last year, one of the things that I noted being grateful for was our local yoga on the bluff. And one of the elements of yoga on the bluff that I particularly enjoyed was being around all the different people from all different walks of life. I’ll tell you what, I would not be grateful to find myself in a crowd of all sorts of people these days. But I do feel grateful that I have been able to cultivate a home yoga practice. In some ways it has been a great privilege to take responsibility for my own yoga practice. I can be very mindful of the way that I move through all the postures; I take more time than I used to in some positions and I am gentle with myself in ways that I wasn’t before. I might not be grateful for all of the new aches and twinges that I seem to be uncovering, but I am grateful for my ability to discern between a discomfort that needs to be worked through and one that needs to be moved away from.

In June, I did a gratitude practice of listing at least ten things every day. The challenge was to not repeat as much as possible. I mean you can imagine what my list would have looked like without that challenge: cats, coffee, sunshine, repeat. Some days were easier than others that’s for sure, but the whole exercise was very centering. Actually, now I’m starting to think that I should take it back up again …

Ok, I’ve just given myself an idea for a holiday gratitude practice and I’m going to invite you to play along with me at home.

Let’s look toward Thanksgiving and this whole holiday season in front of us and find ten things to be grateful for. Maybe write them down. Maybe put them in a gratitude jar and see if you can add one new thing from now until the end of the year. Then on New Year’s Day why not pull them out and read them? Start the new year from a place of love and gratitude.

If you’re not ready to write down ten things, how about just one? Leave it in the comments below and we can help each other to jump start a holiday gratitude practice.

I’ll start: I’m grateful for you reading this and playing along!

P.S. I will follow up with everyone who commented about the book giveaway this week!

February 14, 2019February 14, 2019

Saint Valentine

Happy Saint Valentine’s Day Loves!

Among the many, important reasons to celebrate today, one is that it is my mother in-law’s birthday. Since she lives on the East Coast, we don’t see each other very often. When we do, she and l like to drink champagne and eat shellfish, so I think I will try to do that today in her honor. I might even offer to share with Mr. Man.

I also thought it would be fun to learn something about Saint Valentine because I had a feeling that he wasn’t the Patron Saint of diamond heart necklaces. I think it is kind-of an interesting story, let me know if you agree. Based on what I read, here is my version of Saint Valentine’s history.

There is not much known about the dude who would become known as Saint Valentine, the Patron Saint of affianced couples, bee keepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travelers, and young people. That’s a lot of things! It seems like a lot of pressure.

I’m not sure how epilepsy and plague got lumped in with happy marriages and lovers, it kind-of makes me giggle. Isn’t it wonderful that he is the Patron Saint of bee keepers though? Bee keepers are important.

It is believed that he was martyred in 269 AD. Those were the days that Christianity was considered a fringe religion in Rome where he lived. The story goes that before he was executed, he performed a miracle by restoring the sight of a young girl. My favorite part of that story is that he wrote her a little note before his execution which he signed, “Your Valentine.” Aww, cute!

I don’t know how it works, but I can’t help but wonder why he isn’t the Parton Saint of sight? Then we could celebrate Saint Valentine’s Day by having eye exams or eating carrots or something else to promote ophthalmic health! But I guess the part of the story that he was secretly marrying Christian couples was more important to the people who get to decide those sorts of things. Still don’t get what bee keepers have to do with it.

In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius I canonized Saint Valentine and the Feast of Saint Valentine was established on February 14. Among the various sources that I found, there was some mention that the date was intended to usurp the pagan festival of love, Lupercalia. Other sources say there is no relation, but I love a good usurping story.

Lupercalia was an ancient Roman festival celebrated on February 15. It was intended to remove evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility for the coming spring. Rites of the celebration included animal sacrifice, after which members of the Lupercal order would run naked through the streets of Rome holding strips of the sacrificed animal’s skin that they would use to swat people.

Ok, back to Saint Valentine’s Day. I found several references crediting 14^th century English poet and couturier, Geoffrey Chaucer (author of The Canterbury Tales), with creating the association between the day and the idea of romantic love. I really don’t know anything about Chaucer. When checked out his Wikipedia page I didn’t find anything that explained the correlation. If anyone reading is familiar with Chaucer and can explain this, I would be so interested to hear.

In 1969 the Roman Catholic Church removed St. Valentine from the General Roman Calendar because, so little is known about him. Regardless, celebration of Saint Valentine’s Day continues to become a bigger and bigger deal every year. I’m not saying that it has to do with my mother in-law’s birthday, but I’m not saying that it doesn’t.

December 20, 2018December 19, 2018

Holiday Decorating

I’m a big fan of holiday decorating. I love to spend the day after thanksgiving just holiday-ifying my whole house. There are garlands and vases full of ornaments. The stockings are hung by the chimney with care. There is a small collection of nutcrackers and a tree just for cat ornaments. There is a wire wreath just waiting for everyone’s Christmas cards.

And there is the flamingo tree, the best Christmas tree of all. Oh, the flamingo tree is so beautiful, a white tinsel tree with only pink flamingo ornaments. Last year I sewed a flamingo Christmas tree skirt for her, it’s reversible. All the rest of my holiday décor is red and green, but the flamingo tree stands alone, a beautiful pink and white treasure.

A few years ago, my mom sent me a ladder for my birthday. It is one of those great convertible ladders that goes from step-ladder mode to big-tall mode. She was sick of listening to me complain about how hard it was to put up my Halloween and Christmas decorations and decided to provide me with the tool to solve my decorating woes. And it worked! Ever since I got that ladder, Mr. Man has put up the Christmas lights on our little bungalow every year.

Colorful lights to the left
It’s like a Jimmy Buffet song
Colorful lights to the right

Our neighbors next door on both sides and across the street go with the old-school, large, multi-colored bulbs. We go with warm white icicle lights. It’s a nice contrast.

When Mr. Man put up our lights after Thanksgiving, it was a 75+ degree day. We decided that it was nice that he put up the Christmas lights so that we would know that it was winter, otherwise, we might not have noticed.

Inside is another story. Because we have these two wonderful treasures living here named Anabel and Sally. And I am very confident that anything that I put out would be interpreted to be new cat toys. The fireplace is still filled with boxes so that they can’t get in there (they still are trying), I don’t even know what I think will happen if I try to hang the stockings. I managed to sneak in my meager collection of nutcrackers and the Christmas card wreath but that is pretty much it. This year my indoor holiday decorations are on a break.

Even though I miss my flamingo tree, I would be so sad to be cleaning up the aftermath of a kitten attack on it. Fortunately, I have many photos from last year so that we can all enjoy it virtually.

As much as I like to have my holiday decorations up right away after Thanksgiving, I want everything packed up and put away before the new year. So, the upside to this indoor decorating minimalism is that my New Year’s Eve cleaning binge is going to be much simpler this year.

I will be taking the next few weeks off and will be back on January 7^th. I will look forward to catching up with you in 2019!

November 29, 2018November 29, 2018

Thanksgiving recap

A few years ago, Mr. Man and I started a “Thanksgiving for Two” tradition. I was so busy working so much that it was a special treat to spend some time at home cooking. I would make all the traditional sides: green bean casserole, scalloped potatoes, yams with marshmallows on top, dressing, either pumpkin or apple pie (or both) and then we would get just the turkey breast to roast. We would have Pillsbury crescent rolls and that delicious cranberry relish from Trader Joes and a nice bottle of wine. I would set the table with our wedding china and crystal…it was a whole thing.

Now that I’ve been home a lot more and cooking more regularly, spending two days doing all those things lost some of its appeal.

This year, we spent Thanksgiving with our very dear family friends. They are my second family and it is always fun to get to hang out with them. Between the cooking and the eating, the catching up and the “remember when”s it was a full evening.

These friends have a lovely hillside house with fantastic views of Los Angeles and Orange County. It was a beautiful sunset and I spent some time on the deck watching the almost-full moon rising through the trees.

Once the moon was out, the coyotes got to work. There were a few different packs down the hill a ways braying and howling. Hopefully all of the neighbors had brought their kitties and little dogs inside. At one point during the evening, Buddy, their big dog got out. It certainly wouldn’t be a family get-together without some sort of drama now, would it? I don’t know if he went out there to run the coyotes off, but it quieted down outside, and he came home before too long.

Dinner was lovely. The turkey was tender, there were yummy potatoes, two kinds of dressing, brussels sprouts, King’s Hawaiian rolls and of course plenty of good wine. I made my “famous” spaghetti squash salad. It turned out yummy again which was a relief!

In addition to the usual suspects, a new friend joined us, and it was a treat to get to meet her. She loves to bake (a good quality to look for in new friends) and brought the pie. Not just pumpkin pie, it was pumpkin/sweet potato pie. And it was divine. She mentioned that in addition to all the meticulous effort she puts into preparing the pumpkin/sweet potato puree, she uses coconut cream instead of dairy cream for the custard. Ah ha! Remember when I told you that I thought that my coconut cream came out silkier than regular pastry cream? It wasn’t just a fluke; other people do the same thing on purpose. I love spontaneous positive reinforcement!

How was your Thanksgiving? Did you host? What was your favorite dish? Was there anything that you didn’t make that you wish you had?