andave's place

If you read Bulletproof's entry today, you'll know that the reason we are blogging today is because we celebrated Christmas yesterday.

I think I'm getting jaded, lol. I'm actually glad Christmas is over, even though I'm sort of both dreading and looking forward to the return to academe.

Reading Dori's blog, I felt kinda geeky in comparing my Christmas gifts. Hence the title "Behold the Geek." I got, among a few other things, this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B000V6BE6M/sr=8-1/qid=1198611520/ref=dp_image_0/002-4788115-6032829?ie=UTF8&n=5174&s=music&qid=1198611520&sr=8-1'
It's still in the mail, but Amazon says it should get here on the 27th. I can't wait. Bulletproof got me a cd too, one of the Celtic Woman's solo cd's. I'm listening to it now.
And with some of the money I got, I bought three cd's. All Celtic Woman solo cd's.
I got peanut brittle.
I got a compilation book of Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion, all in one hardbound book.
Oh, and I got a bunch of sweaters. And a thermos. Sensible stuff

For Christmas my Mom and I usually cook up a storm. making very traditional, quintessential Lebanese foods. First there's (my transliterations are going to make you laugh.) spheeha: little dumplings stuffed with a mix of ground beef, onions, and pine nuts and baked.

sabanagh: same as above except with spinach and walnuts.

Kibbe: My mom dubbed them ' mini footballs' for our American friends. They're football shaped things (I do not know what to call them, lol!) made of an outer layer of beef and cracked wheat stuffed with ground beef, onions, and pine nuts, like the spheeha.

Hummus: quintessential Mediterranean food that's become a health food here -- garbanzo bean dip with sesame seed paste (tahini) served with pita bread.

Tabbouleh: everyone's bound to know what this is. Finely chopped parsley salad with cracked wheat, tomatoes, and the typical Lebanese dressing--lemon juice and olive oil.

Those are the essentials. Then there's a dish that changes from year to year. This year it was a ham.

Finally, there's the dessert, and therein lies my biggest offering to the Christmas table. My Mom and I made baklava (which is LEBANESE, not Greek. Though that's just cultural pride. Nobody really knows where it came from). We had a linzer torte from Trader Joes, and I made this:



That's it, Meg.

It IS edible. It is a cake, not a tree branch, and it's not as hard to make as it looks, just time-taking.

Don't it look good? It's my Yule log, and I've been making it for several years. It's a jelly roll cake with coffee cream filling, frosted with rich chocolate frosting and scored with a fork to resemble a tree branch.

So we were seven at the table, my family of four, our visiting friend from Japan, and my aunt and uncle.

And it was excruciatingly boring.

Nobody really knows what to do with teenagers of Andave's and Bulletproof's type. Queer lot, those two, the things they talk about! . Ah, I'll be like that soon enough.

Yesterday evening, after my uncle and aunt left, we went to go look at Christmas lights on houses. Every Christmas season, "Crippsmas Way" holds a leukemia fundraiser. People decorate their houses really spectacularly; lights, posterboard decorations of favorite characters, music, the whole shabang. People come to look and donate spare change to the fundraiser. It's really nice.

And that concludes our Christmas.

Today, though, I plan to watch ALL of Lord of the Rings. Top to bottom, first to third, though I'll be taking breaks to spare my eyes. Let the year go out with a bang!! This is the first time (probably the last, too, until I'm through with college, at any rate) that I'll watch LOTR in one go. I haven't seen LOTR in ages. I'll be starting after lunchtime, and I just hope nobody kicks me off the tv to watch something of their own. We'll see.

And in ending, I found two more singers. Both of them are classical singers: Josh Groban and Charlotte Church. Josh Groban is my dad's favorite singer.
Josh Groban: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dK_TOg1KRM(You're Still You)

Charlotte Church duet with Billy Gilman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBffCsXa0zY(Dream a Dream)

LATER:
4:11: finished Fellowship of the Ring. BOROMIR DIED!!! NO!!!!!!

8:35: Two Towers completed. I'm so proud of Middle-earth!

12:56: All's well in Middle-earth. Aragorn's crowned!