The Art in Life

Vacation is for reading, of this I am certain.

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Hannah

In theory, my whole life is for reading, as I am doing a PhD in literature which is a fancy way to say I READ ALL THE BOOKS ALL THE TIME AND WRITE ALL THE THINGS. But we all know that there are books and then there are Books, Literature, Hallowed Pages and Lofty Ideas. That is what I spend all my time reading. Since I am preparing for my PhD exams in April, my reading is in overtime, but everything strangely seems to come back to the same predictable plot of death and prostitutes (outlined here).

I genuinely enjoy reading these Books, but I have been craving just reading some books, just plowing through some fluffy reading rather than all my Reading. My mom has been known to give us wrapped library books for Christmas (much to our scoffing), but this year I actually sent her a list in advance, begging her to have a stack of chick lit on my bed when I rolled in for a couple weeks. She did not disappoint. This means that in the past couple weeks I have read more fun books then in the entire past year. Should you be interested in some mindless reading, and in the absence of many important things to blog about, I am rounding up my vacation reading, along with couple others others I managed to read recently. I should clarify that this list is more along the lines of the good, the bad, and the ugly, as I do not necessarily like, recommend, or respect all of the books listed below. Hold onto your butts.

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn. I have very mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, it was amazing, fully plunging you into the mind of someone else and causing you to forget everything and question reality. On the other hand, that mind belongs to a psychopath and the book is pretty dark. So, kudos to the author for writing something so powerful, but maybe avoid this one if your marriage is in any way not totally stable. Otherwise, you will start imagining that your spouse is a psychopath.

Yes Please, Amy Poehler. This was the most disappointing book of 2014. I devoured Tiny Fey’s book, loved Mindy Kaling’s book, and couldn’t wait to get my hands on Amy’s. With a few standout moments aside, it was not actually funny. Those standout moments had me snort laughing out my nose. But all in all, I read her book and felt really sad that I no longer want to be her friend, whereas I secretly dream of me and Mindy eating donuts together on a regular basis. Ok, the Whole30’s looming approach also makes me just dream of donuts.

The Selection (and the sequels, The Elite, The One), Kierra Cass. I read this entire series in 2 days, 2 blissful days where I ignored my family, wore elastic waist pants, and binged on adolescents finding love and starting revolutions in a dystopian world. To help you understand it, I have prepared an equation that describes it in terms of its contemporaries: The Hunger Games + the caste system of Divergent + the romantic structure of The Bachelor franchise – the latent sexual tension of Twilight = The Selection. Which is to say, I loved them, and have less respect for myself as a result.

Life After Life, Kate Atkinson. This book started out slow, and I had to text my friend Fran at one point for some reassurance that it was going to get better. It did, and the ending had my starring off in space for a long time trying to collect my emotions. And then I saw that she is publishing a companion book and I am PUMPED, because I loved this one but wanted more.

Astonish Me, Maggie Shipstead. If it is about ballet, I am there. Ballet movies, ballet books, the ballet itself – I love it all. The end of this book was a little lacking in my opinion, but it was still an engrossing page turner about ballerinas so I will forgive it.

How To Be Parisian Wherever You Are, Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret, and Sophie Mas. I loved this book. I am not excusing its many pages lauding lifestyles that I deem unsavory, I’m just being honest. I loved it. Though obviously no one can become the illusive Parisian women, as her identity is predicated on being from Paris and not caring (thus anyone trying to become her already cares too much), this book provides a witty and endearing portrait of her many quirks. Lists, essays, photos, graphic designs, 2 whole pages of color squares labeled what aspect of Paris they symbolize – I loved it. Plus, so many quote gems like:

“Always look like you are gazing into the sunset. Even during rush hour on the Métro. Even when picking up frozen pizza from the supermarket. ”

In Sunlight and In Shadow, Mark Helprin. Ok, so I actually started this book over a year ago and finally finished it this past fall, hence its inclusion here. A word about Helprin: I am supposed to like him. He is objectively an amazing writer, with so many of his phrases perfectly turned and evocative. Plus, he used to lecture at my college on a semi-regular basis. One time I stocked his guest fridge with hummus. Most people I know love him. But this was my first Helprin novel and I was largely unimpressed. I think grad school may have ruined me, but I kept wanting to scream at him about his female characters. They were all so perfect, as in “You looked at her and her beauty made you forget the war, and you were a better person, and you knew what paradise was, even though you only saw her but a moment, but in that moment the world became perfect again.” (My imitation of a quote, not a real one). GIVE ME A BREAK. Give me real women with flaws any day. The men were just as bad. They are all like Hemingway characters on steroids embodying stereotypical masculinity with impossibly noble souls. Give me tortured heroes, give me sympathetic bad guys. But then again, the ending was so good that I all out sobbed on the couch for an hour.

Should you be interested in some reading that isn’t bound between two covers, here are some essays to propel you forward in this new year.

This 2014 recap that reminds me that this year kind of sucked for the whole world, not just us. Because misery loves company, AMIRIGHT????

This essay that is hysterical, but rings especially true now that I got a Fitbit for Christmas and am loving its tyrannical rule over my life.

These interviews with Jay because Serial was a big part of my life all fall. These interviews are really unsettling, because they make you question the impact that this highly engrossing podcast has had on the lives of those involved.

What are you reading these days? Not that I will get to read them till the summer, but a girl can dream!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged books, reading | 17 Comments

A word for 2015.

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Hannah

I had every intention of writing a good 2014 summary post, something along the lines of last year’s, gazing back at the past year through the lens of some sensory experience. Maybe how 2014 looked? Sounded? Um… smelled?

But that didn’t happen. I really did sit down to write it, but it just didn’t come. I could blame it on an inability to pull my thoughts together, a desire to never write something just because I feel forced, or a deep need to veil some reflections of the past year in privacy. All of those are partially true. But the real reason said post did not happen is that my family decided to watch World War Z last night and I had to toss the computer aside to focus all my energies on the zombie apocalypse. Before you judge, please know that I love this movie. I love movies where a handsome man marches around saving the world (but really just so he can save his family) and lots of people have to run quickly and jump off things. I love movies with unexplained destruction and implausible solutions. The first time I saw this movie, I stopped it at least four times to ask James if he was sure that it couldn’t actually happen. I have since spent way too much time imagining what would happen if everyone around me started turning into zombies, and even in my own imagination, I never make it out alive.

But I digress. How did this post become about zombies? Let’s leave any attempt to try to tie a neat bow on 2014 in the past and look forward to 2015.

I can’t believe that I am about to do this, but I’m about to throw down a “word” for 2015. I have always quietly scoffed at this practice, rolled my eyes when bloggers declared that they had “chosen a word” for the coming year. The words just seemed so empty and fluffy, not to mention presumptuous. Words like “aspire,” “dream,” “dare,” ect. I’m not saying that those aren’t good things, but I just felt like everyone picks a grand word for the year to avoid addressing al the little words that need to fill their lives. Words like “forgive,” “complete,” “reduce,” “take out the trash,” etc. If anything, it makes more sense to look back on a year after the fact and then choose a word that summarizes it.

But alas, here I am speaking a word over 2015. And for us, this deeply unexciting word is profoundly needed. It is not a fun word, not one that looks good scrawled across a backdrop of mountains or sea or sky. This word is the Debbie downer in an Internet full of lofty goals. Our word for 2015 is discipline.

Over the past year our lives became anything but disciplined and organized. Two lives, in two separate states, with crazy schedules, and then hurled back together in the absence of structure and presence of uncertainty, meant that James and I both feel like our lives are on the brink of spiraling out of control. Everything, from our spending to our sleep habits to our eating, needs some serious curbing. The past month we have been trudging towards 2015 so exhausted and craving structure, boundaries, and restraint. We need discipline.

The thing about discipline is that there is no excuse not to have it. You just have to DO IT, have to drag yourself out of bed, make decisions, and stick with them. It’s not an external word that you hope ordains your year, but an internal one that we produce. Last night James and I stayed up talking into the new year, gazing at the fire and dreaming for 2015. Most of these dreams were just about getting life back to “normal,” about infusing it again with good practices and disciplines. Devotions in the morning. Exercise in the evening. Bedtimes. Vegetables. Books instead of TV. Little daily decisions create big ripples through our lives.

To jump start this, we both decided that we needed something dramatic to force some discipline on us. Which is why, with every other corner of the Internet, we have decided to do the Whole30 when we both get back in January. People, I am just not so sure if I can live without cheese. If you filled the comments below with Whole30 recipes, resources, and promises that I WILL NOT DIE, I would be pretty grateful. I am not someone who puts diet on a pedestal, who thinks that changing what you eat will solve everything. But I do believe that discipline in any area of your life breeds discipline in other areas, so we are signing up for a month of “no fun” (according to James).

So. 2015. Discipline. Let’s do this.

Anyone else picking words for 2015? Even though I hitherto scoffed about the whole concept, I guess this means I’m coming aboard. (But if your word is “authentic” you will have to really sell me on it, as that word is so abused on the Internet, frequently being ascribed to the least authentic and staged photos ever.)

Posted in Uncategorized | 21 Comments

All in the family.

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Hannah

I’ve been taking a little break from photos over the holidays. Not a total break, as I did a shoot just before leaving for Kentucky, and another just before heading up to Christmas #2 in Indiana, and I’ve been editing away on those. But I haven’t been hauling my camera around and photographing lots of close ups of our food and feet and stuff. Sometimes it’s just so nice to take a break from documenting and just enjoy the moment.

But if there is one thing my family loves (and hates, just a little), it is the annual Christmas photoshoot. In the absence of lovely photo collages of what life looks like these days, I give you some winners (and losers) from our Christmas afternoon with the tripod. Don’t be misled – much griping went into these happy photos, as is true with many happy photos. But in the end, we all love having them, tracing our family back through the years.

“The one where we squeeze in close like sorority sisters.” “The one where we pretend like we are just laughing while clustered in a forest path, totally ignorant of the camera snapping away.”“The one where the siblings drape ourselves on each other in coordinating attire.” “The one where not everyone got the memo about the excited jump shot we were doing.” FamilyPhotos2014-10 “The one where it becomes clear that some members of this family don’t understand what is meant by ‘crazy faces.'” “The one with the parents laughing jovially.” “The one with the couple soon to be married…”“…and the one with the the couple who has been married long enough to ROCK matching clothes…” “…but not so long that they have perfecting the jump shot.” “The ones with the original Stone siblings.” “The one with the soon-to-be sisters in their Gap Christmas dresses.” “The one with the DC based crew.” “The one with the original Stone women.” To those of you who enjoyed (endured) similar photoshoots over the holidays, I salute you. To those who tore wardrobes apart to find matching clothes, I salute you. To those who sprinted after delay timers and love their slightly blurry tripod photos, I salute you. To families, and holidays, and the things we do to remember.

What’s that you say? You want the old ones? Done: 2010/ 2011/ 2012/ (Apparently we failed in 2013.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged family | 7 Comments

Weary Joy.

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Hannah

I know you are so tired of hearing about our Christmas card by now, and even more tired of me moaning and groaning about this year. But, at the eleventh hour, and after a slight altercation at the post office wherein I found out that the postal employee had made me purchase and affix the wrong number of stamps to some 80 cards, our cards went marching out to loved ones around the country and globe. On the front we had this jolly photo and cheery line from a Christmas carol: All is calm, all is bright. On the back, we proceeded to write a long letter detailing exactly how this year was anything BUT calm and frequently seemed less than bright.

But now it is the Christmas season, where Christmas and New Years provide a brief respite from real time, a reflective pause before 2014 surrenders to 2015. We have filled this week with some wonderful things, including my high school friends’ annual White Elephant gift party, where James and I gifted our debut musical album, “Merry AMERICAN Christmas.” It was, obviously, us singing patriotic-holiday mashups sans music… recorded on our phones in the car. It was, obviously, horrendous and thus wonderful. [This is the moment where I beg James to let me share one of the songs here, and he, cognizant of the detriment that would have to any future dignified employment, refuses.]

When I was digging in the closet one night for wrapping paper, I came across a folder marked “Christmas Cards.” I get my love of holiday cards and letters from my parents, who have devotedly sent out a full holiday update letter almost every year of their marriage. We spread them across the table and read through our family history. One letter struck home, and both James and I read it with lumps in our throats. It was early in their marriage, years before any of us were born, and the letter started with excitement that the year was ending. It detailed a period they had had to spend living apart, uncertainty about jobs and careers, and just the general feeling that Christmas, and all its hope of newness and revival, couldn’t come fast enough.

In reading over their year, so much like our own, I was reminded how unoriginal we are in our “hard” year. So many people have had, are having, or will have years that end in you just being happy that the next one is starting. Really, I am a just terrible whiner, because we didn’t bury anyone this year, didn’t battle illness, didn’t face searing pain or crushing loss. Just routine hardness, the type that frequently typifies humanity as a whole because it is woven into the fabric of existence. Many of us crawl towards Christmas just being exhausted.

I guess that is what Christmas is always about, that moment when “the weary world rejoices.” We imagine it being loud bells and trumpets, all “Joy to the World” and whatnot, but have you ever seen a weary anything rejoice with that much energy? The weary rejoice by collapsing in tears, exhausted and comforted all at once. We sang through our entire carol book on Christmas Eve, and so many are laced with this weary merriness, phrases that remind is that the little baby who comes means that things will be ok , an assurance that a broken world desperately needs. All of Advent builds up to that, the moment when all of humanity breathes a sigh of relief. It is the very essence of Christmas, one that resounded especially clear through our weary home this year.

Merry Christmas.

Image from here.

PS: Another great Christmas post about weariness here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christmas | 7 Comments

Cozy moments.

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Hannah

We are in Kentucky this week to celebrate Christmas with my family, spending our days putting the finishing touches on Christmas gifts, sitting around in piles on the couch, and reading embarrassingly bad teen pop fiction in front of the fire. Ok, that last part is just me — it’s my vacation addiction.

I feel like every time I have popped in here to write lately it has been all WE ARE TRAVELING or LIFE IS AWFUL or CHRISTMAS IS MY FAVORITE. I promise we really have done other things this month, normal non-blog worthy things like finish up student grades, try to keep our rug vacuumed from pine needles, and wrap up final papers. We also polished off some Trader Joe’s gingerbread dough. I’ve also photographed some really cute babies and families, and I hope to eventually get some of those up here.

In the meantime, I am retroactively blogging some images from a couple weeks ago, when we had a drizzly cold December Saturday. My brother and his girlfriend came up from Charlottesville and we enjoyed the coziest of DC offerings: lunch inside Union Market, an afternoon spent at the National Gallery, and dinner back at our home in front of the fireplace (Netflix Fireplace For Your Home – but only ever Season 1 episode 2). And obviously, there were donuts that they brought from my favorite Charlottesville donut shop. Nothing dramatic, nothing crazy, everything cozy.

I hope that all of you, no matter how much the season has been, have enjoyed some cozy moments like these!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged DC, weekend fun | 2 Comments

A weekend away.

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Hannah

I always hate it when people flaunt their warm weather escape photos when the rest of us are freezing our tushies off. Every time some blogger writes about how we all need a couple days a month where we can just escape to recharge, I get so annoyed and think WHAT type of a world do you live in where you have that luxury every month????

So first, a disclaimer, in the form of a story.

A couple months ago we were in an especially low place, an especially discouraged place, a place from which I might have snapped at James during one of his visits “You need to figure out something to look forward to and I will MAKE IT HAPPEN.” I don’t include all those low moments on ye old blog because the emotions closest to our hearts need more privacy than the rest. They are softer and more raw, more delicate and painful. Anyways, in that moment, James declared that he wanted a beach vacation to look forward to, something that we could count on, regardless of the uncertainty we were facing. However, the caveat was that we didn’t really want to spend much money. I will confess, I might have taken to angry praying. I’ve been reading the Psalms lately and deciding that we think prayer way nicer and more boring than it was originally intended. My prayers were something along the lines of Hey God. It doesn’t exactly feel like you are playing on our team these days, so if you wanted to give us a free beach vacation to show that you are maybe still interested in this very weary couple – that would be great.

Let me be clear: I do not believe that God is in the business of doling out beach vacations to show he cares. He doesn’t have to, because salvation should kind of be enough. But every now and then he delights in surprising us. As in, after a couple days of my bratty prayer, someone asked if we wanted to use their extra time share points, and our beach escape weekend was on the calendar.

When it rolled around last weekend, it couldn’t have come at a better time. It has been a rough year, and an extra rough last month. I told James the other night that it felt like I had spent the whole year twisting tighter and tighter and it had built up to the point where I felt like I was going to snap, going to rip apart.

Cue warm breezes and teal waters. We spent three days in South Florida, soaking up some much needed sun and quiet breezes. We walked on the beach, drank fancy drinks by the pool, and ate tacos that I am still thinking about. We watched way too much TV and managed to find a local donut shop that blew my mind. People, I basically have the spiritual gift of finding donuts wherever I am, and don’t even pretend like this is not a real gift. We drove down to the Keys and went snorkeling in (at? over? around?) a coral reef, marveling at the colors and trying to avoid the fanged barracudas with less than benevolent expressions. We talked about the strangeness of Christmastime in the sun, the vastness of the sea, and the total impenetrability of the ocean. We rested and ate and walked and remembered, hey, we really like being married to each other. I can’t tell you how much I needed that.

When we left DC, it was a dreary grey day where night seemed to fall too early. But when the plane peaked above the clouds, I was blinded by the beauty of the endless stretches of pale pink fluffiness, tinged with gold against the blue of the sky and the warm sun. It made me think about this past year, a year that in many ways has been cloudy, dark, and long. But that’s only because I can only see it from where I am in it, looking up at grey clouds and longing for the break, for the sun. Gazing out at that sunset, I took a deep breath and thought about the new year that will start soon. I felt the tightness untwisting, loosening, and letting me breath a little easier. We still have some loose ends from this past year to tie up, some messes to clean up, but when I look back, I can see more than just grey clouds now. I am looking for the bits of light and color that were there even when I couldn’t see them.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged beach, travel | 23 Comments

2014 Christmas Card Out-takes

Posted on December 16, 2014 by Hannah

It’s that time of year again… CHRISTMAS CARD SEASON! My fridge is getting all gussied up with beaming faces. Our cards will hopefully arrive here in time to be shipped out before we leave for Christmas with our families. The big goal is just to have them on fridges by the end of those 12 days of Christmas. With every perfect card that comes, I can’t help but wonder what photoshoot meltdowns, what panicked late night ordering, what battle over contrived phrases went down in each home.

Thus, I give you great tidings of good Christmas card out-takes, the 2014 Edition.

James, on Christmas cards in general: “Wait – we have to do one EVERY year?”James, on writing the Christmas card: “I hate this. Everything I write is obnoxiously cheesy or totally arrogant.”

Hannah, on writing the Christmas card: “WHAT IF WE WROTE OUR CHRISTMAS CARD USING NOTHING BUT LINES FROM CHRISTMAS CAROLS??”

James, on Hannah’s amazing ideas regarding the writing of the Christmas card: “Um… That’s a little overboard. Though it would be merry and uplifting.”

(For the record, we did have a draft of our card going where we re-wrote the “12 days of Christmas” to be about 2014 in our lives…. but we couldn’t think of anything for 10 and 8 so we scratched that and started over.)

Speaking of merry and uplifting, how about a little failed “skipping into the distance” photo? James, on wandering around Capitol Hill while Susannah took our photos: “So… basically we are doing the exact same photoshoot as our engagement one… right? And… why? Can we use those?”

As can be seen by his expression, James was thrilled that I have colonized the scarf that was once his and used it for my own wardrobe, and every photoshoot I did this fall. Seriously, if I have taken photos of you in the last two months – you have been wrapped in this scarf. Hannah and James, Christmas Cheer extraordinaire. Coming to a mailbox near you. I can feel the excitement all the way across the internet.
Are you all sending out Christmas cards this year?

All photos by the talented Alumbra Photography. See last year’s Christmas card out-takes here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christmas, Holidays | 7 Comments

A Christmas Walk

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Hannah

Last night James and I did one of our favorite low-key Christmas traditions, walking across Capitol Hill to see some of our favorite holiday decorations. We started at Starbucks, loading up on those amazing sugary holiday drinks before wandering over to check out The People’s Tree in front of the Capitol. The tree was from Minnesota this year, and I have to hand it to the fine people of the land of 10,000 lakes: your decorations totally topped last year’s. We especially loved the car license plate that was strapped to the tree amidst precious ornaments made by (I like to imagine) schoolchildren. After marveling at the tree, we continued on to Union Station to bask in the glory of the wreaths, check out the Norwegian tree and trains, and hit up the recently opened Shake Shake. Union Station has been under construction most of the time I’ve lived here, but it will always be one of my favorite buildings.

This walk, beyond being a lovely Christmas activity, is a special one for us, as it marks all the locations where I tried to orchestrate my own proposal in that horrible December of 2011. It takes us to Union Station, the first site where I was sure he was going to propose, so sure in fact that I demanded to be led with my eyes closed the last block to enhance the moment.

It also brings us right to the Capitol Tree, site of the infamous I’m-not-leaving-here-without-a-ring showdown of 2011. I’m not exactly proud of that moment, but it happened, and now it is hysterical. This past Wednesday, the three year anniversary of our engagement, we went to see The Nutcracker, laughing about my terrible response to James’ proposal three years ago and the Nutcracker performance that we didn’t even make it in to see. Walking around our neighborhood last night reminds me how far we have come. Once sites of a lot of angsty tears and frustration, they are now places where we laugh, share cheesy fries, clink Starbucks cups, and feel so blessed that it turned out exactly the way it did.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Capitol Hill, Christmas, Holidays, iphone pics | 8 Comments

The Best Christmas Party

Posted on December 5, 2014 by Hannah

Usually, we throw some sort of Christmas party, some sort of Yuletide gathering where we eat too much delicious seasonal food and enjoy time with friends during this busy season. Last year we hit on the genius idea to skip the fancy evening party and go with a lavish brunch after our church’s annual performance of The Messiah. Truly, this was one of my best ideas ever.

But this year we aren’t throwing any party. Not because we don’t have just as much holiday spirit, but does anyone else feel like there just aren’t enough days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year? We realized we could either throw a party and stress ourselves out, or just have more time to hit all the other parties and enjoy all our favorite holiday traditions. Mooch off other people’s cookies and don’t do dishes? Yes please. Tonight we are managing to hit not one, but two parties, the second being a murder mystery dinner where I am secretly hoping I am the murderer. James is hoping to get murdered, which shows that we a) don’t really know how this is done and b) are a true match. Plus, we are maybe still cleaning our kitchen from last month’s donut extravaganza, so big parties will have to wait.

Sometimes I wonder how the frenzy of Christmas parties evolved and why they become so stressful. It, plus the fact that my college bestie Bethany and I have been texting about it, has me thinking back on one of my favorite Christmas parties, one so simple and yet so perfect.

It was our senior year of college and I lived in a perfect little house with three girls, a whole host of mice that inhabited the walls, a family of deer that dwelt in our backyard and enjoyed the salt block we bought them (totally illegal, I know), and even the occasional raccoon that made it’s way into our mudroom. We also briefly had a kitten, but that didn’t end so well when it wandered off and was adopted by a fraternity house. I’ve written about life at The Ramp before, because it was a place where I was impossibly happy, happy in the way that you are in college houses, when you have no real responsibility yet but you are tasting the very first hits of true adulthood.

We decided to throw a Christmas party on almost no budget and launched ourselves into the preparations. Finals were ignored and Bethany and I spent an entire day “decorating” our house for the party. Since we were basically broke, this amounted to hacking down boxwood and holly from our back yard and the arboretum and scattering it around our house. We cleaned, baked some cookies, and filled an entire Crockpot with beanie weanies and BBQ sauce. We were reading to party.

Right before our festivities, we all trudged in the snow to see Bethany perform in the college choir rendition of Handel’s Messiah, which our school did every four years, ensuring every student a chance at participation. It seemed right that it fell our senior year, right that we could go out in a blaze of voices and organ chords. The church where it was performed was also beastly hot, and the choir had to stay standing in their robes the entire performance. Every night people fainted. To fight the heat, Bethany resorted to wearing swimwear under her robe, boldly flashing a bare leg our way as she climbed the stage and we giggled in the balcony.

Back through the snow home afterwards, where we served up beanie weanies on paper plates and dolled out mulled wine. We carded people at that party, partially because we were sticklers about the law (illegally domesticating deer aside) and partially (mostly) because wine don’t come cheap. We passed out Christmas cards where we had dressed as the Christmas family (the non-holy one) and made Elise wear her reindeer antlers at the party. I look at these truly awful Christmas cards and think about how fun they were to make, how different than they typical “let’s look perfect to impress everyone” thing we usually do. It was 2004, and sepia tones were still cool, and we made Bethany wear a pillow under her shirt. Sometimes I wish we could all still have parties like that, still send cards that showed how we act, still be content with beanie weanies on paper plates and foraged boxwood taped to doorways. It seems like so much of this season gets caught up in the presentation that we forget what it is really about. It’s about having everyone inside together, about feeding as many as you can, about the hours you wait for the Messiah’s final stanzas, standing together to sing those last lines. It’s about teetering between the old and new, expectation, and being bold enough to wear a bikini beneath your choir robe. In our flurry to throw the perfect Christmas party, we forget that Christmas is about remembering the humblest of beginnings. It’s about stables and babies and simple welcomes to this world.

Here’s to the season, in all it’s comes-as-you-are richness.

(PS: Bethany also just wrote the best Advent post ever here. )

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christmas, college, party | 7 Comments

The most wonderful time of the year

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Hannah

It seems like every year I get more and more excited about the Christmas season. That stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas is just packed with so many wonderful things. The expectation of Advent, visits to family, all the best songs, Christmas cookies — I love it all! Last Sunday we ended Thanksgiving break by walking over to Eastern Market to pick up our tree and kick of the season with some of our favorite holiday traditions. Our house smells like the season now, thanks to that massive bag of scraps that James hauled back. I spread them across the tops of our bookcases, making our apartment feel like a ski lodge and leaving pine needles everywhere. We did not cut down our tree ourselves. It is short and slants to the side. We have an old sheet wrapped around the base, there are no lights on the back, and it is decorated with every last one of our 14 ornaments. We love it. And yes, that is Fireplace for your Home (season 1, episode 2) crackling beside the tree. I find footage of logs burning quite soothing.

Driving back from Indiana I started making a list of some of the things I am excited about doing in over the next couple weeks. Here are some of our DC holiday favorites:

Checking out the Capitol Christmas Tree.
Free Christmas concerts at the DC Botanic Gardens, where we also marvel at the huge model train.
Candlelight Christmas tours at Mount Vernon.
The Eastern Market tree forest.
Taking in a viewing of The Nutcracker.
Taking in the tree, wreaths, and train at Union Station.
Singing Christmas carols at the top of my lungs at all appropriate (and some inappropriate) times.
Advent, and all the wonderful expectation that means.
Zoo Lights! To be fair, we always intend to do this and never make it. But I am putting this on here to get me to actually go check them out!

DC people, what are your favorite holiday happenings? For those of you elsewhere, what are some of your favorite Christmas traditions wherever you are?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christmas, DC, Holidays | 14 Comments