Christmas is this week.  THIS WEEK!!  Where has December gone?

Just under one week until Christmas also means that yesterday was my birthday.  I celebrated properly - by eating all the doughnuts and cheesecake. 

Over the past month Mr. Pedantic and I have been trying to discover what Christmas looks like in our little family.  Thus far, we have spent many a cozy morning eating our breakfast beside the tree and our home has been filled with visitors - many old friends, and a few new.  We are trying to construct the traditions that will one day be cemented by age and nostalgia.  There is much to be appreciated about this new life we are living. 

Last Wednesday morning I raced up to the little backroom of our apartment office, where all the packages go, to dig through the miniature post office that humble closet has become.  I was searching intently for a very special and much-anticipated box.  

When I say much-anticipated, this moment had been a dream of mine for years.  I'm a lover of any and all things printed.  I have a minor stationery obsession, and Rifle Paper Co. inevitably winds up on every birthday/Christmas list I make.  So, it is likely less than shocking that I have fantasized for years about the first Christmas when I could finally order and mail out my very own Christmas cards.  

I tore that package open the moment I had hopped back into my car and squealed aloud.  I am so incredibly excited about these small cards - probably far more excited than any of their future recipients will be, but I've been waiting for this moment for a very loooong time.  I look forward to eight or ten Christmases down the road, when I can open up my then-full box that will be filled with samples of each year's holiday announcement.  

That is just one of the many traditions I have endeavored to create this year.  Several weekends ago, Mr. Pedantic and I had our first annual gingerbread spectacular.  We were quite pleased with ourselves by the time our candy-version of the Thames was poured, and the bridge supports for our edible Tower Bridge had been laid.  It is not perfect by any means, but we have a whole year to refine our piping skills before we approach next year's task of the Taj Mahal.

This is the third year I have done my holiday baking with Mr. Pedantic.  The first year, I dropped a Christmas tree cookie on the countertop and it shattered.  I then watched the man - my not-quite-official-boyfriend at the time, turn the largest shard into the most beautiful and ornately decorated cookie rocking horse I'd ever seen.  I was impressed - enchanted, really, by his skills with the piping bag.  Last year, being high on our recent engagement I was equally astonished as he decorated a village of miniature gingerbread houses. But this year, when he proceeded to take the piping bag out of my hands and suggest that I go to the kitchen while he decorated our edible landmark I was a bit short of enchanted.  It would seem that he is rather possessive when it comes to cookie-embellishment.  I forgave him this year, because I still happen to find a man with a piping bag intoxicatingly attractive, and because my own attempts were on the crude side when compared with his.  

This coming week, we are hosting our "big" Christmas dinner party.  I am attempting a Dickens'-inspired Christmas feast, with all the trimmings.  I am going to be making my favorite Twice-Cooked Potatoes, and will attempt to roast my first whole duck.  You just would not believe how hard it is to find geese around here...

If you have any whole-bird tips for me, please share them.  I am more than a little intimidated by the big bird that is currently resting in my kitchen sink.  I'll be sharing much of the process over on Instagram stories, so please follow along and remind me to breathe in and out.  I am also hosting a Christmas tea this afternoon, which means I have some serious grocery shopping to do.  Oh boy...

As we will be with Mr. Pedantic's side of the family all day Christmas Eve, and with mine for Christmas Day, we will be doing our own little "family" Christmas on the 23rd and I am SO excited!  We will open a few of our gifts, watch a festive movie, do some baking, and then venture out into the holiday bustle to pick out a Christmas book that will begin our collection.  I cannot wait. 

What are you doing for the holidays?  Tell me all the things!

Sincerely,

Pedantic Foodie