Anyway, given all that was going on, I felt it was more important to live a Slow Christmas however I could, even if it meant I couldn’t write about it. So there you have it. I have missed you all dearly this season. I hope to return refreshed next Christmas. And in the meantime, Happy New Year to all! I’ll be employing the “stop, think, and drop” rule with an especially firm hand this year, and I hope you do too!

So in honor of the occasion, I hereby proclaim the first annual Slow Christmas Fail Awards. There was stiff competition in this our first year, but here are the cream of the crop, this year’s Failies, America’s most craven and hollow holiday ads:

1st prize:  Crazed, stiletto-wearing woman “training” for Target’s Black Friday deals. Note how she engages in shopping as a competitive sport, instead of the real athleticism this actress obviously pursues off-camera to look so toned in a big red jumpsuit. One giant steaming lump of coal for gender equality.

2nd prize: Second prize goes to a suite of commercials that I like to call the “Santa Failies”. A generation of scarred kids is born:

Look, Santa is a car salesman! That’s so perfect, because everybody trusts car salesmen!

In this one, Santa has nothing on ruthless savvy mom, who scoops him by getting deals at a big box store! Look out world, another crazed mom is on the rampage, competing to buy her kids this year’s best landfill fo…ahem…toys. Nothing helps you get into the Christmas spirit more than strung-out supermoms (anyone else wondering where the dad is?), big-box stores that make Santa obsolete, and snarky comments in front of the fire.

Look, Santa forsakes his sleigh and drives off in a red sportscar! Because that’s what we want to be teaching our kids!

I’ve seen another one where Santa advises a guy to buy a rolex for his wife. Hey, just like the guy with the trench coat near a subway station! Can’t find this one online, but I’m hoping it’s because they’ve taken it down.

3rd prize: Kohl’s does the frantic Target woman one better with this grabby woman who pushes an old lady out of the way to get to the front of the line, all to the tune of the pre-teen internet sensation song “Friday.” Boy, this one operates on multiple levels of wrong. It’s actually kind of impressive. All I can figure is that Kohl’s must be operating under the age old adage that there’s no such thing as bad press.

Honorable Mention: I don’t know about you, but when I’m in the middle of making snow angels with the man I love, what I’m really thinking about is DIAMONDS….

Honorable Mention:  Urban hipster gives girlfriend a white Lexus SUV for Christmas. And because they’re young and hip, it’s parked at a meter downtown with a big bow on it. Yeah, that would happen.

That Lexus one’s so bad, even other car companies are making fun of it!

In the midst of all this cynical marketing, some retailers are bucking the consumer frenzy. Or, maybe they’re just marketing to a different demographic:

Patagonia took out a full-page ad in the New York Times, asking people to “buy less and to reflect before you spend a dime on this jacket or anything else.” A few wise souls noted they don’t always practice what they preached, and Patagonia responded pretty candidly:  “The test of our sincerity (or our hypocrisy) will be if everything we sell is useful, multifunctional where possible, long-lasting, beautiful but not in thrall to fashion. We’re not yet entirely there. Not every product meets all these criteria. Our Common Threads Initiative will serve as a framework to advance us toward these goals.” (Hat tip to Felix Cheng for sharing!)

Patagonia’s not alone:  Seventh Generation, the venerable but not flashy green cleaning products line, is also posting on its blog and Facebook page The Seventh Generation Guide to Reducing Holiday Packaging with tips about reducing and reusing wrapping materials.

Now, a dear anarchist friend of mine might argue that what Patagonia and Seventh Generation are doing is just slicker and possibly more cynical marketing. I’ll admit, there’s some pretty bad greenwashing out there, and it’s a good idea to approach all marketing with a sack of industrial rock salt. But I still believe that we should be rewarding the companies that recognize that there’s market value in honesty and integrity.

I am also of the mind that while most television is bad, not all of it is. TV is still the source of those rare and wonderful Christmas specials where generosity of spirit reigns. So rather than buy a bunch of DVDs or blurays or whatever they’re called this year, I still prefer to catch the Christmas specials the old-fashioned way, when they air on cable. If you’re like me, check out the TV schedules for when to watch, here, here and here. And please, don’t forget to hit mute or fast forward during the commercials!

Now, Pecan pie is a Thanksgiving tradition, and rightly so. The pecan is the state tree of Texas, but they’re ubiquitous across the south. Pie is the south’s solution to any abundant produce, and hence was born pecan pie. But I’ve always felt like it needs a little something. So one day, I tried using maple syrup instead of corn syrup. Magical. The pie is a little looser than its corn syrup counterpart, but you can control for that by adding just a little corn syrup or corn starch.

Does this make me a carpetbagger? Maybe. But in the immortal words of Percy Sledge, if loving this pie is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Maple Pecan Pie

3/4 cup maple syrup, 1/4 cup corn syrup (or all maple syrup if you’re feeling daring)
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups (6 oz) pecans
1 unbaked pie crust (recipe below — try making your crust, it’s deceptively easy!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pie crust:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out dough
1 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 teaspoon sugar (optional, I always leave it out because filling, not crust, should be sweet)
7 tablespoons ice water, roughly

Cut each stick of butter into eight pieces and keep at room temp.  Mix the flour and optional salt and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter. Using a mixer, incorporate the butter into the flour mixture.  The mixture should resemble coarse meal with small pieces of butter, size of small peas, remaining visible.  Drizzle 2 tablespoons ice water over the flour-butter mixture, and blend.  Repeat with an additional 2 tablespoons water.  At this point, you may have to add more water. I usually use about 6-7 tablespoons of water with regular all-purpose flour, but if you use pastry flour, you’ll need less water. If you use wheat flour, you’ll need more. When a handful of dough squeezed together holds its shape without crumbling, you’ve added enough.

Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface.  Divide into two pieces, flatten a little into thick disks and wrap each up in plastic wrap. If the butter has gotten warm, refrigerate for a few minutes. Dust a clean, dry work surface with flour. Place the chilled dough in the center of the work surface, and dust the dough and the rolling pin with flour.  Position the rolling pin on the center of the disk and begin rolling the dough. Give the disk a quarter turn, and roll again.  Continue turning and rolling until you have about an 1/2 inch thickness.  You can turn the dough as you roll to keep it from sticking to the table. Lightly butter the pie plate.  Lift the crust quickly and place it over the pie pan, readjusting until it’s centered.  Trim any excess dough with a paring knife, or kitchen shears, leaving about an inch overhang. Fold the dough under to reinforce the edge, and push it into the pan. Your other disk makes another crust:  you can make two pies or freeze it (if you were making a pie that needs a top crust like apple, your second disk serves that purpose.)

Filling:

Mix together syrup, eggs, sugar, butter and vanilla, then stir in pecans. Pour filling into pie crust. Bake on center rack of oven for about an hour:  pie is done when center feels firm when you poke it.

Serve with ice cream or whipped cream, or if you’re an innovator, try pumpkin ice cream. Go on, break the rules.

You may have noticed I’m starting a little late this year. I could tell you that I delayed because Christmas shouldn’t start until after Thanksgiving anyway, but you know I don’t believe that. The truth is, I’m trying to practice the slow life that I preach, and finding it hard this year. My work has always been demanding, but a promotion and some big moments this year have made it doubly so. It’s all I can do to breathe these days. In Washington, it’s all too easy to get wrapped up in your job and to think that what you’re doing is the importantest thing in the whole wide world. I love my job, but lately I find myself forgetting that my job is not my life. And even if it were, the best way to keep from burning out is to not take it so seriously. But Slow Christmas isn’t a state of perfection, is something we aspire to. If we had it all figured out, we wouldn’t need this blog.

So how do we remember to slow down? I was hurrying through my errands this weekend, still a bit jetlagged from a work trip and desperate to get home, I came across something that stopped me in my tracks. In front of a Kinko’s on the sidewalk stood the most beautiful gingko tree, in full fall yellow. If you’ve never noticed ginkgo trees in the fall, it’s a truly spectacular thing. Their fan-shaped leaves turn a pure deep yellow so saturated that when you stand underneath one, the air itself is yellow. Never has there been a better sure for seasonal depression, or a more uplifting feeling, than standing underneath a ginkgo tree in the fall and looking up.

This ginkgo wasn’t a perfect specimen, but it was breathtaking all the same. Don’t take my word for it, I had my camera with me for totally mundane reasons, and managed to capture the feeling:

So I have this advice, if I have any credibility remaining: don’t wait until “things slow down” to steal five minutes for beauty or friendship or solitude. Take it now. And on that note, I’m off to steal a few minutes with the spouse.

Anyone else have a ginkgo tree moment recently?

I’ll be back again with the first frost. In the meantime, thanks for a wonderful Christmas season Lori, Eden, Sarah, Pam, Ian, Felix, Isabel, Roberta, Jesse, Sharon, Ginny, Susan, and everyone who visited the site seeking to make this Christmas a slow one. Special thanks to Elly and the spouse for their excellent guest posts. Here are some tips to live by until we meet again, from an oldie but goodie post:

The more we wind ourselves up, the longer it takes to wind down.  It’s what we do:  we push ourselves to work longer, save up more, then spend it all on a blowout vacation to somewhere we can sit around for a whole week and do absolutely nothing.  The trouble is, when we get there, relaxing feels foreign to us.  And just when we start to get used to slowing down, it’s time to go back to work. When we get back, the memory of our vacation makes it harder to submit once again to the breakneck pace of daily life.

So what about if this year, rather than speeding-up-so-we-can-slow-down, we head off this madness right now? Here are 3 steps to help:

1. When you notice your mind racing and making lists, stop. Take ten slow breaths in a row, counting all the way to five as you inhale, taking another 5 to exhale. This is almost a cliché at this point, but believe me when I tell you, there’s a reason it’s become one.  Deep breaths actually send signals to your brain that trigger an “everything is okay now” response in your body.  This gives you an opportunity to slow down and take stock.

2. Ask yourself, is this a situation where my need for speed is legitimate, i.e. am I being pursued by bears? As the original fast American would be the first to tell you, there are some things worth breaking a sweat for:

 

Paul Revere galloping, 1775

But, if you find that you’re rushing and you feel frantic, you may want to do a spot-check on your priorities. Your friends and loved ones will understand if you can’t make it to every social engagement, be on every committee, or make the perfect meal. There are times when perfect isn’t good enough, and good enough is just great.

3.Take a look at your to-do list.  Cross 2 things off. Go on, do it.  Then, see if anyone notices that you didn’t do them this year. It’s a hard lesson to swallow for those of us who pay attention to detail, or have a perfectionist streak. But if you’re serious about slowing down your year, you have to prioritize.  Frankly, some errands are just more important than others.  (Having planned a wedding not too long ago, there are a million details that couples can exhaust themselves getting right.  But when we decided not to send save-the-date postcards, or make a seating chart, no one even noticed.)

Try not to skip any steps, or it won’t work.  Let me know how it goes, and I’ll let you know how I do. See you next Christmas!

But then I remembered the tomatoes my sister and I had canned in September. Add to that a sack of frozen speckled butterbeans and tons of olive oil and you’ve got the world’s best hangover food.

I know, I know, sounds virtuous and lame. But hear me out. These are not any ordinary tomatoes. My sister and I decided to can our own tomatoes from the farmer’s market because neither of us can survive a winter without good tomatoes and sadly the can lining in commercial tomatoes isn’t safe. Canning your own is also cheaper, particularly if you can get a bulk discount from the farmer which they almost always will do. We got a huge box of seconds for $12.

Canning was an adventure to be sure. Between blanching the tomatoes and sterilizing the jars and lids, we worked our butts off that day. But every time I look in the cabinet and see the rows of ruby and gold tomatoes stored for the winter, it feels totally worth it. And it was a great excuse to chat and spend the day together. It may become a tradition. Anyway, it may be too late for this year’s season, but you can check in specialty stores or online for tomatoes in a glass jar, of you can cook down whatever organic tomatoes you can find.

• 1 jar whole tomatoes or 2-3 lbs fresh ones (in winter, grape tomatoes or Roma are your best bet)
• 1 sack of frozen speckled butterbeans (Harris Teeter sells them, but if you can’t find them at your grocery, it’s no problem to substitute regular frozen lima beans)
• one onion, chopped
• butter and extra virgin olive oil (plenty, this is hangover food)
• your favorite pasta (whole wheat angel hair or penne work well)

Put the pasta water on to boil. Saute the onions on low heat in butter and olive oil. When the onions start to become translucent, add the jar of tomatoes. Break up the tomatoes as they cook on low heat. Meanwhile, add the pasta to the water, cook, and drain. After a couple minutes, add the frozen butterbeans to the tomato and onion mixture and if you need more liquid, add some broth and/or more olive oil. Add fresh ground salt and pepper to taste. Toss the pasta into the sauce and mix thoroughly.  This time, we added chopped chives and smoked salmon at the end because we had them leftover from last night, but you can experiment, adding dill, garlic, capers, olives, bacon, whatever your salty item of choice. You can also play with the ratio of tomatoes to beans, if you like a wetter sauce use more tomatoes.

Serve with tall glasses of water and a couple of ibuprofen and voila! Hangover cure.

A Slow Christmas conjures up visions of homemade food – pumpkin bread, oysters, baked eggs, turkey.  But what to drink while eating all these delectable treats?  Now that’s my area of expertise…

Spiked eggnog is always a temptation, but all apologies to the White Russian, combining dairy and alcohol is just a bad idea.  Throw out the store-bought drink mixes, dear readers, I’m here to help.  With just a short trip to the grocery store, one saucepan, and about an hour, you can have all you need for the perfect holiday drink. It’s a ginger-pomegranate combination that has a little bit of bite, just a touch of sweetness, and the proper festive red color.  The best part is that you can convert it into a punch for a New Year’s Eve party (spiked or non-spiked), a Christmas martini, or . . .  wait for it . . . pancake syrup!  Read on.

You’re going to make two syrups.  Start with the ginger syrup.  Peel and chop about one cup of ginger and then use a grater to zest two lemons.  Now add the ginger, the lemon peel, one cup of sugar, and two cups of water to a saucepan.  Stir it a bit, bring it to a boil, and then simmer it until it’s reduced by about half (about 15 minutes).  Take the saucepan off the heat and strain the mixture – what’s left is a spicy ginger syrup.

The pomegranate syrup is even easier.  Combine one cup of pomegranate juice and one cup of sugar in a saucepan and follow the same instructions as with the ginger syrup, minus the straining.  Don’t let it simmer too long or it will turn into a goopy mess!  Let both syrups cool until they’re at room temperature.

Now comes the fun part – making the drinks themselves.  To make yourself what I’ve dubbed the Spicy Porter (a variation on the Shirley Temple), add 1 ½ ounces of the ginger syrup and a ½ ounce of the pomegranate syrup to an ice-filled glass (a high-ball glass is best for effect, but any glass will do).  Top off with soda water, squeeze in just a little bit of lemon juice from the lemons you zested, stir, and add a maraschino cherry.  Voila!  The ginger adds some nice bite and the whole look is a festive holiday punch.  It’s also light and not too sweet, so it won’t make you feel like you might burst after you drink it.  For a holiday punch, just double or triple the recipe for the syrups, especially the ginger, and make it in a pitcher or punch bowl.  Add one or both syrups to a glass of Champagne for a classic Champagne cocktail.

Now, if what you’re after is a more, shall we say, naughty drink, add some vodka to the mixture, with the amount depending on how strong you and your guests like your drinks.  Or better yet, make it a Christmas Martini:  using an ice-filled shaker, combine 1 ½ ounces of the ginger and ½ ounce of the pomegranate syrups with one shot of vodka.  Shake vigorously and add to a chilled martini glass, garnishing with a cherry.  Put your feet up, have a nice sip, and relax.

The good thing is that both syrups are re-useable after the holidays have passed.  If you combine the ginger syrup with soda, you get what is likely to be the best ginger ale you’ve had in a long while.  And, as promised, you can use the pomegranate syrup on top of pancakes for a break from maple syrup.

Cheers and a Happy New Year to all!

So how do we practice Slow Christmas without being slowly driven out of our minds? Here are four tips:

1. Spend the right amount of time. Spend as much time as you can stand at home, but no more. Do you think that to be good a family member, you need to spend weeks at home with family? Then by day four, you’re climbing the walls. Again, you’re not doing anybody any favors if you overstay your sanity. If you can’t do more than four days, but you make them good ones, I’m sure your mom or dad would rather four good days with you than 12 long and restless ones. It’s a poorly-kept secret that Christmas hosts get exhausted too, and even though they’ll be sad to see you go, they also don’t mind getting their house back when the guests have all gone home.

2. Play mind tricks on yourself. When dealing with the relative that bugs you most, pretend you forgot to get them a present. Out of guilt, you’d act extra nice to compensate, right? That’s exactly the way you should be treating them. (Unless they truly deserve a Julia Sugarbaker style rant, in which case, I say better to have at it rather than pursuing the usual death of a thousand cuts strategy.)  If it’s a bad case that requires shock treatment, just imagine getting a visit from the ghost of Christmas future who shows you a vision of that person being lonely or dying young or some other terrible fate, without ever knowing how you feel about them. Makes you want to give them a hug, doesn’t it?

3. Take a break. If your family is prone to all-day togetherness, and you’re the type who needs a few moments alone each day, take it. You can offer to run an errand for the cooks, or do yardwork, or take a walk with a smaller group. If anyone asks, just say you need just a little you time and no one will begrudge it. Asking for what you need may seem like a risk, but let me tell you, the bigger risk is not asking for it. Holiday blowup anyone?

4. Remember the other 361 days of the year. Where you get to live your own life and do what you want. Nice, huh? Soon you’ll be right back there.

If none of this works, I suggest next year you spend Christmas at home, without friends and family. It’ll feel liberating at first, but I guarantee you it’ll feel pretty darn weird on Christmas morning. Silent. Instead of wishing you didn’t have to go to church or being annoyed at something your uncle said, you’ll be wishing for some company.

So this year, don’t worry too much about whether your family will drive you crazy. They will. The key is to take it in stride, flee when you need to, and above all, remember this is the time of year you get to show them how much you love them. Not by getting them a new ipod, but by not killing them. Merry Christmas and safe travels everyone!

Grandpa was a giant figure in my young life:  he was big, crass, rough-edged and kind-hearted. He used to be a left-handed first baseman for the baseball team of the dairy where he worked. He met my Grammy during a terrible flood in 1937:  his family’s house was under water so they had to move in with relatives, and my Grammy happened to live next door. When I was little, he grew corn, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, eggplant, green beans, blackberries, cucumbers, apples, peaches. He made furniture for us. His pockets were always full of candy, the good kind. He repaired an old cider press and some years we filled what felt like a million two-liter Sprite containers with pulpy cider. He had 9 granddaughters and only 3 grandsons, and he liked to call us girls “boys” just to get our goat. He used bastardized German words for things to make us giggle.

I like to think we had a special thing, me and Grandpa. He could be kind of intimidating, but I figured out early on that you could tease him back, and he seemed to like it. I would say something was “cool”, and he would tell me that in his day, things were  “hot”. He was the best Grandpa a cerebral little city kid could have. He reminded me what was important:  putting your family above your career, fixing the things that were broken and making the things that were needed, and being a good citizen without drawing attention to yourself.

Times have changed.  My Grandpa passed away six years ago, and a couple years later my Grammy and her sister moved into a nursing home. She complains that her waistline has grown, but is otherwise happy as a clam. My aunt took over hosting the family herd over the holidays, and new traditions have sprung up. Her daughter bakes an enormous salmon for Christmas brunch, and we play board games and jockey for position in front of the fireplace. But the tradition of peeling grapefruit at Christmas died out with Grandpa. Or so I thought.

Last year, totally unaware of all this, my mother in law in Texas sent a box of grapefruit to my aunt’s house. Without even knowing it, she gave my family the memory of Grandpa. Christmas day, I found myself sitting at the kitchen island with my other aunt, peeling grapefruit. The “kids”, now mostly in their thirties but no more mature for it, swooped in for each new chunk as we peeled. We talked about Grandpa and his fear of idle hands. We caught up on the events of the year, and my aunt told stories of her grandson’s shenanigans. I vowed right then that I would keep the tradition alive. We may not be able to have Grandpa with us, but dammit, the old man would be with us in spirit.

Musicians just can’t seem to help themselves. Take an artist you respect and do some digging, and my guess is you’ll find a Christmas album lurking somewhere in their past. For an excellent spoof, see Stephen Colbert’s Another Christmas Song: “make it a part of your holiday cannon, make it the heart of my retirement plannin!’” This week, I discovered even John Legend has recorded a Christmas album, which actually could have been good, but it’s not.

The music industry is not entirely to blame, as somebody is buying the stuff. Confession time, since this is an honest blog:  I feel a certain nostalgia for both Paul McCartney’s “A Wonderful Christmas Time” and the wildly offensive Band Aid song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” recorded during the 1984 Ethiopian famine. I maintain that I like them because they are cultural time capsules, but it’s really the cheesiness. I defy you not to sing along in your car when no one is looking.

But I digress. Back to keeping Christmas meaningful in the face of the Big Eastern Syndicate:  I find that the best defense is a good offense. You can confront the holiday season prepared by making your own mix of the best Christmas music of all time. The kind of music that puts a skip in your step and makes you say “thank you” and “please” on the bus. Music that earnestly conveys the true spirit of Christmas and fills your heart with joy. Then no matter what the mall throws at you, you can simply shrug it off, knowing that the good stuff is waiting for you at home.

Here are some Christmas songs that will lift your mood without a lobotomy:

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas / Perry Como
Jingle Bells / Frank Sinatra
River / Joni Mitchell
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer / Gene Autry
The Christmas Song / Nat King Cole
2000 Miles / Pretenders
Cool Yule / Louis Armstrong & The Commanders
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town / Bill Evans
Baby it’s cold outside / Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Jordan
O Holy Night / Studio 60 with Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews & other New Orleans musicians
White Christmas (1947 Single) / Bing Crosby
Comfort And Joy / Simon & Garfunkel
Hark the Herald Angels Sing / Nat King Cole
Winter Wonderland / Harry Connick, Jr.
As long as I’m in your arms / Dinah Washington
Adeste Fideles / Nat King Cole
A Holly Jolly Christmas / Burl Ives
You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch / Thurl Ravenscroft, from “Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas”
O Tannenbaum / Vince Guaraldi Trio
The Christmas Waltz / Frank Sinatra
Blue Christmas / Elvis Presley
It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year / Andy Williams
Merry Christmas, Baby / Otis Redding
Christmas (from Tommy) / The Who
Please Come Home for Christmas / The Eagles
25th December / Everything But The Girl
Away in a manger / Nat King Cole
Little Saint Nick / The Beach Boys
Twelve Days Of Christmas / John Denver & The Muppets
Last Christmas (Single Version) / Wham!
What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? / Ella Fitzgerald
Silent Night / Mahalia Jackson
O Little Town of Bethlehem / Nat King Cole
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas / Judy Garland
We Need a Little Christmas / Muppet Christmas Carol
For Unto Us a Child is Born / Handel’s The Messiah

Now you know mine. I’m curious, what are your favorite and most reviled Christmas songs?