Monday, December 19, 2011

Christmas Extravaganza, Part II

More Christmas fun!  Believe it or not, I've made more cookies.  I started with pfeffernusse, and then I made sugar cookies, which K was so kind as to help me decorate.  She has mad artistic skills.  Oh, and I attempted peppermint bark.  It's tasty, but I need to tweak the technique next time I think.  I'll report back if I try it again next year.

T and I went to the Sheldon for their Christmas concert.  I like the Sheldon because it's small.  Concerts feel more intimate in a little venue.  There are trade-offs, of course, but they have a small choir, so it works well.


Then a few days later, K and I went to the St. Louis Symphony's holiday concert!  Other than the fact that I had a coughing fit near the end of the first half and almost died (I was in the middle of the row and couldn't get out!), the show was great.  The choir was made up of kids from four local public high schools, and the soloist was a guy who's sung all over, including on Broadway.  And you can tell, because he had a totally Broadway personality - you know the musical theater type: big, boisterous personality to make up for his small stature, lots of big arm motions on stage.  But he could certainly sing. 

Oh, and our conductor, Ward Stare, was another little guy, but he was great to watch, dancing around on the stage.  He was totally into the music, way more than most conductors are. So fun!  And by the way, Powell Hall was basically build to be decorated for Christmas.  All that red velvet is awesome when you add spruce trees and twinkling white lights!


I've also done lots of gift wrapping.  Most of the gifts are purchased (although there are still a couple mysteries out there), but all the ones I've gotten have been wrapped!  And there's a big, pretty pile of presents under the tree, with some help from T and K as well.

And I've gotten started on my Christmas movies!  On Friday afternoon I started it all off with The Grinch, and then last night T and I watched Little Women, which I love!!

4 comments:

  1. Could you please put a picture of my artistic talent up here since both of us respect its glory so much that we don't want to eat it?

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  2. What was the issue with the peppermint bark technique? Maybe I can help; I make it every year. There's some waiting for you in NC.

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  3. Well, the recipe I found was for all dark chocolate, but I wanted a layer of dark and a layer of white. So I did the dark first, then cooled it, then melted white chocolate and mixed in the peppermint. But I think I let the dark chocolate cool too long, because the dark and white chocolates didn't bond very well. So when I broke it into pieces, they separated.

    So...less cooling time on the dark chocolate?

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  4. Wish I could have gone to the symphony, but I'm glad you had fun with your sissy.

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