December's Summary Report - Happy New Year's, everyone! And Happy Flip the Calendar Day, whether you celebrated on the first or you've just stumbled into the office.

December was a very full month. Some of you even emailed me personally to mention I must be busy since I hadn't written in a while. You are right! After my Thanksgiving, which was wonderful including some time with my daughter, my sister, my dad, my cousins, and all manner of extended family, I fought a bout with sickness that took a little more than two weeks to shake. I'm happy to say that the Yule celebration in my home barony went very well, and we have a new Bardic champion (our fifth). I'm no longer a Baronial Bard, but just another alumni. *grin* I managed to publish a collection of works from the first four bards, and they were very well received.

The following weekend I attended Their Majesties for two Yule celebrations, traveling with Meala to both, making the drive really pleasant. I got some of the thank you cards written in the backlog (and still have some more to finish soon). The Yule in Dun Or was a nice, small, hometown sort of Baronial meal in the afternoon. And the Yule in Altavia was packed with lots of glitz, dancing, and musical presentations. All day I was having issues with my lower back, but with heat and rest, I seemed to have managed to get it back into working order again.

Matt/Jaime's birthday fell around the time I was still having problems with my back, so although the evening was celebrated with dinner and followed by Israeli line dancing, I had to sit out the dancing. But it looked really fun and easy, so I imagine I'll look for a way to go dancing a few times in 2007. There's a ballroom place in Orange County that has Israeli dancing every Sunday evening for a mere pittance, and it opens with teaching for those who don't know the choreography. Then later more and more people keep trickling in, and it progresses to just non-stop dancing until (apparently) midnight or so. I'm not likely to go dancing until midnight every Sunday evening, but it's nice to be introduced to something so fun. (And Adrienne, Theresa, and I had a lot of fun giggling at our friends learning the steps. We're so silly!)

It got really cold (by Southern California standards) in mid- and late-December, and after having fought off sickness, I was reluctant to go walking and exercising. And as schedules got more and more packed and busy, I did not go walking at all. But as I look back at 2006, I lost 20 pounds and kept them off all year. That's an achievement worth celebrating. I have a walking partner now and an idea of a possible walking schedule that will worth for me, so I'm optimistic about continuing this new habit and new pattern.

Hanukkah was my best ever this year, and a little more enjoyable than Christmas actually. First night of Hanukkah, we celebrated over at Jeff and Adrienne's with a large gathering of friends in the household. Second night, I "threw" a party over at Meala's house for all of B'nei Caid, and we had an amazingly fun time together.

"Bnai" means basically a community, and the SCA region here is Caid. The person who first put together the community of SCA members in Caid who happen to be Jewish or interested in all things Jewish -- he happens to have grown up in Mexico, so he spelled it "Bnei" rather than the English transliteration of "Bnai." I happen to like the "ei" spelling now, and tend to forget that others use "ai."

Anyways, the B'nei Caid group is really a loosely knit set of SCA friends on an email list, but we do like to throw parties for the holidays. I was thrilled so many people were able to make it to the party, and Meala's home looked beautiful. She'd decorated the table out on her patio, and put out some great snack bowls that were just gorgeous cereamics in the shape of dreidels or 6-pointed stars. She fried pasties and dusted them in cinnamon sugar. I had fun cutting the pasties into rounds (to represent gelt, which is Yiddish for money) and then cutting some of the rounds into 6-pointed stars.

Adrienne made apple latkes that were "to die for" yummy. Ben and Erika made it, Eliada and Soraya, Adrienne and Jeff, Melissa and Scott of course (since it was their home), me, and later Saul, Shoshana, and Kendra stopped in for a while. It seems like I'm missing someone from the list, but it is weeks later now, so I apologize. But yes, it was a wonderful party. We created a silly "Battle Dreidel" game (which is really just "try to hit other dreidels off the table by spinning another dreidel into play") and when we had 8 or 9 people all playing at once, it was more the traditional rules of "all, none, half, or pay in" with the chocolate coins. We just added that while the dreidel was still spinning, either tell us a story, a limerick, or answer a question. Jeff and Adrienne received two "games" of question cards (one set about Hanukkah and one set about the Sabbath in general), and so we also enjoyed the cards together.

Adrienne and I had gone shopping for a "hanukkah menorah" which is called a hanakkiah, and so I had the opportunity to light candles every night of Hanukkah for the first time in my life. It was really meaningful for my entire winter holiday season, and will always be a treasured memory from now on. I still glance up at top of my desk in my room (which is like my entertainment center), and see that hanakkiah and think fondly of this season.

The weekend before Christmas (also, the last evening of Hanukkah), my grandparents came over to my Mom's for dinner on Friday and brunch on Saturday. So I had a nice evening visit with them (after sitting through 3+ hours of traffic for a 55-min drive normally). My sister and family were out late Friday night at a show, so I didn't see them before I went to bed nor after I got up on Saturday morning. But we got together over the brunch at Mom's later, and then I spent some of my Saturday afternoon out shopping with Jan and Kara.

In the early evening, I took some time to go see Doku's store, since he just finished buying out the previous owner and he's really quite busy with the store now. We chatted for a bit, I did some shopping (of course! must support the local business owners), and then I had a quiet dinner with Jeff and Adrienne.

I spent a long day Sunday finishing the last of my Christmas shopping, gift-making, and gift-wrapping. But it was worth it, to have silk scarves ready for all the adult women, gifts for Tara, Fiona, and Liz, gifts for "all the nieces and nephews" (which is really to say all the nieces and one boy cousin), plus something special for Josh, Kim, Mom, Larry, and my sister (whose name was drawn for me in the gift exchange).

Christmas day it was nice to see my extended family up north and them my close family at Mom's house. And after all the craziness with family, I spent another quiet evening with Jeff and Adrienne, rounding out my day of family with the closeness of my chosen household family. What a lovely way to end the day.

Post-Christmas, I've had the very good fortune of hosting my daughter for a few weeks over winter break. We're having a wonderful time together, organizing my home, visiting friends, making plans for her studies and costuming and hobbies, and just hanging out with one another or at events. We managed to attend the Shire Yule/12th Night celebration on Saturday, and she spent New Year's day watching college bowl with some of the household. We've enjoyed Shabbat at Jeff and Adrienne's, and a party at the Dudley's. (And everyone is in love with her chocolates, as well as her personality and charm, so she's thoroughly enjoying all the socializing opportunities.) The visit will wrap up in a few weeks, so we're making the most of it for now, which is to say I may or may not be able to write much for a while.

I'm also in the middle of a *GIGANTIC* sewing project for this weekend, so it'll be a really hectic and busy next four days.

So to everyone, I hope you had a lovely December and a nice New Year's Day.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: A wonderful 2006. Thank you to all the friends and family who made it so memorable.