On the plus side, the weather was very mild for us this Christmas. It snowed a little, not amounting to much, and the roads melted clear before we had to leave. The sun even made a few appearances. I read the entire Dark is Rising sequence, sitting near a roaring woodstove with a cat nearby. We had some great food – my father and I made fresh pasta for lasagna, there was salumi and good cheese, fresh grapefruit and satsumas, and piles and piles of Frangos. For Christmas dinner I made sweet bao dough and a pork-bean sprout filling, and my father made a cucumber salad with fresh ginger and the ma la oil we made for him.

On the not-so-plus side, my husband and I both came down with bad colds, so I couldn’t go visit my grandfather, and on Christmas day a family member became very ill and needed to go to the ER. That evening was spent cooking the hum bao we had started earlier in the day, keeping the woodstove going, and waiting anxiously for the phone to ring. I don’t really recommend it. The best thing about it was that hum bao and cucumber salad are both really ideal when you have to reheat food at midnight for people who have been sitting in a hospital for five or six hours.

We’re really hoping next year is an improvement on this one.