By now it should come as no surprise that if it were uncovered at some point that we are part gypsy, no one would decry the accuracy of the testing. Where I come from a lot of people would not marry military, just too much heartbreak or something, who knows. But it was my policy in this endeavor to find the best one, not the most geographically stable. After all, who am I to point a finger?
Every once in a while I get a note from a military spouse who is on the verge of something: These notes, they worry me. Clearly, I am no wizard. Our story, having lived apart nearly the entirety of our marriage, is unlike most, even when it comes to those who serve.
Just as Josh signed on 80 dotted lines, did I. There was perfect clarity for the task. We were together three years before we were married, and six since. Tough spots? Yes, we know something about them. And look, they had nothing to do with the uniform or the never-ending re-lo's. That is my favorite marital cop-out in this racket.
This thing of Josh's is a vocation. Not a career. Not a job. Something one of us must do and so, all for one, you may be thinking.
Not until we had these little girls, actually. Prior to their arrival, our life was conducted via cell phones from all over the world, on aircraft between Boston and Corpus, New York and Florida. Where ever and over there.
But I defy you to show me a conventional marriage: The depth of the thing being far greater than locale even when you have stood right there for fifty years. I have seen people greater than 6,000 miles apart who are standing shoulder to shoulder. It is not just the long haul flights that separate people, there are a million forms of "disconnect".
For now though, all that distance is over. Now we are doing it: Bringing it together for his shore duty. And let me tell you, it is ever different when they get home, when there is another parent here, when it all does not stand or fall on what I was able to accomplish in a day, or my single perspective in making a decision. Sometimes, I hear the words, "yes," or "no" from another room and honestly have a moment where I think someone has broken in. I got used to rolling alone with these girls. It is not harder if it is the only thing you know, remember that.
I had a conversation with another officer's wife yesterday. Her only baby girl was sworn into the Navy the day before on her way to Harvard. Second generation. Her Mama said she swallowed hard but knew by looking at her little girl's face, this was all the child ever dreamed of. Me? I don't know. I might not have stopped her from signing on that line, but if she told me she wanted to work in the garment district, I would look into reprogramming camp.
Now, if you ask my Husband, he might tell you something different, but then, he is the one on the bridge.
Do it over? In a heartbeat, even if you could have held that crystal ball in front of me on the first day.
I am so pleased to welcome Lisa, of the unfailingly remarkable and sharply witty page, Privilege.
From the outset you can sense the management sure-footedness which carved this valuable essay for those who hold a manager's position now, as well as those who aspire to one later. This document is a keeper: Tucked into the front of Entertaining or How to Get Your Team Rowing in the Same Direction, it will be equally as valuable a reference related to both areas as time goes by.
Set an example others can follow, and you will never need to tell them to follow you.Lisa is that caliber of manager, no question. Enjoy it, as you can tell, I truly have.
Yours, Catherine
Let's say you, or your spouse/partner, manage a team. A good-sized, but not enormous group. Somewhere between 8-20 people. Let's say that you want to host the team for dinner at your house. This can bring a team closer together, help them understand each other's cultures, and foster informal communication that makes work more efficient and way more fun over time. Or it can be a disaster.
The Blushing Hostess and I want to help you avoid disaster. And while it's not wildly difficult, the how-to is not completely self-evident.
As a manager, or the spouse/partner of a manager, you can use personal hospitality in a unique way. You can improve your team's working relationship. You will, however, have to step outside the traditional host/hostess parameters. To do this, like anything else in your career, you need clear priorities. (Aren't careers annoying like that?) You want to provide comfort, leadership, and a space to deepen cooperation. Your house is a good venue, as people like to see how you live. It shows your personal side. But you never want to forget that you, or your spouse/partner, are the manager. So what are your goals?
Assert leadership (Let's face it, the higher up you get, the more subordinates are gunning for your job. You need to remind them, without appearing to do so, who is boss. Those are who comfortable with your leadership like to see it in action.)
Develop loyalty (People want to know that even though it's a work relationship, you see them as human beings. That's how you gain loyalty that persists beyond your latest success.)
Build team feeling (Your team will work better together when the informal communication processes are robust)
Reward performance (Coming to your house is a reward. You are the boss. They want time with you.)
Every part of the event, from invitation, to menu, to decor, to schedule, can help you do whatever it is you need to do. At the end of the day, you're the boss.
6 Ways To Ensure Long-Lasting Team Impact
Appoint someone on the team as party-master, i.e. they send the invitations on your behalf, and they manage and confirm the R.S.V.P's.
Do most of the cooking and prep before the team begins to arrive.
Leave some tasks for the team to complete, ways for them to contribute.
Show some thought, but little effort.
Focus more on the group dynamic and time together than food, drink, decor.
Be responsible about alcohol and how you present it.
Invitations
Appoint someone senior on your team to send the invitation in your place. Don't use Evite, have her/him send an email from the work account and keep track of who is coming. If you appoint someone creative, let them have fun, but make sure you approve before it's sent off. Make clear that this is a personal invitation, and not a work function.
Decor and Ambiance
Use china that can go in the dishwasher. Not paper, but not your fancy stuff either. You don't want anyone feeling terrible if there's breakage.
Candles on a table will warm the room, set the stage for relaxing just enough of the office constraints. Not too many. We aren't filming an episode of The Office here.
Almost certainly, someone will bring you a bunch of flowers. They are apt to be measly supermarket flowers - your people are busy, right? So if you put out flowers yourself, I recommend using simple ones from your yard, or a supermarket bunch, yourself. That way you won't overshadow the person who thinks to bring you some.
Using your real silver is optional. My silver is so simple that no one would feel uncomfortable stabbing their food.
Avoid table seating in favor of everyone perching on various seats. Drag dining room chairs into the living room. Once you seat people at a table, the hierarchy rears its head. People will want to sit next to their friends, or next to you. You want to keep things fluid.
Music is optional, and if used, should be wordless. The social dynamic of the workplace is powerful, and that's what you are looking to enhance.
Food
For your team dinner, comfort is the most important part of your food, impressing anyone is secondary. (What, you never show off? Oops. I do.) On the other hand, people want to feel you made an effort, so I'd avoid the throwing a hot dog at a hot flame approach.
Set out cheese and vegetables to start, people may be hungry when they arrive. And they might be shy to say anything to their boss, like, "Umm, when is dinner again?"
Try to give a nod to any particular cultures in your group. For example, many Asians prefer to have rice with every meal, and are really pleased when it's available along with the usual Western bread or pasta.
Grilling is your friend. Skewers are your friend. Choice is your guests' friend. So offer a choice of skewers - beef for those who feel short-changed without red meat, chicken for the health-conscious, and tofu for the vegetarians. Yes, actually, grilled tofu is pretty good if you use your favorite meat marinade. And people do love to gather around a flame, discussing the physics of heat and meat. Primal and all that.
If you feel responsible for their health, grill vegetables on skewers too. (I always do. It's required by law in California.) Sweet potatoes are great. So are onions. So is asparagus.
Serve a choice of dipping sauces. I've given you two of my favorite recipes below. But use your own as you choose.
For dessert, serve skewers of fruit, and have a make-it-yourself s'mores bar at the grill. People relax when you give them permission to revert to their kid selves. So what if they get marshmallow goop on the Weber? Just burn it off later.
Don't serve salads. Leaves of lettuce always escape from plates and forks. People really don't want to spill food on their boss's sofa.
Here are two great recipes for dipping sauces. The bright green and red are an extra-added bonus. Roasted Red Bell Pepper Sauce From China Moon Cookbook, by Barbara Tropp (Tropp worships the food she has you cook. If you like cooking the effort is worth it).
3 medium red bell peppers, roasted, stemmed, peeled, and coarsely chopped. (Note: To roast bell peppers put them in a broiler at 500 degrees and roast until blackened, throw them into a sealed container for a while, open when cooler and peel off the skins) 3 slices sun-dried tomato, soaked briefly in boiling water until softened, drained 1 1/2 finely minced garlic 1/2 cup unseasoned Japanese rice vinegar (i.e. no sugar added, read the label carefully) 2 tablespoons cider vinegar 1 tablespoon sugar 1 teaspoon fine sea salt 1/4 cup Five-Flavor Oil (this is an infused oil she gives a recipe for elsewhere in the cookbook. You can substitute 1/6 cup of vegetable oil, a couple of tablespoons of toasted sesame oil, a teeny pinch of dried red chili flakes, a little minced ginger, and some ground pepper. Szechuan peppercorns, if you have them, but again, this evening isn't about food pyrotechnics.) 1 1/2 tablespoons China Moon Hot Chili Oil ( again, this is an infused oil recipe. You can substitute a good commercial hot chili oil) 2 tablespoons "goop" from China Moon Hot Chili Oil (use a good commercial hot chili paste) 1 cup packed cilantro leaves and stems, chopped
(Tangy, sweet, spicy. I like it with beef.) Combine the roasted bell peppers and sun-dried tomatoes in a good processor. Process until nearly smooth. Add the garlic and pulse to blend. Combine the vinegars with the sugar and sea salt and add to the red pepper mixture. With the machine running, combine the oils and "goop," and add slowly, running machine until the sauce emulsifies, 1 to 2 minutes. Stop the machine, add the chopped cilantro, and pulse until the cilantro is finely minced. (If preparing in advance, add the cilantro just before serving.) Taste and adjust with a bit more salt, sugar, and/or vinegar, if needed, depending on the flavor and sweetness of the peppers. Don't be shy. Fiddle with it until you get a taste you like.
Blender Salsa Verde From Appetite, by Nigel Slater (Slater is the type of cook who writes funny recipes and tells people to sod off and not be such whingers. I love him.)
(This sauce is very piquant, a little salty. Slater recommends it for white fish. I like it with chicken.) My basic recipe is to whiz all or most of the following in the blender: the leaves from a large bunch of flat parsley and a few sprigs of mint, 6 anchovy fillets, a couple of cloves of garlic, a spoonful of Dijon mustard, a couple of tablespoons of capers, and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Now pour in enough olive oil to reduce it all to a lumpy slurry the color of that green stuff that floats on the pond in summer. Taste and check; you might find you want it with more mustard or lemon.
Alcohol
People are particular about what they want to drink, and the wrong drinks can make them crabby. In the non-alcoholic category make sure you have sparkling water, diet/regular sodas, and fruit juice. In the alcohol world, most importantly make sure that no one has too much. That said, it's fun to serve a drink that requires the blender. One of your team gets to run the machine - good for those who hate small talk. (You know, your technical genius who doesn't really understand the point of people?) A whirring blender adds to the celebratory atmosphere, and you can keep the level of alcohol low. Offer enough good wine for everyone to have a glass - $12/bottle is about the minimum, with bottled beer for those who don't drink wine. And, at end of the night, if you feel that everyone has been moderate in their drinking, you can serve brandy or cognac. There is something about a wee bit o' brandy in a snifter that can bring about a moment of reflection and fellow feeling.
Management and Logistics
Have the party on a Friday. Start by 5pm so people can leave the office a little early.
The early birds should be put to work cutting - make sure to caution them on knife safety, show them how to cut an onion without crying, etc. It's amazing what some people don't know and are embarrassed to confess.
You can let your team clean up one load of dishes before they go home. Some people really don't feel comfortable leaving a host with a dirty kitchen. But this is a matter of personal taste, regional habits, and your company culture.
Monitor sobriety. Ask everyone if they are OK to drive before they leave. Make it a blanket question, then no one feels embarrassed or singled out.
Finally, take a moment during the night and watch. Look at your people. See how they interact. Make a mental note. And track progress over the next few months as you continue to tune your team's performance.
Getting coffee is no excuse to allow your manners obligation to fall by the wayside. In Starbucks (I know. I know.) I asked my two-year-old daughter if she was through with her milk, "I don't want any more." she responded. I reminded her, as I do, no thank you, Mama. This exchange, overheard by a group nearby, spurred the inevitable discussion of these times (Why don't more people teach their children manners?) but continued on to an etiquette subject I've never covered before nor considered, frankly. You can thank a lovely soul named Elise for this little primer, she was well taught... six, she told me, there are six things you may eat with your hands.
Amy Vanderbilt, Letitia Baldridge, and Nancy Tuckerman, two of the three having held the most senior internal protocol positions in the United States, have not addressed this subject entirely. Which only goes to show there is often more comprehensive etiquette sensibility in the pinkie of a girl at Starbucks who may never have given much thought to her grace, than a black limo full of White House etiquette doyenne's. But I digress.
I have uncovered several (so far). Of these, a few have appeared here occasionally as separate etiquette subjects: Bread (broken up, buttered in small pieces, eaten with the hands). Artichokes (plucked one leaf at a time from the whole). Sandwiches. Fan tail shrimp. Chips (potato, Saratoga, what have you). Olives. Caviar. And in my book: Anything you are going to cause me to eat while holding a cocktail glass and perched atop a pair of Manolo's better be finger food. Period.
Apparently, there is some disagreement over the others: Asparagus (I cut mine on the bias and eat it with a fork unless it is crudite). Shrimp of every other variety (fish fork or dinner fork). Smoked salmon and trout. Sushi. And so on.
Do you have another for me?
Drink Starbucks, learn etiquette: One more reason no one should be complaining about caffeine intake.
Wrapping up in Jacksonville has been more of a roller coaster than foreseen. But all else aside, this is what brought us. And what takes us.
Hail and Farewell for Josh and the gentleman who replaces him on the frigate upon which he has served out of the Mayport basin here: All through. It was moving and sentimental. Fair winds, following seas.Best of luck.
The Navy does far too many of these events, it seems.
Yesterday, at 11 am, he was rung off the brow of the ship. There were a few misty eyes. That happens when a couple dozen Naval officers on either side hold their salute as he walks off and the bell rings twice; once short, once long. When that soulful baritone slowly bellows these words, "Lieutenant Joshua Kersting, departing." their formal goodbye noting the end of their service to that vessel and her crew, can be awe-inspiring.
All concerned watch to see if tradition is broken and the departing officer looks back. Young first tours are always looking over their shoulders, it seems. But he kept walking. Never looked back; Friendships and wars notwithstanding, when it is done, it is done. After a while, maybe they become better at the sensation of leaving things behind.
Ink. The is the only remaining mark visible to the human eye of a snap-finger moment turned to dust. Like most scars, and it is one - its orgins are local and its relevance unforgettable.
There is this gorgeous girl around here who helps me look after my babies. The other day we were squealing over her new engagement ring and memorializing our scars. She is a Lone Star baby. Her skin bears the small mark of the great state of Texas. Mine, the lion from my family coat of arms. These are not foolish throw-away designs on skin that would see a great deal of love and joy and just as much catastrophe and physical onslaught: They are the things we will always be.
That tattoo was inked into me on a sweltering summer night in Danbury, Connecticut. I had just graduated from college. Law school was beginning, in seemed, instantly. My girlfriends were off to five continents to explore. Their educational road was over for the moment, but I could only afford to realize the three year slog to the bar exam. The previous summer had been spent in cloistered conditions studying for the LSAT exam which was only slightly less rigorous than my undergrad work.
No freedom in sight. My experience with liberation after graduation took one hour, a needle, four Corona's, and two shots of tequila, in that order. Looking back, I have now told you everything I know about liberation to this day as well.
Now that I know what I know, that moment was only split seconds away from the worst decision of my life. But you have to make them, those decisions you never finish crucifying yourself for; take those chances, earn those scars.
So, go on to law school. Do what your people dreamed for you. Tow the party line on and on.
But one night before, I bit a little harder on my own bullet, defied my parents explicit instructions never to mark any body they created, and had the lion etched into my skin and simultaneously seared into my soul. "Strength. Perseverance. " the translation of the motto under that lion. Ferocity. Dauntless courage. I would always belong to that family, to those words, to the concept of having been born into people who had the strength and presence of lions. Whether their familiarity with those concepts was indeed genetic or the happenstance of familial personalities, perhaps I will never know. One certain thing existed there however; it was the only real and enduring concept in all the ones I considered leading up to that night. I knew people with foolish tattoos; if a girl from a good family was going to be inked, she better think hard about what she was carrying around for a lifetime.
When it came to entering graduate school that fall, I was on my own by my choosing. I had worked on an EMS unit since I was eighteen; forever trying to decide if I would be a doctor or lawyer. I upgraded my life saving credentials and in express violation of the American Bar Associations rules for studying the law, stood, alternately, the first and third watches on a medic truck. Exhausted? Adrenaline wakes you up like an electric prod to the heart, believe it. But once it wore off, if I did not have my license to dispense medicine on pavement in my pocket, I would not have known my name most days. I memorized Brown v. Board of Ed with my steel-toe'd boots propped up on the dispatch screen. A cage of my own making. No question about it, I stripped myself of my own liberation.
But none of this was a wasteland of things that never added up, one moment is the fated riser to the next.
As I held people together inside crushed vehicles, I would come to a clear understanding about why the ideals that dropped me into the nightmares of others and tort law were too divergent for my mind's sense of fairness. On any late night in the New York metro region, the malpractice arrow could have stabbed my two good hands only hoping to get a human life to the ER doors in salvageable condition. One morning I was working an accident and waiting for a trauma helicopter to land between power lines. I looked up to realize a lawyer had stopped on the scene and was being waived off by a patrol officer. As surely as I knew I had to keep working to keep that kid awake, I knew the law was someone else's future.
But the tattoo remains unquestionably right about those days even as everything else can reinduce unshakeable square-peg-in-round hole sensations. Never have I been, as my parents warned me I would be, sorry that I have it.
My partner on those shifts was an Adonis of a guy who was as decent a man as I have known. He was there the night the night the lion took its place on my back. He understood, after summers and breaks watching me focus on nothing but succeeding, excelling, that it was time the path was shattered, even if only for a split second. I'm going with you, he told me. I didn't argue, he was mostly always with me anyway, that is a partner for you.
We wore BDU's and wide belts to work. The tattoo was, for my line of work then, poorly placed; directly under my belt line. At the start of every shift for weeks, we filled oxygen tanks and he redressed the wound. It was what we knew to do. One morning he said to me, looks mean.
Still feels good, I told him. Despite all the admonitions, I can still say the same with absolute certainty. Even as it is recolored this week, that old pain is one of the best ones I know: The sear of a point in time when I owe to nothing and no one.
As I was talking to our gorgeous girl about tattoos, she paused for minute when I said I had a one. "Does that surprise you?" I asked her.
"No." she said slowly, "Not once I stopped to think about it."
That is my cover. I don't care if you judge my book by it. But know if you do, you missed a damn fine read.
I am so pleased to welcome San Lori back this week as sponsor of the fourth week of holiday giveaways at Blushing Hostess. San Lori is home to a most remarkable collection of creative and inspiring stationery products and they have once again been generous enough to help Blushing's readers get their holiday party planning off to a great start.
These are my people. I hope you were not expecting something more grand. Looking a little like ten miles of bad road here but they are something spectacular. Not just because they are the ones I was born into, but because they are loyalists and purists, trustworthy inheritors of a close-guarded tradition. Father, brothers, cousins, husband, and friends.
This picture was taken 47 years into a Thanksgiving tradition established by my Dad and a handful of his high school buddies in the town park on the top of the hill above where they grew up in our hometown, Katonah, New York. This is four generations of Irish Catholic New Yorkers, which became family over a Thanksgiving morning touch football game borne into life as an agreement of four young men in front of a locker bank in a school called St. Mary's of the Assumption right there at the bottom of that same hill.
This Thanksgiving Day, it will be fifty years that we have met there, at 10 am, without having once discussed it amongst ourselves during the year. This year there will be television crews from the New York City news stations; not all that uncommon, various media outlets turned up unexpectedly at every other milestone as well. Seems the part that fascinates people is that this is the only day each year we all see one another in most cases and that we fly from all over the world to be there. That, and that it never occurred to us to do something else, I guess. We still look at those cameras with bewilderment; I mean, there is no corporate sponsorships, no real lines on the field.
But, if you grew up in this town and had names like Coughlin, O'Brien, Muller, Helmes, Keating, Marcato, Repp or Fitzgerald, then you'll be there at 10 am. Even the girls. We are welcome to play. Only we don't. At various times they have, and eventually stopped. But the boys, they play. Through life-threatening hangovers (the night before Thanksgiving is the biggest night of the year in our little burg), broken extremities, and vicious colds they have stood with their breath hanging frostily in front of them, snow drifting past them, and hands ever-moving to fend off the cold. Covered in mud. Drenched in rain. With heartache in their lives, and joy. Holding their bundled babies in shots with girls with big bouffants, and smiling with a huge brood of blond Irish teenagers and the girl with the bouffant-come-bob behind those six burly boys. Holding small dogs, and handing around the cell talking to my Husband from the Persian Gulf when he had gone to the war. Cradling the Pat Coughlin Memorial Trophy - that was my Dad. 47 years into the game, he became the first to leave the field for keeps.
Most days, if you ask me about my family, I will tell you about this game. When I think about the kind of clan we came from, it is always the first thought. There were no other girls in the extended family; this - you know - is my dance card at weddings. But they clean up nicely. You will have to take my word for it, considering.
I grew up in a small metro town; the sort where, when the dog took off and went down by the town flag pole to roll around in the grass, the patrol car just stopped, pushed the back door open for Blue, whistled, and drove him back to our house. The kind of town where the fire whistle still calls volunteers to man an engine and makes it known noon has arrived.
When the noon whistle blows down the hill on Thanksgiving day, you can hear it clear as your Mama calling you for dinner on a still summer night. All the eyes on the field will rise, and those right hands will extend. Until next year.
Then we all drop into Jimmy's, our local watering hole. My Dad had his first beer there when it was called Tighe's, so did Chris and I, thirty years on from then. The first (and last) drink I pitched at a lecherous beast, and my first marriage proposal at the age of 22: Right there. You could say we are attached to the place though, from appearances, I would be hard pressed to justify it. Just the romance of our genes, perhaps. The juke only plays my Daddy's music and some CCR. Fortunate Son. That is the music of my people.
My girlfriends from way back and I are not running game in town anymore; All grown up now, but once a year we still take our places in the middle seats. Timmy tends bar; he graduated with us. I think he is only there that one day a year now too. But he would not miss it, if he did, we would only have to go by his parent's place and ask about him. No sense in staying home.
Sometimes people just take their places, and could not get out of them if they tried for wanting to. My Husband told me this week, in a time of upheaval and difficulty for us, "I'll be there. I will always be there." One way or another, true to the family behind me on the day he took that vow, he has been.
I thought to myself it was good of him, though I know we've no other way. We know no other thing.
My Dad's family: Lace curtain Irish kids from a gracious town in old New York. Meant to play. In all weather. For our Dads. For ourselves. For all the reasons we give thanks on that field holding hands each year. Thanks that we all made it back, thanks that we have this.
Thanks to a very good God, that you all are mine.
This year you can be one of us via satellite. Can you imagine? Don't be surprised by the bewildered expressions.
"Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened."-Billy Graham
A man named Billy Reid went back home to Florence, Alabama and started a luxury apparel and leather goods brand. It takes a special kind of determination to stand by a hometown. While I can give you dozens of reasons to remember Billy Reid, think of that one every time you catch yourself shopping for luxury goods from overseas brands and then head over to see Billy.
I owe the kind gentleman at Billy Reid great thanks for allowing me to publish these photos. They did not make me plead to get permission to show you these incredibly beautiful boots or these compelling photographs, which I am equally as attached to... but I was prepared to do so, shamelessly.
If you have not visited Billy Reid for men's or women's southern-bred luxury apparel, you might enjoy a visit; it is a spirited gallop through old traditions made new, hip, and fresh.
Not to mention, for my taste, the most hands-down beautiful boots for the Fall, 2009 season. And what are those? Leather britches? Why aren't I wearing those?
I will stop talking about this rig exactly the day after never.
Enjoy the ride, but don't leave without the boots. This is the right brand for best reason: Courage, the American kind.
As if you need any further convincing, Billy Reid has extended a private event code for Blushing readers of 25% off your purchase through October 31, 2009. Use promotional code HOSTESS25 at checkout.
Disclosure: Billy Reid, Inc. is not a sponsor of this site, just a bunch of all-around good guys. Photos courtesy of Billy Reid, Inc. are exclusive-right protected property of the brand.
The blogsophere has been graced by some remarkably brilliant and generous movers. One needing no introduction, Meg, of Pigtown Design is welcomed to Blushing Hostess today as the first guest of the holiday season.
Aside from her professional and blog work, Meg is a chief organizer of April Food Day to fight hunger in the United States, a worthy recipient of Southern Accent Magazine's Miss Gracious Living recognition, and in general, a friend of this planet and every creature on it.
Please join me in welcoming Meg as she takes on a visit to her holiday memories, and do kindly drop by Pigtown for a visit.
Yours, Catherine
My memories of the holidays have always been ones of my American mother and my English father, combining their traditions to make new ones. Ones which their four children have continued in their own unique ways.
About five weeks before Christmas, my father began making the traditional Christmas cake, an English fruit cake steeped in loads of booze. Currants, raisins, fruit peel, molasses, brown sugar, white sugar and eggs were all mixed in a huge yellow-ware bowl that my parents found on an antiquing trip. My father used his father’s recipe, which my siblings and I all have now. The cake was wrapped in a cloth and every few days, it was soaked with brandy or whisky.
In mid-December, my mother went into major cookie-making mode. She would usually make the same cookies each year – gingerbread, sandtarts, oatmeal lace, Florentines and Jan Hagel. Some years, she’d try a new variety, and if we liked it, she’d add it to the list. We had a lot of tins where we stored the cookies, and they were marked with the name of the cookie, so we’d know which one to grab for a late night snack.
When we moved to our house at St. John’s, the site of our huge family and friends party on Christmas night, we always took extra care to decorate it beautifully. I was always the child who helped with the decorations.
On the large front porch, there were several sets of columns, which we wrapped in pine garland. For several years, I made a Williamsburg style lemons and oranges, apples and pineapple and a magnolia leaf display. One year, it was unexpectedly warm and all of the fruit started dripping.
In the front hallway, we had two mahogany columns, which were also wrapped in pine garland. A swag of garland was hung over the large fireplace in the living room. For many years, we would go cut our tree, which we placed in a corner of the living room. My parents collected ornaments during their travels, and they knew and shared the story of each one. Other ornaments were handmade by artistic friends.
On Christmas night, we always had a huge party, each of the children inviting their friends and our parents inviting theirs. It was a multi-generational gathering, with everyone arriving festively dressed and bearing small presents.
We always had a fully-stocked bar set up in the butler’s pantry and there was beer for the kids and their friends, usually something like Bass in a nod towards my father’s heritage. My father would mix up a batch of eggnog, spiking it with bourbon and sprinkling the top with freshly-grated nutmeg.
The food was a mix of traditional southern and English fare. We’d get a Smithfield ham, but we’d also have roast beef with English mustard, which looked pretty tame, but had a real kick. There would be artichoke and crab dip in a silver chafing dish and a family favourite, celery with bleu and cream cheese piped into it and sprinkled with paprika, served in an old cut crystal dish.
The table was set with china, silver and crystal and all of the candles were lit. There was always a fire in the fireplace in the living room and also in the library.
On the sideboard, there would be an assortment of my mother’s cookies and my father’s Christmas cake. By this time, the cake had been coated with a layer of marzipan or almond paste, and then a covering of pure white royal icing, with silver dragees strewn across the surface.
Looking back, I realize that one of the reasons the party was always such a success for so many years, was because of the multi-generational mix of guests. It was not unusual to see one of my brother’s friends chatting with my 90-year old cousin who was a Federal judge, or one of my parents’ artist friends telling my friends stories of her life in Paris.
Mixing and mingling with a guest list that ranged from nine weeks old to 90 years old helped us become comfortable having conversations with all ranges of people. It helped us all learn how to host a party and understand all of the work that went into making it special for our guests.
Most of all, it showed us what the holidays are all about – spending time with family and friends.
I could still love this season for the tights alone.
Net notes: If it is tasteful, it is ageless. Tights-and-boot girls: Be sure you choose a soft hide boot with interior zipper facings, otherwise zipper-rub will destroy those Fogels for you in a snap. For the leg-coverer's (boo, hiss, boo): Riding skirt.
Don't try to make too much sense of matching the hosiery color to the shoe or boot, a little flash of color on your leg between your hem and boot is fabulous, revolutions have started over less. Jet back to jet black is never wrong but jewel tones mixed with earthy naturals are engaging and pare down the lust factor of the spike: Sapphire tights over a cognac knee-high spike. Jade next to graphite. Pewter and navy. Burgundy and gunmetal. Ivory and pecan. Are you with me?
Moschino
Sigerson Morrison, Belle
Burberry, Gloss Grain
Modern Vintage, Crinkle
Max United
DVF, Rand
Stuart Weitzman, Igiveup (Yes, that is really their name. I have no idea how these boots got in here. The devil made me do it. But I'm not sorry: Black pencil skirt and tights, six days a week but not on Sundays, then this would get talked about.)
We were gifted with several excellent bottles of wine when we were engaged. That was four years ago and we have not opened any of the bottles. Cringe! I am always waiting for the best time but anniversaries, holidays, and birthdays have passed. It never seems special enough. Do you have a rule of thumb for opening your best bottles?
Kisses, Katie
(Full disclosure: Katie is one of my oldest friends, if she were not, she absolutely should not be kissing virtual-perfect strangers, although I could not even feign surprise if this kind of thing were uncovered. Also, I gave her a few of those bottles, two of which should have been opened already.)
She has the wrong hostess for the task in me: I don't know about you, but I open bottles when I am having dinner, thirsty, out of shampoo, or when I am close to the shore and not in any rush to send a message. I try not to open bottles of champagne unless I am in the company of very trusted souls (don't ask, I mean it, don't). Two bottles or more of any one wine sits aside for dinner parties. This concludes what I know, except to say: Open the bottles already, are you waiting for an apocalypse?
Do you have an uncorking rule of thumb you can share with my girl?
RoniJaco, Blushing's gorgeous and adventurous sponsor at the lush and dazzling The Loaded Trunk, generously offers one of these magnificent serving spoons for this week's giveaway. Each piece has been commissioned especially for The Loaded Trunk and was handmade in Bali.
Created from shell, sterling, and native woods, and adding diaphanous color to the presentation, these remarkable spoons make an art of the act of serving; A handsome serving compliment to the holiday table.
Blushing Followers can leave a comment below to enter and be sure to drop by The Loaded Trunk. Enteries will close at midnight, Tuesday, 10/27. Good luck!
I try to answer every email, although there are many. One has been sitting around here for nearly three months and been alternately scrap paper, a paper airplane (originally a feeble attempt at a pterodactyl), and confetti (it was Tuesday!). When I am hanging upside down from my chair with not a hope in sight of coming up with anything to write about and in truth more focused on the smear of peanut butter on the screen, I return to one email. It is not deep - not obviously so - it just represents most of my life, surely all the most peaceful and solitary. It felt, almost, like an intrusion; this medium is always on that precipice.
Dear Blushing, If you won't show us your feet, let's see those thighs! Horse pictures, please. I understand from other sources you had a distinguished history. Old Salem, let us read it.Marc
Old Salem is the farm at which I rode. It was a hot bed of Olympians and champions of all manner of athlete, both horse and rider. I was there for fifteen years, off and on and showed under the navy and burgundy colors of that venerable old stable. I am proud to say I was exposed to the remarkable show jumping talent that thrived there. And that I jumped with them. But, that was then. Most of the photos and videos as well as nearly all the ribbons went up in the fire; recreating this for you has been challenging in a number of ways.
I know that time at Old Salem, and the old trophies they are holding for us up there on the hill are what people remember and are probably asking about now; the twinkle on highly polished silver in the front hall, the satin of the long tri-color ribbons, the excitement of the jumper rings, and the adrenaline of the high-jump ride on hot-headed maniac horses; the powerful fast guns of the game, the great equalizers, the steel between your knees.
I concede, I liked the jumpers best for a lot of reasons for most of my career, although I started in an open field in Purchase, New York. A jumper's win is unequivocal: Huge terrifying fences, tight turns, shallow jump cup holders, ninety seconds, no judges. The slalom of horse events. A rider must go clear, no rails down or refusals. Hot heads, are, in my book the best for the job; young studs. There is nothing worse than an animal without fierce will and determination. Jumpers need good legs because the courses are brutal, but moreover, they must be bull-headed, slightly addled, lunatics.
Would you jump around courses like those on a Sunday afternoon when there is hay in your stall? It helps to have a loose cannon between your legs, as we say.
You must rein them in or lengthen them, but get them to a spot at the base of that fence and over it; pick them up between two legs and leave them no choice, throw them over the fence with your thighs if you have to, but be authoritative and clear with your body: One way or another we are going over that thing. I preferred to wrestle to hold them in, struggle to push their rein strength into my leg, and be reaching, stretching, hurting desperately over the top of the high spreads rather than loping around some gentle course in a hay field somewhere. That is the nature of adrenaline addiction.
The last time I wrote a post on horses, there was mail about safety and all sorts of other nonsense but, look here: I made the choice to ride jumpers at an age when I was fearless and paid my dues to keep from being injured (badly), but lumps and scars are part of life. The scar tissue on the inside of my calves from the stirrup leathers is not something I would trade. In the worst of these injuries, I hit my head on a stone field jump so hard that I did not know my family for two days and had virtually no mental comprehension whatsoever. As soon as the amnesia cleared, I was back on course. Because that level of risk was the only level at which I wanted to exist.
It was better to take the chance I would get killed on course than to die of a long, painful disease; there is not a better way to go out.
The agony of the sport for riders is not dying from being landed upon or trampled, it is the threat of paralysis. Living with a limited or non-existent range of motion is the worst danger: The devil in the tack closet. The fear is a demon that can take your mind at night and cause you to wreck from dire anxiety. It was that bell ringing right behind my ear at the timer: I was sure it was there to remind me not to cut the turns too deep or ask for too much stride.
Because those accidents happened, they happenedeveryday. Once you become a show jumper, you have already punched your card in many ways, it is only a matter of when, not how.
When my children arrived, I had to put the jumper rings away in my soul as many Mother's do. Frequent deployments on my Husband's part caused me to realize that if something were to happen to me... these little girls were, as athlete's say, the tap on the shoulder. Time to go. Watching that video full of friends and competitors is no simple task now.
I miss the big ride. Yes, I miss my heart pounding through my field coat, diving out of the leather and throwing the reins away with the fastest prayer I have ever said scorching my thoughts; hitting the spot and knowing we're too deep to turn back now, while those last words past my lips you better get the hell up, Reg! And smiling on the other side of the triple as I patted his neck that thing was huge, buddy, way bigger than it walked. And I miss that he would turn and bite the tip of my boot, I assume, for having dug him him too tight. See, I am trying not to truly think about it even now as I finally write this post, but I am. I'm not even with you now, some place else, some place better - for me. This thing is in my blood and it binds to memories, photos, the smell of saddle leather and the sound of hooves, and the morning sun in Ocala.
I returned to the part of the sport at which I began: The open field. This is my sanctuary. Every person needs that place in their consciousness: Mine is an open gallop in the hunt fields where I was raised; on horseback as long as I have walked.
This is my home. Otherwise, I just hang around in houses feeling pent up and frustrated. I can sense this same desperation in others whether they make their homes on rock faces, oceans, or ski slopes when they are tied to small lots in well-intentioned suburban subdivisions and tiny city apartments. I feel about them as I do myself: A pacing caged spirit meant, most of the time, to be without fences or ceilings.
It is not just a sport, in fact it did not start as one and from this vantage point, I know it will not end as one. It is where I need to go, and where I will be, when they take me off this earth: On the undulating fields, in the deep hollows, beyond the stone walls, and generally - out there.
I learned this from my Mother. It was the single greatest thing she gave me, and believe me when I tell you, some very tense negotiation went on with my Dad to keep me in the ring and fields. But she prevailed, gratefully. She and my gentleman-Brit Granddaddy (that is him in the first shot) stood at ringside every single day, in any weather and at -5 degrees next to smudge pots; I've known deep love in this life and been gifted with it equally. The first time I went over a four-foot spread I looked over my shoulder at my Mom standing by the in-gate, she had covered her face with her hands and turned away: That stuff can really scare your Mama.
Maybe you are thinking my education should be ahead of this in things to thank her for? None of this ever would have happened if there were not a church of vast openness with the footfalls of a great field hunter underneath me in a never-ending territory to help keep everything in perspective.
Yes, I competed. But not for the reasons one might assume. The pictures I choose for you are not those you will see in the case at the farm. Mine are more intimate, because it is the only relationship with the sport I have. I never saw the ride from the perspective of the course photographers; I don't recognize those moments.
When you are in the fight of your life, all you see is the hulking pile of rails and brush ahead of you and all you hear is the heavy thud of hooves while your arms are being yanked from their sockets and your legs are on fire. Pretty pictures: I don't know anything about those.
Adrenaline and balance, those are the reasons I stayed. It was not about the trophies (although competition is the ex-boyfriend who will not leave me alone). I keep three ribbons in the garage on a hook, if there is a physical form to the culmination of thirty years in the tack, they are it. Just reminders out there, every time I step out of the car, of a moon I brought down. I am proud of them, but not living-room proud; kind of quiet, between myself and my history pride. When my baby girl wanted to play with them, I handed them to her and forced myself not to hesitate. They are only slips of satin, after all.
Then one day recently, I saw her look up at them while she was walking through the garage and heard her say, "Mama was a big horse rider." It wasn't the clarity of her voice that stopped me, it was her use of the past tense. In the closet this morning, I put hand on those white britches it took me ten years to finally earn; as I always do. And I tried not to think about tense. I do that everyday. There is a good chance I always will.
So, Marc, it wasn't ribbons and sterling: I could not have done anything else any differently or any less. I loved every painful second of it. And it is all I know of a home.
