Merry Christmas! I stepped up the whole holiday decorating thing this year (by my standards at least). We went out and ended up getting a pretty huge tree, which I managed to fit into the living room after rearranging everything else. Having a fireplace in the living room is just perfect for Christmas coziness and set the stage for armies of nutcrackers.

I also became obsessed with baking this walnut cake with coffee syrup. After driving around Uptown looking for anise (and arguing with Adam on how to pronounce it; let’s just say we agreed to disagree), and more than 30 minutes just chopping up 2 and a half cups of walnuts…success! Well, I hope. We’ll see how it actually tastes tomorrow.

Perhaps most importantly, I finally had time to watch my favorite holiday movie, White Christmas.

Merry Christmas!