Our sky this morning.

Presents wrapped? Check.
House clean? Check.
Grocery shopping completed? Almost: picking up prime rib today.
Company arrived? On the way!
Snow falling softly outside? Nope.

Really, if you look back at my posts this time of year they all say the same thing. Rain instead of snow. Temperatures in the 40’s. No snow. Bah Humbug. Etc. Every year it’s the same old song, and this year is no different. It can snow back in Colorado, it can snow in Las Cruces, NM where my in-laws live, and it can even snow in Texas. But New Jersey? Nope. Isn’t snow supposed to fall in the North and not the South?

We’ve had about an inch of rain over the past three days. As if we needed anymore of that! The ground is already so saturated that you sink into our yard when you walk on it. Mud is rampant and brought in on the bottom of dogs’ paws. On my freshly scrubbed floor.

But enough of our un-wished for weather! Be gone I say! On with Christmas!

As I type my sister and her hubby are trundling on a train towards us. They will arrive this afternoon and we will pick them up at the local train station after they make their connection at Penn Station in New York City. It will be nice to have them here for the holiday.  We have plenty of good meals planned for their stay and a visit to the Oakland Diner (better known as the O.D.) so her hubby can see the diner where they filmed Danielle always eating in The Real Housewives of New Jersey. (They even have a salad named after her.)

So, I’ll be busy for the next few days with company. If I don’t post anything beforehand or during their stay, have a safe and happy holiday wherever you are, no matter what weather you have!

Puddled reflections from last night’s rain:

My sister pointed out to me that she was still waiting to see the blog post where Alex picked our tree.

Last Saturday we drove to Wintergreen Christmas Tree Farm near Lafayette, New Jersey to cut our tree. I’m glad I had printed out the directions since it was like following a trail of bread crumbs to get there. It was a beautiful drive through countryside we had never been to before.

We parked and walked up to the barn to get a saw and a tree cart. How nice of them to provide nice, sharp hand saws and a cart to collect your tree with! They sold about four different kinds of trees, but we had driven by the kind we wanted: Fraser firs. Of course they were the furtherest ones away from the parking area!

Row upon row of nearly perfect trees! Which one to choose? I wanted to just close my eyes, spin around and point to one but I am sort of a perfectionist when it comes to trees. We were looking for one that wasn’t too big around at the bottom since we don’t have much space for it to fit into between the fireplace and the entertainment center.

Here I am, saw in hand taking a look around.

And then Alex said, “Dad, let’s take this one!”

Although I joked with the man at the barn about bringing my dog along to find the right tree and “mark” it, he kept his leg on the ground! Lots of other people who were coming in after us had also brought their dogs with them.

Trees were being tied to tops of cars at a fast pace.

By the time we left it was getting very crowded and people were having to wait for other people to bring back tree carts. We got there just at the right time I think.

The tree fits perfectly into its spot in the corner and it’s a very pretty tree. All in all, a nice way to spend the better part of a day.

On Wednesday Rick took some time off work and we drove in to the city a little earlier than our dinner reservation to view the tree in Rockefeller Plaza.

A few months back I had purchased vouchers on Rue NYC to the restaurant Butter. (Rue La La is an online discounted designer site. They recently added Rue NYC and about four times per week or so I get discounted offers to restaurants, spas, etc. in New York City.)
The executive chef at Butter is one that Rick and I both are acquainted with from both our private screening of Chopped being filmed, and from watching the Food Network: Alex Guarnaschelli.

The vouchers were for a prix-fixe three course menu with wine pairings:

Cured Wild Salmon, Meyer Lemon Confit, Red Thumb Potatoes and Caviar :
Foxglove Chardonnay, 2010

Dark Chocolate Cake, Creme Fraiche Ice Cream and Spiced Almond Brittle : Eilo Perrone Moscato D’Asti

I was so excited to tell you about the food that I am getting ahead of myself! First on to what we did before we ate.

We drove in to the city, leaving our house at around 2:30 p.m. The traffic was heavy and we finally arrived at the parking garage across the street from Butter at close to 4:00 p.m. We found the Subway and got on the B train uptown to Rockefeller Center, a ride of about 15 minutes. We walked out from all the subterranean shopping right next to the tree.

To us it looked smaller than the previous time we’ve seen it. It was very crowded in the plaza! Here are some scenes.

The ice skating rink (which had a line a mile long waiting to skate). Sorry for the blurry skaters but it’s hard taking photos at night when people are in motion.

A toy soldier.

Angels you have heard on high and the Rockefeller building.

Everyone was watching the ticking down of this clock projected on this building.

No one seemed to know what was going to happen. When time ran out a little movie began to play on the side of the building with bubbles floating up to pop against snowflakes. Okay, it was fun to watch but what was the point? We soon found out.

That building happened to be Saks Fifth Avenue and the little movie tied in with their window displays. A very odd little story played out window by window about different people and methods of making bubbles. The bubbles once made were routed up and out to the side of the building and let loose. Here are a few of the windows.

Not your normal Christmas fare! If we hadn’t walked over to look at the window displays the little movie would never had made any sense, or for that matter, the window displays would not have made sense either!

We then found our way back to our restaurant and arrived ahead of schedule. They were able to seat us anyway. The seating was intimate and by that I don’t mean we were off in a corner by ourselves. Other than the larger parties seated at booths around the sides of the dining room, most two person tables were placed within a few inches of each other. This led to interesting conversations with the people seated around us and also for delicate eavesdropping and observations.

The people across the way were doing a full tasting menu and were collecting glasses of wine quicker than they could drink them. There table was nothing but wine glasses! When their third course arrived and it was foie gras, I oohed and ahhhed. One man offered to trade me his foie gras for my steak. Who ever said New Yorkers were snobs?

The meal was delicious. Before our first course they brought out another course “compliments of the chef” that was a cream of butternut squash soup with a tiny bowl of popcorn on the side. I put some in as croutons, but the popcorn was better eaten on the side. It added a nice saltiness to the cream of the soup. Rick and I both decided to have the steak and I think we made a good choice. The steak was so huge I had to bring most of mine home. It was on a bed of braised baby carrots and what we think was bok choy. The steak had an almost-but-not-quite-burnt crust on it—delicious!! A glass of wine with each coarse was perfect and they matched the food well.

I asked our waiter if Chef Guarnaschelli was in the house and he said she was not. I wanted to know if the food we were eating had been overseen by her, but such was not the case that night. Probably off filming more Food Network segments!

We were home by 10:00 p.m. after a very enjoyable evening. Lucky girl, aren’t I to live so close to NYC?

I have more exciting events coming up that I can’t wait to share with you (one that requires me to go shopping for a “gown” for a black tie event in Beverly Hills!!) but that will have to wait until another day. Stay tuned ...

Living in the country as we do we see a variety of wildlife. We have possums, squirrels, chipmunks, deer, turkeys, and the occasional bear. Poor bears. They are being hunted once again this year. It’s too sad to even talk about.

A few weeks ago I looked out the window and saw a beautiful buck deer standing up by the top of our driveway, his rack of antlers held proudly. With a flick of his tail he was off up into our neighbor Kim’s yard. I see a small band of about five or six deer pretty often just outside the fenced part of our yard in the woods. The dogs just lie on the deck and watch them.

Lately we’ve had a mangy looking fox hanging around. I first saw him sitting in our driveway grooming himself like a cat. He looked up from his ritual and saw me watching him through the window. It was weird making direct eye contact with a fox. I went to grab the camera as quietly as I could but he ran off. Here’s the shot I got of him then.

Then the other day he was back again to take advantage of the bird seed and stale bread I had thrown out at the bird feeding area in the front yard for the squirrels (so they’ll leave my bird feeder and suet feeder in the back yard alone!). I think he must have mange although I have never seen it to identify it in a wild animal. He is scary looking! I do admire his black legs though. The rest is pretty darned ugly.

I’ve seen him down the road at neighbor Luke’s house too. A few years back I remember seeing another scroungy looking fox and I have to wonder if it’s the same one?

Another visitor to our yard and woods behind the house has been the pileated woodpecker. Every time I run for the camera he spooks and flies off to a different tree farther away. Do you remember when I was able to get photos of him a few years back? Follow this link to see them. We can hear him sometimes and don’t see him. When he flies he looks like no other bird: big black wings with a white streak. You don’t even notice his head until he lands. Twice in the past week I have caught him out of the corner of my eye in flight. He’s elusive that’s for sure.

I haven’t seen any cardinals for a long time. I wonder where they go? We are overrun with titmice, chickadees and white-breasted nuthatches. We have a few juncos now too and yesterday we saw a rosy finch.

The woodpeckers seem to really be taking off this year in numbers as well. We have downy woodpeckers and a red-bellied woodpecker that have always been visitors. But this year we also have the downy’s bigger cousin, the hairy woodpecker too. Here he is:

He looks just like a downy only considerably bigger.

Yesterday I looked out at the suet feeder and something about the bird on it didn’t look quite right to me. At first glance I thought it was a downy woodpecker, but it had a dark chest, not a white one. Hmmm. I got out the binoculars and saw that it had a red spot under the chin as well as one on top of its head. The markings around the eye were different too. Off to get the bird identification book! I am proud to present our very first Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker!

The light was not good since it was late in the afternoon but I think the shot is decent enough to see the bird fairly well. I hope he comes back!

We didn’t have any acorns from the oaks this year. It’s odd, but I guess they do have years when they don’t produce. Maybe that has something to do with the increase of woodpecker activity? Maybe they produce more sap when they don’t produce acorns?

I like having all my back and front yard buddies around. Well, maybe not so much that fox ...

It returns every year right about this time: the Snow Grinch. Me. For me it’s hard to get in the “Christmas spirit” without a little help from the weather. In previous years here for the most part we didn’t get snow until after Christmas, but a few years we did get a little and it was so wonderful! I guess I don’t mind so much if it doesn’t snow, but at least it could be cold and feel like Christmas. This year the weather has been very mild, and as far as I’m concerned it hasn’t snowed yet. I am not counting the rare October snowfall because I wasn’t here to see it! So, I am still waiting. And hoping. For snow.

Our predicted snow of 2-3 inches didn’t happen—just a smattering on the grass and the pool cover. We did, however, get just over three inches of RAIN in 24 hours. That’s a lot of water! Especially when our ground is still soggy from all the other moisture we’ve had. I drove up over the mountain yesterday to a farm store to buy wreaths and they had just enough elevation difference there to get about 2 inches of wet snow. It was lovely to see even if it wasn’t in my yard.

In my heart I know that snow does not make Christmas Christmas. But it would be nice. Last year it didn’t snow before Christmas either except for a slight skiff, then on the day after Christmas we got that blizzard, remember? From then on we didn’t see the ground until late March! So, you just never know.

Tomorrow we are going to cut our tree at a tree farm and it’s supposed to be chilly (in the high 30’s) so maybe that will help kick start my holiday mood!

There is also not much to take photos of this time of year, so I included two sky shots I took last week.