leftovers

2011 was quite a year for new music! Of course, the biggest happening was that my fave band of all time, The Human League, released a new album, "Credo," in March. But so much more awesome music was made too - Aqua dropped their comeback album "Megalomania," the full edition of "All You Need Is Now" by Duran Duran came out early in the year, Blondie's long-awaited "Panic of Girls" hit the streets, and Tiffany released her first country album, "Rose Tattoo" shortly after her SyFy movie "Mega Python vs. Gatoroid", co-starring Deborah Gibson, was aired. Several other past favorite artists of mine released new material too: Melanie C (aka Sporty Spice), Scritti Politti, and CSS. It was a difficult process to compile, but here's my top 10 of 2011! 10. "A Day Late And A Dollar Short" - Scritti Politti This song is great and sounds like a good mesh between the more poppy, electronic 80's Scritti and the more...

Mom by our front door on Christmas Day. I may have mentioned this before, but technically the Twelve Days of Christmas begins on December 25th. In this day in age, most people are so relieved once Christmas is over, it's unfathomable that you would want to then celebrate the holiday for 11 more days! That's why I decided to end mine, rather than starting it, on Christmas Day. We woke up in the morning and immediately I had to start getting everything ready. Dylan had set his alarm to wake me at 7am so I could put the breakfast casserole on in the crockpot, and luckily I got to go back to sleep for a couple more hours. Once I woke up, I had stockings to stuff and cookies to bake! Mom, Dad, Adrienne, Brandon and Angie came over shortly thereafter and joined Dylan, Robbie and I. We all finished up our last minute stocking stuffing and gift wrapping and had brunch together. Then we all started our Secret Santa opening. Borrowing from the method we used at my work's Secr...

Christmas Eve began with us intending to go horseback riding at Sunset Ranch up in the Hollywood Hills, but we were unable to figure out if they were open, and it turned out that dad had worn shorts (they do come to Hollywood in December for a reason!) so we decided it just wasn't in the cards. Instead, we went to have lunch at Kabuki in Hollywood and then to see Brandon and Angie's new apartment (the first time my parents or sister had been there). When we got back to our place, Dylan and his mom were there and then we all started wrapping presents while we visited and I started making the oyster stew. We had an awesome dinner with all 8 of us around our dining table, with Bootsy anxiously watching us after he finished his own special "Fancy Feast" dinner. The oyster stew turned out great and Robbie brought some turkey since not everyone is in love with oysters, so I made stuffing and had some cranberry sauce to go along with that. After dinner, the "kids...

Today was a very crazy, fun-filled day! Several years ago, we started a new holiday tradition of spending a day with Dylan's nephew, Connor, and Connor's mom, Jennie. We get together to help Connor build a gingerbread house, while we visit and sip champagne. It's so much fun and it's great to be able to have some holiday time with someone much younger than us. Everyone knows that the holidays are much more fun with kids around. This year, we had a hard time figuring out when everyone was available to get together and one of the only times we could do it was today, even though it was the first day my family was going to be here visiting, so we just decided to make it one big celebration. In the morning, Dylan, Adrienne and I got up and went to the valley to pick up my parents and we went last-minute gift shopping at the Fashion Square mall in Sherman Oaks (where I finally finished my shopping) and then to the grocery store to get almost everything we'd need for th...

There are several stages of holiday anxiety, from the minute the decorations start appearing in drug stores and the songs start playing all over the place. Then's there the shopping, the cooking, the party-going. And if you're like me, and you live far away from most of your family, there's anticipating the reunion - either of them flying here or me flying there. This year, my parents and sister are flying out to California, as they have done many times before, to spend the holidays with us. I'm so excited! The apartment is ready, I have the main ingredients for the traditional Yuletide Eve stew, my presents are all bought and wrapped under the tree, and the fresh pine wreath is hung on the front door! Tonight my parents land at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank around 11 p.m., which is in less than an hour! My brother is going to pick them up and then we'll meet at our friend's house who is kind enough to let my parents stay in her home while she's away ...

So, the title of this post is pretty dramatic. However, looking back, I can't really remember anything dramatic ever happening on December 25 in my experience, and for that I feel very fortunate. Obviously, it's a day of the calendar just like any other day of the year, and disaster or tragedy can strike at any time. I do know of friends who have lost loved ones on Christmas Day, but luckily I haven't. If you just google " tragedies on christmas day " you'll find that there are people who report on and catalog all kinds of horrible holiday happenings. Really, aside from receiving some unwanted gifts, or not receiving the gift I wanted the most, I've never had something awful happen, and generally the holidays have always been great because I've always been able to celebrate them with family and/or friends. There have been a few Yules after I moved to LA when I didn't get to see my family at all, but at least I was able to be with Dylan and his ...

With such high hopes and expectations, it's only natural that the holidays are often marked by let-downs, disappointment, and heartbreak. Leading up to the arrival of my family and the excitement of the impending holidays, I'm going to bring it down a notch for the next few blog entries and focus on the darker side of the holidays. When you're a kid, you're pretty specific about what gifts you want for Christmas. Usually, you have put a lot of work into your list, double checking the catalogs and aisles of your favorite stores making sure you've selected only the most desirable of toys and presents. I would carefully dole out my wishlist, making sure to assign the low-price items to those who would be giving me gifts for the school exchange or the 4-H secret santa, reserving the moderately priced ones for close friends, siblings, and cousins, and of course requesting the finest ones from my parents and ol' St. Nick. I thought making things simple and direct ...

When the holiday season rolls around, my kitchen usually starts rocking. However, due to numerous blunders and flops in recent years, I've decided to minimize my pre-holiday treat making. I have no problem with the meals that I like to cook for the holidays, but it's the candies that have always given me trouble. My mom used to have a seemingly never-ending list of candies and treats that she would make each year for the holidays. Maybe she rotated them out and only did a few, but to me, it seemed like she would make all of these. Every year! My grandma Strecker had a few of her own that she always made too. Here are the candies of Christmas that I remember the most! Peppermint Bark - My mom now claims she had no "recipe" for this (much like other dishes and confections I ask her about) but I remember her making this once in awhile. The main reason I remember is because she would buy the big chunks of white chocolate - and I LOVE white chocolate! Cherry Mash - ...

Yesterday I wrote about all my first cousins on my father's side of the family. Today, I will be writing about the cousins on my mom's side, which is a much shorter list, but also is the side I have been more close with growing up because of our proximity to each other. In general, the cousins on the Hendershott side of the family were at almost all holidays and family celebrations, whereas on the Strecker side, it was only the really big ones. The Hendershott side was much smaller, closer in age and miles, and thus more tight-knit. In fact we all lived about 2 miles from each other for much of our childhood, and when the youngest, Caitlyn, was born, we moved to Hays which was where she lived so then we were very close to her. Here are my cousins on my mom's side: Brian A. - Brian was a few years older than me and I always looked up to him. He was great at sports, good-looking, always had a girlfriend, and had a great sense of adventure. He used to always try to scar...

The holidays were always time when I got to see a lot of my relatives; some that I saw often already, but others who I rarely got to see. Most of my cousins were older than me, and they seemed so cool, mature, and smart to me! So I always liked getting to hang out with my cousins and have great memories of the games and shenanigans some of us would get up to. Here is a tribute to each and every one of my cousins and what they mean to me! Beginning with my father's side: Steve A. - He is definitely the cousin I am least acquainted with, most likely because he's the furthest removed in age from me. I know he was sort of the golden boy when he was young because he was the first grandchild on the Strecker side. By the time I was born though, he was already an adult and I didn't ever get to see much of him. I've heard that we have very different political and sociological viewpoints. Jill R. - I do remember Jill being at holidays at Grandma and Grandpa's but again...

Trees are the ultimate symbol of Christmas. I don't want to get into the history of it, but suffice it to say, in my lifetime, the holidays have always involved a decorated tree in the home. When I was little, our first tree was a fake plastic one. The branches and needles were this thick green plastic that I still remember vividly. It was quite a process to assemble the whole thing. We would put it up in early December and had the decorations stored in the Amana Microwave box. The earliest lights I remember were multi-colored and were surrounded by clear plastic "flower petals." I loved that tree even though it was very cheap looking by today's standards what with those thick plastic "pine needles." Eventually, we bought another fake green tree that was slightly more realistic looking. That was probably when I was around 10 or so. Through the years we collected more and more ornaments, but Brandon and I developed a rivalry over our favorite ornament...

One of the things that most people love and hate about the holiday season is the music. When you're a kid, it's thrilling when you start hearing Christmas music being played on television and in stores because you know Santa's on his way. As we grow older, the repetition of the same old carols begins to grate on the nerves, and the inclusion of the newest batch of hoping-to-be holiday classics by the pop singers du jour does little to quell the nausea. Despite the seemingly ever progressively early arrival of these jingle-bell laden tunes each year and the familiar sense of pressure and holidayphobia that often accompany them, they often provide a calming, nostalgic feeling that - with the right ingestion of cocktails and reminiscing - can lead to slight euphoria on certain occasions. After all, love them or hate them, the well-worn songs are part of our lives, part of our family, and a symbol of all that is good and bad about the holidays. Being a musician myself, I per...

Dad Helping me unwrap my gifts at Grandma & Grandpa Strecker's. After last year's commitment to post a blog entry each day, I've understandably been pretty absent this year. I think I've averaged one blog post per month. To end out the year, and to pay tribute to my second favorite holiday season, I am going to write each day from now until Yuletide, also known and formerly referred to by myself as Christmas. Each day I will touch on a different topic either relating to the holiday season, or completely unrelated. Today, I will recount the typical holiday seasons of my youth. At school, we would all be very excited about the arrival of Santa Claus but were busily concerned with things like the winter musical or concert, the gift exchange, and all the tests and assignments we'd have to finish before the break. At home, I would anxiously thumb through the pages of the JC Penney catalog, dog-earing the pages that had the toys I hoped so desperately to find under...