All this talk of Christmas dinner reminds me that the first night of Hanukah is TOMORROW and I have never been less prepared! I don't even have candles because a few years ago I had so many that I made a mental note to myself to not buy any more and then last year I finally used them up but didn't update my mental note to "okay buy candles now"

My mom made a cioppino for Xmas eve a few times. It's fancy without overwhelming the Xmas day meal. (And delicious too of course.)

Typically what EM makes for our xmas eve dinner. But she's not coming this year because of COVID so I'll figure something out. Maybe lasagna. Maybe au gratin potatoes. Definitely lots of melted cheese. Nachos are festive, right?

My old foot doctor was from Israel and during one visit - we'd chat while he worked on my footsies - I managed to spook him. I'm pretty obviously not Jewish, but first I knew what latkes are (who doesn't?) AND I knew the difference between dreidels made in Israel and those made everywhere else.

Now, I want a cheese omelette. I talked myself into melted cheese, and I have to say I didn't put up much of a fight.

Nachos are festive, and with red salsa and green jalapenos very Christmassy!

I think I might have candles, Jess, but I suspect they are largely broken as I think I remember stepping on the box one of the times I was moving holiday things around this year...although I din't know if I have the spoons to even check by tomorrow night. Work continues to kick my ass.

My husband definitely felt ill from it both times, but it has to be better than shingles, from what I hear.

As someone who had shingles while in their 20's, I highly recommend getting the vaccine. It was only on my side, but I was essentially out of commission for 2 weeks. So painful. (It was not made better by the doctor who saw me - English was his second language, so he came out with "You have herpes!" Which was flabbergasting, if technically accurate.)

Solstice, Xmas Eve, and Xmas will all be comfort foods. Frozen apps from TJ's will figure prominently in the menus. (As will the latkes from TJ's for the next week, because I am All About The Celebratory Foods, Especially If They Include Potato And/Or Fried Dough.)

Hec, Scoma's is still open and does a good cioppino to go, if you decide you need it.

Nachos are festive, right?

Darn tootin'. And with the jalapenos, guacamole, diced tomatoes, salsa, sour cream (for snow!), or some combination thereof, downright Christmassy, I'd say.

As an aside, I have to find a new doctor, and I'm dragging my feet. My experience with Kaiser doctors was... not great. I often felt like I was being humored instead of listened to, instead of being trusted as being the expert on my body and mind. I guess finding the new doc is my onerous task of the day.

God, I don't even want to think about Christmas dinner. I'm a little caught off-guard at how super depressed I am about the holidays. I've been all "Rah! Rah! Sure it'll be weird not spending the holidays with family, but it's what we have to do to keep everyone safe!!!" And I mean that, 100%. But under my enthusiastic support of science-based advice is this huge pit of being depressed as fuck about it, and I was trying to ignore the depressed part.

So what I want to do is ignore the whole goddamn holidays, but Tim wants to put up the tree and whatnot, so we're going to do that. But maybe I can talk him into ordering Chinese for Christmas dinner and watching Wonder Woman on HBO Max.

I've MADE latkes, and I'm very, very not Jewish.

What's the difference in dreidels?