The Sweet Side of the Holidays

The holidays are usually my time to take a stab at new recipes, especially if they involve baking and sweets. I have given myself a free pass from my healthy diet for the month of December, so cookies were definitely on my agenda. I even had the grand plan of making big batches of cookies as Christmas treats, but between reunions with friends, collage making, and cooking for dinners and parties, I never found the time. Which is why these are not Christmas cookies, but New Year's Eve cookies :)

I seem to have a habit of trying out recipes from Smitten Kitchen around Christmas (two years ago it was the clementine cake, for example), and this year was no exception. The challenge was making slice-and-bake cookies, and I dare say that they turned out pretty good. I haven't been the best at making cookies in the past; I seem to be so afraid of having them be raw that I end up overbaking them and having to eat a batch of close to "break your teeth" hard cookies. Not this time. I have learned my lesson. I left them in the oven for just the right amount of time, and I took them out even when they still looked a bit soft to me, but it was the correct thing to do. They turned out just right.

I modified the recipe a little bit by making the cranberry version of the cookie with coconut, and I also made a chocolate cookie with mini chocolate chips and walnuts, which turned out very tasty. There is a fancy hotel close to my office where we usually have work events, and they always serve cookies like these at coffee breaks. Now I can make my own coffee break at home. Since I don't drink coffee, it will be more of a tea break. With cookies.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Yes, now there is snow

Call it luck or coincidence, but only a couple of days after my whiny lack of snow post, we are having an all-out fluffy day-long quiet snowfall. It's great. I've had tea and feta cheese sandwiches in bed, reading a book and watching the snow fall outside my bedroom window, the mountain covered in clouds. I'm enjoying myself. I might even head out for a walk in the snow, who knows :)
Oh, and if you look closely at the photo of the tree above, you can see a couple of birds perched on it. I actually didn't see them when I was taking the photo and only noticed them when I uploaded it on my computer. I love little surprises like that!

A Snowless Winter

I can't believe I'm actually going to say this, but I seriously miss snow.

Despite the fact that I was a February baby, born smack in the middle of winter here in Bulgaria and no stranger to freezing weather and snowstorms, I never liked the cold very much. You'd think I learned from that as I older, but I guess I didn't, since I went to college in Maine of all places. In my defense, it didn't occur to me to think about the climate when applying to college. In the past five years or so I have gotten progressively cold-averse, spending winters huddled under blankets, with thick socks on my feet and multiple layers of clothing. I also tend to crank up the heating in my house, much to Pavel's chagrin, who went as far as going out on the snow-covered terrace in his underwear one morning last year to cool off. It was hilarious.

Through all these snowy and cold winters, whenever I would shiver, and that was often, I would think about what it would be like to live on Bora Bora or at least somewhere like California. I thought I'd have a blast with the lack of winter, maybe making an exception for the winter holidays. I am a sucker for a white Christmas.

So guess what? This winter we've had exactly one snowfall here is Sofia, which was back in November or something, and since then it has been completely dry with the occasional week of thick fog. No snow. Above 0 C temperatures. I should be in heaven right now. Except I'm not.

Through all my whining about winter, I never factored in the fact that having lived in a four-season environment my whole life, my body is used to a certain progression of the weather. Now that the progression is all out of whack, my body feels uneasy, like it's waiting for something to happen, and yet nothing happens. It's like being suspended in the same late fall, early winter season for months and months, and it's annoying me. I remember back when I was living in London, I had a similar problem with the lack of sunshine. It was seriously messing with my mood in ways that you don't pick up on at once, but they are there, and they pile up.

So can I have some snow please? Not asking for a full on snowstorm, just one tiny quiet pretty snowfall. I promise I'll try not to whine about snow next winter...maybe.

What do you think? Have you experienced unexpected discomfort related to the weather somewhere?

Some Holiday Spirit

On the last day of the year, I thought I'd share a bit of holiday spirit by posting some pictures of some of my old and new Christmas tree ornaments. Back in 2008 when I was graduating from Colby, my parents and I spent a weekend in Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park, and on one of our strolls in town we ended up going into a Christmas store. I have always loved the Christmas season, by my family also really liked the idea of getting ornaments when we travel, so that our tree is a collection of memories, rather than just a pretty decoration. I am trying to keep that up with my tree; I love browsing through Christmas decor, and I usually buy at least one ornament every year to shake things up. This year I got a very cute wooden owl ornament from a Christmas shop in Boston near Quincy Market, and I also got a small white dove ornament and a cute angel ornament from a Christmas shop in Bruges on my travels. It's really fun to look at my tree and remember what I did and what places I visited.

So here are some of my favorite ornaments (although not all of them). I did try to limit myself and not photograph every single ornament on the tree, after all :)

My owl from Boston kind of reminds me of Harry Potter, even if it is not white, so I jumped at the chance to charm my tree into something more Hogwarts-related. Yes, I am a bit geeky at times. Next to it is the angel I got on my trip to Bruges, which you can read more about here.  

Next in line is this adorable elf that I got this year from a seasonal Christmas shop here in Sofia. It is so cute with the pointy hat, the scarf and the presents. On the right is a reindeer that I got last year from another shop in Sofia.

I actually couldn't limit myself to just one ornament this year, and I ended up getting another dwarf/elf from the same shop that I got the one above. I love how rich in detail these figurines are. Also, I got two balls with silver, gold and bronze flowers, which go really well with the while-silver-gold theme of my tree and are so very beautiful.

 

And, well, check out this gorgeous holiday candy....mmmm! I don't think that this is going to last until next year.

Winter Decorations

I admit it. I love my Christmas decorations - the tree, the silver, white and gold ornaments, the snowflake-shaped lights, the wrath, my angel figurines...Most of the people I know took down their holiday decorations weeks ago, right after the new year rolled around. Not me, uh-uh. I still have my tree up in all of its glory.

The truth is that Christmas is probably my favorite holiday, and I always think of it as a time of being home, connecting with your loved ones, treating yourself to great food, listening to carols, and opening presents. It's hard letting go of the remnants of the holiday spirit in my life each January, simply because I would like to prolong the holidays as much as I can, at least in my mind. I am sappy like that.

The end of January is nearing, though, so whether I want it or not, I would have to take down the tree. I will keep my holiday wrath that I put on the table each year, as it gives my house a wintery look. Each spring I replace it with a spring wrath, but until that season rolls around, I will enjoy my pine cones, red berries and dried thistles.

 
Also, take a peak at some of my bird ornaments. I've gotten a bit obsessed with the birds in the past few years: what they symbolize, their imagery, how they pertain to my nickname and the name of this blog kosebose, how the fly in the sky...My bedroom was is pained with the silhouettes of birds flying, which you can see here, I did two twin paintings of flying birds for the living room,  and I have bird ornaments on my tree. It's great.

 

 

Winter Wonderland Part 2: South Park in Sofia

This morning we woke up and it was snowing in that wonderful light and fluffy way that makes each separate tree branch white, and everything looks like it has come out of one of those magical looking Christmas cards. I had an appointment and some errands to run in the morning, but then around noon I took a walk in the South Park in Sofia with my camera. It was so beautiful! I don't think I've taken a walk in the park in the winter probably since I was a kid, so I got to rediscover, or maybe discover for the first time the beauty of it today. It was all quiet because of the snow, even though there were people strolling and kids playing and sleighing, and it was surprisingly not freezing at all, so the walk was quite amazing! It was a great opportunity to take some photos of winter landscapes, which is not something I do very often. I'm not a fan of the cold, you see :)

 

Winter Wonderland

After submitting the last two papers for the quarter last Saturday morning, Pavel and I drove to Borovets, a ski resort an hour away from Sofia, to see some friends who were there for the weekend. It had been snowing the week before, and it started to snow again once we were there, so it was quite the winter wonderland. The hotel where our friends were staying had a very nice fireplace in the lobby, and we sat there for hours eating delicious cherry pie and scrumptious chocolate cake, enjoying the warmth, crackling fire, and the snowy views. It made me want to take a few days off, go to a place like that, and enjoy some lazy times with a book. Pavel would say I'm wacky to be staying in when there are those great slopes to conquer, but I am quite content to stay in and chill while he and the others are skiing. I'm just not much for sports in the cold outdoors. Except perhaps ice skating - I actually love that!
Anyway, here are some photos of the snowy trees. I hope we have a snowy Christmas in the city as well.