Christmas Creativity

Since starting work as an economic analyst, my left brain is exhausted at the end of the day, and my right brain begs me to break out the crayons. The result is this series of creative endeavours over the course of the holiday season!

We start with cooking.

I love pumpkin pie and definitely did not get my fill at Thanksgiving: the disadvantage of not cooking dinner at home is that there are no leftovers! I'd never made a pumpkin pie, so I took the easy way out by buying a can of pumpkin filling. The crust and the whipped cream are totally homemade, though, and it was delicious! Happy tummy. :)

This next food - don't get too excited - wasn't made by me. It was baked by my impressively talented, impressively nonchalant boyfriend Colin. I'm including it here as a comparison with the following photo, which was baked by me. Looks like one of us still needs some practice....

This is Colin's garlic bread. He minces garlic cloves and spreads them over the dough, then rolls it up like a cinnamon roll log, for a fun garlic surprise!

This is my weirdly lumpy garlic bread.

Finally, the Christmas season wouldn't be complete without gingerbread and eggnog. I love eggnog but rarely buy any for myself because I will drink the whole thing. As it was, Colin and I drank it all between the two of us and still felt sort of sick afterwards. Our gingerbread cookies weren't particularly flavorful (we'll try a different recipe next year), and I don't have any cookie cutters, so we spent the evening drawing freehand shapes in the dough with knives. We ended up with plenty of gingerbread men and women, a reindeer, a sleigh, Christmas trees, stars, hearts, a bell, a present, candy canes, and even an alien. (Guess who suggested that one? Hint: not me!)

Gingerbread, eggnog, holiday scented candle, and ... iPhone--what's that doing in the still life?!

Now we move to my Christmas crafts, which were the result of 1) being too lazy to pick out holiday cards from the store, 2) having a drawer full of paper scraps as a result of previous arts and crafts projects, and 3) loving these adorable polar bear cards from the Environmental Defense Fund. I really like how they turned out! It'll be hard to top these next year.

Playful polar bear cub!

Sleepy polar bear family.

Cuddly polar bears.

Another cool crafty moment this holiday season was a little more high-tech. At the end of an exhibit on Monet's waterlilies paintings at the St. Louis Art Museum, several computers were set up to allow aspiring artists to create their own waterlily pictures. Together, Mom and I made a masterpiece:

Take note; you might see this in a museum one day. By the way, the touchscreen technology is so cool!

Of course, what would Christmas be without the tree? On the evening that Colin came to visit, we decided that without the "real thing," we'd have to make our own. Luckily (you may remember), Colin bought me a dracena as a housewarming present. It's tabletop tree-sized, and it has plenty of branches. As I mentioned before, I also have plenty of paper scraps. See below for the results:

Mom's Christmas tree. Totally normal. 

Claire and Colin's Christmas tree. 'A' for effort, but not normal.

So that's what I've been up to, and how I've been fending off left-brain burnout for the last couple months. Next on my agenda: finish knitting a hat, and cook something in my crock pot.

But because this is such a picture-heavy post already, I might as well add some more. Here is an assortment of other people's creative endeavours, sights around Boston, and my disappointing attempt to bring some greenery into my life.

I guess dogs are allowed on the T (the subway) because this cutie pie sat across from me, quietly napping in his winter coat. I surreptitiously snapped this picture to document one of the strangest passengers I've ever seen riding the T.

Apologies for the blurry photo, but this was too crazy not to document! Just as Mom and I walked out of the Art Museum, we happened across a group screaming, "Are you ready to ROLL?!" And all of them proceeded to barrel-roll down Art Hill (some faster than others, some never made it, and some rolled over others before getting there). It was an attempt to set a world record. Helicopters were flying over, presumably filming the feat.

On an uncharacteristically warm day in December, Colin and I drove his aunt's car to Middlesex Fells, just outside of Boston, for a short hike. This photo was taken from an observation tower, looking northeast-ish.

Another photo from the Middlesex Fells. I love being outside; Boston is not a very green (in the tree-cover sense) city at all. Is it weird that when I arrived in Georgia for Christmas, I kept thinking as we drove home from the airport through pine forests, "I got trees for Christmas! Trees and stars! Yay!"

Speaking of loving trees, I killed my air plant. How do you kill an air plant?? Now I have a strange and depressing dish of stones in my cubicle. Sometimes, for lack of anything better to display in it, I place my blue-and-purple koosh ball on top. (Sorry, no photo of that.)