Thursday, December 30, 2010

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

You did know that it’s still Christmas right? That whole 12 days of Christmas thing just starts on December 25th and goes until the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th. Since I figured it was my last non-working Christmas, Joe and I convinced my parents to go to Colorado, which wasn’t hard to do because a) they love Colorado and b) my brother took a job in Denver in August. Joe’s sister also lives in the mountains, and we have other family there too. So we celebrated Christmas in Nashville a little early.

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Vanderbilt gives the faculty and staff a turkey, so I roasted it according to this method, which has always turned out perfectly. We also had my mom’s cranberries (lower right corner), roasted brussels sprouts with pomegranate seeds, and roasted garlic mashed potatoes. For dessert, I served the cranberry swirl cheesecake.

Then we opened presents! This year’s theme was owls and running. I got some nice running gear for the cold weather, and Joe got me this beautiful owl sculpture I had been eyeing at a store in Franklin. Owls are kind of my thing since my college mascot was an owl, and I love that they stand for wisdom. I know they’re becoming kind of trendy right now, but I also have a collection of owl pins that were my grandmother’s so I think they’re very classic.

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We spent the actual Christmas Day skiing at Copper Mountain, but we kept Joe’s family’s tradition of Chinese food on Christmas Eve and attended Christmas Eve service at the beautiful Episcopal church in Breckenridge. I hadn’t skied in probably ten years, so it took a few runs to get back into the groove. Once I reminded myself how to do it, I picked up right where I left off. Isn’t muscle memory amazing?

Now, as we look to 2011, it’s traditionally a time to make resolutions or goals for the upcoming year. 2011 is going to be a big year for me. I will graduate with my MDiv degree, likely be ordained to the diaconate, and hopefully find a place to do ministry. I’m wary of making goals for the year that are relevant to my life as a student right now but might not be sustainable once I’m working (hopefully) full-time. Here are a few that I want to accomplish:

  • Keep running consistently and get back into strength-training. I’ve signed up for a half marathon in April, and this one I’m actually going to train for, so ideally it will be a little faster than the one I accidentally ran in September. I fell off the lifting wagon when I started running regularly and then when I hurt my ribs. I feel and look better when I lift regularly, so I’d like to aim for twice a week.
  • Stop eating chickens, turkeys, cows, lambs, pigs, and anything else with legs. I’ve been phasing meat out of my diet for the past few months, and I managed to make this past trip while eating minimal meat, so January 1st is going to be the line in the sand for me.
  • Blog more regularly, which will necessitate cooking at home more consistently. This past semester was hard because I was at work or class frequently until 7 pm. It was too easy to pick up something or throw together an un-blog-worthy meal. I’d like to aim for an average of 3x a week.

What are your goals or resolutions for the new year? Do you make resolutions?