Christmas Goodies

When I bake or cook, I have to wear an apron. I'm naturally a messy person who spills a lot so an apron is essential. As an early Christmas gift, my sister bought me a holiday apron that when she walked by it at Walmart she knew I'd love it. Sunday I made some Christmas goodies and of course wore my fabulous new apron.


I made chocolate covered pretzels and my famous sugar cookies; they're the only thing I make that gets good reviews across the board every time. I really enjoy making them. I also love sharing them with people.














Tonight I finished off my baking by trying a recipe for english toffee. I LOVE toffee, and thought the recipe was pretty simple, and if I could do it then I could make it a tradition. My friend Lindsay just decided to make peanut brittle one year, and now it's a staple of her holiday baking. Toffee, like peanut brittle, requires the use of a candy thermometer and getting the concoction to the just right soft-crack/hard-crack stage. Mine, unfortunately, was taken off the burner a bit prematurely, as my toffee isn't so much hard as a bit chewy. It's still good, but I was planning on sending it to some friends and family with the other goodies and I'm not sure how I feel about sending chewy toffee.

Handel's Messiah

Today, because my usual church-buddy was sleeping off the after effects of two overnight shifts at the hospital (she's a nurse), I attended church with my roommate Margaret. For reasons I'm not going to detail here, we ended up going to a different ward than hers that met earlier so she could go in to work and get some stuff done (she works at Goldman Sachs). It's always fun attending other singles' wards. Maybe fun isn't the exact right word, but it's interesting to see how they're all basically the same. But really, that's how it is in any ward; regardless of whether you're in Salt Lake City or New York City, the church is the same, and it was a nice little reminder today as I sat in sacrament meeting.

Other than that, though, the meeting was amazing for its music. Not only was there a beautiful rendition of O Holy Night sang by a cute old man and accompanied by his son, but for our closing hymn the entire congregation sang the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah. The bishop remarked that when he was in high school he sang in an a capella group and they always sang Handel's Messiah this time of year, and he was sad that many high schools are no longer allowed to sing it. The entire congregation separated themselves into the four parts--soprano, alto (where I chose to lump myself), tenor, and bass--and we proceeded to sing the "Hallelujah Chorus". And WOW, it was amazing! Even with my tone-deafness, I could tell it was something special. The music and words really are beautiful and truly written with inspiration from God.

Two Girls Dancing

Saturday Ivy and Elliett put their months of practice at Myrna's Dance Studio to good use when they performed at a huge gathering of dancing little girls and groups at Granger High. They were both so adorable in their tights, dancing shoes, and red-sequined ties. Elliett was nervous to go out, but Ivy, being the performer and drama queen that she is, told her, in her bossy, older sister voice, that they've been doing it for three years now and had nothing to be afraid of!

Unfortunately, the dancers were placed way off center on the stage, and our seats on the left side of the stage made it so Elliett was hidden behind a Christmas tree for most of the performance. Elliett, being the short little wisp that she is, was in the front of the line, and Ivy, being a tall eight-and-a-half year old was at the end.

Here they are with the flowers Aunt Tiffany got them. I love them!

A Funny Twilight Parody

This is what the people in New York are doing to entertain themselves.

Twilight Years from Tom on Vimeo.

An Anderson Family Christmas Party

Saturday was the annual Anderson Family Christmas Party. We all met at my Grandma's place in Bountiful and ate, talked, laughed, opened presents, and took a poll on which family members were BYU fans and which were Utah fans. I'm not quite sure of the outcome, as some people chose to write "Both" (a cop-out) or Snow (a tradition in the Anderson family) or USU (that cow college up north that had an uncle attend and a few cousins), but I think BYU won. I mean, that is where Grandma and Grandpa met.

This is my cousin Heber's wife, Shelley, their kids, and my cousin Sarah.

My cousin Karen and I with Grandma.

Grandma with the cousin picture at the Jazz game that Phaedra put in a frame.

Dad with his brother Paul and sister Kaye.

I always love getting together with family and seeing what's new with them. When I was a kid, our family Christmas party was a big deal. At Thanksgiving, all the cousins' names would go in a hat and we'd all draw a name out to see who we'd have to get a gift for. The party was always at my Uncle J. and Aunt Kaye's house in Salt Lake; there was food and goodies brought from everyone and, of course, the gift exchange. Everyone was there.

As time went on, the gift exchange stopped and we no longer got together as a big group. My grandpa has been gone for 15 years, and two years ago we put Grandma in an assisted living home in Bountiful because she was falling too much. We've gotten together pretty regularly the past six or so years, but a lot of my cousins have families of their own now, and this could possibly be our last year. I guess that's how things go, but sometimes I miss those parties of my childhood.

Thanks, Grandma, for giving us one last year, and for being the matriarch of the George Anderson Family for so long.

Bright Star

Last week I had to see my Thanksgiving movie on Friday, due to work circumstances on Wednesday and the Jazz game on Thursday. But boy am I glad I waited, because even though I'm sure I would've like the movie I was originally going to see, The Informant!, it was no longer playing on Friday and I had to search for something else. Being a self-proclaimed and called film snob, I wasn't going to just go see anything. I decided to head downtown to The Broadway and see a lovely little film, Bright Star, about the poet John Keats and his love, Fanny Brawne.

I loved it.

The movie is gorgeous visually and heartbreaking emotionally. Cinematographer Greig Fraser has created a movie that is luscious and beautiful, while director and screenwriter Jane Campion has fashioned a story (based entirely on the letters John Keats wrote to Fanny and his poems) that is entirely real, true, aching, and .

The love these two had for each other was so strong and powerful that I can't help but envy them. To feel so passionately for someone, to have your life entwined with theirs, is something magical. I love how their love story plays out; from the perfect awkwardness of first meeting someone, wondering if they feel the same, to reaching that level of comfortableness and mutual love. The film is not at all sappy or stuck in the notions of the time of having to marry for money, even if the trailer would have you think differently. The trailer actually sells the film short; I like this review better.

I left the movie theater completely caught up in the story, and not a little bit infatuated with John Keats himself and the actor playing him, Ben Whishaw. I then went to the bookstore and looked for John Keats' poems. The obsession has begun.

I'll take being called a film snob if it means seeing movies like this.

Writing is Writing

Since graduating from college, I don't do much writing anymore. Scratch that, I don't do any writing. At least until I started my blog. This is the only sort of writing I do nowadays, and wouldn't ya know it, I suffer from the same writing problems I had while in school. Except then I had actual deadlines to get the writing done. Now, all I have is the draft folder staring at me from my blog list, reminding me that I have lots of things I want to write about, but have trouble finding a way to either start it or get the words to come out the way they are in my head. But, faithful readers, I will still continue to write, if only for the practice for grad school.