Last Christmas, I wrote about my first time being away
from my family during the holidays. I vowed to add new traditions to
keep things fresh, such as watching The Sopranos on Christmas day and doing donuts with Jacek in his car in the school parking lot at midnight.
This year I’ve found it especially important to keep the tradition of being non-traditional alive. Jacek and I have split up, and for the first time in my life, I find myself alone at Christmas. The break up happened too late to purchase a reasonably priced plane ticket home, and for the past few weeks, I’ve truly fretted about what the holidays would be like without family or a boyfriend.
I felt awful. Convinced I had just lost my last chance to be in a committed relationship, I found myself having urges I’ve never had before. I started craving the companionship of something other than a man. I watched this video over and over and thought about how great it would be to have a kitten.
Luckily, my urge didn’t get far and I realized that if I got a cat I would probably become one of those crazy cat ladies who never gets married because, you know, she has all those cats.
Determined to set myself down a different path, I thought back to my vow last year to start new traditions, so I set a few plans in place. First, I chucked Love Actually and all other movies having to do with love in any of its forms and stacked my Netflix queue with thrillers like Misery, Taken, and Drag Me to Hell.
I shoved my traditional John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers carols to the back of my cd collection. The night before Christmas Eve, I attended a Kirtan, an Indian chanting session accompanied by an harmonium and bongo drums. Instead of “O Christmas Tree” and “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” I chanted “Ramakrishna jaya bolo, bhajo mano” while banging a mallet on a bell.
I ‘fessed up my newly single status to my friends and received numerous invitations including a Christmas Eve dinner with delicious homemade soups and a Christmas evening drinks party with martinis and pie.
But what about the day itself? How would Gracie (my cockatiel) and I spend Christmas day? In keeping with the theme of being non-traditional, and trying to fulfill at least one of last year’s New Year’s resolutions, I decided to make ketchup.
In my life, ketchup has only ever come in a bottle, ready to squirt forth to join my fries and veggie burgers. The idea of making ketchup has held a certain romance for me because of the film Meet Me In St. Louis. In the opening scenes of the film, the Smith family is making ketchup, and each family member has an opinion about the condiment’s sweet or sourness. I really love this family that is so checked in with one another that they are all allowed opinions on what amounts to be a minor part of any meal.
I scoured the Internet looking for recipes and finally landed on this one. Though it is a complex recipe, I wanted a considerable amount of my day taken up with this process in case free time left me feeling sentimental and sad. On Christmas Eve, I went to the grocery store to stock up on my ingredients.
On Christmas morning, I tucked into a cinnamon roll and a mug of hot chocolate. Afterward, I started putting together all the ingredients for my ketchup. I broiled large slices of onion, peeled ten cloves of garlic, and tightly packed brown sugar into measuring cups. I stirred in tomatoes and tomato paste and added all ten spices. Then, I simmered the four quart mixture for three hours, stirring it every fifteen minutes.
After three hours of simmering, I poured the boiling ketchup in batches into my food processor and pureed the mixture. From there I transferred the puree into Tupperware containers. With all that simmering and pouring from one container into another, my kitchen was a hideous mess.
The ketchup, despite its lengthy ingredient list and cook time, was delicious. I’m not sure if I’ll continue to make my own ketchup, but I think I’ll continue to resist pre-packaged and processed traditions of the holiday.
And because of this homemade holiday extravaganza, I need not worry about becoming overly sentimental about being single during New Year’s. I have almost four quarts of ketchup left over.
On this year’s New Year’s Eve menu: tater tots and slasher movies.
This year I’ve found it especially important to keep the tradition of being non-traditional alive. Jacek and I have split up, and for the first time in my life, I find myself alone at Christmas. The break up happened too late to purchase a reasonably priced plane ticket home, and for the past few weeks, I’ve truly fretted about what the holidays would be like without family or a boyfriend.
I felt awful. Convinced I had just lost my last chance to be in a committed relationship, I found myself having urges I’ve never had before. I started craving the companionship of something other than a man. I watched this video over and over and thought about how great it would be to have a kitten.
Luckily, my urge didn’t get far and I realized that if I got a cat I would probably become one of those crazy cat ladies who never gets married because, you know, she has all those cats.
Determined to set myself down a different path, I thought back to my vow last year to start new traditions, so I set a few plans in place. First, I chucked Love Actually and all other movies having to do with love in any of its forms and stacked my Netflix queue with thrillers like Misery, Taken, and Drag Me to Hell.
I shoved my traditional John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers carols to the back of my cd collection. The night before Christmas Eve, I attended a Kirtan, an Indian chanting session accompanied by an harmonium and bongo drums. Instead of “O Christmas Tree” and “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” I chanted “Ramakrishna jaya bolo, bhajo mano” while banging a mallet on a bell.
I ‘fessed up my newly single status to my friends and received numerous invitations including a Christmas Eve dinner with delicious homemade soups and a Christmas evening drinks party with martinis and pie.
But what about the day itself? How would Gracie (my cockatiel) and I spend Christmas day? In keeping with the theme of being non-traditional, and trying to fulfill at least one of last year’s New Year’s resolutions, I decided to make ketchup.
In my life, ketchup has only ever come in a bottle, ready to squirt forth to join my fries and veggie burgers. The idea of making ketchup has held a certain romance for me because of the film Meet Me In St. Louis. In the opening scenes of the film, the Smith family is making ketchup, and each family member has an opinion about the condiment’s sweet or sourness. I really love this family that is so checked in with one another that they are all allowed opinions on what amounts to be a minor part of any meal.
I scoured the Internet looking for recipes and finally landed on this one. Though it is a complex recipe, I wanted a considerable amount of my day taken up with this process in case free time left me feeling sentimental and sad. On Christmas Eve, I went to the grocery store to stock up on my ingredients.
On Christmas morning, I tucked into a cinnamon roll and a mug of hot chocolate. Afterward, I started putting together all the ingredients for my ketchup. I broiled large slices of onion, peeled ten cloves of garlic, and tightly packed brown sugar into measuring cups. I stirred in tomatoes and tomato paste and added all ten spices. Then, I simmered the four quart mixture for three hours, stirring it every fifteen minutes.
After three hours of simmering, I poured the boiling ketchup in batches into my food processor and pureed the mixture. From there I transferred the puree into Tupperware containers. With all that simmering and pouring from one container into another, my kitchen was a hideous mess.
The ketchup, despite its lengthy ingredient list and cook time, was delicious. I’m not sure if I’ll continue to make my own ketchup, but I think I’ll continue to resist pre-packaged and processed traditions of the holiday.
And because of this homemade holiday extravaganza, I need not worry about becoming overly sentimental about being single during New Year’s. I have almost four quarts of ketchup left over.
On this year’s New Year’s Eve menu: tater tots and slasher movies.
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