For me, Christmas Eve is all about cooking. Even if I'm not hosting the holiday, I want to make things to bring those who are cooking. There's nothing I enjoy more on Christmas Eve than managing multiple dishes in my tiny kitchen, sipping a glass of good champagne and watching "It's a Wonderful Life" on the small kitchen TV (with apologies to Hollaback Girl who I know is not keen on this film). The kitchen is full of rich and sentimental scents and it's so warm with the oven and stove top doing double duty, that the window is open wide and I'm dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. I'm in my element.

A big pot of gumbo is simmering--I added a habanero chile (no seeds, but a few ribs) to the recipe to give it even more kick. The smell of the andouille sausage is contrasting with another pot of spiced mulled wine with lots of oranges, cloves and cinnamon. The corn muffins just went in the oven. And I now need to start the dessert that I'll be trucking over to Queens for Christmas dinner: a triple layer red velvet cake. I'm using Cake Man Raven's recipe which calls for buttermilk, a pound of butter and a pound of cream cheese. Holy shit, it may kill us, but we'll go smiling. I know the concept of a red velvet cake will be alien to a trio of 80-something Polish women, but my strategy calls for telling them it's a Polish patriotism cake. The Polish flag, in case you did not know this, is red and white striped so this subterfuge will work. Providing I don't entirely ruin it, I'll post some pictures later.

Enjoy your holidays, enjoy your families and take a moment to be glad for your blessings. I leave you with a poem from the sweet bard, Shakespeare, which celebrates the season:

The Gracious Time
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit date stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.