'Tis Time for Tea, Holiday Tea

I have mentioned earlier, for the first time in my tenure at Caramoor and for probably the first time in over 30 years, the Music Room of the Rosen House was cleared of its wooden risers and chairs. This opened up entertaining options, not only for the fancy folks, but so that the company could almost double it's capacity on the very popular tea excursions. It's a tradition now, spring teas, Mothers & Others Teas, autumnal "Spooky" Teas, and the very popular Holiday Teas.

As a way to experience this seasonal treat in the new configuration, and to toast to the Team, the department treated us all to Holiday Tea.

It was lovely, and not at all awkward (she says sarcastically), when it came to the sing-a-long portion.

In the Formal Dining Room's Breakfast Nook, they had set up a static display of what tea may have looked like, oh lo - those many years ago.

Watch out for the HR nightmare of mistletoe leading into the Music Room.

Apparently ONE of the senior managers who should know better, was really into it.

Isn't the Room lovely? (This was a tea earlier in the week.)

 Matt, our lovely volunteer, pretended he didn't really know us and ushered us to our seats.

  I do love this china pattern. It's a shame to put food on it.

 Thanks, boss.

 Performance by the Avalon Jazz Band.

   Tea-time

 (or in my case, 'still water and sipping herbal tea guiltily' time)

 Two tiers of this were sandwiches; one was sweets

 Have I mentioned? This group is NOT into sweets.

I just ... *shakes head*

Even though December is our busiest "dialing-for-dollars" / "beating the bushes" time of year, with 

mailings, sign- and phon-athons, mailings, mailings, and more mailings,

it is still important to have bonding time and celebration surviving the Festival and year.

Cheers!

"pinkies up"

(I "should" apologize to Alex for the photo above, but ... HO HO HO!)

~ photos by iPhone

Fête de Noël à la maison de Nina

[I don't know why I went French for that title, except I was trying to alliterate Noël  with Nina.] 

I attended my first holiday party at Nina's home in December 2013, even before I worked with her - officially. The fact that I attended "might" have been a clue to some of the Caramoor crew that the team dynamics were about to change. I had some "official business" to take care of first, so we had to keep it on the DL.

Parties à la maison de Nina are fun, homey, and her dogs and little boys continue to crack me up. Last year, I might have been wrangling one of the pantsless-wonders, which stood me in good stead with nephew Cannon decided to some of the same things when I visited over Thanksgiving. It ain't a holiday party until you spy at least one of the kids ... Well.

Anyway.

Friends from the department, "alumni" from the department, significant others, and many more attended. Munched. Talked. Laughed. And munched some more.

 And maybe some of us took some inspiration from lighting features,

 talked DYI, STEM, and MakerBots with Nina's Tom,

and came up with low-cost, recycled lighting options for summer activities.

 Glow stix and empty wine/water bottles

et voilà!

 Merci Nina

Joyeux Noël

Dinner by Nina
Desserts by Nettie 

~Photos by iPhone

'Tis the Season, to be Baking ... Fa La Laaaa

On the second night of baking, 

my oven hit 

375 degrees. 

Fa La La

La LA LAAAAAAA

There's a office holiday party on tomorrow, so I'm taking treats. Tonight was night 2 of the holiday baking.

Tuesday night, I made dough for these snickdoodles and a Nestle Tollhouse cookie base. I also made a batch of mint brownie bites (with this recipe, scooped into mini-muffin pans and stuffed with a half of an Ande's mint candy) and a new recipe, a pan of the McCormick Cinnamon Caramel Swirl Brownies. 

Tonight I made these snicker-doodles and the Tollhouse cookies, also scooped into the mini-muffin pans, half stuffed with a Hershey Kiss and half with a Reese's Peanut Butter cups.

This last batch of snicker-doodles got a little crisper than I like, because I got distracted watching Mary Berry and the last episode of the U.S. ABC version of the Great Holiday Baking Show. (The UK show is so much better, but I love Mary's style.)

I always go a little overboard, but there is enough for the hostess's kids, guests to take home left-overs, people who drive me to have left-overs, and for me to eat too many.

Total:

2 doz. PB bites;

2 doz. Kiss bites; 

4 doz. choc. mint browning bites; 

3 doz. snicker-doodles; 

and

1 tray caramel bars

Wait. How am I taking all this on the train?

Oh ...

Fudge. 

Still, this is NOwhere near my holiday baking output of days of yore.

~ photos by iPhone

Upstairs, Downstairs at Caramoor: Holiday Edition 2015

After a morning of Board meetings, and an afternoon at my desk trying to catch-up after being away for two weeks, the main event of the day night was a private dinner hosted by the Chairman of the Board and three trustees and about 40 guests, entertained by three folk musicians, with the dinner in the Music Room. It was the first time in my 20+ years with Caramoor that the Music Room had been cleared of heavy wooden risers and over 150 chairs, and set up to entertain for dinner. It had probably been more than 25 years since the Room had been used this way, so we were all excited to see how it would go as a dinner/concert location - and kick off the holiday season with festive decor. 

The Room is pretty Baroque/Renaissance as it is, so you don't need a lot of fancy decorations. A very tall Christmas tree festooned with paper ornaments decorated by the schoolchildren who visit as part of the arts-in-education programs, drawn in with their impressions of art in the House and Room. Nooks were filled in with collections of winterberry branches, and floral arrangements were scattered around on tables. Flickering LED votives on the table. All equaled simple understated elegance.

Upstairs for the fancy folks

Meanwhile, downstairs in the cold basement/garage,

the worker-bees had a very fancy table for 6.

  We decided to really think about how we could market this as a destination dinner or film shoot location. 

Maybe as a Prohibition-theme party site?

A Campaign Donors' back-to-basics lunch-box "dinner in a box?"

I kept going back to horror film- themed rental.

 Clear out the catering rental boxes and the Pepsi product stash and you have room.

The ambiance is there.

Low ceilings with pipes. Touch at your own risk.

 The freezer for the bodies is already there, as is the death match/prisoner cage.

Humor and many layers of coats kept us warm;

 But really -- this was the best part of the night.

 

It was a very long 13+ hour day, with lots of prep, long in-between times of waiting busy-ness, and then intense hours of being "on," directing people, being welcoming, and trying to keep my feet from slowing dying and trying to stay warm. But laughter - and watching certain colleagues try new things, liking them, and QUICKLY becoming jaded about expensive champagne types was humorous, as I downed my ginger ale.

Cin cin

Salud

~photos by iPhone

Pressing Matters

I just got back from vacation Wednesday, and had one day in the office before the onslaught of meetings. (I didn't miss the meetings.)

Even though we snack and munch and eat our way through our weekly team meetings with regularity, today's ... took the prize.

Or - was on the mark?

Pressed it's case?

One of my colleagues brought in her panini press to make grilled cheese sandwiches for our meeting to belatedly celebrate a teammate's birthday.

Yes. You read that right. 

She brought bread, three kinds of cheese, butter, 

and her panini press to make grilled cheeses for our staff meeting.

I think maybe we're taking this a BIT too far. 

Come and get 'em.

Hot off the griddle just in time to call the meeting to order.

 These girls.

We are all crazy.

 

 ~ photos by iPhone

Retroblogging: Life is a Journey, Eat More Birthday Chips, March 18, 2015

Celebration Number 3 for Mid-March had an International Flavor, literally.

I may have mentioned that this group of colleagues is more into savory or salty than sweet.

And with that in mind ... and this ... from 2011

did we plan our team celebration in honor of Christine's birthday with an Around-the-World Exotic Chip tasting afternoon.

Decor was much more subdued than our California Beach Party, because there was no way to anticipate the flavor selection that was going to show up when six ladies purchase a random assortment of chips. (We did have some veggies, dip, cheese, and fruit to off-set all the salt. Don't worry Surgeon General. We are slightly smarter than that.)

Life is a Journey. Eat more Chips.

If you think you can't see the table for the chips, you would be right. I lost track, but I THINK there were at least two to three bags per person there. (Our standing team is seven, but flexes to 10.) Forgive me if I sound like Bubba Gump, but we had:

Potato chips

Lentil chips

Quinoa chips

Sweet Potato chips

Corn chips

Micro chips

Some sort of air chip

Green bean chips

Plantain chips

Seaweed chips

Flavors ranging from plain to sour cream and onion, guacamole to maple bacon, Worcestershire flavored to onion and garlic, and lots in between, plus odd shapes to boot. 

We were supposed to try and pick our favorites - but we ended up grabbing and gabbing ....

(That blur is Karla, blocking me from getting to the jalapeno chips! She moves fast that one.)


Gabbing about ingredients and flavors and how it was probably better that couldn't read the truly international ingredients from the Asian markets. At least the crab shapes didn't taste like crabs. Some of the other ones did. Can you spot the mystery bag?

I think poor Christine has been on a juice cleanse since the chip party. That was a LOT of salt. We kept finding half-finished bags of chips for about a week. The rest of the office had to help us out.



Are you keeping track? Yes, that was three office parties in my office in six days. Did I get much done that week? No. Did I impose a fun moratorium in my space for a bit. Yes, I did. I mean, it's called WORK. Not party.

Though, I should call it MEETINGS, not work.

So many meetings.

Or 9hour email and Reply-All free-for-alls.

Sigh.

Email = bane of my existence sometimes.



*I was going to name this post: Tossing Your Chips-- which while hysterically funny to me, especially in the context of a party only attended by ladies -- PROBABLY wouldn't be the best thing for future blog searches.