Considering it was the first morning in more than two weeks that Son couldn’t sleep until noon, getting him up and off to high school went very well. In fact, he was dressed, fed, and out the door by 7:30 a.m. Amazing.

Daughter was a little harder to rouse; she had trouble sleeping last night. Clearly, she had a harder re-adjustment to her school night schedule after so many late holiday nights.

Walking Daughter to school this morning in the rain and then walking to my office, I could tell it wasn’t an easy morning for anyone. Damp and dreary, it was a day to stay under the comforter in bed, a day to sip tea and watch "General Hospital" on television.

Or finish Nicole Kraus’ "History of Love" or start "The Story of Pi" which a neighbor left on my door step.

I actually considered staying home. It’s the first time in so long that Husband hasn’t been parked in the living room/office at his computer working on photographs. He’s working in town now. Manhattan. What a change for all of us.

2006 is off to a nice start. I am superstitious about the early days of January. Last year, I had a terrible earache and laryngitis and my kids were sick. I thought maybe it didn’t bode well for the new year but 2005 was a good year for all of us.

In January 2001, I had a premonition in the first week of January that it was going to be a terrible year and it was, for the most part, a terrible year – personally, for the city, for the country, for the world.

But 2006 is off to a fairly uneventful start which is a good thing. And there was something so special about this holiday week: I think it had something to do with those Mondays. Little gift days. Unexpected, quiet, no banks, no mail. Some people went to work but we didn’t. I think the Mondays were nicest of all.

I meditated this morning to the sound of a wilderness river. There were songbirds, small rapids and crickets intermingled with telephone rings, office chairs on wood floors, and the voices of from the other offices on this hallway.  It put me in a good mood: sitting by the river, in my office, at the start of the year.

Breathe in, Breathe out. Take it slow. Happy New Year.

OTBKB PRESENTS THE BEST OF BROOKLYN BLOGGING 2005: 

Best Brooklyn Photo Blog by a Photographer Who is My Husband
No Words_Daily Pix by Hugh Crawford

Best Brooklyn Photo Blogs by Photographers I’m NOT Married to
Joe’s NYC   Satan’s Laundromat Digital Brooklyn  Express Train

Best Brooklyn Dream Blog
Sleeping Bunnies

Best Brooklyn Blog with a live 24-hour Cat Web-cam
Lost and Frowned

Best Brooklyn Blog with an Unhealthy Obsession with Real Estate:
Brownstoner

Best Non-Brooklyn Blog with an Unhealthy Obsession with Real Estate:
Curbed

Best Brooklyn Blog with a Healthy Obsession with Bird Watching
The City Birder

Best Brooklyn Blog Named After a Subway Line
F Train

Best Brooklyn Blog by a Recently Engaged Blogger
Callalillie

Best Brooklyn Blog by Blogger in Williamsburg
zeebahtronic

Best Brooklyn Community Blog
The Daily Heights

Best Brooklyn Blog by a Writer with Many Interests Including Immigration
Park Slope Writer

Park Slope’s Best Community Blog
The Daily Slope

Best Brooklyn Blog by A Mother Waiting to Adopt a Child
Mama in Waiting

Best Blog by Person who Actually Came to Brooklyn to Meet OTBKB
Travels in Booland

Best Blog by Mother of Person Who Actually came to Brooklyn to Meet OTBKB
Cousin Lucy’s Spoon

Best Blog by a Former Resident of Prospect Heights
Oswegatchie

Best Art Blog by a Former Resident of Prospect Heights
The Daily Vapor

Best Blog by a Person who Frequently Visits Brooklyn
Laments of the Unfinished

Best Non-Brooklyn Blog by a Blogger From Stuttgart
Udge Wink

Best Name for a Brooklyn Blog
The Dope on the Slope

Best Brooklyn Blog Named for a Bus Line
b61 Productions

Best Brooklyn Blog by Person in Carroll Gardens
A Brooklyn Life

Best Brooklyn Store Blog
Rare Device

Best Brookly Blog by a Woman Selected by New York Magazine as One of 27 People Who Should be Justly Famous by 2010
Design Sponge

Best Brooklyn Blog by a Practioner of Honku
Aaron Naparstek

Best Brooklyn Mostly Music Blog by a Vegan
Brooklyn Vegan

Best Brooklyn Knitting Blog with a Great Logo
unfurnished Brooklyn

Best Brooklyn Blog Collection of Rants and Raves About NYC Restaurants with Lots of Links to OTher Food Blogs
Mona’s Apple

Best Applications for the Bloggers of the World
Blogger and Typepad

Brooklyn blogger, Callalillie, has the dope on where the new Whole Foods is going up in Park Slope. She even has sketches!! Check it out. Y’know that old mansion (or whatever that is) on the corner of Third Avenue and Third Street…

On New Year’s Eve, Brooklyn Borough Hall will show off the capabilities of the their new high- tech lighting system. The night’s show, "Fantasy," described by a spokesperson as "a choregraphed dance of different colored lights." Read all about it in last week’s City Section.

Liberty Heights Tap Room in Red Hook is having a Family New Year’s bash with Cool and Unusual Punishment. Food, non-alcoholic drinks and teen bands. The fun starts at 8:30…

And of course, the 24th annual fireworks display in Prospect
Park. Best locations for viewing the fireworks include anywhere in
Grand Army Plaza, inside the park on the West Drive, and along Prospect
Park West and nearby side streets. Just before midnight. Also, Deja Blu
(10-piece big band) plays at 11 pm.

Great way to Run in the New Year: Slope Sports and Brooklyn’s
Road Runners Club host a healthy way to ring in the new year. Start and
finish line at the Grand Army Plaza entrance of Prospect Park.
Post-race party at Burrito Bar and Kitchen. $20 entry fee. 11:15 pm.
Walkers welcome.

New Year’s Eve is meant to be memorable night but I don’t remember that many of mine. I wish I could google them. 1984 New Years Me What did I do? We rely on Google now for so much. Why not that?

There’s pressure to make it a great night but it’s usually just another night. What’s the big deal? (But it is a big deal.) Happy New Year. A kiss. A roomful of kisses. Asleep. Awake. Another year…

And yet. And yet, some of these nights I remember sort of. Or can reconstruct from one or two images…

1969, I was only 11 years old and my father let my sister, a friend, and me have sips of champagne. It was the end of the sixties and we thought we were drunk listening to Janis Joplin records waiting for the ball to drop on television.

Early 1970’s: I remember watching  Veronica Lake in "I Married a Witch," in the TV room of a camp-friend’s house in Roslyn, Long Island, waiting until midnight so that, finally, we could go to bed.

In high school, there was a party at the elegant home of a classmate on Central Park West. Later there was pizza at Tom’s Pizza on Columbus Avenue, "This Will Be" by Natalie Cole on the jukebox.

Another year — also high school — "Day for Night" by Truffaut at the Carnegie Hall Cinema and later a hockey game at Madison Square Garden (is it possible there was a hockey game on New Year’s Eve?). The midnight moment at a restaurant, also on Columbus Avenue, and then drinks with some friends in a bar (could we get drinks in a bar?).

During college, New Year’s Eve at "Alice’s Restaurant" in the Berkshires (or a restaurant owned by that Alice) with my mother and sister. Ran into a friend of mine from elementary school who had, inexplicably, become an airplane pilot. We went cross-country skiing the next day for the only time in my life.

In 1979, a childhood friend who’d married a Palestinian man had a party in her Los Angeles apartment. There was a belly dancer and middle-eastern food. At midnight, everyone hooted and yelled and danced a circle around the belly dancer, while drinking paper cups of champagne.

New Year’s 1980, I was in the social room of an Israeli kibbutz feeling exhilarated — being so far from home and feeling sad — being so far from home in a room full of people I barely knew dancing to Madonna Blondie, Bruce Springsteen, Beatles’ and Israeli rock ‘n roll.

Another year, I attended a party in an artsy townhouse on East 11th Street. After midnight,  the party guests walked down to Tribeca and party-hopped from one weird and unwelcoming loft party to another; it was a freezing cold night.

1986: I met David Duchovny — this was before he was the star of "The X-Files," before he was even a professional actor — at the apartment of a friend, who knew him from Yale. I’d just cut my hair short for the first time and
was feeling very festive, very chic. We talked for a while, our fathers were friends in college and we’d met as young children. I don’t remember much else about the party.

1987 was my first New Year’s on Husband’s family farm in Northern California. We attended a party given by a local chapter of the American University Women’s Association held in someone’s home and played a party word game invented by Husband’s grandmother.

In 1988, we’d spent a beautiful day at the Arboretum in San Francisco and drove home after dark. Sitting in the car in the garage of Husband’s childhood home, Husband asked me to marry him. We just sat there stunned, excited, unsure what the hell we were doing. That was New Year’s eve, I think. Maybe the day after. We didn’t tell anyone until we were back in New York.

Another year we went to a dinner theater in Stockton and saw the play:
"A My Name is Alice." Some years we played scrabble, Monopoly. One year
we watched "Like Water for Chocolate" and fell asleep before it was
over, well before midnight.

There were other New Year’s Eves. Obviously. When Son was six months old we were too tired to do anything more than eat dinner and go to bed. Google: 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 New Year’s Eve, what did we do?

1996, we stayed in New York because I was pregnant with daughter and went to see "The People Vs. Larry Fink" on West 23rd Street and ate dinner at the Empire Diner.

1997: Daughter was just 10 months but would be walking within weeks…

In the millennial year, Husband’s family gathered on the farm for a lamb feast prepared by Husband and an enormous Jeroboam of champagne bought in Napa Valley for the occasion. We watched the rest of the world’s elaborate festivities on television and waited for something terrible to happen (Y2k). Father, Sister, Mother: everyone called from New York to wish us a happy new year at 9 p.m. – California time. We’d bought fireworks at a firehouse in Salida, a nearby town, and at midnight shot them off in the backyard which was decorated with lumanaria. The children lit sparklers and spelled their names in the air.

New Year’s Eve dinner on the farm in 2001: Son told "Guy Walks Into A Bar" jokes that had everyone in hysterics, he was only 10. We’d flown nervously cross-country as it was just months after 9/11 and we were still limping (emotionally) barely recovered, full of stories of what had gone on…

2002, 2003: late dinners, rented movies, sparklers in the backyard.

2004: it was just days after the Tsunami, the house was cold, we were all getting sick, what a depressing New Year’s. After mid-night, Son and I watched "Garden State" on his iBook, it had just come out on DVD and was, at that moment, his favorite movie of all time.

I loved it too.

Just days before
Christmas when I was 8 or 9, I stood on a chair in a coat
closet and found one of my Christmas presents: a pair of pink patent
leather Mary Janes from Saks Fifth Avenue. They were EXACTLY what I wanted.

Mintues later,  my mother found me in the closet and grabbed the shoebox away: that was exactly what I didn’t want to happen.

On Christmas Day, there were no pink shoes. None. My parents did, however, give me the shoes a few days later.

Lesson learned.

That
story has become something of a cautionary tale around our apartment. If I try to get hints from Husband about my birthday or Mother’s Day gift
he says: "Pink shoes, pink shoes. Remember the pink shoes." Same for Son and Daugther when they ask about their Chrismakah or birthday presents: "Pink
shoes," we’ll say. "Pink shoes;"

And yet as a cautionary
tale, "Pink Shoes" just doesn’t cut it.  Instead, I still get angry at my  parents who felt they had to punish me for something
so innocent, so human. "Pink Shoes" is not a cautionary tale at all but
a poignant reminder of a terrible punishment for the delight
at finding the gift I so desired.

Shiny, pink, glowing with
potential: it was impossible not to hold those shoes in my admiring
little hands. Even if it was just days before Christmas.

That said, I was really pissed when Daughter told me that she found the Felicity DVD I’d hidden in the laundry hamper. She also found a bunch of her stocking stuffers. "You’re just a terrible hider," she said. "You’re so bad at it."

That pissed me off even more. It’s not enough to give her gifts but I’ve got to be a great hider, too? Give me a break. Our closets are stuffed to bursting with clothing, coats and all the hand-me-downs we get from friends with older girls.

Finding a place in the apartment to hide gifts is, well, excruciatingly time consuming…

Pink Shoes. Pink Shoes. Doesn’t anyone remember the story about pink shoes?

Here is a list of some of the "ordinary" things that were so special in 2005 (in no particular order).

–A baby named Sonya (Ducky)

–Great family

–Great friends

–Great neighbors

–A great therapist

–Daughter and Sonya together

–FINISHING the Brooklyn Half-Marathon

–Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn (started Feb. 1, 2005)

–Writing the weekly Smartmom column for The Brooklyn Papers

–Getting published

—BKLYN Magazine

–Husband’s NEW JOB

—Husband’s PHOTOGRAPHY (No Words_Daily Pix)

–Hearing Cool and Unusual Punishment at the Liberty Heights Tap Room for the first time

–Daughter’s puppy calendar/research project she worked so hard on

–Hearing Cool and Unusual again and again

–Teens for New Orleans benefit concert at the Old Stone House

–Husband’s Birthday at the Old Stone House with friends, family, and Cool and Unusual Punishment

–Amy, Elizabeth and Todd coming all the way from California for the big party

–The Gates

–February in Central Park

–MY OFFICE

—Valentine’s Day Portraits at Fou Le Chakra

—Brooklyn Reading Works at Fou Le Chakra

—Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House

–The people who gave us work and/or helped us find work

–Our week in Sag Harbor

–Ice skating on Thanksgiving

–My birthday dinner at Chez Panisse

–the Diane Arbus birthday cake Jollybe Bakery made for Husband

–Christmas and Hanukkah in Brooklyn for the first time in a long time.

–Daughter’s second and third grade teachers at PS 321

–Bay Ridge Prep

–Planning our 30th high school reunion

–Sonya’s first steps (walking on December 27th)

–Running in Prospect Park

–Meditation

–Husband’s chicken curry with almonds and dried cranberry

–The new wall dividing the living room into a work space/family space

–Kim Maier’s stewardship of The Old Stone House

–"The Other Woman" (Directed by Margarete Von Trotta, screenplay by Pamela Katz) at the Museum of Modern Art; Nancy Graham’s poems and stories in Chronogram, Prima Materia, and elsewhere; "A Widow’s Walk" by Marian Fontana; David Konigsberg’s paintings at the Alan Shephard Gallery; Toby Fox’s Elizabeth Bishop paper and Bunny Thoughts; Roxanna Velandria’s drawings; "Flightplan" at the Zigfield with Florian Balhaus and friends, Emily Berger’s show of paintings at the Painting Center, Charlotte Maier ‘s scene with Steve Martin n "The Pink Panther," Henry Lowengard’s show of prints at the Esopus Public Library, Fofolle’s clothing

–Henry L. GETS A JOB

–The Squid and the Whale

—So many said-to-be-great 2005 movies yet to see

–Reading "Heir to the Glimmering World" by Cynthia Ozick

–ROSE: our babysitterandsomuchmore

–Writer’s group

––Life Space Coaching with Deborah Ager

–Therapy

–"Coming Home to Your Heart" retreat in the Berkshires

–Park Slope

–Zoloft

I wrote this on New Year’s Eve 2004 just days after the Tsunami. 2005 saw its share of tragedy, too: the war, Hurricaine Katrina, the London bombing, there was more. Some thoughts from last year…

The last day of 2004 and we’re well rid of that one. It was a year,
alright, quite a year. Natural disaster, human suffering of unfathomable proportions, war,
political disaster, tragedy, human cruelty…

And yet daily life
goes on. The clock ticks, the internet connection hums, the children
need lunch, there is work to be done. The dailiness of things keeps us
going when nothing else does. It’s the ordinary things that pull us
through.

There’s a lot of talk right now about the absence of
God, the existence of God in the first place, the reality that bad
things happen to good people often, unremittingly, all the time, a lot.
Too much.

There are a lot of people who are very angry at
their God right now. And there are many whose belief in their God will
pull them through. Those without a belief in God are also in a quandry.
No matter what kind of God or no-God you’ve got, you’re probably
struggling to understand the breadth of this tragedy.

There is
also the unpleasant feeling of uselessness. At this distance, other
than contributing money, there is nothing to do but watch and cry. With
this comes a kind of survivor’s guilt – guilt for the fact that our
lives are (thankfully) untouched by this kind of pain and suffering.
Guilt for our abundance, guilt for the superficiality of what ails us
right now.

And then there’s the fear, a deep, penetrating one:
what happens if and when our lives are touched by such terribleness.
What would we do?

When bad things happen, Fred Rogers, that
dapper genuis of children’s television, used to say, "Look for the
good." Even in the worst of times, he’d say, there is good to be found.

In this case, one has only to look at the faces of the
survivors who are burying the dead, beginning to clean up, helping one
another heal. Good people the world over are also flocking there to
help: Doctors Without Borders, the International Red Cross, and other
local and international organziations are pitching in. There is good to
be found.

For the moment, the world’s focus is on this tragedy
— everyone is grieving for the missing, praying for the survivors, and
trying to help in some small way.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if
this shared moment could change the course of history? Wouldn’t it be
amazing if the world came together and recognized the importance of
daily life, the power of the ordinary, the simple things that everyone
holds dear?

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

I found this list and article on a new site (for me) called: Lifestyle Filter. The bloggers, who live in Brooklyn, made OTBKB a Blog of the Day, for which I am quite flattered.

"In this post-feminist world," writes Los Angeles Times staff writer, Carina Chocano, there are 54 films that got it right. The also wrote an accompanying piced called Fettered by a Stereotype that takes aim at the term "chick flick."  Here are the 54 films she thinks get it right:

1930s-1940s

"Private Lives" (Sidney Franklin, 1931, VHS only): A newly remarried
woman winds up in the hotel room adjacent to her newly remarried ex
during her honeymoon.

"Stage Door" (Gregory La Cava, 1937): A young woman fulfills her dream of becoming an actress.

"Holiday" (George Cukor, 1938

‘Twas the day after Christmas and all through the Slope there was gift wrap and packaging in the apartment building garbage pails.

Daughter and I were walking to a friends when we saw something quite extraordinary in front of one of the limestone buildings just a few doors away.

A beautiful doll house — a three-story mansion, really — with a small shopping bag full of faux-elegant doll furniture.

It was being discarded, we surmised, because its owner had to make space for her new gifts. The bedrooms are quite small in the buildings on Third Street. We knew that most of the girls in that building are ten or older — perhaps its owner had finally outgrown the doll house.

Maybe it was some kind of spiritual exchange. The child had been taught that in order to receive a gift, she had to give something away….

All possible explanations for the doll house’s presence on the Third Street pavement.

The doll house was in good condition. Nothing a little Fantastik couldn’t shine up. And the small shopping bag filled with doll furniture was a gesture that said: here take this. It’s yours if you want to carry it away.

First we looked at the house, discussed whether or not to take it, and decided it was too much trouble as we had somewhere to be. I was surprised that Daughter was able to pass it by.

Then she backed up.

"Can we take it? Please?" she begged.
"Where are you going to put it?" I said. Her room is tiny.
"Please?"
"You already have a doll house," I said reminding her of the mid-century modern doll house I’d bought for $20 dollars at a stoop sale on Third Street complete with a shopping bag full of incredible doll furniture.
"I know. But one’s a mansion…"

A mansion maybe. But it’s made out of molded plastic and says Fisher Price right on it. The mid-century modern one we’ve already got is so much more tasteful.

Still, we carried it into the vestibule of our building. "You’re going to need to clean this thing up." I said. "I know," she said. "I know."

The large plastic doll mansion is sitting on top of Daughter’s homework desk until we clear more space in her room. Her Polly Pocket dolls have already taken up residence. The scale isn’t quite right. Whatever.

Let’s see. What item can we choose to discard, to place on the street with a note that says: Take this. It’s yours if you want to carry it away.

We topped off our Christmas day/first night of Hanukkah with the 3-hour "King Kong" at the Pavillion.

At our Hanukkah lox and bagels brunch, my cousins, who had seen the film the previous day, could not say enough bad things about the movie.  "Horrible," one cousin said. "Way too long," said another. "Stupid," said a third.

My cousin’s son did, however, enjoy it.

So off we went. I was pretty sure I was going to hate it. Husband really wanted to see it and thought it would be worthwhile. Daughter kept saying, "Why does everyone say we shouldn’t see this movie. I want to see it," she said. Son wouldn’t even cease napping in order to schlep over to the Pavillion in the rain to see the spectacle.

There is something about a 3-hour movie. You settle in for the long haul and prepare to get really wrapped up in the show or get comfy for a looooooooong nap.

Surprise. Surprise. Right from the start, I found the computer-created scenes of New York City during the Depression very compelling. Naomi Watts, as a down-at-the-heels depression era vaudevillian and Jack Black, as a maniacally driven movie director, are really fun to watch. 

I realized pretty soon that the film is as much homage to the original King Kong and its subtext of the little guy triumphing over the double threat of the depression and on-coming European menace as it is a contemporary attempt at a blockbuster. And yes, beauty conquers the beast in what is an erotically charged relationship between a woman and a super-sized Kong.

The film also reminded me that even if computer effects take over Hollywood, there is still a need for great actors who know how to act with blue screens as their co-stars.

Leeches, dinosaurs, huge insects, and more, the middle section of the film on Skull Island is quite a scary/joy ride. But it would be pretty awful if we didn’t care about the actors and their characters. 

The cast is great. The beautiful Naomi Watts, could have been a silent movie star with her wonderful facial expressions and expressivity. Her big eyes and looks of longing communicate affection for the big ape in a moving and real way. Jack Black, Adrian Brody, and a crew of great character actors, do a lot with their roles, as well. Andy Cirkus, as the motion actor for Kong, is incredible and makes this computer ape into the highly emotional, big baby he is.

The last hour of the film, the New York section, is worth the price of admission. You’ve seen it before but it is well worth seeing again: Naomi and Kong on the tip of the Empire State Building…

Luckily, my suspension of disbelief was established hours before. The occasional thought: wouldn’t she be cold in that summer dress in the dead of winter in Central Park?; How does she run through the jungle with bare feet?; Wouldn’t she be terribly injured or dead by now…

Ah, but those were but small blips of distance during what was is basically a very entertaining experience. Peter Jackson, who is a obsessive student of one of the most popular films of all time, remakes it with all the computer bells and whistles money can buy.

He also had the smarts to cast a great slew of actors and to not use his special effects at the expense of narrative, pacing, and a great respect for the original.

Today is the first time since 1959 that Christmas and Hanukkah are on the same day. And for an inter-faith family, that’s pretty cool.

Sometimes we joke that we’re Jewish in Brooklyn and Christian in California. That divides thing up pretty neatly. My Jewish family is here in New York City and his Presbyterian are scattered around northern California.

Latkes in Brooklyn. Baked ham, mashed potatoes, and scalloped oysters in California.

On the eight nights of Hanukkah we light candles and exchange small gifts. Some years, Husband makes latkes (he may be Presbyterian but the better cook around here). When Son was younger, we’d read I.B. Singer stories like "Zlatah the Goat."

For my kids, Christmas morning usually means waking up with their cousins in a big house on a farm in Northern California. waiting impatiently for the grown ups to wake up. They open their stockings and then have to wait until after breakfast to open their gifts.

The morning has a slow ritual to it. Timeless, really. Roaring fire in the fire place. Fragrant tree. Sweet rolls for breakfast. It’s the way they’ve been doing things on the farm for years and years.

So for our first Chirstmas in New York in nine years — we had to figure out how to approach things. For my daughter, this is her first Christmas ever in Brooklyn. For Son, only his second.

Getting a Christmas tree was a no-brainer. I knew it might aggravate my Jewish relatives but I also knew it would be the best way to honor the Christian side of our inter-faith family.

We owned no ornaments so I went to a 99 Cent store on Fifth Avenue and bought up a bunch of made-in-China decorations. In the past few days, friends have given up special ornaments, as well.

Colorful — non-flashing lights — were the way to go. I love sitting in the living room with the lights off looking at our tree almost as much as I love sitting in a dark room watching the menorah candles as they burn low.

Having celebrated Christmas for the past 17 years, a Chris mas tree doesn’t seem so foreign or alien. It’s part of my life too as I am part of my husband’s families and their traditions.

Luckily, Son and Daughter were thrilled to spend Christmas in Brooklyn. It’s novel and different. Son gets to hang out with his friends and Daughter can see her best friend — who lives in the building — and play with their presents before breakfast (what could be better?).

That said,  I didn’t feel like I had to meet some impossibly high expectation of Christmas with a capital C (Christmas in California IS an impossibly high standard to match so why bother?). I knew that Christmas in  Brooklyn had to be what it is and simply that.

The fact that Hanukkah and Christmas fall on the same day — for the first time since 1959 — makes me feel centered and whole. The bringing together of both traditions is making things so much easier for all of us inter-faith families.

Being able to celebrate both parts of our family on the same day is a treat, really. And something we are thrilled to do here in Brooklyn. This morning we opened Christmas presents, tonight we will light the first candle for Hanukkah.

The presents are done. Enough is enough. No reason to keep on giving. We have too much already. And for that we are grateful.

This year we’re spending Christmas at home, our home, the home we’ve created for ourselves in Brooklyn. It feels different and special.

Usually we spend Christmas on the farm in Northern California, where Husband grew up. It is a holiday imbued with family traditions: mulled cider, Mexican creches placed throughout the house, handmade advent calendars, a tall, potted Christmas tree decorated with handmade ornaments and heirlooms.

In the days before and after Christmas, we spend quality, family-togetherness time with Husband’s family playing scrabble, working on puzzles, watching old movies together. It is a model of a perfect family Christmas.

And there are no fights. There’s barely an unpleasant word uttered.

The days before we fly off to Oakland on Jet Blue, I usually find myself feeling anxious and sad. While I enjoy our special trips to California, it is still difficult to leave my family behind during the holidays.

As I have spent 18 Christmases in California, I don’t even know what it’s like to spend the holidays in New York. All my sensorial associations with Christmas are Californian: the smell of eucalyptus, warmish weather, ranch housea —  in a big sky landscape — festooned with Christmas decorations.

In California, we spend Christmas in two worlds – the timeless world of a family farm in the Central Valley of Northern California not far from the Sierras. AND, just miles away, the suburban-freeway-mall-mutiplex-stripmall-SUV-world that is everywhere in California.

I love being on the family farm for its beauty, its quiet, its connection to nature and the way things grow; I am grateful for the fact that I have had the opportunity to be a part of that. The romance of California looms large for me and  I even love the suburban freeway mall-multiplex-stripmall-SUV-world because it is exotic to me and interesting (sociologically, anyway). We usually go to San Francisco and Berkeley which is like candy for me. After a few days on the farm I am desparate to explore two truly great cities less than 80 miles away.

But this year, we find ourselves here. The decision was made about a month ago. And it’s turned out to be a good decision, afterall. Our babysitterandsomuchmore says, "There was a reason for this. There was a reason."

Indeed. Husband started a new job (it was an offer he couldn’t refuse) that he hadn’t even heard about a month ago. He rode his bike to work on Wednesday, his first day on the job and the 2nd day of the transit strike.

We’re all busy. Son has a gig on New Year’s Eve at the Liberty Heights Tap Room. Daughter is thrilled to be decorating our house and creating a Christmas/Hanukah that feels like us.

For me, I am near friends and family — and that feels very special. I can still go to my office to write, which I really want to do. I’ll go running in Prospect Park and ice skating at Kate Wollman Rink. We might even check out the decorations in Dyker Heights. I’ll meditate. We’ve got a bunch of parties to go to. If there’s downtime, there are closets to clean, things to organize…

At home in Brooklyn, we’re finding out what our friends and family do while we’re in California. And we’re learning  what we want to do as a family and what this time means to us, here, in Brooklyn.

Christmas Eve, we’re having a dinner party. In homage to California, I am setting the table with Husband’s grandmother’s Wedgewood plates. There will be ceramic bowls and serving dishes handmade by my mother-in-law, and mulled cider on the stove.

But I can’t replace the smell of Eucalyptus and lavender growing outside the house, the scrabble games with family, Aunt Beth’s almond Roca, eating "befores" from Trader Joe’s, watching my kids play with their cousins, Son reading his father’s TinTin books in the kid’s room, Daughter learning to sew on her grandmother’s sewing machine, lighting sparklers in the backyard on New Year’s Eve…

But this year we’re doing it here. In our home, the home we’ve created in this apartment in Brooklyn.

The two photographs, by Hugh Crawford, were taken on the farm in California.