Immeasurably More

Children and parents everywhere love Maurice Sendack's Where the Wild Things Are , and I, being no different, was looking forward to seeing the film version released last year. My English coworkers had never heard of Maurice Sendack or his book, so I invited one of them to go with me to a showing at the small local theater. If you haven't seen it yet, don't. Certainly don't show it to your children. And if you must see it, have your best friend/therapist/chinese-takeout-place on speed dial. It is one of the most depressing films ever made. And I don't mean sad or scary. I mean a story absolutely without hope or redemption. In Spike Jonze's worlds both real and imaginary, life stinks and it's not going to get better. Instead, see Stranger Than Fiction in which, when life gets bad, there will be Bavarian Sugar cookies. "And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and l...

I'm hosting a party on Saturday afternoon, to which you are invited. It's a Christmas cookie party, which means the primary food will be Christmas cookies. (I had to explain this to a co-worker today. He didn't quite seem to understand the point, but is going to come anyway.) I intend to serve four varieties of cookies at my party. The chocolate chip are done. The sugar cookie dough is chilling. I have what I need for linzer tarts. It's only the gingerbread which remains an open question. Christmas cookies are an important part of my Christmas traditions. There is a cupboard in my Mom's kitchen which, come Christmas time, always had sprinkles (chocolate, rainbow and colored sugar), those crunchy silver balls, food coloring, and assorted tubes of colored frosting with a variety of decorating tips. All this so that my gingerbread men would be indentifiable from my brother's, and our sugar cookie trees and reindeer would have appropriate ornaments. My local g...