All Summer in a Day

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Today is arguably the last Monday of summer - next week is Labor Day, which is always bittersweet as it heralds the end of the season (if not, for some of us, the end of suffocating heat!) This week on JRW, our attention is going to turn to the World Mystery Conference, Bouchercon, but before we do, let’s take our traditional accounting of what summer pleasures we did and did not manage to fit in between Memorial Day and now.

What I did: Saw family. I saw SO much of my family, I’ll be happy not to spend any more time together until Thanksgiving. I love you, kids.

Went to a Sea Dogs game in Portland, with much of the aforementioned family. It was a rare perfect sunny day in what’s been a wet, cool summer here in New England, and we had a great time, even though the Sea Dogs went down 7-5.

Celebrated the Fourth of July by watching Independence Day with the Maine Millennial on Monday and had an amazing indoor (that rain again) BBQ at a friend’s house on Tuesday.

Took a mini-writing retreat with Jessica Ellicott and had the great pleasure of spending a whole day writing and talking craft and business under the shade of her gazebo in utterly perfect July weather.

Went to the movies in person, which used to be a summer standard, but has become rare for me since the pandemic. Youngest and I saw MEG 2: THE TRENCH, which was the perfect tongue-in-cheek action flick.  I even bought movie popcorn: I know it’s all oil and chemicals, but it’s so tasty.

I had a whole watermelon to myself!

What I didn’t do: It’s a long list. No trips to the beach, no grilling outdoors, no summer theater (which I managed to do even during the shut downs in ‘20 and ‘21.) No swimming at Celia Wakefield’s Lake House, or in the nearby Saco River - there was so much rain my area was closed to swimming due to bacterial contamination!! No Chamber Music Festival. No hanging out with a book and a glass of chilled rode on the patio. No garden other than what sprung up from last year. 

All I can say is, 1) this fall had better be spectacular, and 2) the next time a family member calls with a crisis, I’m pretending I broke my phone and hiding until it passes.

How about you, Reds?

RHYS BOWEN:  I always have plans for the perfect summer: picnics at the beach, a book beside the pool, an adventure once a week. And then suddenly it’s September! What happened? Our summer in Marin County had not been stellar. A lot of cold foggy mornings. And I have escaped to the beach a couple of times. But still…. Not that perfect lazy, hazy days of summer 

I must confess that five weeks of it were spent in Europe so no whining here! England, Jersey, Brittany. All good. And lots of family encounters. Also good. And a new irrigation system that now has plants covering my bare hillside. I’m off to Bouchercon on Wednesday and hoping to steal away to the beach when no one’s looking!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I have no idea what I did. Yes, I do, it wrote. And was on book tour. It was great, and wildly successful, and hurray, but yikes, it’s about to be September. We didn’t grill, because it seemed to be raining all the time or SO HOT!

A new house went up next to us, so we were in a constant din–truly one day, there were TEN guys on the roof next door with nail guns. Just imagine. And they started at 7. AM. 7 AM!!

We didn’t sit by the pool, because see above. But we had so many bunnies! BUT I did do some fantastic full-house signings, really amazing, and interviewed Shari Lapena in person, taught at the Writers Digest Convention and saw Hadestown with Hallie–she mentions it below, too! AMAZING, as she says.

AND sold two more books, book 16 and 17 no under contract! So yay. Somehow, even with all the rain, it was still lovely.

JENN McKINLAY: This was not the summer to miss out on a trip to my mom's cottage in Nova Scotia but I did miss it and lived through every day that was over 110+ here in AZ. Blerg.

Instead, it was the summer to spend repainting the interior of our house, rebuilding the catio, revising the next romcom, and swimming with the dogs in the pool every single day. I also got to spend a glorious time literally up in the trees with the Hub and the Hooligans in Flagstaff, where we did an extreme obstacle course 30-60 feet up in the air which included jumping from swinging log to swinging log, climbing fishnets hanging in the tops of the pines, and zip lines. Truly, it was like something out of American Ninja Warrior. Hooligan 2 also turned 21 and wanted to visit a casino. Kid won $600 off a slot machine. We told him he could never go again because he’d never be that lucky again. LOL. 

HALLIE EPHRON: Oh, Jenn, you were due for a good summer. Hope you’ll blog about what that obstacle course was like. Sounds terrifying.

My summer began with July 4 on Peaks Island (off the coast of Portland Maine) with family. Fireworks and barbecuing, long walks and swimming.

After that, I taught at a bunch of writing conferences, including an old favorite on mystery writing at Book Passage in Marin. And another favorite, at the Willamette Writers Conference via Zoom.  And I was thrilled to get invited back to the Writers Digest Annual Writers Conference in NYC at the Hilton in Midtown. Great meals, and I got to hang out with Hank(!) and went to see Hadestown which was AMAZING! 

Next week I go back to Peaks for a Labor Day weekend relax-athon and hangout with the spectacular Franny and Jody, my grands.

So all in all a pretty terrific summer. Oh, and I also got named my town’s Writer in Residence for 2023-2024. Which gives me lots of good stuff through to anticipate.

Life is good. A year ago I would not have said that.

 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: The traveling part of the summer was terrific! In early June I flew to LA for the California Crime Writers’ Conference, my first conference in three and a half years, and it was wonderful to see friends, make new friends, and talk writing again! I didn’t mind the “June glooms” a bit. Then a whirlwind week at home, then off for almost a month in London. What a great trip. Mostly nice weather other than a couple of too-warm days, loads of terrific research for the book in progress, and an unexpected side trip to Bath.

Alas, I arrived home mid-July just as the triple-digits-no-rain remainder of the summer set in, and have spent the last six weeks just trying not to melt and to keep the poor plants alive. 

One fun thing–we’ve done a lot of work on our pond and added new fish (after losing all but one of our huge koi last October) and have really enjoyed watching the little swimmers in the few minutes we can stand to be outside!

 

 LUCY: I think you've already heard about our multiple family visits and the lovely food I've been eating, so I won't belabor that. Most unusual and fun event? I played in my first ukulele "gig" last weekend. Remember the band I hired for John's big birthday bash? Turns out one of them runs a ukulele club at the Scranton Library and my pal Steve and I have been attending. Fred the leader encouraged us to play in public at a festival on the town green. It was very low pressure (read, low attendance) and super fun! Other than that, writing, writing, writing.

JULIA: Hallie definitely wins the award for "Best Spent Summer," with Debs in the No. 2 spot. How about you, dear readers? How was your June, July and August?  

 

Photos courtesy of Rebecca from Pixabay, freepix and Flagstaff Extreme

Recipe share from Summer Reading by Jenn McKinlay

 JENN McKINLAY: My latest romcom, Summer Reading came out this week. How any of you may have missed this, I do not know because I have been talking about every single day for months. Seriously, even I'm sick of me! LOL.

As we frequently share recipes on Sundays, and because my heroine Samantha Gale is a chef, I thought I'd share a few pics from the cooking session I spent with my sister-in-law Natalia and her family since she and her family are from the Azores and inspired Sam's culinary inspiration in the book. 

This is the crew, teaching me how to cook Portuguese:

Melissa, Natalia, Vovo (Maria), and Laura

Here are some of the dishes we (they) made: 

Caldo Verde (kale soup) -- very traditional and delicious!

Shrimp Mozambique -- soooo good!

Pastel de Nata (from a Portuguese bakery) and OMG!

Pimenta Moida (from Joe, Natalia's brother) -- 

recipe included in the book!

And lastly, here is Torresmos (Azores Marinated Pork) which is the recipe I am sharing today.

Torresmos (Azores Marinated Pork)

4 pounds pork spare ribs

4 Tablespoons pimenta moida

5 crushed garlic cloves

1 cup red wine

pinch of salt 

1 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 tablespoons sweet paprika

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper

Cut the ribs into large pieces and set aside. In a large plastic bag, mix the pimento moida with the garlic, wine, paprika, and salt. Add the meat, seal the bag, and mix well.  Put the bag in the refrigerator for 3 hours (minimum) or overnight (even better). To begin cooking, place the meat and the marinade in a large thick bottomed pan on the stove, add the oil and cook on high for 10 minutes. 

Cover and reduce the heat to very low and cook for 2 hours and 45 minutes. The meat should become very tender and fall off the bones. Stir occasionally. Adjust the salt to your taste and sprinkle the meat with the white and black pepper. 

Cover and cook for another 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let it rest for 10minutes. Drain the fat and serve. 

Needless to say this was one of the most fun days ever. My sister-in-law and her family have been my family from the day and she married my brother. Nat is the greatest gift he ever gave me and I am ever grateful for her kindness, support, generosity, creativity, wisdom, and amazing culinary talent. Seriously, everyone should have a sister-in-law like her!

Several of these recipes and others I didn't mention are included in Summer Reading - so go grab your copy and join the fun!

Not surprisingly, Portuguese food has become my absolute favorite over the years. What is your favorite type of food?

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Graduating into a New Life

Calling all readers! Thursday, we're featuring Pets on Parade, so please send your pet photos in to JuliaSpencerFleming at Gmail dot com! 

 

 

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: If it’s May, there must be a graduation in the Hugo-Vidal family, right? And you are right, dear readers - we are all gathered in Norfolk, VA to celebrate Veronique’s graduation (and pinning) as a Respiratory Therapist. I am SO proud of her. Veronique worked for several years after getting her BA from the University of Virginia, but like a lot of liberal-arts-educated millennials, she wasn’t seeing much in the way of income or advancement. 

She was always interested in health care, though, and I remember when she first told me her idea about becoming an RT. We were walking on a sandy beach during one of her visits in Maine, and she laid out a whole plan, including how to finance it. I was impressed because unlike the rest of the family (which tends to be disorganized, dramatic and/or too idealistic for our own good) Veronique had analyzed which health care job had the best return on investment. Needless to say, this was not something Ross or I did when deciding to become a full time writer and a special ed teacher, respectively.

It’s been a grueling two years for her - she spent the first summer after getting into the competitive program catching up on biology and chemistry courses she hadn’t taken at UVA. From then it was four semesters and another summer of full-time classes plus practicum: the students were rotated through six different hospitals in the area to experience all the areas where RTs might be called. Keep in mind, this was during the second year of Covid.

Every time I called or Facetimed with Spencer, Veronique would pop in, say, “Hi, mom!” and then vanish back into her home office, where she studied at night. Every. Night. It’s one thing to fling yourself into degree work when you’re a kid; it’s another thing entirely to quit a job and take on grinding degree work at thirty. That, I’ve told her, is the most impressive accomplishment of all: to risk leaving what’s not working and reinventing yourself - in her case, first as a full-time student and now as a skilled medical professional!

Reds, I hope you’ll join me in congratulating Veronique. What’s a time when you took a risk to reinvent yourself?

LUCY BURDETTE: Congratulations to Veronique–what an accomplishment! Our nephew is graduating from a residency program in emergency medicine–so grueling! This is the same program our daughter attended so we know first hand how hard they have to work!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Congratulations to Veronique! Do tell her she has many cheers from all the Reds! It must have taken such courage to reinvent herself, and in such a demanding profession.

I suppose I reinvented myself when (with a history as a chronically bad student and already a couple of years older than my classmates) I enrolled in a hard but wonderful college as a sophomore and earned a degree in biology. Quite a few years later I reinvented myself again when I made up my mind to write a novel. I’ve never regretted either decision and I wish the same for Veronique.

 

RHYS BOWEN: Adding my congratulations for Veronique. Well done! My daughter Anne went through a similar reinventing a few years ago when she decided to leave her job in the advertising industry and become a psycho-therapist. Three very intense years of study and now she’s a qualified therapist working with at-risk children. I’m naturally very proud.

I don’t think I’ve ever re-invented myself. It was always a natural progression from college newspaper to BBC to writing screenplays to books. I guess I must enjoy it!

HALLIE EPHRON: BIG congrats to Veronique! And what a great career path (and job opportunities!) she has ahead of her.

I’ve always been a “keep a foot on the boat and a foot on the dock” kind of risk taker. So when I started writing (aka learning to write) when my youngest went to college and I had a room to write in and time to do it. I worked part time for years getting better, working freelance so I could keep our fiances in good shape and manage the time. Which explains why it took me 10 years to go from thinking I’d like to write to having a book accepted by an agent. For many more years I kept writing freelance on the side. No leaps for me.

JENN McKINLAY: Congratulations, Veronique!!! That is fantastic! And how very smart to make the shift when you did. I made a life change up when I was 25. I moved cross country from CT to AZ to pursue being a writer in a cheaper part of the country where i could actually afford to love working part-time. It took longer than I thought but I think I might have made it finally. Kind of wish I'd thought of being an RT first...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: This is so inspirational! Hurray, Veronique! Brilliant. Oh, gosh, I feel as if I reinvent every day. But I guess it was in 1970. With absolutely no plans or career path, I thought--okay, all I want to do it change the world. How can I do that? Maybe I'll be a reporter. And naive me marched in the biggest station in Indianapolis, with zero experience, and somehow got a job as a radio reporter. I always think: I took a HUGE chance--and so did he radio station, right?--and somehow I found my calling. I did it for more than 3 decades. And then, I had an idea for a book.

 

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? Have you or someone you know taken the leap into a new life? 

Free to Fly Again!

RHYS BOWEN: Ten days ago I got my second vaccine shot, so by the end of this week I should be safe to venture beyond the confines of my own home for the first time since March last year. Actually that’s not quite true. I have been to the supermarket during senior hour, at seven thirty in the morning once a week. We walk twice a day in local parkland. I’ve actually braved the post office when I’ve had to send off books. But that’s about it.

 So no lunches out, no evening restaurants, no theaters, museums, bookstores. Nothing that makes life rich and exciting. We’ve had take-out from a few restaurants but on the whole we’ve found it disappointing as it’s usually cold by the time we get it home. And most of all no meals with family and friends—indoors at least. We have dared to meet from time to time outside on my balcony or patio. But at distance, with masks and no hugs.

 

And in our professional sphere we’ve missed book launches, book tours, conventions, fans, fun lunches, late night chats with friends in the bar. I know it’s been the same for all of us—a long, boring, worrying slog with no end in sight. Until now.  Later this week I am heading to Arizona. We haven’t been able to spend our usual winter at our house there,  so I’ve missed drives into the desert, meeting friends at favorite restaurants and especially barbecues in my daughter’s backyard and the twins school activities. So I’m so excited to be with them again. Clare and Tim have both had their shots so I’m hoping for lots of hugs. And also looking forward to seeing our granddaughter in a leading role in the school musical. After a year of isolation and learning from home, the kids have finally gone back to the class room. TJ is wrestling and Mary Clare is singing and dancing. I’m so happy for them.

And I'm daring to dream about travel again. This is the first time we haven't spent the summer in England and Europe for many years and oh, how I miss it. But I've tentatively booked a cruise for NEXT spring. Fingers crossed.

 Okay Reds, Where do you stand in the vaccine line? And what will be the first thing you do when you are finally free to spread your wings again?

LUCY BURDETTE: We are very fortunate to have both shots under our belts. That means we are going out to dinner tonight (outside, I still won’t eat inside) to celebrate a friend’s birthday (they are vaccinated too). So thrilled! And we have plane reservations at the end of March to go to CA and finally see the grandchildren. That all could change in a minute if the virus ramps up, of course, so we stand nervously ready to pivot. And I’m working to help some other elder friends who aren’t Internet savvy find their shots. Sigh. The system was broken before it started.

JENN McKINLAY: I’m at the bottom of the list for a vaccination, I’m afraid. I’m not old enough or essential enough -- darn it! But Arizona does seem to be rolling them out swiftly so my hope is that I’ll be vaccinated by the end of April. I sincerely hope so because I have a lot of research to do for my book set on Martha’s Vineyard, and I really need to do the boots on the ground walking tour of the place to get it just right. 

HALLIE EPHRON: I’m finally scheduled for my first shot. My intrepid daughter spent two and a half hours on line battling with the scheduling system and finally scored an appointment for me. I’ll drive about 40 minutes to our local football stadium to get the first dose, then wait and go again for the second one, and then wait… what are they saying, 10 days to develop full immunity? But we’re not planning any trips or events, not until we see the numbers that are going down stay down.

I think the roll-out is going to accelerate quite a bit and certainly they’ll fix the registration systems. I’m optimistic. And dying to see my grandchildren.

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m in Jenn’s group - neither old enough, nor essential, nor (thankfully) do I have any comorbidities.  My poor daughters are desperate to see me vaccinated, but frankly, I’m fine - I work from home anyway, and I can continue with Zoom church and Netflix instead of movie theaters for the foreseeable future. I’m hoping maybe sometime in May? June? 

The travel that’s most tantalizing isn’t my own - I’d love to have the Sailor and his girl visit this summer. She’s already had the vaccinations (works in the medical field) and the Navy is prioritizing getting its people immunized. (Which is an interesting topic, because I’ve seen nothing about vaccines for the Armed Forces in the public discourse.) 

I can spend another summer socializing outside and staying six feet+ away from my friends. I just want to get to summer - at this time of year, it’s very hard to imagine it will ever get here.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: We are now more than two weeks past our second shots. Rick has been able to make plumbing supply runs to the hardware store (masked, of course) without worry, so we were very grateful for that after the storm here in Texas. I've done little errands, just popping in a few places for this or that, which I would not have done pre-vaccine, when pretty much my only outing was a weekly senior hour grocery trip to Trader Joe's. It felt enormously liberating just to do some ordinary things. I think we will be gradually ramping up our expectations. A haircut (yay!!! After a year!!) An outdoor lunch with my daughter! A dash in B&N to pick up a British home magazine! But I'm not ready to contemplate travel until a lot more people are vaccinated and the numbers are down.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Jonathan has had both shots---hurray, and it is such an amazing relief! He had absolutely no side effects. Not a shiver or even one moment of discomfort. It’s so reassuring and it feels like I am a thousand pounds lighter. In two weeks, he’ll be back in court, and that'll be incredibly weird. He now has a dentist appointment too, and I said--I’ll go with you! He said--why? And I realized, we have not done anything separately for a year. What a transition.

As for me, I’ve had my first shot, no side effects. And, if all goes as planned--please cross fingers for me here in Massachusetts, which is ridiculously disorganized--I’ll have my second one on March 9.

And let me say, how weird is it? That we are living in a time where the universe says: Okay. You won’t die IF you get a shot of something that will save you, but MAY make you briefly sick and unhappy, but in 12 hours you’ll be fine, so--will you do it?

And of course I will, with endless delight. 

RHYS: So who else has had their vaccines? And what does everyone dream of doing first?

Happy Thanksgiving to our Jungle Red Family!

Just stopping in today to let you know how grateful we are to all our Red readers--for your friendship, and this community, and your support of us and our books. Happy Thanksgiving with love and gratitude from Hallie, Hank, Rhys, Lucy, Debs, Julia, and Jenn!

Thanksgiving, Advent, and Turkey Salad on a Roll

Youngest showing her Turkey Spirit

JULIA: It's the last day of Thanksgiving vacation and the first Sunday of Advent, the liturgical season preceding Christmas. Advent is a nice balance to the pre-Christmas craziness, because it calls people to slow down, anticipate, and be mindful. For us, it means keeping the run-up to the holiday gradual; so today we'll put up some outside decorations (if the drizzle stops.) Next Sunday, the Smithie (and me, a little) will do indoor decorating. The third Sunday is known as Rose or Refreshment or, if you're British, "Stir-up" Sunday, and that's when we get our tree. 

Yes, that's our Shih Tzu on my sister's deck. He came along!

In some ways, I think instead of "keeping the Christmas spirit all year long," we should try to keep the Thanksgiving spirit throughout December - that kind of fun, mellow appreciation of family and friends. Yes, we stress on Thanksgiving - how can we bake the cornbread if the turkey's not out yet? What do we say when Great-Uncle Bob tries to hand out Trump bumper stickers? But nobody except Martha Stewart is trying to make Thanksgiving perfect. Good is good enough. 

The Boy and the Boy Wonder

So today's recipe is an turkey salad that uses the ingredients you still have hanging about in your fridge and pantry. Perfect for dinner tonight with soup or for your lunch bag tomorrow. Sadly, I have no turkey (!) so I think I'll pick up a plump chicken on the way home from church and roast that.

The original recipe was created by Jocelyn of inside BruCrew Life, a baking blog which has some great recipes.

3 cups cooked shredded turkey

 

3/4 cup chopped pecans

 

2 celery stalks, diced

 

1 cup dried cranberries

 

1 cup diced apple chunks

 

1/2 cup plain greek yogurt (Jocelyn substitutes this for half the mayo you might ordinarily use to cut the fat/calories down)

 

1/2 cup mayonnaise

 

1/2 cup fresh finely diced parsley (I actually had leftover spinach leaves when I made this salad last year, and they worked fine.)

 

salt and pepper to taste

 

King's Hawaiian dinner rolls (the original sponsors of the recipe. I used regular leftover white dinner rolls - for some reason, there is always one unopened sheet of dinner rolls after my holiday meals - but since we love Hawaiian bread, I can only imagine how delicious the salad would be on these.)

Mix it together. Yes, that's the sum of the preparation. My favorite kind of recipe. No, wait, I'll add a final instruction:

Relax while you enjoy your sandwich!

Me, the girls and Robbie at the National Zoo. We're all holding leaves Robbie gave us.

Good King Wenceslas Looked Out...

Since I mentioned we were going to be thirty-four for Christmas Dinner, I thought I'd post some pictures of the morning after!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Today is December 26th. It's the feast day of St. Stephen, Boxing Day in England and Canada, or perhaps you know it as 50% off All Christmas Merchandise Day. By whatever name, it's one of the best days in the whole Christmas season. The presents are already bought, wrapped and unwrapped. If you haven't gotten Christmas cards out yet, you now have a pass until next year. If you hosted Christmas Dinner, like we did, leftovers mean you don't have to cook for another couple of days, and if you didn't, you still likely have enough treats and temptations to graze on. All the work that goes into making Christmas is behind, with nothing but the pleasure of Christmas to look forward to. All right, you do have to bang out those thank-you letters today. But after that...?

For my family, the season between December 25th and Epiphany is a time filled with reading books, playing cutthroat board games, going to the movies and seeing friends. We go swimming at the Y, binge-watch Lord of the Rings and take long walks on snowshoes (this year it'll be with boots. We're having a wet, green Christmas in southern Maine.) We're particularly lucky - because Ross is a teacher, he's off work from before Christmas Day until after New Years. This year, the timing of both holidays means he and Youngest are at home until January 4. Then it'll be Twelfth night on the 5th, time for a second, smaller dinner party with our friends who weren't able to make it for Christmas Day.  

The actual season of Christmas is often lost in the rush of events, pushed aside by retailers and ignored by the 24-hour-a-day Christmas radio stations, who drop "Rockin'  Around the Christmas Tree" well before most people have taken theirs down. It's a shame, because keeping Christmas - the twelve days that brighten the darkest and coldest part of winter - is, in my experience, the best way to enjoy it. It prevents the post-presents hangover and keeps you from feeling like you've spent a month building up a single day and is that really it?

How about you, Reds? Do you keep Christmas after December 25th? What are your pleasures and pursuits between now and the New Year? 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Oh, see, I've solved this. I am SO behind that I will spend the day after Christmas (and Day too, most likely) doing my holiday, er, new years cards. It's not procrastination, or overwork, or tight scheduling, right? It's EXTENDING the season. Plus, the revisions of WHAT YOU SEE are due on Jan 2, and --I have to write a short story. And come up with a brilliant synopsis for another book. Or two.  Rum a pum pum. #needanotherweekortwo


RHYS BOWEN: I have fourteen people sleeping over on Christmas night so I'm anticipating Boxing Day (as we still call it) will start with a huge breakfast. If the weather is nice I hope we'll take a hike or play bocce ball. And like Julia, several board games or charades. This year our new game is Selfies. Someone has to take a selfie and the others have to choose the best caption for it.  And the old favorite is Taboo.

John and I are actually invited to a rather swank party in the evening so we'll leave the kids to fend for themselves. Hopefully lots of leftovers.

HALLIE EPHRON: Between Christmas and New Year is a quiet time for us and especially sweet when either of our daughters are visiting. Julia, I'm coming to your house! 

LUCY BURDETTE: I agree Hallie--Julia's post Christmas weeks sound lovely and relaxing! Alas, I'm almost as behind as Hank so I'll be right back to work. I would go to the post-Christmas decoration sales, but  there isn't much of that in Key West. It's the high season and no one wants to slash prices right now.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Julia, I love the quiet week between Christmas and New Year's. I want to watch all those Christmas movies I didn't get to, listen to Christmas music, and enjoy my tree. All the things I somehow didn't find time for BEFORE. But like everyone else I have load of work, so will sneak in what I can.

Julia, I don't know how you manage 34 for dinner. You will tell us, won't you? (We will assume you're still standing!)

JULIA: Still standing, though you'll notice this conversation didn't make it onto the blog until 9:30 in the morning! We have a large old farmhouse, a really big dining room table, and friends with good quality folding tables and chairs. So: 12 at the dining room table, 6 in the table by the Christmas tree (which gets taken down immediately after eating to clear the space for musicians and singers,) 8 20-somthings in the parlour and six college-and high-school youths at the kitchen table. We serve from the library, in the middle of all three rooms.

A festive time was had by all, as you can see from the pictures...

How about you, dear readers? What are your plans for the Feast of Stephen and beyond?

Oh, there's no place like home for the holidays...

 
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING:  Twas the day after the day after Christmas(1), and all through the house, not a creature was stirring... certainly not the kids, who have decided the winter vacation means they get to sleep until one in the afternoon. 

Yes, parents, it's the most wonderful time of the year, when your collegiate offspring come home dragging giant duffle bags of dirty laundry and your high-schooler gets to revel in fun and friends, until December 29, when he will suddenly remember he has a twelve-page research paper due the day he gets back to school. Oh, and his teacher insists on references from books - can you drive him to the library?

How to survive the infestation visitation of your own little Magi? Here are a few tips:

1. Try to rein in the nocturnal lifestyle of your kids. Left to their own devices, teens and young adults will fall into a vampiric rhythm; rising close to sunset and staying up until the dawn. This means you'll only have a tiny slice of "family time," each twenty-four hours, as you are nestled all snug in your bed at 10:55, ready to watch the WHDH-TV 7 news(2) and then turn out the lights. 

Don't bother to demand your kids adhere to a bedtime - their laughter (or polite amusement) will only humiliate you. Instead, try the guerilla approach: wake everyone for snow shoveling detail at 8:00am. A couple days of dawn patrol will turn the creatures of the night into--well, not humans,  exactly, but at least they'll be more like the Cullens.(3)

2. Speaking of dragging them outside, your teens will tend to fall into one of two camps. The first will refuse to come out of her room except for meals, spending all her time instant messaging her friends on some social networking platform that you won't even know about until two years from now when the New York Times does an article namechecking it as the hot new trend.(4)

The other kid will only appear as a blur in the corner of your eye, as he slams out the door headed for the slopes/the gym/his friend's house/the dance club. 

If you are the parent of the shy woodland creature, try laying a trail of Cheetos and Diet Dr. Pepper from her doorway into the family room. You can then trap her into watching TV with the rest of the family.(5)  If your teen is Action Dude, it's even simpler to get him to participate in family fun: just withhold the money he needs for lift tickets/gas/snacks/admission. Offer him five bucks for every property he can accumulate in Monopoly, and watch board game night take off!

3. On the subject of money - and your teen or young adult will rarely stray off  the subject of money - prepare for the unexpected expenses of his or her stay at home. Your weekly shopping trip will turn to daily dashes to the store, as your high schooler consumes an entire loaf of bread, jar of peanut butter, and gallon of milk daily.(6) Your college kid, who has discovered ethical locovorism, will only eat guaranteed cruelty-free organic meats raised by farmers in your area code. 

Even if their exercise consists solely of walking from the table to the TV, both offspring will take daily half-hour long showers. Your electrical bill will not be spared, as your teens cannot be in a room without turning on the TV/radio/stereo/computer. Needless to say, turning off electrical devices and lights is not one of their skill sets. There is nothing, really, that you can do about these added expenses, except reflect that your child's room and board bill is perhaps not as unreasonable as you first thought.

4. After a few days wallowing in the detritus of crumpled wrapping paper and thrice-heated leftovers, everyone needs a break. I suggest the movies. There are some wonderful films out there right now that brilliantly illuminate family life:
 

     Les Miserables: What awaits you if you don't finish those college applications and get them in by January 2nd!
     The Hobbit: Will irresistibly remind you of your last family trip, complete with lousy food, unexpectedly bad accommodations, and that one person who really doesn't want to be there and lets everyone else know it.
     Jack Reacher. Did you know Jack Reacher is a West Point grad? It's true. Wouldn't you like to be like Jack Reacher? Get the damn application in, already. 

Good luck, my fellow parents. With patience, humor, a couple bottles of wine and a Zoloft or two, you can get through the vacation intact. If you have any other gems of wisdom, dear readers, please share it with the rest of us on the back blog. At the very least, when your kids come wandering through and ask what you're doing, you can tell them you're hanging with your online homies on some social media site they've never heard of.
            

(1)Yes, fellow liturgical fans, I  know it's really the Feast of St. John the Evangelist. I wasn't born in a barn.

(2)Help Me, Hank!

(3)Twilight reference, oldsters. Pale skin and deep circles under their eyes. If your teen actually glitters in sunlight, seek professional assistance.

(4)By that time, everyone under the age of thirty will have long abandoned it for something else you (and the New York Times) doesn't know about.

(5) Be ready to sacrifice Sixty Minutes and How I Met Your Mother for some obscure cable show about zombies or time-travelers. Feign enthusiasm: you may be able to entice your kid to show you her fanfiction on AO3. If she uses the word, slash, don't look. Take my word on this.

(6) How does he do that? I mean, really? Does he have reticulated jaws and an infinitely stretchable stomach, like a python?