On Monday of this week I e-mailed Joanna # 16, Remains of Innocence, to my editor in New York.  It was, as Helen Reddy would say, “a long hard climb.”  Books do not necessarily come to order just because I want them to or because a deadline is bearing down on me or is past!  Books are like babies, they come in their own good time–when they are ready.

So I did not expect to be finishing a book in the second week of December.  It’s Christmas after all, and finishing the book on Monday means that I have exactly SIX days to get ready for Christmas.  All of you may have just looked at your calendars and said to yourselves, six days?  What’s she smoking?  There are way more days than that.

Unfortunately, not in THIS house.  Our big family Christmas celebration is called Liljulaften, and it happens, depending on the timing of Christmas that year, either the Sunday before Christmas or the Sunday a week and a half before Christmas.  Guess which Sunday that is this year!

My mother was a great one for not “chewing her cabbage twice.”  I explained all about Liljulaften last year.  If you don’t believe me, here’s a link that should send you to last year’s post: Liljulaften, December 21, 2012.

When I read in Dear Abby or Ann Landers about families battling about where to go for holiday celebrations, I want to whack them over the head and hand them my mother’s recipe dodging that “it’s my turn” bullet.

So this will be a short blog post today.  Sorry.  I’ve got my Amex card in my pocket, and I’m off to the races!!!

Happy Liljulaften, folks, and for the Scandinavians out there?  Yes, we’ll be having lefse, but this house is definitely a lutefisk free zone.