Holiday Season 2016

We've come into the holiday season and our apartment shows it. Our Christmas tree has been up and decorated for weeks and already it's base is filling up with presents. The felt pompom garland that Kev and I made together last year is back up. Along with it, Huxley's love of destroying poms, something he hasn't quite grown out of, is back too.

A little of life lately:

Ninth Street Espresso, an adorable black and white tiled cafe in Midtown east that feels very old Manhattan

My Etsy shop has been garnering more traffic this year since added ceramic pieces! Here, a wholesale order of cactus ring dishes being packed up to go to Australia. It's so incredible to think that these little things I've made will be on the other side of the world.

I've been able to go to pottery a little more often and it feels great to get back on the wheel. The studio does an annual ceramics sale for the holidays. Some adorable and humbling pieces that make me want to learn, practice, and make. Above are hanging planters made for sale. While I can make the base pieces, I love the painterly, haphazard style with which they are painted and it makes me want to push my own artistic instincts further.

After the election the studio hosted a "Japanese Soul Food" party to lift everyone's spirits. This was the first studio food party I'd been to and it was a lot of fun. So much food, mingling, and booze. I invited Kim to come by and she and I (well, mostly me since she'd come from a happy hour) just stuffed our faces chatting the whole time. 

Made to order takayuki! 

I've felt the spirit in NYC too as I deliver weekly batches of knit hats to the woman who's purchasing them wholesale at the Bryant Park Winter Village. Walking around midtown this time of year you can feel the crush of holiday tourists soaking in the store windows, omnipresent carols blasted out of nowhere in particular, and the smell of chestnuts mixed with a touch of hot dog.

We had our usual ambitious Thanksgiving, making a soup to serve out of our prized Anthropologie beast's feet ceramic bowl, various veggie sides, ice cream, and even bringing a Trader Joe's maple bourbon crumble sweet potato pie to boot. Here's the absolute chaos the house can become as so many grown people try to wrangle the dogs, each with their own crazy personality.

Other food and drink highlights:

Kev sometimes says "you know how I like to randomly make restaurant reservations?" and it's a pretty adorable activity of his. I like seeing Google calendar invitations come every so often for dinner at some new place about which I'm always just about to hear rumblings. Aska showed up on my calendar perhaps back in October. We went and had a great meal there.. it was a long night filled with bold food and a fun drink pairing. We left with ceramic cheese knives (I mean, come on! This place has my heart.) The following Monday, Aska was awarded 2 Michelin stars. 

Finback Brewery is a local Queens spot that Kev and I had never heard about until a couple of weeks ago. IT IS SO CLOSE. How could we have never gone? They had some nice beers, long picnic tables, and games in their warehouse space which seems to rise completely out of nowhere out of the very very deep-Queens residential neighborhood.

Girl time:

Morgan was here this weekend and we spent Saturday out in the city doing girly things like a Sephora make up appointment and a Dry Bar blowout. We went to dinner with friends and walked through Rockefeller Center to get there. There was a sea of people moving in molasses-like currents and they swayed us this way and that, having us pass by the tree, the Saks Fifth Ave light show, and some windows before we got to Sake Bar Hagi. The place was Japanese but the feeling was Christmas-y: a long table of friends feasting, drinking, sharing, and laughing. 

feeling very glam after Sephora makeup and Dry Bar appointments