Another year over...

Well, Christmas has come and gone. All my preparations, all my decorations, all leading up to the big day, and now it's over. Sure, I've got my presents to keep my warm, and I'll keep up the decorations until Little Christmas (that's January 6th -- the Epiphany -- to the rest of you), but the main festivities are done and over with.

All in all, this year was a pretty decent one. No catastrophes, no drama, and I got everything I asked for. (Okay, so there were only two items on my list this year, but I got 'em, and that's all that matters.)

So here, then, is my Christmas roundup.

Firstly, a family tradition, which was almost lost to the ages this year. Each year on Christmas morning, I eat fruit stollen for breakfast. "Stollen?" you ask. "What the fuck is that?" Well, it's kinda like a fruit cake, only it's a little cakier, and it's covered with powdered sugar and it's got some kind of jelly center. Entenmann's, by far, makes the best one. And every year growing up, Mom would always have a fruit stollen on the table Christmas morning. There were, naturally, only two other members of my family who enjoyed it besides me -- Mom, and Grandmom Berenato. With both of them long gone, it's up to me to carry on the tradition.

This year, it almost didn't happen. Neither WalMart, ShopRite, SuperFresh, Inferrara's or Bagliani's had it. Panicked, downtrodden, I was about to give up, when I remembered that the ShopRite in Williamstown also used to carry it. Twenty-five minutes later, I run to their Entenmann's section, and BAM! Stollen! Sweet, sweet stollen! Yay!

While I was there, I checked out their decoration section, as everything was 50% off. I picked up these awesome little gems:

This magnificent bastard is 18" tall. I've never owned a nutcracker before, and I thought this was the perfect way to rectify that.

It's a snowman candy jar! How awesome is that? I've got it filled with Brach's peppermint nougat candies. Mmmm....

And, of course, the last thing I picked up at ShopRite was this...

Yep. I bought a Santa hat. And you bet your sweet ass I wore it Christmas morning. :)

I have mentioned all the jellies and so forth that Helena and I have worked on since August, and have also alluded to our ultimate goals for them. This year, every family member got them in a basket for Christmas and, if I do say so myself, they got some amazing fucking presents. Observe:

This was for my sister Annie and her husband Mike.

This was for my sister Debbie and her husband Joe.

This was for Helena's parents.

This was for my grandfather.

This was for my dad and his wife, Heidi.

Everyone loved them. I got compliments on the color of the jam -- which apparently is something to be proud of, Annie was excited about the hot pepper jelly, and Dad and Heidi were absolutely tickled over the Moahwk Farms mugs. So it's safe to say they were a hit.

We naturally got together at my dad's for Christmas Eve, where we had our traditional baccala, which is a stew consisting of cod (hence the name, which means "cod" in Italian), white potatoes, sweet potatoes, celery, onions and raisins in a tomato sauce. We also had fried shrimp, shrimp cocktail, and shrimp, clams and broccoli over linquini. It is, by no means, seven fishes as is tradition, but it's more than enough for us.

After my dad's, it was off to Helena's parents, where I got this:

It's my eagerly awaited DC Vault! Among various other treasures, it also contains a working replica of a Junior Justice Society of America Decoder Ring! Now I can send and receive secret messages! Awesome!

That night, the presents went under my tree...

...and it was off to bed to wait for Jolly Ol' St. Nick.

The next morning I was up bright and early and off to see my son and his siter (my god-daughter), who were already busy at play with their presents. Justin was enamored with is new "Spyro" game...

...while Taylor was trying to figure out how to work their new printer.

They both managed to rip themselves away from their new toys long enough, however, for me to open MY present from them...

...an absinthe glass and absinthe spoon! The resevoir at the bottom is measured for the perfect amount of absinthe, and then you place a sugar cube in thte spoon and drip ice water over it before you drink. Those kids are awesome, seriously.

After I left the kids, I stopped off at the cemetary to visit Mom, as I am wont to do on holidays and special occasions. And, as I have been known to do every Christmas, I left a small piece of stollen near the graveside. I know she's not going to eat it, but in my mind it's no different than leaving an empty chair or pouring out a beer for a fallen comrade. It's a memorial gesture.

From there, it was back home, and present time! I got Helena two cookbooks, one by The Barefoot Contessa and one by Giada De Laurentiss; "Alias" Season 5; a package of knitting needles; and some blocking wire contraption thingy.

From Helena I got these:

The "Family Guy" DVDs should, I believe, bring me up to date, and "The Simpsons" DVDs bring me that much closer to completion. "Star Trek Season 3 Remastered," however, DOES complete my collection, and fulfills the dream I've had since I was a kid of owning the complete series. Stay tuned for an eventual review of the entire remastered series.

For dinner we ate at my dad's again. This time it was ravioli, meatballs and sausage, a Berenato family tradition. Afterwards, we took a drive around town (and for those of you who live in Hammonton, take a drive by the house on Third Street, between North and Walnut. It's the one where the lighs are flahsing like crazy. Tune your radio to 104.1FM, and enjoy. The lights are synched with the music. It's amazing, particularly when "Carol of the Bells" comes on) then went home and called it a night.

And that was Christmas for me. For once, I actually got everything I wanted, everything went rather smoothly, and everyone appeared to have a good time.

Like I said, stay tuned for the eventual review of the "Star Trek" DVDs, and next week I should have a wrap-up of my New Year's Eve festivities, too.

Oh... and make sure you ALL buy this week's copy (that's the 12/24 edition) of The Hammonton Gazette. My column is the feature story for the Entertainment section!

It's the happiest season of all...

So last time, I posted a rather extensive list of all of the decorations I had up to that point.

I also alluded to the fact that not ALL of them had been put up yet, and perhaps I'd get around to it.

Well, I did.

The Prettiest Picture You've Ever Seen...

Everyone has a staple for holiday decorating. For some, it's statues. For others, it's candles. For me, it's cardboard cut-outs.

Growing up as I did, where every holiday was an explosion of color throughout the house, holidays just wouldn't be holidays without accompanying cardboard cut-outs crapping up the cabinets. Mom had 'em for everything, and I mean EVERYTHING -- she even had cut-out heads of Lincoln and Washington for President's Day. So, going with what I know, I am in love with the idea of adorning my cabinetry with the tackiest bits of paper every produced, and the cheesier the better. (The notable exceptions to the "cheesy" rule are "Peanuts" cut-outs. I have 'em for Easter, Halloween and St. Patrick's Day, and don't find them the least bit cheesy. I just wish I had some for Christmas and Valentine's Day. But I digress...)

Thus, without further ado...

Aren't they just the bee's knees?

And So This is Christmas...

I often tend to go a bit overboard for Christmas, I'll freely admit it. But I come by it honestly, considering my ancestry. And, truth be told, I doubt that if Mom were still around that I'd have HALF the decorations I have.

Case in point -- my holiday dishware. Every year, around the beginning of December, Mom would take out all of our dishes and glasses and replace them with the Christmas dishes. It was always a nice additional touch that signified the impending approach of the holiday. When she passed and we were readying her house for the estate sale, we naturally had to go through every cabinet. It was my sister Debbie who made the discovery, and announced her findings with the simple pronouncement, "Wow. There's Christmas." And we all knew what she meant. Tucked in the back of one, above her refrigerator, was her entire set of Christmas dishes.

I laid claim to them, and now use them every year, and it makes the holiday seem that much more... I don't know, homey.

It's a Good Old-Fashioned Christmas, Down on the Farm...
So, our farm has been in our family since 1922, and has had frontage on the Atlantic City Expressway since the highway in question -- thanks to eminent domain -- cut across our farm in 1964. In all that time, the only occasion when it was even remotely decorated for Christmas was back in 1981, not long after R.C. Maxwell leased a portion of ground from us and erected a billboard (you know the one located on Local Road? Yeah, that's kinda ours). That year, nobody had rented the side of the billboard facing westbound traffic on the Expressway, so my father managed to finagle the company into letting us rent it for the month of December. Two criss-crossing candy canes and some holly were printed on it, along with the message, "Merry Christmas From Mohawk Farms."

And that was the last time. Until now.

This past summer, as many of you know, my step-sister Nyckie painted, on the side of our building, her interpretation of our farm's logo, designed by Matt Orsman, of Mirthquake Productions in Mulvane, KS. Since the new logo went up on the wall, I'd wanted to put spotlights on it, so that it could clearly be seen from the Expressway at night. Christmas seemed like the perfect time to do it, and while I was at it, I decided to throw up some lights on the loading dock. This is the result.

Bonus Track: "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells" Redux

I realize this is not, technically, a Christmas decoration, but it's my blog, and I make the rules, so I'll post whatever the fuck I want! Er... I mean... it's not technically a decoration, but it does qualify as my first official Christmas present. It was drawn by my friend Chris "Mouse" Lowry -- the girl who designed and did the first application of my two tattoos -- and she has truly outdone herself. I love it absolutely, and it will be adorning my walls year 'round.

She doesn't have a website that I know of, but you can check out more of her work by visiting her myspace profile. And, if anyone is looking for ink, I can't endorse her enough. Her work is simply incredible.

And that's about it for my pre-Christmas postings. Be sure to stay tuned to my next entry, where I give the low-down on all of my Christmas festivities, and reveal whatever wonderful presents Santa decides to shower me with this year.

And points to anyone who can correctly identify the songs where I got my section titles from this entry!

Merry Christmas!

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Christmas is just around the corner, and if there's one thing I've inherited from my mother, it's a deep love for this time of year.

Keeping Christmas in my heart, as it were, hasn't been particularly easy the last several years. As many of you know, Mom died on December 16, 2004 -- nine scant days before Christmas. December 16th also happens to be my son's birthday, and this year he'll turn 13. (December 16, 2004 was also the day that Chris's twins were born... busy day, that.)

Her death on his birthday kinda cast a pall on the season for a while. Oh, don't get me wrong -- I've decorated, and I've celebrated, because that's just what you do, and Mom loved Christmas so fucking much that to do anything else seems a dishonor to her memory.

As I'm sure some of you remember, Christmas at my house when I was growing up was so damn festive that, if Christmas were a person, Mom would have been arrested for stalking. There were cardboard cut-outs galore, and garland, and lights, and statues, and figurines, and mistletoe and holly... and the coup de grace, of course, was Mom's Santa Claus collection which, at its height, featured more than 200 figurines of the jolly old elf. But it was homey, it was festive, it was open to everyone, and it is what I think of first and foremost -- and thus what I miss most dearly -- when I think of Christmas.

This year marked the first year that Justin honestly and truly wanted to decorate for Christmas. His spirits being brightened have certainly lifted mine, and thus this was the first year I truly enjoyed decorating MY meagre accommodations in a very long time.

It's not much -- it's not nearly as much as when I owned a house, to be sure -- but it makes me happy.

So, without further ado, here are some pictures of this year's holiday goodness.

Away in a Manger

Traditionally, I don't do a lot of religiocentric decorating, but every year until I die I will put up this Nativity. The manger, you see, was built by my father, long before I was born. And the figures were cold-cast and painted by my mother, in 1986. I remember coming home from school, every day for like a month, and mom would be busy at work, painting and detailing this figure and that, getting the textures just right on the camel's hair, or adding little beads to one of the wise man's crowns, or getting the biggest kick out of the fact that she painted one of the wise men black. (Hey, it was 1986, and it was Hammonton. Cut her some slack, wouldja?!) This is the ONE thing I possess that my parents both made, and that makes it extremely special to me.

Winter Wonderland


I think Mom always got a kick out of my love of diners. I've been a diner rat since my Junior year of high school, when Jim Mento showed up with his new license and took Chris and I to the Harley Dawn for the first time, because he really wanted eggs. Bottomless coffee? Really? Glorious, we said, and thus began my lifelong love affair with the stuff. To make me happy (Mom always wanted to make us kids happy on Christmas, or what was the point?) she bought this little item, and I've put it up every year since her passing becuase it's just so damn cool. :)

Deck the Halls

I live in an apartment, which often sucks. I don't have a roof to decorate, I don't have enough lawn space to put up my blow-up Santa Homer, and I don't have a driveway to line with giant plastic candy canes.

All I've got is my hallway. But at least I've got that, and I always try to make the best of it.

See what I mean?

I bought this, I think, at either WalMart or Shop Rite. I thought it was cute.

This metal sign isn't nearly as old as it looks. Mom bought it sometime in the 80s, I believe, because it had a nice retro look to it. I agree, and it goes well with the first sign.

Helena and I made this wreath last year, with bits and baubles we bought at AC Moore. We had so much fun making it that we made one for my dad, and one for my grandfather, too. I have no idea if they're putting theirs up this year, but I sure as hell did.

You're a Mean One...

The Grinch was Mom's, and it's probably older than some of you reading this right now. Both Donald and Homer are all mine. (And the cool thing about Homer is that there's a button you press that makes him dance and say seven or eight wacky phrases. My current favorite? "Oh, Cruel Fate, Why do you mock me?!")

Here Comes Santa Claus...

Like I said, my mom once had an impressive collection of Santa Claus figurines. Upon her passing, though, there was just no way any of us could keep them all, sadly. At her estate sale, Annie took some, as did Debbie, and I took the ones that I either bought her, that I thought were cool, or that held some special meaning for me. I've added the occasional Santa-esque figurine -- and I'm sure you can pick those out -- but the vast majority come from her collection.

(Left to Right) Santa Donald, Chicago Bears Santa, North Pole Express, Jack Skellington and Elf, Santa Snowman, Polish woodcarved Santa, Bedtime Santa, Kiss the Claus Santa.

(Left to Right) Pere Noel, St. Nicholas, African American Santa, Melting Snowman (I know he's not Santa, but he's cute), Father Christmas, Chef Santa.

(Left to Right) Santa and Mrs. Claus workshop music box, Father Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas musical snowglobe.

Jingle Bells, Batman Smells...

My Christmas decorations, of course, would not be complete without something Bat-related...

This is a Christmas plate done a few years ago by Alex Ross. In the foreground is a scene from "A Charlie Brown Christmas," released several years back from Hallmark.

O Christmas Tree...

Lastly, we come to the centerpiece of any Christmas decor, my Christmas tree. I have one that's 72" in height, but couple small living space with two couches and a very curious cat, and that tree is going to have to ttay in storage for a while. Fortunately, there are always alternatives.

This tree is a little over 24" high, and it's fiber optic. So no matter how curious the cat gets, he can't climb it and he can't knock any ornaments off. This is perfectly suited to my needs for the time being.

I have other Christmas decorations -- glasses and plates, dishtowels, a table runner, and a mountain of cardboard cutouts -- but I haven't put them up yet. Maybe tomorrow or the next day.

But at least I got this much accomplished. And if it stays at this much, it's festive enough for me.

I can import from Facebook?

So apparently there's a feature on facebook that allows me to import any and all blog posts here.

This is nothing more than a test of that feature.

I should probably include a picture, too, to really test it out.

Let's see what kind of wackiness I can find...



There. That oughta do it...

UPDATE: Success! Oh man, does THIS make life easy...

Talk about ending on a sour note...

So, today was a pretty good day, which, I suppose for our our narrative purposes, began yesterday.

Last night I got a wild hair up my ass and decided that I needed to make zucchini relish, then and there. I had my mom's old recipe -- which I loved as a kid -- so all I needed were a few ingredients. I had all the spices, so off to the store I went, and bought 17 zucchini.

I know -- fuckload of zucchini, no? Also picked up four peppers, and four onions.

Peel, peel, peel, slicey-slicey, chop chop, and boom -- a giant pile of mush. Only this pile had to drain overnight, so I put it in a colander and went to bed.

This morning, when I got home from coffee at the farm (see, the season's all but over now, so there's nothing to do but go down and bullshit with my father and grandfather for an hour or so over coffee, then go home), I threw in one of my new Star Trek Season One Remastered discs, and watched "Where No Man Has Gone Before."

Good day thus far.

Pretty soon, UPS came a-knockin', and they had THIS badboy waiting for me:

Beautiful, no? I had one made up from CafePress.com, and rushed here overnight, so I knew how it'd look. Because, if it came out looking halfway decent, I was going to have a few more made and give them to my father, his wife, and my grandfather for Christmas, along with a few jars of the stuff that I've made over the last several months. I like how it looks, and just ordered three more.

After "WNMHGB" finished, it was time to work on the relish. All of the juice had drained out of the mashed mess, so I rinsed it off in cold water, and threw it in a pot with the rest of the ingredients. After a half-hour of simmering, I poured the mixture into 16 8 oz jars, and now have a bunch of these:

...tasty goodness, my friends, let me tell you. Tastes just like my mom used to make. Which, of course, is exactly what I was hoping for, as I can't fucking STAND zucchini in any other form.

Now, combined with the tomato sauce I canned, a bunch of different jams (strawberry, peach, strawberry peach, blueberry, and hot pepper), and the bread and butter pickles I made from mom's recipe (did I ever show those? I don't think so. Here they are...

...don't they look tasty?) I'll have a bunch of easy gifts I can give to the fam that don't really violate our "no presents for adults" rule, as I didn't really go out and buy them... I made them.

PLUS, McDonald's re-opened today, so I was finally able to get my McCrackBurger fix again, after two or three months of denial. And they fucked up my order, or course... I ordered two cheeseburgers and a six-pack of nuggets. They forgot the nuggets, and when I went in to complain/get my nuggets, the manager gave me a ten-pack and two coupons for free desserts. How the fuck can you beat that?

So I'm on top of the fucking world. I can't be stopped. I'm James Fucking Cagney at the end of White Heat.


...and, much like Cagney, once I've made it to the top of the world, it explodes.

I go to WaWa, unstoppable. I need something to drink, but not something sugary and crappy. I've been trying to drink healthy-ish drinks late at night, and I notice this little gem:


It's got pineapple, coconut, orange, and protein, and it's called "Naked." How can I go wrong? Simple. By not reading the label fully, like a fuckass.

See, it's also got soy, and I fucking hate soy. The drink itself didn't taste bad, per se... but it's got the consistency of Pepto Bismol, and an aftertaste that honestly and truly tastes like goat feet.

Fucked up my whole day, it did.

Recent Acquisition Awesomeness, and excuses for not blogging.

Yeah, so it's been a little while since my last update. Sue me.

It's been a rollercoaster the last two-plus months.

Four more funerals.

Rodman Bakley passed away on October 9, which was hard, because he wasn't just Cheryl's dad... he was one of us. It's really difficult to explain if you're not in the know, but Rod was MORE than Cheryl's dad. He was our friend. He was our mascot. He was awesome.

And then, a week later, on October 16 -- what would have been my mom's 62nd birthday -- Bob Craig's mom passed away, suddenly and unexpectedly.

Two parent deaths in our group, within a week of each other.

Then there was my car accident on November 1, which by now just about all of you have heard about.

Then two MORE funerals, back to back, mid-November. The first was Angelina Juliano, who was my landlord's mother, but who more importantly was a cool old lady I got drunk with in Poland. The other was Harry Jacobs, the man who lived nextdoor to us when I was growing up. Because of him, I'm used to the sound of gunshots in the morning. (You can read more about Harry here: http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/179/story/330534.html)

...and here we are.

Within the last four days, I've gotten several bits of awesomeness, with more on the way.

The first, and most expensive:

The Analon Advanced 10-Piece Cookware Set

• Includes: 1.5 Qt. and 3 Qt. Covered Saucepans, 8 Qt. Covered Stockpot, 8" and 10" French Skillets, 11"/4.25 Qt Covered Saute, 5 Qt Covered Sauteuse
• SureGrip Handles, a combination of stainless steel and silicone rubber
• Break-resistant dome shaped glass lid
• Oven safe to 400°F (Covered Sauteuse oven safe to 500°F)

These goddamn things are great. I'd been fucking around with 9-year old T-Fal pieces of shit that I got in the divorce. The Teflon had scraped off of most of them, making them damn near impossible to clean, the heat distribution was hellish, the handles were loose and I just hated them.

These, though? They're fucking wonderful. The saucepans are deep, not wide, which is perfect for the small-ass stove that my apartment has. The stockpot is bigger than my old one, and is the perfect size for a good pot of tomato gravy. And the best part? The nonstick surface is, by far, the best I've EVER encountered. Dinner the other night was rigatoni carbonara -- delicious, to be sure, but a sticky mess when dried. I mean, you've got congealed bacon grease, romano cheese and egg in the sauce. And the Sauteuse took me exactly 30 seconds to clean. That shit came RIGHT off. I've never seen anything like it.

Next up in my list of awesome acquisitions...

Star Trek Original Series Pez Dispenser Collector's Set

How fucking cool are these things? I was in Shop Rite tonight, buying pork chops and kosher salt (which, in retrospect, just seem so wrong to put together!), and there, right with the Christmas stuff, was this little bundle of joy. All by itself. The only one.

How could I possibly pass this up? It was $17.99, and I get decent likenesses of the orignal seven, plus a pretty cool Enterprise Pez dispenser. The only dilemma I have, of course, is whether or not to take these puppies out of their package.

And finally, arriving in a few days...

Star Trek: The Original Series, Season One Remastered

When this first hit the market, it was a whopping $132.95. See, the discs contain both DVD and HD-DVD content. "HD-DVD?" you ask. "Who the hell has that anymore?"

Precisely. Seems that HD-DVD lost the format war to Blu-Ray, so all of the HD content on these puppies is obsolete. As such, Paramount dropped the price from $132.95 down to $79.99. It's still high, but when you consider that there are 27 episodes, and I've paid $40 or so for 10 episodes of Battlestar Galactica, it's really not so bad. But it was still out of my price range.

Until two or so weeks ago, when Best Buy had this fucking crazy one-day sale, and this collection went on sale for $39.99. Jesus Christ on a shortbreak cookie, did I jump right on that motherfucker. Dipsy-doo-dunkaroo, click-click-boom, ordered, price locked in, and... backordered. No worries, though... just got a shipping email yesterday, and my prize is on its way.

Just for shits and giggles, I re-checked the SKU number on Best Buy's website, and it's back up to $79.99. Fuck me if I didn't get that just in the nick of time.

I'd gotten Season Two already when that came out, and Amazon had a pre-order special that dropped $20 off the MSRP, bringing it down to $59.99. Now all I have to do is get Season 3 -- and I'm hoping that Santa will be kind enough to bring that to me -- and I'll finally, FINALLY have the complete original series.

The best part of these sets is that it's the remastered series. ALL of the FX shots have been painstakingly re-done using CGI, so all of the cheese -- which apparently is much beloved by many a Trekkie, but I'm sure as fuck not one of those purist bastards -- is gone. The ships look like ships, the space battles are more convincing, and the FX no longer look like they were created using MS Paint.

But don't take my word for it, take a look. The original FX shots are on the left, and the new are on the right. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Fuckin' A, man.

With the new Star Trek movie coming out in May, it certainly is a good time to be a Trekkie. (Yeah, I said I'm a Trekkie. Seriously, is there anyone left out there who didn't know that? Where the fuck have you been for the last twenty years?)

**************************************

Anyway, that's what I've been up to the last two months. Hopefully my next post won't take me so fucking long.