Every year around the holidays, my cousin Katrina, goes into warrior baking mode. It’s two solid weekends of sugar, butter and flour. She will literally spend an entire weekend just making dough. She freezes it and the next weekend she bakes from dawn to dark. I’m not exaggerating! I think she makes about 15 different varieties every year – which makes my 2-3 types of cookies look like a truly anemic effort. This is Katrina’s recipe and it’s become a standard every Christmas. She calls them Pecan Pie Cookies. I call them fabulous!
The recipe starts with the cookie dough (of course). Creaming sugar and butter together, then adding the dry ingredients.
Then comes the filling: chopped pecans, brown sugar, cream and vanilla.
To assemble the cookies, start by rolling the dough into a ball. Katrina says you can use your knuckle to make an indentation in the dough. I tried this, but my hands are too small to make a decent well and the dough stuck to my finger – so I used an old trick — I sprayed the back of a rounded measuring spoon with vegetable spray and pressed it into the cookies to hollow out the center.
Then I filled the cookies with the pecan mixture and… well… this is where I veered off her recipe a little. I sprinkled the cookies with fleur de sel — sea salt. Scott and I love the interplay of sweet with salty and those little pops mingled with the sugary cookie is outstanding!
And then there’s the bourbon glaze. I know. BOURBON GLAZE.
Just three ingredients: powdered sugar, bourbon and a dab of cream. Stir them together until smooth, then drizzle over the cooled cookies. With the crispy pecans, sweet, buttery cookie, pops of fleur de sel and the sweet, spiked glaze — these cookies have it all. Let the holidays begin!
Image: Lisa Lotts
Sea Salt Bourbon Pecan Cookies
Yields 36
For the cookies
1 cup brown sugar
3⁄4 cup butter (softened)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups all purpose flour
Fleur de sel (fine sea salt)
For the filling
1 cup chopped pecans
1⁄2 cup brown sugar
1⁄4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
For the glaze
1 1/2 tablespoons bourbon
2 teaspoons heavy cream
1 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
In a medium bowl, add all the ingredients for the filling. Stir to combine and set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar with a hand mixer. Add the egg and vanilla and mix to combine.
In a smaller bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt -- whisk together to combine.
Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix on low speed until flour is incorporated. Add the remaining flour and mix until just combined. With your clean hands, shape the dough into 1 1/4" balls. Spray the back of a rounded teaspoon with vegetable spray and make an indentation in the cookie dough. Add one teaspoon of the pecan filling to the indentation. Sprinkle cookies with a pinch of fleur de sel. Bake for 8-12 minutes.
Transfer cookies to a cooling rack.
In a small bowl combine the powdered sugar, bourbon and heavy cream, stir until smooth and creamy. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cookies. Let the cookies sit until the glaze has hardened and store in an airtight container, separated by parchment paper.
We often forget that protecting our dogs' sensitive little feet in the winter as just as important as it is in the summer. But who wants to spend a ton of money buying dog shoes when they're only going to be outside in the freezing cold long enough to get all that pent-up energy out?
These DIY dog booties are the perfect answer to your freezing dog paw conundrum. They're inexpensive to make — yet your dog will still look totally adorable wearing them.
What you'll need:
Sewing machine
Scissors
Velcro
Fabric pins
1/3 yard of fabric (water-resistant nylon or microfiber polyester recommended)
Choose the appropriately sized template for your dog (small, medium or large), and cut out each shape (toe, sole and upper boot).
Use your cutouts as a guide to trace 4 copies onto your fabric. Once you've cut out your fabric, you should have 4 toe, 4 sole and 4 upper boot pieces.
Add the Velcro strips by first measuring your dog's paw to determine what length to cut your Velcro strips. Cut 4 lengths of Velcro, then sew them (soft side down) onto the tabs of the upper boot pieces.
Begin to sew the boots by first folding the top edge of an upper boot piece and sewing a straight-stitch hem.
Next, align the wide arch of a toe piece with the narrow curved edge of a sole piece. Pin and sew in place.
Align the narrow arch of the toe piece with the arched portion of the upper boot piece. Pin and sew in place.
By this point, you should begin to see the shape of the boot coming together. Using pins, connect all additional gaps and sew the remaining seams in place.
Note: As you assemble each boot, you should be working with your fabric inside out. When all of your stitches are in place, flip the boot right side out to hide your seams.
Just to be clear from the outset, she’s not talking about “more fundamentalist NRMs like the Children of God, the Branch Davidians, the Unification Church and above all Scientology” being positive experiences for women. Rather, she focuses on NRMs that were founded or run by women, including the Brahma Kumaris and Sahaja Yoga, as well as the Osho movement, which she was a part of for five years.
Puttick’s argument is that women have traditionally been treated badly by the old religions, “despised as the weaker sex morally and physically.” However, NRMs, like the Osho movement, the more progressive Buddhist movements, pagan and shamanic groups offer women “spiritual power and status, including a path to becoming enlightened in the Eastern-based movements,” she explained.
But Steven Hassan, psychologist and rehabilitation expert — himself a former cult member — “disagree(s) wholeheartedly” with Puttick’s assertion.
Hassan finds the Brahma Kumaris group, which Puttick singled out in her Broadly interview, particularly problematic.
“I’ve worked with women who were beaten and raped in the group — including by leaders. So it’s just complete bull on so many levels,” he told SheKnows.
However, Hassan did agree with Puttick’s distinction that some pagan and nature-based movements can be positive experiences for women and tend to be anti-misogynist.
As far as the differences between cults and other groups that may be empowering for women, Hassan defers to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which stipulates that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”
“Freedom of religion means freedom of mind first, and freedom to have informed consent and freedom to leave and question the guru,” Hassan said.
No photos of the wedding have surfaced online yet, but Mykelti did post photos to Instagram last week showing how she was getting ready for her big day.
Sister Wives Mykelti Brown pre wedding pics
Sister Wives Mykelti Brown pre wedding pics
"And bridal routine begins with a long night, dyed hair, and an eventual fave mask complete with teeth whitening strip," she captioned the shot, showing her with a couple of her bridesmaids.
Mykelti's wedding isn't even the only big news in the Brown family this week. Maddie Brown, who walked down the aisle with her now-husband Caleb Brush last summer, is already pregnant.
Maddie announced her big news on Instagram with a shot of Brush kissing her pregnant belly captioned, "So happy to announce our little addition!!" alongside a blue heart emoji. Does that mean it's a boy?!
Maddie Brown announces surprise pregnancy on Insta
Maddie Brown announces surprise pregnancy on Insta
Now, Maddie has a hurdle to overcome that's new for the Brown family: What will her little one call its four grandmas? She discussed the challenge with People magazine, saying, "We think it would be super cute to have different names for all the grandmas, like Oma, Grams or Babicka — 'Grandma' said differently or in different languages. Ultimately, they get to choose what they are called, but my dad [Kody] will probably be Grandpa."
You know that cabinet full of mismatched plastic food containers you have, the one you're afraid to open because junk falls out of it every time you do? The stuff you know you shouldn't microwave but do anyway, because you're a busy woman? The containers you'd love to replace with nice glassware if only you were a millionaire?
Well today is your lucky day, because Macy's is selling a Pyrex 22-piece glass food containers set right now for $35. Did we mention you can put these in the oven? And that they come in different sizes? And that you're going to bring your lunch to work with dignity from now on? Did we mention how much more attractive leftovers are when you put them in a nice container? Did we mention you get another 15 percent off using the code GIFT?
Some of you are still not convinced. Your'e feeling like 22 pieces is a lot, and you don't cook that much. Well, there's also the 10-piece set for $24.
So yeah. We're just going to put this here and let you decide what to do.
The ongoing lawsuit with Victoria Rowell, Sony Pictures and Corday Productions might soon have a conclusion, because Days of Our Lives says they have a good reason they didn’t hire her. If California federal judge John Kronstadt believes their argument, Rowell’s suit might come to an end.
Rowell told her story to Oprah Winfrey in October and explained why she pursued the lawsuit to begin with.
“Here in Hollywood, I have long championed diversity, not only for African-Americans, but for all minorities, for gender bias, etc.” Rowell said in the Oprah: Where Are They Now? interview.
Some fans argue that Rowell is upset that The Young and the Restless moved on without her character, Drucilla Barber Winters, when she wanted to return in 2015. It was her decision to leave the soap in the first place back in 2007.
While Hollywood is still trying to catch up when it comes to reflecting what America looks like in film and TV, daytime soaps have been at the forefront of groundbreaking storylines. That’s why Ken Corday hopes to end this lawsuit once and for all.
This week, his lawyers fired back with a summary judgment motion and gave a simple reason why Rowell was not hired on DOOL — and it had nothing to do with her activism in the industry. It was about her veteran experience on daytime soaps.
"Rather, Plaintiff — who has years of daytime drama experience and her own fan base — was not the right actress to play Melinda Trask, a minor, one-note character who appeared in only 20 episodes of DOOL," Corday's lawyers wrote in the motion.
To bolster their case, DOOL brought in casting director Marnie Saitta, who has worked on the show for years, matching the right actors with characters. She felt that the role wasn’t right for Rowell because it didn’t need an actress of substance. Rowell delivered a high standard with her prior work on Y&R.
Saitta also mentioned that there was no retaliation for not allowing her to audition due to her advocacy work. The casting director found her call for diversity a positive one for the industry.
Corday is calling this a "legitimate, non-retaliatory reason" for taking Rowell off the audition list. Will this reason alone end the case once and for all?
Rowell has a huge fight ahead of her if the case goes to trial because she will have to prove speculation alone kept her out of the role, which is anything but concrete. She also has to deal with Sony Pictures trying to end their part in the lawsuit because they have nothing to do with Days of Our Lives.
It’s certainly complicated, but Rowell seems ready to see it through to the end.
The reality TV couple's financial woes have been well documented, but now they're facing a new blow: City National Bank filed a lawsuit against them earlier this week demanding payments on a loan that Spelling and McDermott reportedly secured four years ago.
E! News has the Los Angeles Superior Court documents that allegedly show Spelling and McDermott borrowed $400,000 from the bank in 2012, but somewhere along the way, stopped making their payments on the loan.
Court documents say that as of Dec. 2, Spelling and McDermott owe $185,714 on the loan itself, plus $2,407 in interest and $681 in late fees.
What's even more than that, the bank is claiming that Spelling overdrew $17,149 in September, and is demanding she pay that back too, in addition to any attorney's fees that bank accrues during the lawsuit.
But being sued over their finances is nothing new for Spelling and McDermott. Earlier this year, American Express slapped them with a lawsuit over a $37,981 balance on their American Express card that they failed to pay. A few months later, American Express filed another lawsuit demanding payment on a $87,594 balance on another credit card the couple has. A judge has already ordered Spelling and McDermott to pay the $85,594 balance, plus $855 in court fees.
In her 2013 memoir, Spelling It Like It Is, Spelling was open about her financial problems, explaining that they came from her ultra-rich upbringing.
"It's no mystery why I have money problems. I grew up rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams. I never knew anything else," she wrote. "Even when I try to embrace a simpler lifestyle, I can't seem to let go of my expensive tastes. Even when my tastes aren't fancy, they're still costly. I moved houses to simplify my life, but lost almost a million dollars along the way."
No one wants to be that one parent who sends a bag of Chips Ahoy to school with their kid for the annual holiday party — but who has the time to individually decorate 30 homemade cupcakes? These treats are easy to throw together and they're creative enough that it looks like an effort was made. It's the perfect combo.
Remove stem end from strawberry with a paring knife to create a flat base for Santa; then slice opposite end to create a "hat" and set aside.
Using a large icing tip, place a large dollop of whipped cream topping on top of the strawberry base and top with strawberry hat — the tip you reserved — topped with a tiny drop of whipped cream as a pom-pom.
Place two chocolate sprinkles in the first dollop for Santa's eyes, and two dots of whipped cream on the front of the strawberry as buttons.
In Touch Weekly just published court documents that show that Gary Anderson, the contractor Christina just started dating, has been divorced twice before, and both of his splits got really messy in court.
According to the documents, Anderson's first divorce was in 1999 from his wife Jo Ann after 13 years of marriage. Court papers say they were engaged in battles over finances and custody of their kids for almost a decade and that Anderson falsified information he gave to the court to avoid paying spousal and child support.
The documents say that Anderson claimed his yearly income to be $128,000, when in reality, he made well over a million dollars that year. Once his true income was revealed, a judge ordered Anderson to pay his ex-wife $4,000 a month in spousal support, $7,082 a month in child support and $100,000 in back child support. He was also ordered to place $50,000 in a bank account set aside for his daughters.
Anderson's second divorce didn't go much better. His second wife Denise filed for divorce in 2005 after they had been married for four years. This time, Anderson wasn't accused of falsifying any information, but he was ordered to pay $2,000 a month in spousal support for two years and hand his wife a brand new BMW, their $700,000 home and $735,000 cash.
Anderson has stayed unmarried since then, but just days after Christina and Tarek announced their split, Christina and Anderson stepped out publicly as a couple. They met three years ago when Anderson did some contracting work on the El Moussas' home.
A whimper. A growl. A twitch. Often, when she is sprawled out on the floor during one of her many daily snoozes, my dog Idgie appears to be lost in dreams — so much so, that I sometimes crawl on the floor and stroke her gray-flecked muzzle to comfort her when the dreams seem to be especially nightmarish. I've always been told that those twitches are the result of a doggy dream. But do dogs really dream? And if so, what are they dreaming about?
Sometimes, when Idgie seems particularly restless in sleep and can't stop whining or whimpering, I wonder what tragedy she might be imaging mid-REM cycle. After all, she leads a pretty charmed life and has since she was a puppy.
While I may never know exactly what occupies Idgie's dreams, scientists do think they have at least one thing figured out about dogs and dreaming: It's the real deal. And on top of that, it's probably not too different from the way humans dream.
Here's how they came to that conclusion.
In 2001, researchers at MIT tracked the brain activity of rats as they tried to run a maze. They then measured the same rats' brain activity while they were in their REM cycle of sleep. The results? The brain activity was identical. The researchers therefore drew the conclusion that, when the rats were sleeping, they were actually dreaming of the maze they'd run earlier in the day.
As for how it pertains to dogs, researchers deduced that dogs and cats would experience dreams just as rats do, considering rats are intellectually less complex than these popular domestic pets. But what do dogs dream about, exactly?
According to Psychology Today, there is evidence to suggest they dream about, you know, doggy things: fetching, pointing, chasing cats. The dreams likely differ among breeds based on their genetic predispositions, in fact.
For example, a bird dog might dream he or she is flushing a covey of quail. A guard dog might dream of protecting his or her turf.
So if you see your dog dozing and realize their breathing has become slightly shallow and irregular, don't freak out. Your pup is probably just entering into his or her first dream, which happens about 20 minutes into any particular snooze sesh. This is when you'd notice those hallmark dream quirks my dog is so famous for in our household — the muscle twitches, the whimpering, the sniffing, etc.
And, just like humans, dogs probably also have nightmares. What exactly does a doggy nightmare look like, and how do you know if your pup is having one? Scientists would presume that dogs' nightmares are related to memories. If your dog had a scary moment IRL, there's a good chance that moment could haunt his/her dreams as well. Without a canine mind reader, it's hard to nail down whether your dog is having a regular 'ol dream or a nightmare, but there are a few signs that might indicate your dog is not having a dream of the happy variety. If you notice extreme twitching, whining or fearful behavior when they wake up, they may have experienced a nightmare.
Experts advise dog owners to fight the urge to calm their pet during a nightmare, despite how uncomfortable it can be for you to watch. We all want to be able to comfort our dogs when they are scared, but waking up a dog that is scared could potentially be dangerous. So as they say, let sleeping dogs lie and remember it's just a dream.
It’s not easy being the parent of a teenager. (I should know. I’ve had one for a couple of years.) But you know what’s harder than being the parent of a teenager? Being a teenager.
In theory, the process of leaving childhood and entering the adult years is a gradual one, but in reality, it’s like you wake up one day and everything is different. Your body is different, your face is different, your friends have changed, your parents expect more from you, there are huge decisions you have to make and you’re not ready. Or you’re totally ready to be taken seriously and do your own thing, but everyone still sees you as a kid. Sometimes you flip-flop between the two states, wondering whether you’re insane when half of you misses being a little kid and the other half dreams of freedom. It’s incredibly hard to find a happy medium when you’re in this place.
No one knows this better than the group of thoughtful, perceptive teenagers we’ve gathered to help us out on our latest project. Titled “Dispatches from High School,” this offshoot of our Hatch program focuses on teenage voices as they share their thoughts and feelings with us. We’ll be periodically reaching out to this group to ask some tough questions — questions about peer pressure, school pressure, their emotional lives, sexuality, friendships and more.
For our first installment, we’ve been thinking a lot about the challenges of parent-teenager conversations. They always feel so fraught and can quickly become heated. With this in mind, we asked the following question: What’s the one thing you wish your parents would stop asking/telling you?
Here are their responses. We hope you find them as enlightening as we did.
"Being in a divorced family and living with my mom, of course the questions will come up about if I am happy and if I like where I am. Most of the time, she asks me if I see my dad as much as I would like to. Obviously, I don’t, with him living in California and only seeing him twice a year. But I wish my mom would stop asking me questions about him because it usually just reminds me of him and makes me miss him and my half-siblings even more."
— Senior
Image: SheKnows
"The one that bothers me the most is, "Evan, have you done your homework?' My parents may not always trust me when it comes to getting my schoolwork done, but by now they should know that I always have my homework done by the time they ask. In their defense, the question is not brought up very frequently, but when it does, I get very frustrated. I wish my parents would stop asking me if I have done my homework — not only because it's my responsibility whether or not I’ve done my homework, but also because I hate when my parents interfere with my schoolwork. They get very involved and sometimes that results in me having to start over, and that makes me very angry."
— Evan, freshman
Image: SheKnows
"The one question I wish I could banish from my mother’s dialogue is this: 'If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?' Every kid has heard this one time or another, and it just inspires the same feeling in all of us — an overwhelming feeling of frustration. Parents, this question is just a cliché response to your child. Instead, your child would like to have a mature, reflective conversation about the pros and cons of making an informed choice.
"The question is typically asked in a situation when a teenager wants to participate in something that their friends are doing. They know their parents will either say no or be on the fence about it. The child tends to say something like, 'But all my friends are doing it.' At this moment, they get hit with the big, overused question. This question from a parent is not very effective to the immature teenage brain. As I have experienced, it usually backfires, and the response will be nothing at all or very nervy. Typically, when I don’t respond, I can’t think of a response without being rude. Occasionally, I do let something regrettable slip out.
"The conversation has the probability of being much more mature and having a decent outcome if the parent would ask guiding questions to help their child see all angles of the issue. All kids have the desire to fit into the crowd, and although this might be unsettling, there’s usually room for mature compromise."
"I don’t believe that there is one question that they have no right asking or that I wish they stopped asking me specifically. Sometimes there are tedious questions like, 'Do you have a girlfriend?' and 'What are your friends doing over break?' but these don’t really upset me. Although repetitive and sometimes awkward, I’ve never felt that there is a question that a parent has no right asking. Sometimes, there are questions that I don’t feel comfortable answering. But often, my parents and I try to answer each other the best we can in order to build up trust and fluidity in our relationship as I grow older into the weirder and more complicated years of my life."
— Frederick, freshman
Image: SheKnows
"Calm down. If there’s one thing I wish my parents would stop telling me it’s to take a deep breath and calm down. There’s offers to go to yoga or suggestions about daily guided meditations on YouTube. Calm down, my mother keeps telling me.
"It’s 11:30 pm and I am halfway through my 20-page bio packet right after finishing 10 pages of reading about the Middle East for my global studies class. I’m moving at a slow but steady pace when I come across a bunch of terms and concepts I’ve never heard of before, meaning the next half-hour will be spent Googling pieces of what I’m supposed to be learning. I let out a groan of tired frustration and within seconds my mother swings open the door to my room and says, 'Why don’t you take a deep breath and calm down?' My homework time just increased past midnight so I don’t have time for stretching or deep breathing. Try to calm down. It drives me crazy.
"A lot of parents worry about stress in their kids but stress is part of the process. Between homework, extracurricular activities and friends, it all gets pretty hectic and when you have a lot of work to do 'relaxing' isn’t always part of the picture. A parent throwing impossible suggestions at you just adds to the stress. I think anxiety is unavoidable, but it is motivating and helps me to focus on finishing my homework and studying hard. If I actually did calm down, I might just fall asleep.
"I know my parents don’t want me to feel stressed out, but the first rule of getting someone to calm down is not telling them to calm down. It has the opposite effect, in the same way that asking someone if they’re mad can actually make them a little mad. As a busy freshman in high school, stressful evenings are how it’s going to be and I don’t think I’ll be calming down any time soon. Sometimes I feel my mother needs to calm down. I would tell her to calm down, but we all know that doesn’t work."
— Maya, freshman
Image: SheKnows
“'This college looks perfect for you... Do you like it?', 'Do you think your SAT scores are high enough though?', 'If you take that SAT course again and then take the test 500 more times your score will probably go up... right?', 'Did you email that college professor?', 'Did you text your friends’ cousins’ boyfriends’ sisters’ roommate so we can get a tour of that school?', 'Have you figured out a major yet?' are all questions I get asked on an everyday basis. As a current junior in high school, my life has become a never-ending segment of 'how to overwhelm Lexie with college and SAT score questions.' Being a 16-year-old, I am suddenly supposed to know exactly what I want to do when I’m older. Yes, I take part in tons of high school extracurriculars and I enjoy every minute of it, but how am I supposed to figure out if it could be a career for me? I was never that kid who knew she wanted to be a doctor, but I don’t think my mom’s endless questions are going to bring me to a conclusion.
"My whole high school career has led up to this moment and I didn’t realize all of my hard work would leave me this confused. I realize my mom is just looking out for me and making sure success is in my future, but I want to figure it out on my own. In a perfect world, my parents would help me figure out the answers to these questions and help me understand what I’m meant to do. In all reality, I probably won’t be able to answer these questions for a while."
— Lexie, junior
"The questions that bug me the most, which my parents constantly ask, despite my clear consistent irritation, are the inquiries about the girls I have crushes on. I’ll be having a nice one-on-one conversation with one of my parents, when, out of nowhere, my mom or dad will ask, 'So, do you like any girls?' For some reason, they are of the opinion that if we are in the midst of a pleasant chat, I’ll be more open about the girls I like. My view is that some kids are just inherently uncomfortable talking to their parents about the girls/boys they like, while others find these conversations totally fine. There’s no reason why a parent should ever try to force these conversations, because if the kid is of the latter opinion, then they will have no problem bringing it up of their own volition; however, if a kid considers this subject off limits and awkward, there’s nothing a parent can do, other than irritate their kid. Personally, I don’t want to talk about my crushes. As a result, my mom seems to think that means we’re not as close as other parents and children might be, which is not at all the reality."
— Sophomore
Image: SheKnows
"There isn’t a specific question I wish my parents would stop asking me, but sometimes I feel like when I am discouraged or sad or angry, they absorb all of it and get really caught up in how I am feeling. Sometimes I just need space to process my thoughts, but since I am an only child, their concern, at times, can be a little overwhelming. I understand that they want me to always feel supported, but it’s nice sometimes to shut everyone out, put in headphones and crank the music up really loud."
We're going to go out on a limb here and say a good chunk of the American population has sung the lyrics "Now bring us some figgy pudding" at least once their lives. But what the heck even is figgy pudding? In short, it's a boozy, sweet cake that gets lit on fire.
Figgy pudding is a British food that dates back to the mid-1600s according to figgy pudding expert Debbie Waugh, via NPR. It was banned by English Puritans — probably because it's drenched in booze.
It's actually more like cake than pudding and is made of dried fruit, seasonings (such as nutmeg and cinnamon) and a boatload of booze. Did we mention there's booze?
Let's get to the alcohol
We know the mention of booze has gotten your attention, and yes, figgy pudding contains a ton of it. Most recipes include cognac and rum, but if you're feeling especially saucy, you can drizzle even more alcohol over the top after it's been baked and light it on fire. Huzzah.
Figgy pudding video
Figgy pudding video
They're ain't no figs or plums
Don't be fooled by the name of the dish — you will not be getting figgy with it. Most modern-day recipes don't have figs in them.
"The 'plum' was a pre-Victorian generic term for any type of dried fruit, but most specifically, raisins," Waugh explains. "Certainly at some time figs would have been incorporated into Christmas pudding recipes, but today, not traditionally."
It actually has a fun ritual attached to it
As if getting drunk off a cake you light on fire isn't enough Christmas adventure, there's even more fun behind what's quickly becoming our new favorite holiday dessert.
"Everyone in the house is meant to have a hand in making the pudding, so everyone should grab the whisk, and together, give it at least one turn around the bowl while — here's the best part — making a wish," Dorie Greenspan, author of Baking: From My Home to Yours, told NPR in 2007. "If you'd like, you could even stir a little trinket into the batter. Do this, and the person who finds it will be guaranteed good luck."
Greenspan also reluctantly admitted to NPR that figgy pudding is somewhat similar to a certain notorious Christmas dessert — the dreaded fruitcake.
Still, Greenspan says figgy pudding shouldn't be avoided for that reason.
"I was afraid to say it because fruitcake has such a bad reputation, but [figgy pudding] is steamed; it's chockablock with dried fruits; it's so boozy. ... It's delicious," she said.
Grab Greenspan's recipe for figgy pudding here. Her version actually does have figs in it — so you can get figgy with it this Christmas, after all.
I thought I was immune to the bone-deep depression that afflicts the person who decides to spend Christmas alone — I am, after all, Jewish, and I enjoy my own company so much I’ve been known to greet the news of people canceling plans with gratitude and relief on par with finding out the test results are negative.
But the holidays are so profoundly freighted with societally agreed-upon messages of togetherness — carolers’ voices rising in unison, mistletoe kisses, dining rooms clown car-full of in-laws and newborns and neighbors — that spending the day alone constitutes a terrible violation of a sacred social contract. This contract insists we are meant to be with other people over the holidays, and we all become automatic co-signers of the contract just by existing during this gingerbread and frost-tinged season.
The best-laid plans
Given the demands of my siblings’ partners’ families, my own immediate family often celebrates Christmas a few weeks before the 25th. The year I spent Christmas alone, we’d had our holiday celebration at my parents’ house at the beginning of December. By the time actual Christmas rolled around, I was psyched at the idea of taking the holidays for myself. I refused local friends’ invitations to attend orphan dinners and movie dates and planned to treat the few days off from work as a luxury to be indulged in to the utmost. I was going to sleep late. I was going to read books and eat Mallomars for dinner and watch The West Wing for the third time. I was going to have a decadent staycation doing exactly what I was certain I wanted to do at all times and it was going to be glorious.
On Christmas morning, as families gathered bleary-eyed around the tree to open presents, kids in their footed PJs, parents in flannel robes with big mugs of coffee, I went out for a brisk jog. It was freezing cold and the park was empty. It was eerily quiet, not a creature stirring but a homeless man feeding bread to a brood of stray cats. I ran faster, telling myself how lucky I was to have this entire morning to myself when everyone else on Earth was inside getting cabin fever.
The loneliness sets in
But I didn’t feel lucky — I felt like an outlaw. I felt nervous about what I was going to do with the rest of the day with the stores closed, the streets empty of neighbors. I knew the phone would not ring. I knew there would be no emails — work or otherwise — as everyone I knew was occupied with Christmas pursuits.
I went home and showered the slow, leisurely shower of a person who has nowhere to be, but as I toweled off, I felt the anxiety rising. I was faced with the dilemma of getting dressed even though I knew full well I would not be leaving the house or putting my pajamas on at noon, an action that is so totally depressing that I split the difference and put on what I convinced myself were cozy clothes, but were really just pajamas that didn’t have holes in the crotch. I put on the radio, but of course the only thing on was that marathon broadcast of Handel’s Messiah radio people assume is the only thing anyone would turn the radio on for on Christmas.
The sun sets on Christmas at approximately 2 p.m. By the time I’d eaten lunch — cottage cheese and water, the only things in the fridge — it was that gray winter twilight hour that is the temporal equivalent of despair. I tried to read, but it was eerily quiet. It felt cold in my apartment, like the building management had assumed everyone was out of town and turned off the heat. It felt like when you’d stay home from school sick as a kid, after The Price Is Right and the morning talk shows were over, and Eyewitness News would come on as you dozed on the couch, the dust-filled light streaming in. I was lonely, at home when people aren’t meant to be at home — this is what happens when you delude yourself into thinking that the most people-centric day of the year is a good day to spend alone.
It was all a terrible idea
By 9 p.m., I had caved and called my friend Avi. “Get dressed,” he commanded. “We’re going out.”
Over Chinese food, I described my day — the loneliness so acute it felt dangerous, the insidious cold and quiet of a city depopulated of people, my best-laid plans gone awry.
“You can’t opt out of the holidays,” Avi declared.
“But in theory, you should be able to spend a day alone without it feeling like you’re going to be alone forever,” I protested.
“In theory you should, but in practice…” he said.
In practice, opting out of the holidays is something you should not do if you can help it. This is not to say, of course, that no one on Earth would be capable of having a delightful day of me-time on Christmas. The dream of reading and TV-watching and manicures and cookies is indeed possible, but for those of us who are accustomed to Christmas being a group event, a busy series of gift-giving and wassail-sipping and glad tiding-bringing, trying to spend the day alone is really — no matter how much you think you despise the holiday — a truly terrible idea.
With everything that's been going on in Kanye West's personal life lately, it should come as no surprise that he's decided to keep staying out of the spotlight.
Now, he's announced that he's canceling the planned European leg of his Saint Pablo tour, which was set to begin in 2017. The announcement comes after a series of public meltdowns and the cancellation of many of West's American tour dates. Us Weekly reports that the European leg was planned to include Paris, the U.K. and Germany, but that so far, no official dates were set and no tickets were sold.
West's team announced in late November that he was canceling the 21 remaining dates in his U.S. Saint Pablo tour after he stopped several concerts to go on lengthy political rants. At the last show he performed, he lashed out against Beyoncé, Jay Z and Hillary Clinton, then performed just a handful of songs before abruptly walking offstage and ending the concert.
The same day that he announced he was canceling the remainder of the tour, West was hospitalized for extreme exhaustion and what his doctor described as "temporary psychosis." He remained at the UCLA Medical Center's Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital for nine days.
West has since been released from the hospital, but he's been laying low. Sources say he's still battling stress stemming from work and helping his wife, Kim Kardashian West, get over being robbed at gunpoint in Paris. Rumors have been swirling that the couple's marriage is on the rocks, with sources saying that amid all the drama, Kardashian wants a divorce.
"She cares about Kanye and feels relieved he’s getting the help he needs, but she’s felt trapped for a while," an insider told Us Weekly.
Today we're talking about how to handle a boss who cheats his customers.
Question:
Three months ago, I finally found an employer that would let me work between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., giving me the ability to drop my kids off at and pick them up from school. I do not want to quit or lose this job.
At the same time, my boss does things that worry me. Last month, I let my boss know that a customer had overpaid $85 for an order and I planned to call the customer. My boss told me not to do so and that he would handle it. Since I have access to the customer’s accounts, I know my boss never did, because there wasn’t either a credit or refund posted.
This morning, the same thing happened, only for a smaller amount. I pointed out to my boss that a customer overpaid $30 for an order, and my boss told me not to point it out to the customer. I’m not sure how to handle this.
Answer:
You’ve got options, though my favorite would be you searching out a new job. When you work for a boss who cheats customers, you can expect him to eventually cheat you. Alternatively, you can point out the situation each time to either your customers or boss.
If you point out future mistakes to your customers, you’ll present your boss a fait accompli. Although you presented the two problem situations to your boss, he disguised the fact that he planned to keep the $85. He may let this situation go, or he may fire you and hire someone with less of a conscience.
Alternatively, you can let your boss know each time, knowing that he’ll handle it as he wants. You may find this option hard to stomach. You can, however, remind yourself that it’s your boss’s decision and business and that you’re putting up with the situation because it gives you more time each day with your kids.
Ultimately we all make choices, each with consequences. Which do you choose?
In case you still had any doubts about Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth’s relationship, hear this: Cyrus's sister Brandi just posted a pic of the whole Cyrus fam in front of the Christmas tree looking insanely merry. “Cyrus fam Christmas in full swing,” she wrote.
A very Miley christmas IG post
A very Miley christmas IG post
As for Miley Cyrus, she posted a couple of shots — and a video — of herself with the beloved family dog, Sammy. She didn’t go to the lengths of actually posting a shot of Hemsworth with her famous fam, but there’s still time; it’s not even Christmas Eve yet.
Radar reported today that Miley and Hemsworth may be headed to Australia, Hemsworth's home country, soon. “Miley has been offered an extremely lucrative deal to be a judge on The Voice in Australia for Season 6,” a source told Radar. “Liam is all about the move. He has been itching to return home to Australia for quite some time now.”
Everything Radar reports should definitely be taken with a grain (or three) of salt, but if you believe the outlet, Cyrus' family isn’t thrilled about the potential move. “Miley’s mom really does not want her leaving, but she is going to go where the money is,” the source reportedly said. “Her main priority in life right now is marrying Liam and if she can go back to Australia with him and make a fortune, she sees this as a win-win situation.”
Cyrus is currently a judge on The Voice on NBC, but Radar says she’s not returning for Season 13 thanks to an “intense season of feuding with Adam Levine.” OK! Well, we’re sure we’ll hear more about this soon enough. In the meantime, happiest holidays from the Cyrus family — plus Liam Hemsworth.
Look, being a mom is a hectic job, and sometimes you just forget to do things — like moving your Elf on the Shelf every single night in December.
If you've ever had that "oh shit" moment when you woke up in the morning and realized you didn't pick a clever way to pose your kids' Elf on the Shelf, you're not alone. Should it ever happen again, we've come up with some viable excuses you can give that are totally believable — but won't break your children's' little Christmas-spirit-filled hearts.
Here are a few things you can say to your small humans to explain away the fact that your elf is uncreatively resting on the top of the bookcase for yet another night.
Image: Becci Burkhart/SheKnows
1. The elf didn’t move because you were making too much noise and wouldn’t go to sleep. If you stay up too long having whispered arguments about “who farted,” well… your elf might just fall asleep.
2. He caught the flu. Santa is sending some emergency “elf-o-tussin.” In the meantime, he’s just gonna crash right here. Everyone has to be very very quiet.
3. He’s teleworking.
This is most effective when you score a Barbie-sized iPad and throw it in the general direction of the elf. This is extremely plausible. With all the technology at our fingertips, why does the elf have to fly back to the North Pole every night in person? Doesn’t Santa have Skype?
4. Of course he moved. Maybe just a little bit but he’s definitely in a different spot.
Channel your inner authoritative parent and bust out the “because I said so.” You might even convince yourself the elf moved.
5. He was really tired and fell asleep before you did.
Yes, mommy knows his eyes are open. He’s really sleeping. It’s an elf thing.
6. Your dad accidentally touched the elf so he’s lost his magic for 24 hours. #BlameDaddy
7. Thunderstorms made it unsafe to fly so the FAA grounded all elves.
8. He liked this spot so much he wanted to come back to it. He’ll probably keep coming back to this spot again and again.
This is you taking care of you, mamas… but try not to take advantage.
9. The elf must have picked this spot because it’s got such a great view of the TV. The elf really likes to watch OITNB, you know.
10. The elf stayed up late drinking Chardonnay with mommy and decided to stay in… because flying to the North Pole when you’re tipsy is irresponsible.
11. It was too warm in our house last night. The optimal temperature for elf travel is 67.5 degrees. I’ll ask your dad to adjust the thermostat. #BlameDaddy
12. He forgot his keys to the North Pole and is waiting on Santa to FedEx them.
13. The elf has a bellyache because he ate too much candy… and let that be a lesson to you, young man.
14. You’re right, he didn’t move. The elf is messing with us to see if we’re paying attention. We are! Yay us!
15. Freeze tag?
16. Maybe he forgot he’s been to that spot three nights in a row. Elves have a lot on their minds.
17. Is that really our elf? Look closely. Maybe this is a pretend decoy elf and the real elf is hiding? We better be on our extra good behavior!
18. Santa’s really busy this week so the elves are only flying to the North Pole every other night.
19. Maybe he’s resting and saving his magic to give you a really cool surprise tomorrow…
If you bust this one out, for the love of Kris Kringle, follow through.
Yes, I realize some of these defy logic a little. OK, fine, a lot. But if your kids are old enough to smell the B.S. on some of these elf-cuses, they’re probably on to the fact that you’re the one moving the elf around the house anyway.
Here’s wishing you a successful season of elfing. And if you forget, you now have 20 great excuses in your back pocket.
Originally published December 2015. Updated December 2016.
Elizabeth is 90 years old and Philip is 95, but despite that, they still keep up with a fairly rigorous schedule of public appearances. Just yesterday, they hosted their annual Christmas lunch party at Buckingham Palace, where close friends and family members gathered to celebrate the holiday, and nothing really seemed out of the ordinary.
Today, though, the queen and her husband were set to leave London by train to travel 100 miles north to Sandringham, where they usually spend Christmas Day. When Elizabeth and Philip failed to show up for the train, it got reporters wondering.
Palace employees have been telling reporters off the record that there are no "grave concerns" about the queen or Philip despite the palace's official statement revealing that they missed the train because they are both ill.
"The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh have heavy colds, and so have decided not to travel to Sandringham today," was all the statement said, and so far, no other official details have been offered.
It doesn't help that reporters waiting at the train station to snap photos of the departing royals were told the event was canceled only 30 minutes before the train was set to depart, making the sudden change in plans look like it was caused by something more serious than a cold.
The aging royals have battled health problems in the past, most seriously over Christmas in 2011, when Prince Philip was rushed to the hospital after suffering a heart attack.
I still remember the stress of applying to college. I was filled with self-doubt about not just my grades and standardized test scores, but also my paltry list of extracurriculars. I was sure that only the kids who had started their own charities or spent a year volunteering in another country had a shot at getting into the best schools. Unfortunately, for students applying to college today, the application process has only become more difficult, selective and expensive. But one Harvard psychologist is trying to change that.
Richard Weissbourd wants college admissions boards to value the content of a person's character over the number of activities they've signed up for. As Ivy League schools get more and more selective (Stanford, for example, recently turned away 95 percent of its applicants), students are applying to more schools and feeling greater pressure than ever to participate in a large number of extracurricular activities. Many students, however, don't have the time or money required to participate in those kinds of extracurriculars. Instead, they have to work or care for loved ones — and this works against them in the current selection process.
Said Weissbourd: "[there is an] emphasis on organized clubs, sports, far-flung charity trips and other costly endeavors, and so little on the types of domestic labor and menial jobs that tend to dominate the summers and after-school hours of lower-income students." In an attempt to shift the focus from achievement to caring, Weissbourd started a Harvard initiative called Making Caring Common, which encourages parents to raise their kids to be good people, not just high achievers.
Too often, he argues, parents emphasize a child's personal happiness more than "self-sacrifice and commitment to the common good." I myself have told my kids over and over again that all I want is for them to be happy. While there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, Weissbourd has made me reconsider what it is I tell my kids I want for them above all else. Is it really their happiness or is it being a good person? The two aren't mutually exclusive, but it's worth considering the words we choose.
Weissbourd's hope is that colleges will start to value being a great person over participation in clubs and other achievements (or what the article calls "the babysitting-versus-Belize dilemma.") He and Lloyd Thacker, the director of a nonprofit called Education Conservancy, have written a report called "Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admissions," which offers colleges tips on how to adjust their admissions process to give greater weight to "students whose concern for the common good is their most outstanding quality."
Some schools, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have already started making some of these changes. MIT's application, for example, asks applicants to "Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in the family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc." They have also reduced the number of slots available for students to list their extracurriculars down from 10 to 4 (Yale only has two slots) and recommend not listing ninth-grade activities, saying the year should be a "time for exploration."
This is great news for anyone whose kids will be applying to college. Not only will kids be encouraged to invest in an activity they care about instead of trying to have as long a list of accomplishments as possible, but lower-income students who can't take a week to build a church in Antarctica or have to work at their parent's restaurant after school instead of playing baseball will get the message that there are more (and better) ways to make a contribution to the world and that the best colleges don't just want the most accomplished people, they want the best people.
The couple, also parents to 13-year-old Natalia and 10-year-old Gianna, shared a picture of their new baby girl on their Instagram accounts Wednesday. Yes, she's a beaut.
Bianka is a variation of Bianca, an Italian name meaning "white" that's been popular with American parents since the 1990s. Pop culture Biancas include the elegant mouse in Disney's 1977 animated movie The Rescuers and the Shakespearean characters in two plays, Othello and The Taming of the Shrew. But it's perhaps thanks to the first Mrs. Mick Jagger that the name first charted in the U.S. chart — it went on to reach a high of No. 84 in 1990 and ranked at No. 379 in 2015.
However, the spelling Bianka is perhaps better suited to the daughter of a former NBA superstar. German tennis player Bianka Lamade, Bulgarian rhythmic gymnast Bianka Panova and German Olympic rower Bianka Schwede are three sporty bearers of the name.
Speculation that the K in the new baby's name stands for Kobe remains unconfirmed. Stay tuned, celebrity baby name fans.
