Mark My Words: The Voice of Christmas

My state job had a holiday party this week. Last year they did a cookie exchange, but a few weeks ago they announced they were doing a cupcake bake-off. Who ever heard of a cupcake exchange!? I was annoyed, and one of my colleagues was as well, because cupcakes are harder to eat, transport, and make. I boldly sent an email asking if it had to be cupcakes, or if it could be cookies like last year. While many people agreed with me, the response from the admin assistant was one word: "Cupcakes."

Ugh. I had hoped to make pine nut cookies with all the pine nuts one of my uncles picked this fall. So instead I looked for a recipe for pine nut cupcakes, and one of the recipes I found was for apple pine nut cupcakes. We have a fridge full of apples from our neighbors' tree, so that was perfect! I didn't have shortening, superfine sugar, or cake flour, so I just used butter, regular granulated sugar, and all-purpose flour.

This was the first time I ever made cupcakes, and it was more time consuming than I expected. But I liked the way they turned out, especially the brown sugar buttercream.

Unfortunately, I developed a cold. Last week, I noticed I had a bit of a cold at night, but I was fine during the day. When I ran 9.5 miles last week, it was with a nightly cold. But beginning on Monday, it started affecting me in the day. So I wore a mask while I baked.

Tuesday was the holiday party at Smash It, a place where you go into rooms and smash garbage. I watched my colleagues pick out old printers, analog clocks, and other such items to destroy, and it just didn't appeal to me. So I opted out of that. Instead, I went with the paint room. They had a room with a black light where you could splatter washable neon paint. I kept the canvas with paint splatters, but I don't know if I'll do anything with it.

There was also an ugly sweater contest with awards for ugliest sweater, best Utah history–themed, and most creative. I didn't care to be creative, so I wore my pants with tree print (which is subtle, and not everyone notices), my jingle bell sweater, and my matching hat. Oh, and a mask because of my cold. And I won the "ugliest sweater" portion of the contest, which is eight paid hours off!

On Thursday I meant to pull some cheddar cheese out of the fridge, and I pulled out Idaho instead. 😂😆😂

The real highlight of Thursday was attending the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. My mom and I went to the Tabernacle for standby tickets, and we got to go in to the concert itself. We've done that before, and it seemed more chaotic and unorganized this time.

The guest singer, Ruthie Ann Miles, is a Broadway star, and the guest narrator, Dennis Haysbert, is the narrator of Allstate commercials. They were both very talented, though they did mess up a few times. For the story, Dennis told about an African man who sold all his businesses to help poor children, like he once was. And he happened to be in attendance, so they asked him some questions. One of the songs the choir sang was an African song. And every year, they have an organ solo by Richard Elliott. This year he played "Patapan" along with a jazz ensemble, which I quite enjoyed. I actually like jazz better than organ music, but I felt like the jazz overshadowed the organ, and Richard Elliott is an insanely talented organist.

When I got home, I discovered I had received a card and candy from the editor of The Impulsive Buy. I've been writing reviews for that site for eight years now, and it was a nice gesture. I was really insecure about my reviews in the beginning, but I've gotten more confident. And this week I got some new Valentine's candy to review, so I should submit that sometime soon.

Since I spend a lot of time in historic documents, and I enjoy campy, kitschy things from decades ago, sometimes I worry I don't see enough new things. So yesterday I took myself to see The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. (I'm trying to be more content doing things by myself, because it stresses me out to invite other people, and I don't have a great success rate.) I mostly liked the movie, which I would give a 7 out of 10. It was nostalgic, because Orchard Elementary used to stage a play version of it, and I had a small role in it in fifth grade. My friend Hillary was a minor (made-up?) character named Juanita, and when she saw her role, she asked, "Who is Joo-ann-it-uh?" The teacher in charge said that the angels could wear garland as halos and around their waists. A few days later, one girl asked, "What was that thing you said we could wear?"
"Garland."
"Oh, I told my mom it was garlic!"

Speaking of kitsch, remember that episode of The Brady Bunch where Carol lost her voice when she was supposed to be singing in church for Christmas? I had a similar experience. Because of my cold, I didn't have much of a voice for most of the week. That made me even less chatty than usual when I went to the holiday party, went shopping, and talked to my BYU boss. And I was asked to sing in a quartet for my ward's Christmas meeting. And luckily, my voice came back in time! Our ward sang the new Christmas hymns, and they had special musical numbers sing the first verse and then the congregation sing the rest. My quartet sang "Star Bright." And it went well. (I sang the harmony, but I don't know if I could have done it if I had to sing the upper notes.)

I wore my Christmas suit jacket with red pants, and this week I found a white button-up shirt with reindeer on it at Target, which I had to have.

(Ugh, the d on my keyboard isn't working very well.)

The bishopric also asked me to be a Gospel Doctrine teacher. I feel a little bit like an impostor, since I'm such a cynical heretic. But 2025 is Church history, and if there's anyone who's qualified to teach that, it's me.

Though I might not keep up with modern things, I do keep up with modern Christmas music. I wasn't too impressed with this year's offerings, but here are my four favorite additions this year, two covers and two originals. (I also know you won't listen to them, because no one ever listens to songs on blogs.)