Festivities

The week of feasting began with a Christmas Julbord at Tre Kronor, a wonderful Swedish smorgasbord (50 dishes!) shared with dear friends. My favorites were the mustard salad, red cabbage, cucumbers and dill, pickled beets, and the rich and cheesy potatoes. They had roast pork with prunes, Swedish meatballs, 9 different types of herring, so many others. 

And the rice pudding was lovely! We shared wine, including Que Saudade from what I suspect may become a new favorite vineyard, Forlorn Hope. 

Then Christmas Eve dinner with my family, and Christmas Day dinner with Mark’s family. The day after Christmas we had a visit with our friends in from Pittsburgh, and today we had a visit with our friends and former neighbors from way back when we lived in Gurnee, up near the Wisconsin border. 

Now I’m craving a small introverted period, time spent hibernating in Casa del Lobos with the kids, making crafts, baking sweet things, and drinking coffee and/or hot chocolate. I’m happy that the kids don’t have school, grateful that I don’t have to leave the house except for possible sledding/snowball fights in the backyard and maybe some grocery shopping.

I’m hopeful that I can get Conclave finished up and ready to print. I have to send it off soon. Not only are people waiting for it, but I will not have the freedom to work on my own writing until this issue is on its way. 

And I need to write. 

The stories are inside of me begging, bursting, bubbling.

So much to be done in the new year.

Published by Valya

Valya Dudycz Lupescu has been making magic with food and words for more than 20 years, incorporating folklore from her Ukrainian heritage with practices that honor the Earth. She’s a writer, content developer, instructor, and mother of three teenagers. Valya is the author of MOTHER CHRISTMAS, THE SILENCE OF TREES, and the founding editor of CONCLAVE: A Journal of Character. Along with Stephen H. Segal, she is the co-author of FORKING GOOD: An Unofficial Cookbook for Fans of The Good Place and GEEK PARENTING: What Joffrey, Jor-El, Maleficent, and the McFlys Teach Us about Raising a Family (Quirk Books), and co-founder of the Wyrd Words storytelling laboratory. Valya earned her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her poetry and prose have been published in anthologies and magazines that include, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Kenyon Review, Culture, Gargoyle Magazine, Gone Lawn, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium. You can find her on Twitter @valya and on Mastodon.social @valya

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