CHRISTMAS EVE
This year I decided that I could not face my usual holiday baking marathon. I normally look forward to it with great enthusiasm, but this year it just seemed like an intolerable burden. So I threw away my rolling pin and told the kids "Sorry". They were surprisingly OK with the no-bake plan, and we all agreed that Santa could have an apple this year instead of the usual plate of cookies. As Hugh said, "He's pretty fat anyway!" However, several wonderful neighbors must have sensed the cookie-less state of our house and came bearing plates of home-baked confections. This is Nina, our neighbor across the street who came over with gifts of fruit, wine and cookies. We do have a star in the window...

OUR WIFTY TOOTH FAIRY
Well, at least she pays up.

SNACK CONSTELLATION
The remains of a mid-morning snack. All clues suggest that the perpetrators are three young boys, under the age of ten.

EDIBLE
Henry has certainly expanded our definition of the term "mouth feel". Who needs fat? Henry has pioneered the use of hacky sack balls for that satisfying sensation. Low-fat and high-fiber, too!

MANIAC
I have seen the maniac in the house and it is me! Actually, I asked Peter (age 9) what he was thinking when he drew this and he said he wasn't thinking about anything, he was just enjoying the way the liquid ink pen flowed into the paper. Time to enroll him in the local chapter of FAA (Future Artists of America).

LADY APPLES
I always associate this time of year with lady apples. It is such a fleeting season, just before the holidays. I like to paint them and then eat them. Kind of cannibalistic.

INSTA-MESS
After a day largely spent amusing or managing the amusements of all three boys, I selfishly retired to the kitchen to amuse myself by starting dinner. Henry went up to his room. There were some unusual noises, but then, that is not unusual in this house. After just a few minutes, though, I stopped chopping parsley and went to check. Wow. I've omitted the scene on the left side of the room: unclothed Henry standing on the radiator, pressed up against the cold glass of the window, a sea of string-a-beads and game pieces at his feet. To add that extra layer of surreality he is smearing a mouthful of chewed-up oats (uncooked oats are one of his favorite snacks) all over the window glass. Is it Autism or is it Performance Art?

PIERO'S EGGS
I've been dipping into Vasari's Lives of the Artists as my bedtime reading. Came across this info nugget while reading about Piero Di Cosimo:
"Piero was indeed so earnestly devoted to his vocation that he forgot himself and his convenience. He allowed himself, for instance, no other food but hard boiled eggs...Nor did he cook them six or eight at a time but by fifties. He kept them in a basket and ate them when he felt hungry. This mode of existence suited him perfectly: any other seemed to him the merest slavery." Sure sounds good to me. And they are so convenient for those lunch boxes!

This is a painting of the Twins, and I can't decide if it is done or not. I showed it in my last exhibition, at Artists House Gallery, but then when I got it back I cut it down several inches and re-worked it a bit. It is much improved, and was accepted into a local group show like this. But the piece still feels "open" to me. Open isn't necessarily a bad state. But I guess I am secretly wishing I could channel Velasquez to finish it for me!

Hugh in a pensive mood after lunch.