SusieJ's Advent Calendar December 23, 2007

The recipe: Stollen

Stollen is the most famous of the German Christmas breads, and this is a variation of how it is made in Dresden. It makes a good breakfast while opening presents, because it can be eaten one-handed.

The surprise: Radish night

Obscure food festivals are just so much fun, especially when they are in the middle of Advent, like Mexico's radish festival. It's part harvest festival, part Christmas market.

Shopping on Christmas Eve

Once upon a time I thought it was fun to shop on Christmas Eve. Oddly, this is also when I worked at the Bloomingdale's in the mall.

After dealing with that many shoppers, any normal person would have kept as far from the Christmas crush as possible. That may have been part of the problem: avoiding shopping earlier in the month.

Then Christmas Eve would roll around, my gift list would still be half un-bought, and I'd have an hour lunch break to get everything. I had a list, a deadline and a mission.

I'd plunge into the mall proper, dodging clumps of teenagers and clots of children. (This is where I learned to walk in the city.) First on the list: Mom, career woman, Abraham and Strauss for a blouse, then into cosmetics for something from Estee Lauder.

I'd extricate myself and head to Spencers for something for any guys I knew, and to see if my friend John was working. If any of my girlfriends were still on my list, I'd stop at the earrings store, struggle through the giggling pre-teen girls, and get a pair of oversized dangling earrings for each of them.

If there was time, lunch was a frozen yogurt from the food court. It was yogurt! It must be healthy!

Then it was home and wrapping.