I wasn’t going to do one of those photo retrospectives from the past year, but my friend Nita once said that no matter how many people start reading your blog, keep writing for yourself. Good advice, so well, here we are.

Time Magazine declared this the worst decade ever. Have to admit it took me by surprise, but when you consider that we started and ended the decade in deep recessions, suffered through 9/11, the Bush years, war (remember Shock and Awe? Ugh), monumentally tragic natural disasters, the disintegration of industries and jobs, well…when you put it that way, yeah, I guess the 2000s did suck.

On a personal level, this decade did not suck, but then again, moving from your 20s into your 30s meant that we became adults for real, and in that respect was totally different from the 90s when we could still consider ourselves kids to some degree. In this decade, I graduated from grad school, got married, had kids, bought an apartment, took out life insurance, started a business. In other words, I got all responsible and really grew up. No, the 2000s did not suck.

As for 2009, I don’t think we will ever forget watching the historic inauguration of President Obama at the beginning of the year. It was quite something, wasn’t it? Made you glad to be alive to witness something so significant in our lifetime.

The second year of our business went as hoped and expected. We got more press and doubled our sales from our first year (though there were some painfully slow market days in the summer). I feel, however, like we coasted along trying to keep afloat and not get behind on orders, so there was little time to reflect, evaluate and make any changes or additions. This is what happens sometimes when you’re small and you’re doing every aspect of the work. Can’t necessarily be an R&D department when you’re also the delivery man and the Post Office runner. In this regard, nothing changed from the first year. Not sure how we can make any significant changes for the next year without sacrificing something. We shall see.

Hard to imagine the hot days of summer when we’re so entrenched in snow and cold right now…and winter is just beginning. But I look back at these photos from our vacation and they instantly take me back to August, typically the slowest month for business, when life was more loose and carefree. We didn’t go very far or anywhere fancy or new. We just rented a house on the North Fork of Long Island, but it was the first time that we took a vacation with just the 4 of us, not visiting any family or having family tag along on our trips. When I look back on this year, what I remember is a whole lot of work, but this sole week in August, when we shut everything down, stands out as a week to savor. I can STILL smell the lavender from that field!

If the beginning of the year was marked by the collective excitement and hope of the inauguration of Obama’s presidency which we universally experienced together in our communities and also as a nation, then the death of Michael Jackson mid-year was the day we all remembered exactly where we were when we heard the news. Many of us experienced it together online. These 2 events are what I will remember most about 2009. Not even I could have predicted how hard MJ’s death would hit me. I still don’t fully understand why and I’ve quit trying to figure out what this is about. It just is. At this point it’s beyond the music, the videos and the life-long connection which started as early as my first childhood memories can recollect. Maybe it’s about the resurfacing anger at the disappointing realization that so-called journalism and stories fed to us by the media are often motivated by dollar signs, greed and the fear of power; that in order to know the truth you have to open your eyes and seek out the truth. I know there are some of you out there that know exactly what I mean. Or maybe it is just the loss of a big part of my childhood like so many people are saying. Whatever it is, it makes me profoundly sad. But after finding my original Thriller record in the basement of my parent’s house over Christmas weekend, I feel like I did regain a tiny bit of my childhood back.

This Fall, a few milestones for Mia: the first day of Kindergarten, the loss of a first tooth, reading a book by herself from cover to cover. And Claudine? Still continues to charm everyone she lets her guard down with (but unlike Mia, you have to earn it). Finally, one day after 3 months, she went to her drop off playgroup without trepidation and tears. Maybe there is hope that preschool next year won’t be such an exercise in painful, traumatic separation.

Once the holiday season hit, the days became a blur of cookies and boxes. And now…we’re at the last few hours of the year.

The start of any decade marks a milestone birthday for me and 2010 will be no different. It doesn’t really change anything though does it, but it does make you pause in its significance, even if it’s only a number. In 4 months I’ll be 40 (I told you I was old, didn’t I?). I am thoroughly curious to discover what’s in store for all of us in the new year and decade. Let’s make it count. If I learned anything from this past year, the events of 2009 taught me that. Happy New Year to all.

Overheard, but not necessarily in the same conversation:

Claudine (as she admires her outfit): “ooh, I look so pretty. I love this dress. People are going to see me and say, ‘Hey, I like that kid!’”.

Mia: “I’m going to buy a baby at the hospital because I don’t want a baby in my tummy. I really want a baby but I don’t want a baby coming out of my butt.”
“I’m also going to marry Claudine.” (none of our explanations on why she couldn’t marry Claudine made sense to her, btw).

Claudine: “I fart a lot.”

Mia (to Claudine): “You were in mommy’s tummy and then you came out of her butt”.
Claudine (totally deadpan and serious): “I was a poopie?”

Really, there are no words for this other than the kids loved it of course. What we want to know is where do these people keep all this stuff the rest of the year and how much does it cost to light this up every evening for a month?

There are specific neighborhoods in NYC that are infamous for their crazy Christmas lights, usually anchored by one or 2 houses that are over the top. In Brooklyn there is Dyker Heights. In Queens, there is Bayside and that is where these photos were taken of 2 separate houses, a quick drive right after our sashimi extravaganza. It really was an evening of excess.

Christmas dinner at my parents’ house was a fairly typical meal, but on Saturday night our whole family went out for dinner at this unassuming Korean sashimi spot on 22102 Horace Harding Avenue in Queens called Samdado. We’ve been there before, but not in a while, and I’d forgotten just how much food you get when you order a sashimi dinner special to share. We’re talking numerous small dishes, plates and platters of food and just when you thought you were done and there was no more room on the table, the waiters and waitresses would come around with even more dishes of food to put down.

All this for a mere $120, the equivalent of which would get you a 2 or 3 tier fruits de mer plateau at Balthazar or Blue Ribbon. Sure, you don’t get the ambience of a Balthazar by a long shot, or maybe the artful presentation of an impressive silver tiered platter, but what you do get is more than enough food to feed the 5/6 of us (you know, Claudine had like a shrimp). I admit that there were times I’d walk away from a raw platter experience at one of those places after dropping mad money, feeling satisfied but still hungry. And they usually don’t serve raw lobster so fresh that the lobster was still moving a little (!!). Guys, it’s true, and I bet you are thoroughly unnerved right now at the thought of that, but it was an experience even if it was a little too “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman”. Mia was a bit freaked out by it even though she totally ate the raw lobster meat, but Claudine thought the whole thing was funny and would swat at the claws with her chopsticks (see the photo above for her reaction). The very same lobster ended up in a stew that was served at the end of the meal.

I’m always so impressed with Mia’s adventurous palate. That kid will try just about anything, even picking up some gnarly looking clam that none of us wanted to eat. She declared the sea urchin her favorite of the evening (mine too as it was particularly good that evening) and she also enjoyed the various Pa Jun (crisp pancakes), one of which was made from pumpkin.

And those photographs that line the wall around the restaurant? I was told that they are reproductions of images that were taken by an American soldier during the Korean War and discovered relatively recently. Pretty amazing that they are in color, given that this was the early 1950s. The shot of the woman carrying the baby, which we sat under that evening, is especially meaningful. My mother was carried by her grandmother strapped to her back when her family fled with the refugees, on foot, from Seoul to Busan to escape the Communists (some 200 miles). She still remembers this vividly. Her family was separated during the journey at some point. It’s amazing sitting here in that restaurant, given my parents’ history and experiences, that this is the same life. My dad returns to Korea every few years but my mom and I have only been back once since we immigrated to NY in the early 70s, and we were not together when we made our sole visits. We all talked about making plans to go as a family to Korea, with the kids, with my brother…some day.

It’s fun, but not like I remember it as a little kid. Not to be such a downer, but somewhere around the time when I became a teenager, Christmas Day actually became somewhat anti-climatic. I used to LOVE the weeks leading up to Christmas – the anticipation, the shopping, the decorating, the city, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit let down on the actual day. It got really depressing when Mark had to work every Christmas for 5 years. It was just me and the kids for much of the day and I started to dread it just a little bit. So maybe this feeling is just a leftover sentiment from years past. Maybe it feels a bit empty because there isn’t other family around – Mark’s old restaurant work schedule and now the business makes it a bit impossible to travel at this time of year.

The girls, on the other hand, were all bubbly with excitement the moment they woke up and tore through the presents as soon as we gave them the go ahead. We had a really nice breakfast, and I mean a real breakfast with scones, eggs, sausage and hash potatoes, not the quick dump-cereal-in-your-bowl variety that has ruled the mornings every day for so long. We drove to the burbs for more presents. And I promise, in case you think I’m insane for writing such a lukewarm Christmas post, it gets better. I promise. More soon.

Do you remember the photoshoot that we did waaaaaaay back in January for a Japanese magazine on decorating for the holidays, American-style? I kind of forgot about it too until Asako, our contact and writer, emailed me not too long ago saying that it was finally out in Japan and in Japanese bookstores here in the states. She came by Gifted on Tuesday to deliver a few copies. We nearly fell off our chairs in amusement when we saw Mia on the cover! Mind you, this photoshoot was taken almost exactly a year ago so this was pre-2009 house improvements (like the wall in the kitchen looks so bare without the wallpaper…and is that a dirty blue sponge that I see on the edge of the kitchen sink? ha!).

We have a 2 page spread that you can see below (and for some reason because of the way I am sitting, I look puffy and pregnant in the photo. No, it’s not just my imagination, my friend Re Jin agreed too when she saw it, gah!). There are a few other American families and their homes featured in the magazine, although I am totally speculating because I can’t read Japanese. I don’t know what they are saying about us here, so if anyone can roughly translate, please do!

Ahhhhh, today is the last day of Gifted. It’s a short 4 hour day too so it sort of feels like a half day at school. I’m leaving shortly to go set up and Mark will join me after he mails 14 more packages out today. After he does a bit of work for the restaurant where he bakes, he’s done for a few days. It’s over (I, on the other hand, will be working Christmas weekend on a last minute design assignment that just came in from a client, hmm). We’ll be spending Christmas morning here with a nice breakfast and present opening and then we’ll drive out to my parents for a retreat to the burbs till Monday. Although we still have a queue of orders that still need to go out next week, we hope to do all the fun Christmas stuff that we haven’t been able to do in the city like see the Rockefeller Center tree and the fancy shop windows.

Oh, one more thing: Some nice blog readers nominated us for the Apartment Therapy 2009 Homies. Sometimes these things feel like popularity contests and I don’t like that aspect of it, but if you so feel inspired, please vote for us.

Hope you guys have a great holiday. Thank you to all for checking in every day, for buying our cookies, for your nice words. See you in a bit.

First of all, can I just complain about how sore I am? I am presently laying down on the couch with back pain, shoulder pain and sciatic nerve pain in my legs after 2 days of pushing that stroller through the snow and hauling some gift boxes and marshmallows to the Gifted Market this morning (yeah, I know, but believe it or not, marshmallows are heavier than you think). With my bad back, I’m not really supposed to pick up and carry anything over 10 lbs because it will trigger back and sciatic nerve pain, but sometimes that can’t be avoided.

So day 2 of the Gifted Market is complete. People, it’s not that I don’t love you, but I’m not really cut out for the vendor thing. Physically it’s hard on my back to be standing and sitting in 1 place for 9 hours and I wish I was more exuberant and bubbly, but I’m just too tired. There’s certainly an art to being a good sales person. I don’t think I have it, but sometimes you gotta pitch in for the team. Mark’s back on duty tomorrow and we’ll both be there on the last day. In the meantime, I’ll be putting on my mom hat all day tomorrow. Maybe we’ll even make more paper snowflakes.

What a morning. Mark is at Gifted today and we decided to ditch trying to get the car out of the snow and instead opted for a car service early this morning at 7:30. We figured that it would be a wash paying for parking in Manhattan and then trying to find a space in the snow again later tonight at 8:30. Once he got in, Mark dashed to both locations of Dean & Deluca to make deliveries before settling in to set up the table for the 11am opening. If you stop by Gifted and see him dozing, give him a poke and maybe a cup of coffee. We were both up till 3:30am last night trying to get everything ready for the market.

I had a similar mad dash this morning trying to get the 2 kids out the door for Mia’s school drop off, a long wait at the post office (the line wrapped around the block even before it opened), a long wait at the doctor’s office for a suspected ear infection in Claudine, a long wait to get antibiotics at the drug store, a trip to the supermarket to pick up some badly needed groceries and a tough time in general trying to maneuver a borrowed jogging stroller around the heaps of slush and mounds of shoveled snow around the curbs. Have you ever tried pushing a stroller in the snow? Not so fun, especially for sore shoulders and backs.

Snow is great when it’s freshly fallen and for play, but not so pleasant when it starts to melt and turn into black slush as you’re trying to run errands. But we did play yesterday in Prospect Park, though it wasn’t nearly as much fun as last winter’s big sledding excursion. I think Claudine was already feeling discomfort from her ear infection (“I don’t want to play in the snow everyday”) and it was difficult trying to keep track of 2 children by myself with the throngs of other heavily bundled up kids dotting the snowy meadow. But I suspect this won’t be our last snow day this winter. It will be good to have Mark around more once the dust settles from HolidayMadness09. Just a few more days…

We walked to a show at the Brooklyn Public Library and came out to see snow falling. It took twice as long to get home as the girls stopped every 5 steps to play in the snow. The storm turned out to be a blizzard and our car is, indeed, snowed in, not so much because of the accumulating snowfall, but because it was on the side of the street that the snow plow dumps snow on.

The girls and I are on our own again today as Mark is spending long hours at the kitchen. We are a bit worried that we’ll have enough products to stock the table this coming week at Gifted and now he gets to add digging the car out the snow on top of all the things he’ll have to do when he gets home late tonight.

Thanks to Mark’s mom who made her yearly trip to NY to help us during the busy season. The girls miss you already.

The sun is shining. Blue skies. I’m trying to muster enough energy to walk up the hill to Prospect Park so the girls can go sledding.

Happy Sunday.

I am done. Delivered all my freelance design projects this week and the worst of the holiday rush is over. Mark’s been in the kitchen many many hours getting ready for the Gifted Market next week but the last 2 evenings have been quite mellow and I even got to go out Thursday night to meet up with some friends for drinks in Soho. When I came home, Mark was on the couch with a glass of wine and his feet up – a rare sight these days. Bedtime the last 2 nights have been a reasonable 12:30 am.

I’m not ready to reflect on how this holiday compared with our last, which was our first, until the markets are over. The hours will be long next week – 11-8 except on Christmas Eve which is only open 11-2ish – and it will be quite hectic trying to get enough stock ready for all 4 days. Since baked goods are made to order, you can’t exactly make and stock ahead. I’ll also be at the market by myself on Tuesday (a first, so please swing by!) while Mark is back in the kitchen baking to restock the table for the next 2 days.

In the meantime, I have a bit of time with the kids to have a little festive fun like going to Claudine’s playgroup holiday party. SNOW is in the forecast for the weekend which the kids are dying for, but might make Monday morning a pain in the ass if we have to dig the car out to make wholesale deliveries and set up for the market. It’s always something!