This is my Christmas Day entry — hence the mention of the upcoming blizzard!

“The house looks so beautiful!” “You’ve outdone yourself yet again!” “It’s so great that you do this.”

These are just some of the things my extremely nice family says to me on the holidays. We get together an extraordinary number of times over the course of a year for any number of real and imagined holidays and fetes. Just happens that my house is built for parties, and  I love being in the thick of any kind of event, so lots of the larger hijinx happen at my place. I have organized a $1,000,000+ fundraiser with the President of the United States as the guest of honor, and I number it among  one of the more exciting evenings of my life. However, I also consider my invention of the family Annual International Hot Dog Festival I insist putting my family through also pretty astounding. (And no, you may not hear any more about that until Independence Day.)

The truth is, I’m certain I have the easy part of the deal. Though there are exceptions — like tomorrow, when I will have to clean up the holiday mess and take down the Christmas tree so I can get on the bus and try to beat a blizzard home — I have not been completely honest. It so happens that every woman in my family involved in these celebrations has a culinary background — catering, chefing, running a kitchen, whatever. Oh, sure, I make a mean deviled egg (and Cranberry Surprise Pie), but these guys are pros and it shows. They should make a holiday documentary of this well-oiled machine: it is truly awesome to watch, from beginning to end. I would be the one doing something dumb like choosing the cocktail napkins.

So, amid all the “Thank you for doing this, Erin!” hallelujahs, I always feel like I’m getting away with something. And yet:

There are many pieces to the pie.