Question about Celebrating Holidays

I have a question for the fellow bloggers (and lurker readers) out there, especially if you are of Indian origin.

Why do some Indians (or any immigrants for that matter) celebrate holidays, such as New Year's, on the day it occurs in their home country INSTEAD of the day it occurs in their current country? For example, my Mom - in - Law is celebrating New Year's Day tomorrow, the 31st because in India it would have already changed to 2009. She also celebrated me and my hubbie's birthdays a day before the actual date.

Is it just a love of their home country? When I was in India during my wedding, I celebrated the holidays (Diwali, Christmas) the day it occured in India. NOT a day later to coordinate with USA time.

I don't get it. Any explainations to help out an American Born Cute Desi? :-)

Happy Birthday G

We celebrated G's 34th Birthday on Dec. 19th. Since we were snowed in (this coming from a Minnesotan who transferred to Washington...sort of ridiculous) we kept the celebration low - key at home.

My gift to G was a homemade cake. G said he loves Chinese pineapple sponge cakes, but I couldn't find any decent recipes online (most of them required steaming the cake in a wok...too complicated for moi'). Instead, I used reduced sugar yellow cake mix. The water in the cake mix was replaced with evaporated milk, and the middle layer frosting was cream cheese mixed with vanilla flavor and crushed pineapple. For the top layer of frosting I used heavy cream whipped in the KitchenAid mixer (I love that thing!) with very little sugar added, then topped the whole cake with coconut and edible Christmas decorations. The cake came out not too sweet (some cakes are total sugar overload) but tasty. I could have easily purchased a cake from a bakery, but I enjoy doing stuff like this...I think in the future I'm going to invest in some cake decorating supplies and actually make the cakes prettier. Maybe borrow some books from the library on cake decorating. HAHA dream on...when I actually have time (which is never).

Anyway, Happy Birthday to my sweet, melt - in - water, cute cute cute, G.

Indian Christmas

12 Days of Christmas, Indian Style, Enjoy!

To Do

Many posts in my mind. Lots to blog about.

Need to read a bunch of fellow bloggers.

Need to update blogs I follow list.

Been a busy week....came back from Minnesota, then needed to unpack massive amounts of junk, then had to get caught up on studying, shopping etc. Hence blogging was neglected.

Stay Tuned!

How I will look once I return from Minnesota

What I've consumed so far in my parents house...

• Fried Chicken & mashed potatoes
• Scrambled eggs (in oil) with toast (white)
• Cookies
• 2% milk in all cups of chai
• Chicken curry

And that's just in 2 days. Ack. Thank goodness I went grocery shopping today and got lots of healthy stuff to snack on here and not blow my weight loss (by too much!). Tomorrow I plan on cooking dinner, it's vegetarian day at our house (my parents don't eat meat on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays...too funny). Oh and I need to do some much needed cloth shopping for myself. Mom is home all day tomorrow so Om will stay with her until past lunchtime. He's been really fussy at his grandparents home...new place, new people, new sounds.

To do

I've been studying the past few days, trying to get through a whole caboodle of lectures. They are SO boring. And I can't just listen to them mindlessly, I have to take notes and also pause the DVDs if I miss something (which is often).

Anyway, this Saturday Om and I are headed to Nana and Naani's house in Minnesota (maternal grandparents). I'm slightly anxious, because there are so many items to pack and so many items to keep track of in the airport.

I wonder how it'll go with Om through security with a laptop, video camera, and other junk in tow.

Mumbai Attacks

We watched the news on CNN over the Thanksgiving weekend. CNN and its sister stations did a great job covering the story. Everytime I see these sort of attacks my heart just sinks for the relatives of the people killed. I put myself in their shoes and imagine what it would be like if someone I loved was killed so senselessly. (Side note - I also do a mini prayer each time I see an ambulance zipping through the street). G's childhood friend, who was staying at the Oberoi, called us the next mornign. He heard all the shots and firing, but managed to get out safely.

Last night while pumping breast milk (I know, so glamorous) I was flipping through Newsweek and read the article by Zakaria (summary of it at http://www.newsweek.com/id/171248). His articles are always very informative, and for someone like me (American Born Cute Desi) who doesn't know much about Mumbai it's very educational.

My positive thoughts and prayers go out to all the victims and their families.