There’s a reason it was taking me so long to finalize things for the winter bash. what wasn’t to love? I mean, I wasn’t like the rest of my family, who used to put up Christmas decorations in September (something about the Christmas season starting in the -ber months) until I convinced them to at least wait till the day after Thanksgiving, but I already had a Google spreadsheet prepared for all the holiday movies the Brew-has and I were going to watch, and had no fewer than ten cookie recipes I wanted to test. The food, the parties, the gifts, the karaoke, the fantastically cheesy and comfortingly predictable holiday romance movies. And also the parties because Lila’s family goes all in on the holiday.”ĭespite my “humbug” response, as Adeena put it, I really did love the holidays. I’m mostly over it now, but I still love the music and movies. But there were still all the commercials and Christmas specials on TV, so I got kind of obsessed with the holiday.

You didn’t grow up here, but Shady Palms has a pretty big Muslim and Jewish population, so it was easy to keep Christmas out of schools. Well, as rebellious as you could be in my house. It started as me being rebellious as a kid. “Were you secretly raised in an intensely Catholic family like Lila and me? Because this is a lot.”Īdeena laughed and handed Elena her morning cup of yerba buena tea. It was only December 4, and I was ready to ban her from programming the shop’s playlists ever again.Įlena raised her eyebrows at the mix of both religious and secular Christmas songs. It currently had no fewer than ten Christmas music compilations that she’d had on repeat since December 1. Why do you have all of these?” Elena Torres, Adeena’s girlfriend and the third and final member of the Brew-ha Cafe crew (aka our voice of reason), scrolled through the cafe’s playlist on Adeena’s laptop. “Hon, you don’t even celebrate Christmas. My best friend and business partner, Adeena Awan, turned the cafe’s speaker system down to a decibel that didn’t make my ears bleed. Despite obsessing over it for the past month, I had less than two weeks till the big bash and hadn’t finalized anything. Considering what a mess the Founder’s Day Celebration had turned out to be, I really needed to wow at this party. It tied with the Founder’s Day Celebration as the biggest event in my tiny town of Shady Palms, Illinois (population: 18,751), and this was the first year my business-my dream-the Brew-ha Cafe, would be participating.

I scratched out the third mistake I’d made while trying to finalize the menu for the annual Shady Palms Winter Bash.

Bibingka and blackmail