Friend: These are two of the smartest people in town.
Elsa and The Fella in unison: Nooooooo. No no no. No.
Friend: This is Elsa. She knows a lot about bananas.
Elsa: [wincing] … that’s fair.

I bake sandwich breads and sweet almond bread and cinnamon rolls. I make caramel corn and Chex mix. I make dips and paté and savory jams to take to parties and family gatherings. I make butterscotch sauce with bourbon or brandy. I make brittle (peanut brittle, natch, but last year I also tested out chili-spiced pumpkin seed brittle and a garnet-colored Shiraz and almond brittle) and chocolate-covered almond toffee.

And then there are cookies.

Every year, I envision giving friends and families beautiful platters all kinds of cookies and sweets… and every year, I end up making one giant batch of biscotti and calling it good, and then I daydream about next year, when I’ll surely make chocolate sandwich cookies and jam thumbprints and frosted sugar cookies and shortbread and and and…

If you, like me, dream of a giant platter with a half-dozen kinds of cookies but always run out of time and patience, consider a cookie swap as a way to amass a cache of cookies without all the planning and the work and the cursing oh the cursing. (… or is that just me?)

What exactly is a cookie swap? It’s just what it sounds like: each person bakes a big batch of one kind of cookie, then you all get together and swap cookies. Doesn’t get simpler than that, does it? You can make it as small or large as you want, just remember that size matters. If you have a dozen participants, each will end up with a dozen kinds of cookie; three participants, three kinds of cookies.

A recent discussion over at The Kitchn reminded me that different people have different goals for cookie swaps. For some, it’s a competitive event or a foodie’s chance to shine; for some, it’s all about collecting as many fancy-pants cookies as possible.

For me, a cookie swap means relaxing, getting together with friends, and taking a little holiday pressure off each other’s shoulders. That’s why I only do cookie swaps with my closest, most relaxed friends, and I make sure we all have similar expectations. It’s also a great idea to propose a cookie swap as an alternative to exchanging gifts, not as an additional responsibility. This way, all the participants cross off one more item on their Christmas list and head home with all their cookie-making done!

So, on to the how-to. Hosting a cookie swap is easy enough, but here are some ideas to guarantee a successful swap! My cookie-swap motto: it needn’t be fancy!

The cookies:

My friends and I choose categories, but not specific recipes. Someone might volunteer to bring a nut cookie, a sugar cookie or shortbread, a chocolate cookie, a mix-in cookie (like chocolate chip or M&M cookies), a fruit cookie, a jam cookie, whatever. That way, we avoid overlaps but keep our freedom to exercise our whims.

- It’s nice (though not necessary) if each contributor writes or prints up a simple label for their cookies, and makes enough copies so every participant can take home a copy. It needn’t be fancy; this is just a simpl way to keep track of what you’re collecting and avoid allergic or dietary problems. The bigger the swap, the more helpful this is.

Encourage your guests to bring tins or Tupperware to pack up their plunder, but it’s also a good idea to have some packaging on hand to give away, just in case. Some cheap or free packaging possibilities:

- I always scrub and save any disposable (and ideally free) packaging that comes with groceries or take-out: plastic clamshells, the plasticky biodegradable takeout containers from the fancy market, aluminum trays from baked goods, salad bar clamshells, whatever.

- Parchment paper! Lining the takeout containers with parchment gives the cookies a little cushioning for transit.

- But there’s nothing wrong with just providing heavy-duty paper plates and plastic wrap or foil.

- have some extra Ziploc bags or a new roll of foil on hand, just in case.

A cookie swap can be as utilitarian as you want, but for me it’s a chance to kick off my shoes and steal a few hours with friends in a hectic season. Cookies are a great excuse to have a happy evening with your bestest friends, so you might as well treat it like a party! Some ideas:

- if space allows, set up the cookie-swap table away from the main seating area. That way, people can circulate around it more freely.

- I like to offer wine, beer, chilled water, and at least two nice non-alcoholic drinks. Ginger beer and juice spritzers are favorites around here; neither is too too sweet.

- Be sure to offer a few savory nibbles; everyone has been eating cookies before and during the party! Something simple and salty is good, like pretzels or crackers with a nice dip*, or a dish of homemade hummus and crudités, or a cheese and fruit tray with bread or crackers. Anything savory will be a hit.

- Without much extra work, you could make it a dinner party. Nothing fussy or fancy: try serving a big crockpot of chili or soup and a pan of cornbread. (If you don’t have enough bowls for a crowd, serve the chili in coffee mugs or ramekins.) Then everyone is sent home with a full belly and a lot of cookies! Well-fed guests are less likely to eat up the entire cookie buffet, which is a bonus.

And I can’t say it enough: it needn’t be fancy. That goes for the invitation to the swap, for the cookie packaging, for the food you serve, and for the cookies themselves. Sometimes, friends who aren’t terribly at home it the kitchen get a little intimidated at the prospect of making dozens of cookies. Remind them that they could whip up two batches of Tollhouse cookies, or make four-ingredient shortbread, or whatever. The simplest cookies are delicious and beloved.

Remember, this is supposed to be relaxxxxxxxxing, so only good friends, only real friends, only the hair-down, shoes-off kind of friends get asked to participate. We get enough holiday stress out in the world; no need to invite it into your home and feed it cookies!

This post is an adaptation of a comment from a post on The Alchemist, Cookie Exchange, and Holiday Expectations, for which Alchemy Gen awarded me the great moveable-type cookie-cutter set seen above.

Such deliciousness! Spicy chicken tenders, sauvely sauteed portabello mushrooms, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, two kinds of cheese, pesto, butter, mustard, mayo, and lovely tender-chewy ciabatta to pile everything atop. AND! A bright, fresh salad with apples, almonds, and red onion, and a big casserole of luscious mac & cheese, tangy and tender and surprisingly light. (JE, I’m taking notes; I think of mac & cheese as heavy and creamy, but you may have opened my eyes to another way.)

Jagosaurus: Random thought I keep forgetting to articulate: Sometimes I wish we would jointly post (edited) versions of some of our conversations. We B Funny.

Elsa: Oooh, blog fodder! Uh. I don’t have to post that part*, right?

J: You do not.

E: Sold!

J:  Excellent.  What happens next?

E: Yeeeeeah, I thought you’d know that.  I, uh, something.

Here’s what happens next. Let’s start at the beginning. (Salty language and insect horrors ahead.)

J: This website makes me think of you.

E: And to think: you sent this not even knowing that I accidentally (and sparkling-winily) coined a phrase during a cocktail hour at our place Monday night. A friend was struggling to describe the ambience of a particular downtown lounge, trying to paint us a brief picture of its ineffable funk. I chipped in two words and the room EXPLODED with laughter.

And all week long, one friend in particular has been asking me over and over to help her remember the phrase. Finally, she wrote it down on a little scrap of paper during another wine-soaked evening. That means she’s walking around with a scribbled note reading “DOUCHE MIASMA” in her pocket.

It’s also the new cologne from Ashton Kutcher.

Oh, and: enjoy.

J: The feral goose-raptor story has me in tears. Maybe I can use those tears to drown the Gigantor Roach in stairwell that is menacing me by just sort being a roach.

E: Around 3 am, The Fella woke to me uttering a brief high shriek. He stumbled out to find me scuttling from the kitchen back into the bathroom with a broom in my hands.

“Wassit, honey?” he asked, reasonably enough.

“BIG FUCKING BUG. BIG FUCKING BUG,” I replied, also reasonably enough, feinting at the bathroom corner with my broom.

You see, I stumbled into the bathroom and sleepily picked up a box off the shelf. When I did, a BIGASS MILLIPEDE ran off it and up my arm. TOWARD MY HEAD. ON MY ARM. WITH ALL ITS LEGS OH MY GOD.

I hate the sexist implications of this, but there are only two things that give me the wig quite this badly: roaches and millipedes. I try to smash ‘em like a sensible person, but I get so squiggly-scared that I often lose the crucial few seconds before they seek cover. In this case, it sought cover behind the toilet.

But, see, I’d gone in there to pee. And I hadn’t yet. And I certainly wasn’t going to ensconce myself on the seat until the bug was DEAD DEAD DEAD I KILL YOU WITH DEATH DEAD.

The Fella knows that it’s okay if he can’t kill it, can’t find it, whatever. We have an understanding: he just tells me he killed it, no matter what.

J: AAGGGGHHHHH. EVERYTHING with more than 6 legs is UNACCEPTABLE.  Roaches are the only 6-legged bugs I truly cannot abide.

I should be reasonable about this: I live in an 80-year-old apartment building with tenants from all over the world and with varying degrees of hygiene. There will be roaches.** And I only see 2-3 a year but they are BIG. And they are so fucking primitive and creepy. Honestly, I’d be much more relaxed if they were sharks.

I squished another one yesterday in the bathroom. It was already in its death throes but that’s not enough for me and so I had to smash it with a catalog and then summon the courage to sweep the bastard into the toilet and flush it. Part of my brain really believes it will reanimate mid-transport to the toilet so I am ridiculously twitchy about this. And I also had to resist the urge to then burn the building down.

Who are these people who aren’t even a little disturbed by bugs?

**Not a movie I’d like to see, not even with Daniel Day Lewis.

E:

and then summon the courage to
>sweep the bastard into the toilet and
> flush it. Pat of my brain really believes
> it will reanimate mid-transport to the toilet
> so I am ridiculously twitchy about this.

I know, I know — last night, The Fella smashed the revolting thing and swiped it up with toilet paper and flushed it down the toilet, all the while shooting me reassuring little glances where I cowered across the other room… and though my feelings are almost evenly split between gratitude and embarrassment, there’s a tiny sliver of me fuming: “Jeez, you put it right where I have to SIT DOWN AND PEE.”

Because YOU KNOW it might reconstitute, grow a thousand times larger, and come roaring back up the pipes while I’m sitting there. How does he not understand how likely that is? He must not love me at all.

J: Seriously. WHY DON’T THEY UNDERSTAND?

E: jagosaurus@noname.com wrote:
> Honestly, I’d be much more relaxed
> if they were sharks.

Well, yeah, ’cause then you could just step out of the tank, right? The tank in your apartment building?

J: Okay, maybe not sharks. Geese.

E: Well, if they were geese they would eat the roaches and millipedes. Yuck. Geese are gross.

J: And mean-ass motherfuckers too. The late great Figaro and the still-with-us Abby were/are useless with roaches too. They’re all “AW HELL NAW.  You take care of it.”

E: A few years ago one pleasant late spring day, The Fella surprised me with a day trip. We ended up at an area exotic animal refuge/zoo, where they take in abandoned or illegal animals who can’t be set free in their natural habitat. They have a few lions and pumas and the like, a bear or two, but the park is mostly populated by tamer stuff: raccoons and, i dunno, capybaras or whatever.

And a whole lot of adorable ducks waddling around free. They’ll just sidle up to you like you’re both at a cocktail party, glance up, and casually, conversationally say “QUACK?”

And also geese. Big. Fucking. Geese.

And they have a coin-op machine, like a gumball machine. You put in a quarter and get a handful of parched corn. To feed the ducks. The cute, conversational ducks.

Except, y’know, GEESE.

Geese are vicious fuckers, with big powerful wings, and they know it. Also, it turns out geese are smart enough to have identified the sound of a coin-op ratchet turning, and to associate it with food. And to then rush whoever is standing next to the machine, their big wings aloft.

Also, because I didn’t know where we were going I was wearing tiny little sandals that left my toes totally exposed. Turns out, if geese think you’re holding out on them parched-corn-wise, they’ll rush you and actually bite your toes. HARD.

I never knew before that day that I could be pushed so far that I’d take a kick at a bird.

J: Geese, swans, roosters. All mean motherfuckers.

When my grandmother was young, she constantly had to fight her way past an incredibly aggressive rooster at her cousin’s house. There may have been kicking involved, which is not the idea interaction with a bird or any animal. Still, you know, it’s kicking a bird, which is simultaneously terrible and, honestly, funny as shit because I always picture the chickens from The Muppet Show.

Yeah, ducks are charmers. More duck please.

(Why the fuck are none of my neighbors freaked out by or taking action against The Stairwell Roach? Is it a friend of theirs? WTF.)

E: I feel like I should be clearer: it was a feinting kick. I didn’t connect with any of the birds. But I totally should have. Geese blow.

J: > Geese blow.
And honk.
E: Ha! Incidentally, my google ads are for BirdBGone Duck Control. For controlling ducks. And I’m all “Can’t you read? I like the ducks! It’s those goddamned geese that can get bent.”

J: If you control the ducks, YOU CONTROL THE WOOOOOOOOORLD.
Maybe not.

I feel like I should mention that my friend C. has a lap rooster. Named Bruiser.

Really. I think you need this information.

E: I’m uh that’s whu…

… Okay, I’m just going to assume that “lap rooster” is some sort of euphemism.

Can you blame me?

J: Seriously. She got some chickens because she’s insane and the rooster, BRUISER, likes to cuddle in her lap. What makes this even better is that she can’t have a rooster in the city limits so my friend J. is taking in Bruiser. As she put it in one of my favorite sentences ever written: “Bruiser will be coming to live with us.”

E:> she can’t have a rooster in the city limits
That’s what they taught us in sex-ed. Frankly, I thought the curriculum was a little prudish: they’re all blah blah primarily for procreation blahblah missionary blah no chickens within city limits. Puritans.

J: Cock blockers.

E: Who likes it rooster-style?

E: Quack?
____________________________________
*E: Except I totally am posting that part. Because Irony. (That’s the name of my upcoming album: Because Irony.)

J: The sophomore offering from DOUCHE MIASMA.

E: I really feel like Douche Miasma is a club name. Or maybe an elaborate cocktail involving Red Bull and Jaegermeister.

J: Yeah. I think Because Irony was released by The Dude Huddle.

1. The inaugural bottle: shared with AC at her place with J. and The Fella. Baked brie, savory pastries, and Buffy.
2 & 3. Nominally shared with E. (but actually I think I drank most of both bottles) at an impromptu cocktail hour at our place with J., R., and The Fella before going to see The Geek Chorus. Oof.
4. Shared with Gaoo before potluck pizza dinner. A. came over too! Wheee!
5. An evening cocktail party at our place to celebrate the morning soccer match.
6. & 7. Noir Might: Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, and vegetable galettes with R, E, P, and The Fella.
8. AC brought over a bottle of sparkling pink! Very berrylike and fresh, a little sweet, and lovely with the last strawberry late at night.
9. After a two-week stretch of very-sick no-drinking, I shared a bit of a bottle at AC & J’s — the first time J & E joined us for Buffy night! It was also the first wedding anniversary for The Fella and me, and our friends surprised us with a tiramisu festooned with figurines, and an attempt at a happy-anniversary song. So sweet!
10. For a second first-anniversary celebration, a split of prosecco with polenta fries on the patio of the fancy-pants restaurant around the corner. I can check that off my summer list, too!
11 & 12. The first Buffy Might at J & E’s, with AC & J. Gorgeous dinner, great company, lots of bubbly including one that got cork-stuck… but The Fella got it popped.
13. Vinho verde with Gaoo, the sgazzetti contingent visiting from Bulgaria, and Gamma Suzin.
14. The Fella and I had a rare weekday date night together at home, and — to accompany a frankly delicious clean-out-the-fridge dinner — I opened a bottle of prosecco just for myself. That felt like a big deal, to pop a cork just so I could have a glass or two. I think I should do it more often!
15. Another Buffy Night, also Pizza Night. Mmm. The Ploob came along to AC & JE’s too, though he stuck to beer.
16, 17, 18. Buffy Night was Nostalgia Night at E & J’s: an enormous pile of grilled cheese sandwiches, three pots of soup of the evening beautiful soup, and three of us toughed it out through two and a half bottles of fizz. Go, team!
19, 20. Buffy night at AC & JE’s, and an excuse to celebrate the engagement of E & J! Go, team: we knocked back a bottle of cava, a bottle of vino verde, and who-knows-how-many bottles of High Life, the Champagne of Beers.

Wuh-oh! I lost track there for a while (not too surprising, I suppose, with all that bubbly swimming around). As of January 2011, I think we’re up to 27 bottles… and a Christmas gift from Mom included two more bottles, one big, one tiny one just for me. Aaaaand there’s a bottle of frizzante Lambrusco (or is that “Lambrusco frizzante”?) in the fridge, waiting for me to get around to it. I bought it for New Year’s Eve, but was taken down by the flu. I rang in the new year with ginger ale, not sparkling wine.

28-30: The Fella’s 42nd birthday party, a 12-hour open house with plenty of food and drink and silliness. While uncaging the cork of the second (third?) bottle, I set it down for a moment to introduce my sister to the assembled crowd… and we were all surprised by a popping sound. That’s right: an uncaged cork can apparently drive itself right out of the bottle and up into the air!

… which I suppose I could have inferred from the necessity for the cage. Right.

31-33. Though our out-of-town guest of honor had to cancel, our friends J & E braved a snowstorm to join us for cocktails and nibbles. We missed you, AC, but E & I soldiered on as best we could, knocking back three bottles of sparkling wine between us. Wowee.

34. SNOW DAY! In this snowy, blustery, blizzardy winter, The Fella has had to work through many many potential snow days… so in February, we decided TO HECK WITH IT and blocked out a day off as our own private snow day. (As it turned out, that was the warmest, sunniest day in months.) He provisioned a stack of movies and bags of food and we snuggled down in a cozy nest in our living room and enjoyed pretending to be snowbound.

35. A tiny split just for me, mixed with pulpy fresh grapefruit juice, enjoyed while The Fella and I had a quiet dinner.

36. Niece A’s 20th birthday party! Beautiful homemade pizza! Hugging! Photos of her trimester in Mexico! More hugging, and still more hugging — the girl’s been away for a TRIMESTER, y’all. I brought a bottle of vinho verde (and very nice for $3.99 — thanks, Trader Joe’s!) to share with Gaoo and Mom.

37. Dinner and movie with The Fella, and I broke open a bottle just for myself! Two glasses a night, two nights in a row.

38-41. “Mad Men” night with R., AC, E., and J. Despite the temptations of rye old-fashioneds and bourbon on the rocks, three fizzy-drinkers plowed through four bottles (including a too-sweet Asti, much improved by a drop of bitters). Nice work, folks!

42, 43. Dinner with Miko and LT at my apartment: spinach and mushroom galette, two bottles of a nice light vinho verde, Samuel James on the stereo, and talk of teleporters and living in the future.

44, 45. Dinner with most of my family: J, M, A, & A; N, S, J, & N; C; Mom; me. Two bottles of vinho verde to go with lobster rolls, corn on the cob, and a plate of farmstand cucumbers and tomatoes. Ahhhh, summer in Maine.

46-50: Halfway there! Buffy Night returns: AC & JE made a trip north to stay over; EB & JL joined us for cold peanut noodles, cucumber and avocado salad with sweet miso dressing. EB brought eclairs, JL brought homebrew! And we worked our way through 2 bottles of champagne and 2 bottles of vinho verde.

And a big bump: The Fella and I threw a Champagne Jam, an all-day breakfast buffet that’s just an excuse to drink pour cheap bubbly (and beer) for all our friends all Sunday long. I bought a mixed case + 1 bottle, an amount of sparkling wine now known as “a birthday dozen.” And we drank it ALL, as well as one bottle that a guest brought. That, plus the three bottles I used for cooking (and a bit of tippling) in the week leading up to the party, brings us up to 67 bottles.

68. Shared between brother B., SIL T., Gaoo, and me on Mom’s patio, enjoying the last lingering bit of summer and the sweet-tart fizz of a cheap but pleasant Lambrusco. B. offered a sip to teenaged L., saying “It’s what wine would taste like if it were sody-pop.” I’ll add that to the growing list of comparisons: cartoon wine, toy wine, candy wine.

69, 70. J & E came over for impromptu cocktails including a bottle of Lambrusco, a bottle of Christalino, and a few bottles of J’s homebrewed cider.

71. A bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling cider shared with SIL T, niece P, and The Fella during a lovely sleepover visit at our place. Hey, if we serve it in champagne glasses to celebrate, it counts!

72. A bottle of vinho verde I opened just for me — an indulgence that I’m finally getting comfortable with — during The Fella’s November vacation. I drank a few glasses during a night of board games, loosening up for An Experiment.

73, 74. An early Thanksgiving with The Fella’s family: I brought non-alcoholic sparkling cider, a bottle of cava, and a stack of recyclable plastic champagne glasses.

75. Actual Thanksgiving 2011: Pajama Thanksgiving at home with The Fella, snuggled up watching MST3K over a vegetarian dinner (plus chicken gravy) and a bottle of sparkling cider. (Yes, I’m counting it.)

76, 77. Christmas dinner at Gaoo’s with A., Mom, and The Fella: ham, scalloped potatoes, beet and goat cheese, roasted squash galette. Piles of prezzies, a kitten and a pocket laser, “Music from the Last Ten Years,” and laughing our asses off over snakes in a can.

You know what will really improve my social life? Teleportation. Getting there isn’t half the battle; it’s the whole battle.

And I decided, despite my previous kvetching, to give it a try.

(I’m currently reserving Facebook, logically enough, for people I know face-to-face. It’s mostly to preserve the illusion of distance between the Elsa known to the professors and administrators and the Elsa who swears fluently and tells goofy stories in the hazy world inside the tubes.)

If nothing else, Facebook allowed me to message a friend who’s been otherwise unreachable, and to see the comment stream of a loved one who’s been too overwhelmed to use email or phone. I’ll cheerfully admit that’s handy.

Otherwise… well…

In a week or so, I’ve had exactly one flashing moment of illumination: I saw how this network could hook you but good, like buying scratch tickets or playing craps. I was idly looking up a grade school friend — a girl I hadn’t seen in 25 years and several thousand miles. To confirm that the profile was indeed my old friend and not someone else with her name, I check to see if her sister (also a one-time friend of mine) was among her contacts. She was…

… and the sister lives here, in my small hometown, a town neither of them had ever heard of when we met in Texas.

It flushed me like a win at roulette, this odd little nothing of happenstance. I shook my head and thought “What are the odds?

And then I closed both profiles without contacting either, because, y’know, what’s the point? If we’d wanted to be in touch in the past 25 years, I guess I would’ve made an effort earlier, or they would’ve. But I didn’t, and they didn’t, and so we didn’t.

This pretty well sums up my response to Facebook in general: cool! But what’s the point?

If you browse wedding forums or advice columns, you’ll soon bump into shrill warnings against this approach. Naysayers dismiss the handmade, homemade, shared nature of the event. It’s tacky, it’s rude, it’s cheap. It’s inconsiderate to expect guests to contribute to Your Special Day.

Of course guests don’t want to do your dirty work, but you can accept loving assistance (and even ask for it) without being rude or demanding. Some thoughts guiding our own requests:

- Our friends miiiiight enjoy showcasing their talents. They would not enjoy predictable drudgery; we’ll pay people for that.
- Any guest’s wedding-day contribution should be brief. Everyone wants to have fun!
- Things will go wrong. It doesn’t matter. If the cake falls over, if the photos don’t come out, if the iPod freezes… we’ll still be married at the end of the day.
-If anyone seems hesitant, for any reason or for no reason at all, we’ll withdraw our request.
If we ask you to consider helping out, it’s because we value your talent and we trust your judgment. That includes the judgment that leads you to say, “No, I’d rather not.”
In fact, we’ve made few requests so far; our family and friends keep amazing us with their offers of help, offers far more generous, creative, and serendipitous than we could have imagined.
Behind the click is a loooooong list of the help being offered, and a few requests we plan to make.

Gaoo quickly informed us that she would give us our wedding cake — a lavish and loving gift, and one that I actually dream about some nights. Sweet dreams indeed! Mmm, cake. Gaoo has also been an invaluable sounding board for menu ideas, and she’ll lend us some kitchen hardware, serving pieces, and the use of an extra freezer for our homemade wedding foods.

My oenophile brother B offered to negotiate with his local wine merchant, saving us trouble and time and giving us the advantage of his expertise. (Update: and now he tells me that he’d like to give us the wedding wine as a gift. Gasp! Do you see what I mean about generosity, creativity, and serendipity?)

The Fella’s sister T beamed with pleasure when she agreed to perform our ceremony. I got all teary-eyed… and I think she may have, too.

Watching me prep crudités before a recent party, Mom offered to do this task on the wedding weekend, so I don’t spend stay up ’til midnight before the wedding cutting up veggies for the mezze. Remembering the artistry of the fruit plates sister-in-law M has assembled at previous gatherings (who knew fruit could look so good? Oh, right — the Dutch Masters), I’m hoping I can persuade her to arrange the cheese & fruit platters for the buffet.

The Fella’s mother handstitched a ring pillow, partly for the pleasure of her granddaughter the ringbearer. I’ll be asking my squadron of nieces and nephews — them what’s willin’, anyhow — for help executing a small silly surprise on the wedding day. (Stay tuned, young’uns.)

A few friends are already excited about making iPod playlists or mix CDs, which we’ll play through the magnificent amplifier provided by brother-in-law J. My mother can’t wait to get her hands on our (few) flowers. Elli offered to design our wedding invitations, and when we decided instead to make casual hand-stamped cards, she cast aside all professional judgment to praise them.

Best woman and accomplished seamstress K offered to make me a dress. I ended up finding something readymade, but one night soon soon K and I will piece together frippery to gussy up my simple sale-rack outfit. I’ll provide the wine, the movie, some snacks, and a pile of organza flowers made with my own two hands. I also haven’t forgotten her offer to help me make honeymoon pajamas, which sounds like an excuse for wine-drinking if ever there was one.

We’re asking a few talented friends if they’re willing to bring their cameras and shoot either a brief list of family photos or a random stream of candid shots, but not both. (Truthfully, this is one request I’m wary of making. I had almost decided against it when, out of the blue, a photographer-friend volunteered enthusiastically and suggested we ask the same of a few others. We will ask… but gingerly.)

Our honeymoon will be a few days at The Fella’s family’s beach cottage. On a recent visit, his mother told me how happy she is that we’re adding to the cottage’s family history, and hinted at preparations to make it even more romantic. Her kindness — and her tacit inclusion of me in the stream of “family history” — brought tears to my eyes.

Let the naysayers call us tacky or cheap. They have no idea what they’re missing. Any big party means plenty of work and some ingenuity, but at every turn, we’re greeted with the support and help of those dearest to us, whose creative energy appears to be as boundless as their love. It makes this celebration feel so meaningful, so drenched in love and kindness, and far more intimate than if we had handed off these elements to paid strangers.