Hello lovely readers. We had to laugh when we saw two fruitcake articles in the food pages today -- we know that when it is crunch-time, it is tempting to flip out about everything that is still left on your to-do list. It would be easy to watch the gifts piling up by your front door, think of all the people you still need to buy for, and then go throw yourself on the bed in despair.

Instead, be pleased with the loot you have already secured. Gift the rest of them with a box of fancy lollipops, or some high-end olive oil and vinegar. Wine for the others (bubbly for everyone -- red, white or pink). Done!

Once you're a bit more "done," you'll be ready to party -- either to host, or to attend. Whether you are hosting this year or not, you might want to bake, and today we have a smattering of nice suggestions to pass along. Thankfully, there are a couple of cool non-holiday items to bring us all back down to earth.

Black cake is a "spicy, fragrant fruitcake steeped in dark rum" from the Caribbean that you make "by cooking sugar until it is very dark." Julia Moskin of The New York Times explains it to us, and lets her (typically sophisticated) readers know it's not something you buy at "Payard Patisserie." This article includes a recipe and several stories about the holiday dessert's history.

From the L.A. side of things, here is a plug for making your own panettone or Christmas stollen. Flavors of orange, lemon, grapefruit, pomelo (ever wonder what to use that fruit for?) mix with almond paste to make a great palate cleanser -- sometimes this kind of fruitcake is just what the mouth wants after dinner (or for breakfast!) instead of a heavy or creamy treat.

More sweet, with sentimental thrown in for good measure: A New York Times tribute to a fabulous cookie-making grandma. There are terrific details in here: "she turned out between 15 and 20 varieties each season: cream cheese wreaths shot from a cookie press; papery wafers carefully dipped in colored sugar; elaborate cutout cookies of nursery rhyme characters, their eyes fashioned from metallic dragées that the F.D.A. has written off as inedible." It's happy memories with a tinge of sadness, as the grandma is still alive but in decline; when the writer calls her to talk about the cookies, "she kept speaking about the beach."

Do you know what a trifle is? You have probably eaten one. We have too but did not know its name. Melissa Clark's Good Appetite column in the N.Y. Times offers this great idea for a dessert that can be put together in advance. A creamy, cold bowlful of pudding, whipped cream and a few other key items can be just right if the crowd in your living room includes kids.

There are three non-dessert-related entertaining pieces worth reading. One is a flowery, inspirational L.A. Times piece that won't appeal to the jaded among us. But it is great, because it reminds us that "while Thanksgiving's menu is bound by tradition and about as scripted as a presidential debate, at Christmas dinner you can really cut loose." Russ Parsons talks about how the Christmas meal can be a very adult moment -- an edible gift to the grownups -- amid a pile of shredded wrapping paper.

We were giggling about "your goose is cooked" -- a favorite expression of a relative we're soon to see -- when we spied this piece in The Boston Globe about making this fatty bird for the holidays. It seems timely, as we all have chicken and even turkey fatigue. Good to know before you head out on a goose chase (terrible, sorry): the meat is "darker than duck" and the breast is "like a tenderloin of venison."

The third article is ridiculously good and helpful. Thank you, Mark Bittman! He may be a minimalist, but he gives us 101 recipes (really!) for appetizers. The great part is, each recipe is just a couple sentences long. These are a godsend if "You don’t want a caterer, you refuse to heat up frozen food, and you want to show that your expertise extends beyond buying perfectly ripe hunks of cheese and juicy olives." Bittman says these party foods can all be made in 20 minutes or less. Another gorgeous detail? None of them require using a plate!

The other "guide" item we liked was in The Washington Post. It's a gift guide, but it is one that will appeal to the smart buyers among us. These writers "put some trendy high-end gadgets through their paces alongside cheaper, lower-tech approaches that we suspected might just win out." They found simplicity to be the ultimate sophistication, as Hot Plates' fortune cookie revealed to us recently. This "Tool Test" column is a good one for people who live at the intersection of foodie and gadget-guru.

And because we have to end on an amusing note -- don't lose your sense of humor, no matter how fruitcake-y things get! -- we have to tell you about a new food publication. It's a quarterly called Meatpaper. "Your journal of meat culture" is the tagline. The publishers are two young San Francisco former-vegetarians. It is nearly impossible for most of us to find. All of this makes it very cool, but likely befuddling to some who come across it. Its founders believe that "bacon is the conversion meat" -- it's what brings vegetarians back into the carnivore fold. That alone may make it worth checking out.