Christmas Hangover

Detroit’s Eastern Market

It’s been a fun and busy time since I last blogged! On Christmas Eve David and I stopped at McDonald’s in Romulus, Michigan and had a quick hot breakfast before Dave and the gang met us. I had the fruit and maple McOatmeal. Never had McOatmeal before but it was GOOD! When we’re railfanning, that may step in as my go-to breakfast! The Indy fam and Pop picked up McBreakfast to go and I switched into their van for our trip to the Eastern Market. David had some other errands, which I think included the last of my stocking stuffers. He commented about the selection of lip balms at Claire’s at the Mall in Ann Arbor.

Eastern Market this year was a bit of a dissappointment. Some of the shops were open, but the main vendor area and Rocky Peanut Company were closed! There were signs telling of the big Christmas day there being the 23rd this year. That was a bit of a disappointment, but we still did some meat shopping and I got a chunk of imported parmesan cheese, which was grated onto Christmas Day pasta at home and a small bag of Chocolate Cherries that were my selfish sin of the day! In years past, when I used to go with my Mom and Dad, we went on the Saturday before Christmas, which was of course only Christmas Eve when Christmas was on a Sunday. They’d gone last year and found many of the holiday vendors selling wreaths and centerpieces and the shops open, but no produce vendors were out. That was my bad. I‘d remembered the produce vendors on the Saturdays and had actually not done my produce market shopping for the week, planning on stocking up at the farmer’s market stands. So, the veggie for Christmas ended up being salad this year, but we had good pasta and sauce and some excellent wine leftover from our anniversary dinner.

By the way, that anniversary dinner was outstanding! We got to Ciao after David got off work Thursday and were seated pretty much immediately, a sweet table for two right by the fireplace. The baked Asiago that I was looking forward to for an appetizer was a little less than my brain was geared up for, but oh the basil tomato soup was so much more! I had the mahi-mahi dinner, which I decided was a manly enough fish to stand up to the red Tuscan wine we ordered. That was a good choice. The wine was excellent! For dessert, David had a molten chocolate cake and I had tiramisu. It was a wonderful evening! My pocket-size party camera died about month ago, so I didn’t get any photos. I think I need to replace the little party camera.

Back to Christmas Eve, we all gathered at my cousin, Lisa’s, house for Christmas Eve dinner. The long-standing tradition in our family has been a huge fish dinner on Christmas Eve. I’ve heard that’s a common Italian tradition. I’ve never liked the meal because it was always fried. In more recent years they’ve added some not fried fish, usually salmon or tilapia, neither of which I care for, and at least one plate of shrimp that’s boiled or done scampi-style. I don’t go for the food. I go for the people! I usually get a snack before dinner. This year it was a big McLatte, lots of milk – filling and healthier than the fried stuff too, although I wasn’t thinking heavily about healthy for Christmas.

AS and Tori may not have matched their own twins,
but they complemented each other perfectly!

After dinner was sweets, cookies and cakes and such and some photo time around my aunt’s story time with the kids, including the story of the first Christmas, and presents time for the kids. One of the fun photos was Tori and AS. The girls are both twins and while they didn’t dress matching their own twin, they had matching color choices for their dresses. They made a cute pair! (I also got a nice shot of me with the girls.

Nana and the Niecii

After the party at Lisa’s, we went to Pop and Aunt Judy’s place for gift exchanges ad a little Pop-time. Then, with thankfully the bad weather taking a pass on us this year, we made our way south, back to Ohio and our kitty-kids to have a quiet just-us Christmas Day.

I’ll expound a little more later. On Sunday, we met the Indy gang for breakfast and brought Rina and Tori home with us for UNO and the Fabulous Deseret Bar Sunday night and a few days with us. We’ll make our way back into Michigan this afternoon, after my therapy, to stay with Pop for New Year’s Eve festivities in Frankenmuth. I love when they are here and I kinda mss them already!

More to come…