You never know what the weather is going to be like in St Louis. A week ago we had 6 inches of snow. On Christmas Day, we had a gorgeous sunrise with temps in the 60's.
So I started the day with a walk to Starbucks for a white chocolate peppermint mocha - a much more pleasant way to get a "white Christmas," in my opinion. Courtney flew in around noon. Even though Chicago is only 45 minutes away, for some reason the airlines have been cutting the number of non-stop flights. On Christmas Eve, she had her choice of flying in via Dallas, Atlanta, New Orleans, or Cleveland, so I recommended she wait until Christmas Day thinking that would be a light travel day... WRONG! It took poor Bruce over half an hour to get close enough to the door to pick her up. With over 40 gates in Terminal 2 and 150 passengers per plane, I'm not sure what Lambert is thinking by only allowing 5 pickup spots for cars.
We sat down to our Christmas Day dinner (barbecue ribs) before opening our presents. Courtney got some new slippers and a bunch of art supplies.
Bruce and I seemed to have a cooking theme going. I got a frittata pan
and he got a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer. That might seem like a strange present for a guy, but Bruce loves to make bread. Since I love to eat bread, as well as watch the
British Baking Show, I thought this would be a good gift.
This turned out to be a great idea, because 2 days later Bruce made his first loaf. Paul Hollywood would have probably complained about the small air pocket in the middle of the load, but yeast bread right out of the oven is like eating candy. Courtney and I can't wait until he works his way up to the chapter on cinnamon rolls.
The day after Christmas, Courtney and I went to the
Trans Siberian Orchestra concert. It was as amazing as always with lots of fire and laser lights.
Since it was still very warm out, we went over to Mia Ranchito for dinner and then walked through the neighborhoods to look at the Christmas lights.
The next day Courtney and I went over to Webster to try out our new Christmas paints, but like typical St Louis, the temperature had dropped over 30 degrees. We withstood the cold weather for a while, but then headed over to the mall to warm up. All in all, I'd say it was a very good Christmas. I just can't believe that another decade is almost over.
