To celebrate the Winter Solstice, the Bike Club went on a nighttime ride to see the holiday lights in the neighborhood. Luckily, we had a fabulous night for it - not too cold and very clear. Afterwards, I invited everyone over to our house for mulled wine. I thought it was very good - spicy with a little kick from the brandy. My recipe said to add brandy, but I don't think the wine aficionados cared for it. My street was having a luminary walk that same night where you line the sidewalks with candles (you can kind of see them behind the bikers). Rather than candles, we put out LED lights in lunch bags of sand. Bruce helped with the setup, but I helped with take down because Bruce went to pick Courtney up at the airport. Takedown wasn't difficult, but a little backbreaking (walk 6 feet, bend over and pick up a bag, walk 6 feet, bend over and pick up a bag, etc, etc).
Since we had such nice weather, I planned a bunch of activities to do with Courtney. First up, we went to see the play, "Ebenezer," at the restored Fox Theater in Aurora. It was the classic Dickens tale, but with a twist. Rather than being set in 1840's England, this play was written to reflect the Wild West, circa Denver 1880. All the parts were played by female actors. Unfortunately, they were still mostly male parts. You'd think they would have taken their creativity a bit further and made Ebeneezer and Bob Cratchit women.
Before the show, we had lunch at an international food court called, Mango House. These are very popular in Aurora, but I've never been to one. They're nothing like the food courts at the mall. Some of the booths were Somalian, Himalayan, Burmese, and Syrian. I ordered my lunch from the Syrian booth, because that was the only food I recognized (falafel and hummus). We noticed that a lot of people were getting lunch from the Burmese stall. I think they had some kind of noodle dish.
The next day, I took Courtney to Dutch Brothers Coffee to do a little sketching. It's not necessarily the most interesting place to sketch, but they have really creative holiday drinks. We both ordered the Hazelnut Truffle Mocha - espresso, hazelnut and chocolate milk topped with whipped cream and a caramel drizzle - YUM!
On Christmas Eve, Courtney and I went to an English tea at a local tea shop. Along with finger sandwiches, scones, and butter cookies, we got 4 pots of tea EACH. They had over 100 different varieties of tea to choose from in 6 different categories (black, green, herbal, oolong, Pu Erh, and white). Courtney got some really tasty ones; most of mine tasted like hot water. We actually only finished 3 pots each. By then, we were floating.
This tea shop is decorated with life-size posters of the royal family. People kept coming by and taking my picture, because I was sitting in front of Princess Kate and Prince William. This is the 3rd time I've been to this tea shop. The first time I came here they had a poster of Harry and Meghan, but I noticed it's gone (not surprising given their social media faux pas).
Afterwards, Courtney and I went over to the library to look at their Christmas display called, Forest of Trees. There were 25 trees all decorated based on books. Most of the trees looked like they came from movies, but then I remembered that many movies are based on books. Courtney is standing next to the Indiana Jones tree.
Its decorations didn't seem very Christmassy (more like Dia de Muertos - Day of the Dead), but maybe they would be appropriate for kids on the naughty list.
We opened up our presents later that evening. I got 2 tiny little watercolor sets from Santa and Courtney. (I put a quarter in the picture so you can see just how small they are.) Courtney found the one on the right on Temu. I think I'm going to use it when I go on hikes. It came with a tiny sketchbook and a clip to hold the paint, which makes it a lot easier to use when you're not sitting down. I have to decide which 8 colors I'm going to put in those fingernail-sized holes.
Charlie got a stuffed turkey and a crinkly deer to play with. Courtney brought the deer from Chicago, but we both took him to Murdochs Ranch Supply to pick out the turkey. Charlie loves going to Murdochs, especially when we get to the cash register and the cashier gives him a treat. It was a great toy for about 15 minutes, but then Charlie ripped the tail off. Oh well, it turned out to be a very good holiday this year.
