Felices Fiestas!

"Heap on the wood! - the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We'll keep our Christmas merry still."
- Sir Walter Scott

Season's Greetings to all!

I had a wonderful Christmas/Hannukah filled to the brim with parties. On Friday night I had two parties. There was a dinner party at my house for the family. My sister-in-law Lisa's grandparents were in town, so we had a dinner party in their honor. All my siblings, P, his kids, and my parents were there. My mother's orthopedist was also there with his wife. I'm not quite sure why he was there, but he's a very nice guy and it was nice to have him. After the dinner P and I went to his sister, B's, house party in Los Feliz. That was a fun little party too, but by midnight I started to turn into a pumpkin.

On Saturday night I went to a Hannukah party. Hannukah was technically over, but it was still great. We had latkes, kugel, and vegetarian chili. I don't think the veggie chili is a traditional Hannukah dish, but our hostess is a vegetarian. We rounded out the night with a fiesty game of dreidel. Though I once made a dreidel out of clay (really!), this was my first time playing. Fun times. We also had a really great conversation about politics and the war. Two of the guests were former military -- army and air force. It was very interesting to talk about these issues while hearing their perspectives. It was also nice to have this type of conversation in Los Angeles. I love it here, but you're much much more likely to talk about television or movies here than politics or world affairs. Oh well. At least the weather is beautiful here.

Sunday night we had our Christmas Eve extravaganza. The party traditionally starts after midnight mass. This year it went a little earlier and most guests had arrived by 11:00 p.m. We had mom's traditional soup, hot chocolate, and Haitian pates and then played a rousing game of Secret Santa. I ended up with some onion relish. :(

Christmas Day we went to my brother Marc's house. We had another rousing game of Secret Santa (this one was better because we had a $25 gift price tag) and then opened all our other presents. After that we feasted and feasted and feasted some more. Several people napped after the enormous meal. I just stayed up, half-comatose, and chatted with P's sister and other guests.

Following the Christmas Day feast at Marc's we went to another party at C&J's. This was quite a shindig! Catered, valet parking, magician, singers, and Santa Clause. If I hadn't been utterly exhausted from the rest of my parties I would have really had fun. It was a merry Christmas for all, but for me I was all about a good night... good night's sleep.