We bought a small tree the day after Christmas. Picked up a little 3’ Noble fir from Fred Meyer and carried it home by hand. Saori put A Charlie Brown Christmas on Spotify, and decorated the tree, almost entirely ornaments from Germany. Saori is in her third trimester, and while people tell us Saori still looks so small, we both know wildbad will triple in size before she is born. She's more tired than usual- in addition to the energy drain for the production of another human being, other things they don't tell you about pregnancy is that mom wakes up multiple times during the night even before the baby is born.
Shortly after thanksgiving, Saori used mom’s early christmas present to us, a KitchenAid stand mixer, to whip up several batches of her Springerle cookies, which she traded away for macaroons, peanut butter cookies, cardamom cookies, etc. at holiday cookie swap at the nearby house of a woman Saori went to school with in Finland.
We had the first BRIC office party in mid-December, in a swanky community room of one of the neighboring glass condo towers / tech frat-houses. It was really fun: mediocre Italian buffet, open bar with wine, party games. There was a contest for best festive attire and Saori and I were surprised to win! I think they saw Saori's bump with a ribbon, and thought ok, got to give it to her. Our grand prize was a star wars waffle maker, which makes Stormtrooper-shaped waffles.
It's not a great time for her to travel, to schlep baggage through crowded airports, and spend stressful hours in uncomfortable chairs. So family came to us. Tay and Mom and Larry all flew up here for a few days. I shared a google doc, and everyone contributed to the agenda. We had everything from StarWars to driving to see Christmas lights. To avoid impact on us, mom got an AirBnB in north Portland, not far from the plant shop Solabee and the quirky Mississippi avenue stretch.
It was a typical Portland bungalow- Craftsman style, and Portland decorated. The couple that owned it had really bizarre taste, or simply couldn't curate what they had. Lots of plants everywhere, and a really cosy living room with a big monstera. No TV, no microwave, and a lot of odd doors, drawers, and odds and ends. We stayed there Christmas Eve and opened presents Christmas morning, bright and early. Amazingly, it snowed when they arrived to take us over Christmas Eve day, and then it all froze.
We ate well, the first night they were in town we hit up Higgins, which was an early adopter of the local, seasonal gourmet food concept. Excellent, surprising food. Friday night, I cooked chicken enchiladas and Saori made a salad, Saturday we ate out again at the County Cat (cute, open, highly rated, and a slight let down, although my duck was great). For Christmas eve, we ended up making the fallback plan- Marie Callendar’s frozen lasagna which we’d picked up a night or two before. In the two hours it took for this red iceberg to thaw and cook, Saori also whipped up a very nice salad for us, and I prepared an STP (sticky toffee pudding). Christmas morning after present-opening, I also whipped up some pancakes.
As for activities, we didn’t end up doing much Portland sightseeing together- there was the obligatory stop by Nordstrom’s Rack, as well as several hours at Powell’s, a few hours of wandering along 23rd ave’s shopping district, and STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, which was a lot of fun. We played a lot of cards, hit some coffee shops, threw back some bottles of local Pinot Noir, and right before they left all to the airport to catch delayed flights, we had a delightful hour of camp making fun of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves on our couch at home.
We never did see those christmas lights. Next year.
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