Christmasukkah

This year Levi and I are lucky enough to have enough family events to attend, that we do not have to buy groceries for basically the last two weeks of December. On Wed. night we went to the Cicerone's house for a Hanukkah dinner complete with the lighting of candles, singing of songs and debate over the blowing out of one of those previously mentioned candles. Apparently those crazy Canadians blow out the first candle, which was down right blasphemous for the rest of those in attendance. The gasp when Seema blew out that flame led this little shiksa to believe there was a serious debate about to begin, but luckily it all came to an abrupt halt when the oven rang out that the latkas were ready. Whew! As always it was a delicious dinner, highlights being the latkas, the knishes and the brownies, but the best part, hands-down, was when Anita, Bretty's "second grandma" confided to me about her frequent lunch dates with my brother. So that's where he's been hiding! That Ian, so sneaky!

The next night was dinner with the Coombes family, minus Melissa. I hadn't seen Graham and Mary in seven years, so it was fun to catch up and catch Levi up on the family history. I think he's getting into the groove of things here, and was actually done with his meal at the same time as the rest of the group. And, if memory serves, had seconds! A Christmas miracle.

Levi and Me

Mary and Mom
Graham and Dad (and Mary in the mirror)
Ian, Me and Steffan

Staff Party

Earlier this month my company got together and decided on a date when all the departments were free to have dinner. You can imagine with all three of us it was quite a feat to find not only a date that would work but also a restaurant that could accomodate us all. Luckily, it worked out for December 14, when we went to Ana Mandara, an amazing restaurant in San Francisco. That night we all got to meet the "significant others," get boozy on cocktails and full on dishes with names like "Wading through fields" "Hands of the peaceful child" and "Pillows of paradise" or somethng like that. Anyway it was fab. A super fun night.