I guess the first official celebration of this Christmas season was at Red Rider, one of the creative agencies we use at work. They fed us wood-fired pizza and gave us T-shirts, scarves, and hats. And we got to take this picture with the reindeer.
Chieko and I have seen a movie and gone to dinner on Christmas eve for the past two or three years. suppose it's kind of become a tradition. This year we saw La La Land, a great movie, and went to dinner at Kyoto, where I had pork cutlet and sushi, and Chieko had nabeyaki udon. In years past we found the only restaurants open on Christmas Eve after a movie were Chinese restaurants. With Christmas eve being on Saturday this year, we were able to get an earlier afternoon start on the movie and had a 7:30 reservation for dinner.
Because grandkids are coming this year, I put up the G-scale train. For the layout I also built a thatched-roof house based on photos I took at a village we visited in Japan over Thanksgiving. It goes with the Lincoln Log-inspired cabin and ghost-town-inspired adobe house I built a few years ago.
Views of the train and village.
Don't you like how I cleverly wrapped Chieko's cyclamen so the flowers look like part of the wrapping? Unfortunately, I bought the plant about three weeks ago and hid it in the storage room. But then I was worried it would die in the dark room--they need plenty of sunlight--so I bought a grow light. But then the room glowed red and blue, and Chieko was in and out of that room about a hundred times over the past three weeks. So she saw her present long before Christmas. Still, I like the wrapping.
After opening our gifts, I cleared our first big snowstorm from the driveway and walk. Merry White Christmas.
This is what downtown Salt Lake looks like on Christmas morning after a snow storm and before the snow plows make it through here.
And I guess when it snows, all rules of the road go out the window. Walking across a slippery, unplowed State Street against the light doesn't seem like the smartest thing to me.
You can always trust the Chinese restaurants will be open on Christmas morning.
My favorite view of the Fashion Place Mall: No people. No cars. No tire tracks in the snow other than mine. So peaceful.
After church we headed to my dad's house, where all our grandchildren were there. Here they are with their cousins and second cousins.
Here's our children with their cousins.
And their spouses.
Dad, we four children, and spouses (except Cindy, who was home sick).
Just before dinner.
This is our traditional ham, cold cuts, raspberry punch and other pot-luck goodies.
The ham.
Chieko's strawberry Santa Claus and veggie tray.
Here's Emi playing in the snow. She thought this tree with the snow on the branches was pretty.
After dinner and visiting we headed to our house to exchange gifts and play with the train and village.
The End.
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