Unlike the past couple years, I don't have any great adventures to share from this year's Christmas trip home to the US, though I suppose I was due for a more relaxing holiday season. This vacation was filled with the fairly standard holiday stuff:
The Repak family was ahead of the curve this year, breaking a six-year streak of the ultimate last-minute-deal shopping for the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. (Instead we went for December 23.)
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| We found the winning tree! |
We had our Repak family dinner (for which we each prepared something this year!) in the seasonally decked house after Christmas Eve mass.
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| Christmas Eve at the Repak household |
We tried out some new recipes.
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| New recipe: coquito, a Puerto Rican eggnog-like Christmas cocktail made with coconut cream. |
The Aloia family (my mom's parents and all their descendents) gathered for our annual Christmas party at which I found myself for the first year ousted from my spot as tallest female cousin... ouch.
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| Saying cheese for the ten millionth time as every aunt and uncle try to get a shot with all the cousins' eyes open (and mouths shut, Dan...) |
My parents and I found the time for a trip to my favorite local restaurant, the amazingly creative vegetarian grille Blue Sage.
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| El Fino: A spinach wrap with grilled pears, maple pecans, gorgonzola, baby greens, and carmelized onion mayo. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. |
My old high school recycling committee managed a reunion over some baked ziti pizza at our after-after-school hang-out pizzeria. We even bought some beer to finish off the evening at my parents' place after realizing it was the first time that we could all legally have a drink together.
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| Jenna enthusiastically poses as a human scale bar against our giant carb-alicious baked ziti pizza. |
The Repak family even managed to squeeze in the classic family Christmas trip to NYC. This year we had one less person to load in the car as my sister recently moved to Manhattan where she began working a few months ago.
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| The Rockefeller Center tree stood impressively over the ice rink. |
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| My favorite giant Christmas ornaments were on display as every year. (I still wonder where ornaments like that get stored for the rest of the year.) |
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| The windows at Macy's unquestionably outdid those at Sak's this year. |
On my last night home, we tried a new variant on an old theme: tourtière, a French-Canadian meat pie traditionally served at Christmastime. It was a fun recipe to try as at once we were testing something new and partaking in a Canadian tradition we'd unknowingly already enjoyed for years. When I was younger, my paternal grandmother, Mémé, used to cook us a meat dish for Christmas breakfast that she'd eaten on Christmas morning as a child growing up in Prince Edward Island, Canada. The dish she used to serve was less of a meat pie than a crumbly bread with chicken cooked in it, served with gravy. I'd always just thought it was a collection of whatever food the poor islanders could find at such a cold time of year. (That guess still might not be so far off.) What I hadn't realized was that this dish was part of a national seasonal culinary tradition. It was fun to both learn something new and reconnect with a family cultural tradition. And the recipe wasn't bad either!
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| Tourtière, a traditional French-Canadian meat pie served at Christmas: adding some cultural context to a Christmas dish my family had eaten for years |
Now for the last big question of my 2011: whether or not my far-too-overpacked bags will actually pass airport security later today. Wish me luck!
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