Debbi’s eye was better yesterday, but still bothering her a fair bit. We had plans to have dinner with neighbors and were on the fence about going, since we didn’t know how many people would be there and it didn’t seem like a great idea to mingle with a group of people we didn’t know in these days of Omicron. Eventually Debbi decided to stay home since she didn’t feel up to socializing with a group of people, and I decided to go.
While this was arguably a poor choice, it turns out we had misunderstood the plans, and in fact we were the only people invited, so Debbi ended up coming after all, and we had a nice afternoon feast with the neighbors. They’re Swedish and their family celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve, including a large meal followed by opening gifts. So we met their kids, and their dog and cats, and all had a good time. All of the humans are vaccinated, so it was probably about as safe as these things get these days.
In the evening we indulged our annual tradition of driving around to view Christmas lights. This was a lot of fun except for the one popular street in Palo Alto which is always overrun with cars and was as bad this year as ever. On the other hand a well-known street in Los Altos was nearly empty when we drove through.
This morning we got up in time for Debbi to take a video call from her parents, followed by her baking homemade cinnamon rolls she’d prepared the night before – one of our newer traditions. We opened gifts (the kittens were thrilled with the wrapping paper), I talked to my dad, and we spent a lot of time sitting on the couches. Then we went for our traditional midday walk, where we got rained on (which is also sort of a tradition).
I cooked my traditional dinner – meatloaf and potatoes gratin – and as also seems to have become a tradition, some of the meat I bought on Wednesday had spoiled and I had to run out and buy more ground chuck. It took longer to make than I’d expected, but it turned out yummy in the end.
I went for another walk after dinner, where I walked through a short but very windy rainstorm, and now we’re sitting on the couch (again!) watching Knives Out on television, with passed out cats around us. And happily Debbi’s eye is feeling much better today!