First Weekend Home
The first thing that is much different in Connecticut from Boston are that the drivers are so much more polite in Connecticut! Drivers are probably more polite than Boston in most states, but it takes some getting used to: people aren't cutting me off and actually stop to let me pull out. The first few times I was hesitant to pull in front of someone who was letting me go because I was confused as to why they were stopping, but I have gotten used to that. However, not everyone here is a good driver: the driveway to enter the Stop and Shop in town has two lanes to enter and two lanes to exit, which are separated by a large grass and concrete divider. As I went to turn into the "enter" side of the driveway, sudden there was a car heading right for me! The woman driving looked rather old, like she had trouble seeing and comprehending that she was going the wrong way, and there was a handicapped sign hanging from her rear view mirror. I am so fortunate she was going slow and I could pull into the other entrance lane, or the crazy woman would have hit me. I have never seen anyone do that before. The other nice change from living in Boston, and especially from living in Brookline, is the amount of Christmas decorations in my hometown. There are mostly houses rather than apartments, and my town is 95% Christian, so almost everyone puts up Christmas decorations. Some are elegant, some are tacky, some are lavish, and some are simple, but as you drive through town there are decorations everywhere, which really helps reinforce the holiday spirit.
Dinner with Jenn
The evening before Christmas Eve, I met my friend from BC Jenn and her boyfriend Paul for dinner. Jenn and I have known each other for 6 years, and have lived 20 minutes away from each other at home the whole time, yet this was the first time we ever met up in Connecticut! We went to a nice Italian restaurant in Middletown, CT (the town Wesleyan University is in). As I sat down I noticed a book with Christmas lyrics in it sitting on our table titled "A Sibling Christmas." A large family with about 10 people around their table was sitting near us and occasionally would break out into song throughout the night. They were relatively good and it was a nice addition to dinner. Toward the end of the night, as we enjoyed our after-dinner drinks, we even started to join in with them. At the end of the night as the family was getting up to leave, we called them over to give back their lyric book. Suddenly, the girl whose back had been facing us all night turned around to get the book, and it was my best friend from middle school, Kaylan!! She went to a different high school from me, and we had not seen or talked to each other in years, so I was surprised but glad to run into her and her family. Her mom and grandma were there and also remembered me, so we briefly caught up with each other before I returned to my dinner. The next bizarre thing that happened is weird even for Connecticut: Paul had a drink of whiskey on the rocks after dinner, and though he normally wouldn't make a big deal over 75 cents, when the bill came, he asked the waiter why he was charged $10.75 for his drink instead of $10, the listed price on the menu. With a straight face, our waiter told him there's a 75 cent charge for drinks "on the rocks": aka, he was charged 75 cents for ice. Our table burst out laughing at the waiter, but he was completely serious.
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is one of my favorite nights of the year. My family gets together with our family friends, the Semevoloses, who we have known for 22 years. When I was 1 year old, they moved into our condo complex and Mr. Semevolos went for a walk, found my dad, and our families have been friends every since. They have three daughters who are younger than me, so I've known them my whole life and their oldest, Alexis, is my oldest friend. As with every Christmas Eve, my family went over to the Semevoloses house after Christmas Eve mass, and were greeted with amazing hors d'oeurves of antipasto platters and shrimp ceviche. Though we try to get together a few times per year, Christmas Eve is the one night we are guaranteed to see each other, so we always catch up on everyone's lives. Alexis told us about her impending trip to Italy with her school (she is in Rome right now!), Lindsay, the middle daughter, filled us in about her college acceptances, and Tina, the youngest, told us about her successful travel basketball career. We had a great dinner together, then retreated into the living room to watch home videos Mr. Semevolos had found earlier in the day. The first video we watched, we all were dying laughing: it was almost 18 years old, from May 1995, featuring 5-year-old Kelly and 2-year-old Alexis dancing around Alexis' living room in our bathing suits singing songs from the Lion King. Or really, me attempting to sing dramatically as Alexis jumps and skips in circles around me. One of the funniest parts was that my dad was sitting on the couch with a tape player controlling the music while her dad was video-taping: we have some of the best dads ever. The night ended with a quick Christmas carol concert before heading home to wait for Santa!
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| Pictures of myself, Alexis, Lindsay, and Tina, from 6 of the past 7 years |
Christmas Day
I still act like a little kid on Christmas. Even though I sleep later and know that there will be no additional presents under the tree when I get downstairs, I am still super excited on Christmas morning. I enjoy sitting next to the tree distributing presents, chasing my cat away from the ribbons, and seeing the generous gifts from my family. One of my favorite gifts this year was the Georgetown Cupcake recipe book set from my Secret Santa in Chicago, my cousin Lauren (and the other book from my Aunt Ellen!). I am so excited to make every recipe in the book: I already made the red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, white chocolate peppermint cupcakes with peppermint frosting, and tomorrow I plan on making white chocolate raspberry cupcakes with butter cream frosting. On Christmas Day after opening presents, instead of making cupcakes I decided to try my hand at a Red Berry Trifle. It sounded super complicated in the directions but I have been having so much cooking success lately, and I wanted to bring something impressive for Christmas dinner. It came out amazing: we had family friends of my cousin join us for dinner, and they could not stop saying how great the dessert was while taking second and third helpings. Even my family, who are usually very blunt and straightforward with their opinions, loved the trifle. The recipe is at the following link, but I recommend having at least two people working on it and one if not two kitchenaid or other stand mixers on hand: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/red-berry-trifle-recipe/index.html.
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| Red Berry Trifle |
Overall I had a fantastic Christmas with my family and friends!
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