Thanksgiving, Christmas, NYC / New Years

Thanksgiving was a relatively quiet affair, with Meredith, Charlotte, Brad and Huidi joining us. Our oven, which had been limping along finally crapped out completely, leading to doing the turkey on the grill, which worked out so well we decided we would do it again at Christmas. The rest of the (pretty awesome) food was either done on the stove or the toaster oven and hauled over to Paul and Carol's since Carol wasn't up to coming to the house.

Right after that, we set up our traditional "Dickens Christmas Village" (with the ever-expanding set of houses). And, of course, the tree, which slowly gathered presents under it's branches over the next month.

The best Christmas Present of all was the birth of "Little David" David Anthony Gaugh five days before Christmas.  More on that in a separate newsletter.

We did the "winter wonderland" dinner at the Herb Lyceum, and despite the complete lack of snow this winter, it was fun and festive, starting with an outdoor firepit with Kjottkaker (Norwegian Meatballs), cooked on the spot from flaming sauce run through a red-hot funnel heated in the burning coals. Quite spectacular! The inside was lit with dozens of real candles, some hanging from the ceiling in light boxes. The food and matching cocktails / wine made it a memorable evening.

Noah and Emily came up from NYC for a few days. We did the new Solo fire pit on the deck with hot chocolate one evening, and Christmas Eve, we went over to Paul and Carol's meeting Brad and Huidi there. We did the traditional red shirts from Christmas in Cali days (except for Noah, who didn't pack his).

Christmas Day turned into something unexpected, since Will and Carley came up from Connecticut with Buddy and Cooper (leading to five dogs and one angry cat in the house), and Bill and SangOk came down from NH. So we did another turkey on the grill (the oven now totally out of commission) along with brussel sprouts, and everything else on the stove, and had a very nice Christmas dinner on the formal china.

Then Maddy and Brenna arrived to stay with us for a week and a half, on break from their Berkley PhD program, and we headed to NYC for the New Year's weekend to visit Noah and Emily. This was our first visit to Noah since he moved to NYC to start clerking for a 1st district judge. It's the first time we've seen Maddy and Brenna since they became official engaged to be married.

Opening presents Thursday night before leaving for NYC on Friday

The trip down was as easy as we've ever seen it. Noah lives in an apartment in Brooklyn, which as it turns out is close to Isengard.  Sarumon's dark tower looks down on his street.

Noah shares the apartment with Kevin and Jackie (both of whom were great people); it's a nice multi-floor section of a brownstone in a nice neighborhood.

We visited the Transit Museum, which was actual quite interesting. They had a huge floor that had the passenger cars for the subway from 1900 on, along with descriptions of what made them special. Inside were period-correct adds that provided their own entertainment value.

We went out to dinner at a small Italian and a small ramen place, once again demonstrating that in NYC, it's not the super-upscale restaurants that rule, it's the small places you find by living there.

Tea at Harvey and Sons!

Evening performance of "Sleep No More," a sort of direct experience dramatic interpretive dance riff on "Hamlet," and if you know what that means you're doing better than I am and I went to it. Pretty cool, actually, atmospheric and creepy. And all the patrons wore white "death masks" so ... ya, still pretty creepy.

Stopping at Will and Carley's on the way back (Noah and Emily rode out with us and took the train back). Everyone got to tour the house and then we went out to have brunch.

and so ends 2023!