Chaos Attraction

Jewish Christmas

2012-12-25, 8:37 a.m.

I gotta say, this is the best Christmas I've had since....oh, 1996. Seriously. SERIOUSLY. It's a Christmas miracle!

As mentioned a couple of days ago, L invited us to come along with her and her brother and her friends V&C (I met them a few months back and they are adorable) for dim sum in San Francisco. I had my doubts that we were going to make it out the door on time this morning--I had to pack stuff, Mom had to pack up all her stuff, there were gifts to open, and we needed to get out the door by 11:30. And hell, we pretty much managed it! Amazing.

Okay, so I already knew ahead of time what I was getting for Christmas. Ornaments, books, clothes I picked out. But hey, still counts. I did get a surprise pair of shoes, which are very cute and I look forward to wearing them once the monsoon rain stops around here. Mom seemed to like what I got her too, hopefully.

It was supposed to be dry on December 24th and 25th before going back to having pouring ass rain. Oh no. It poured rain allllllll day today. Well, at least the drive over was pretty safe. Mom did go on for awhile about Aunt Susie and company.... well, what can I do there. At least my aunt didn't call--hah, right, like that was going to happen.

We actually got to the restaurant 10 minutes early(!), right as L and her brother arrived. Convenient! We met V&C inside, and holy cow, the inside! The restaurant was Yank Sing's in Rincon Center. I gather on normal days they are a normally sized restaurant. But today, all other restaurants in the court were closed and they had tables in the entire lobby. There was also this... art installation, I guess?... where water was coming from the (very high) ceiling and raining down into what turned out to be a pool of water. I wonder if that is on all the time or just a tricky thing that happens whenever it rains? Anyway, the place was packed even when you had reservations, so we hung around talking, and I heard the story of how L's grandfather, in the same sort of situation, will go stand over a table and loom over it until people leave and then sit down before the table is even cleared. I loved this quote from her brother about it: "Even the vultures would be all, 'Really?'" Bwahahahahahah!

This was my first time eating dim sum (finally! Always wanted to try it), which boils down to "appetizers for dinner." Only here they brought carts by the table and you picked out what you wanted. We had a very good time. I asked L if I could be honorarily Jewish because I looooooooooove Jewish Christmas! V&C went home after that, and those of us remaining drove over to the location we figured would still have stores open--Chinatown!

It was really pouring rain like hell, but we went around anyway. And happily, the crazy vibe of the SF streets dies down on holidays (all the bad guys stayed home and dry?), so I was happy walking about. We went into a tea place and taste tested something like 8 teas, and they picked up some. I happily stumbled across the Golden Gate Bakery by accident--Jackie took me there once. I gather that mostly the line is always going out the door. On Christmas in the pouring rain....well, we just walked in and ordered cake! Incidentally, the valet parking garage in that area is quite crazy. Our car was parked in the back behind a ton of other cars (now you know why it's valet), and the guy insisted that we'd said we were going to "the party" (?????), so it was okay to park us way back there. It took awhile to get out.

We split at about that point-- Mom and I pondered going along with them to see The Hobbit, but figured it was a 3 hour movie and we'd get home way late, so we left. (They were spending the night in SF and then going to Glass Beach the next day.) We went home in the rain, which was just as wet as the previous time on the bridge, with indoor rain and all. But we survived! We even drove around the other houses in the olde hometowne that are decked out for Christmas for a bit. We came home and watched Blake Shelton's Christmas special, which was hilarious.

This was the best Christmas in ages. I wish we could do it every year. Mom & L and her brother and V&C all hit it off well (amazing!) and it was awesome. Man, I'll miss her when she moves. And spending a Jewish Christmas is great. Spending all day and night with family (that doesn't like you) in a house sucks. I'll take Chinese food and roaming the wet streets of SF any day.


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