Christmas Brunch

We finally spent an entire weekend in the Milwaukee area.  Feels like the first one since June or July.  We started the weekend with our first Bucks game for the season.  Jo had use of the suite and along with several of her work colleagues we watched a thrilling game where the Bucks could have won up to the last minute of the game.  Even with the poor game outcome, we still enjoyed the game atmosphere, the pizza and cookies, and, for me at least, getting to know a few more of the people that Jo works with.

The weather turned a bit warmer for the weekend after some pretty cold days last week.  On Saturday after our morning exercise routine we settled into the kitchen for some serious baking/prepping for our family brunch on Sunday.  We spent most of the afternoon filling the house with some great cooking smells as Jo prepared a cinnamon roll Christmas tree and I labored on a making a frittata, a quiche, and a strata (which in my humble opinion are just three fancy words for fundamentally the same dish of cooked eggs with stuff in it).  Later that evening our neighbors, Audrey and John, treated us to dinner at the Milwaukee Country club.  The club had a phenomenal 20 foot Christmas tree that was decorated to the nines (or tens, not sure which it is in the saying).  We were having such a great time talking and eating that I forgot to snap a photo of either the tree or the company.  The lack of a photo might also have something to do with the brandy Old Fashioned that I started preceded my dinner.

Sunday was our annual holiday brunch with Wisconsin family members.  Although, we did expand the invite list this year to include the family members from that state to our south - namely, those living in the Chicago area.  This gave us eleven around the table which was a bit of a squeeze but seemed to work out - at least I didn't see any elbows getting thrown.  Everyone seemed to have a good time and the food turned out alright, especially as we tried many new, experimental dishes this year.  It is always fun to talk with our nieces and nephews and to see the directions they are taking in their lives - in terms of their relationships, food selections, hobbies, interests, and careers.  Especially as technology influences them very differently than it does the older family members - remember I'm still not on any social media platform and don't have any immediate plans to join one.  Anyway, I'll close with the fact that, Jo's cinnamon rolls turned out great, as usual, even if we weren't quite able to figure out to make brown colored icing for the trunk of her tree (it turned out sorta of dark pea greenish, or a moss covered trunk as one kind niece pointed out).  After everyone had left and we had cleaned up a bit we capped our day with a nice stroll around the neighborhood admiring the decorations and chatting about the year to come.