So, it’s Christmas in Madison. My memory is always foggy on such things, but I believe this is the first Christmas I’ve spent without my parents. Our holiday visit with them will instead come over the New Year’s weekend.

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It’s been a good visit so far. We delayed our drive down a day after Minneapolis got hit by the same storm that clocked Denver a couple of days before. What we didn’t get in the form of snow we made up for in the form of freezing rain. The 4% grade in front of our condo proved to be too much for many vehicles attempting to climb it; I stood on the front porch Thursday afternoon and watched as one driver after another attempted to reach Hennepin Avenue, only to be forced to retreat to the previous intersection in frustration. As we loaded presents into our car Friday morning, we found that one neighbor even had her parked car totaled by a careless driver sometime the night before. Talk about a crappy Christmas present.

Not surprisingly, we’ve encountered a lot of food this weekend. Friday night we joined Lisa’s parents and Michelle and Dwight for a fish fry at the Avenue Bar, a legitimately retro bar I’m sure would be huge with the hipsters were it closer to the university. The food turned out to be really good–not much of a fried fish person, I went with the Atlantic cod fish boil–but the service was tedious. (Our reservations were for 7:00, but we didn’t get seated until 7:45, and then didn’t get food until almost an hour later.) Saturday brought a trip to Firefly, an Asian-fusion kind of place a few minutes from Lisa’s parents house. It was tasty, but not really anything to write home about.

Aside from the tasty ham dinner Lisa’s parents prepared for Christmas, other food from the weekend included a Christmas Eve burger and fries at Kopp’s in Milwaukee. Lisa and I had headed there in hopes of catching the Biedermeier exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum, but had to abandon that plan upon learning the museum would be closing early for Christmas Eve. Stuck with an open afternoon, we improvised and walked Brady Street, followed by a quick drive around the UW-Milwaukee campus (Lisa was kind of offended by them not using red and white as their school colors) and an hour at an obscenely packed Mayfair Mall. The mall made me think it would be interesting to head to Walgreen’s at 11:00 just to see what kind of crowd was there, but Lisa managed to talk me out of that.

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As far as Christmas itself, this morning brought brunch at my aunt’s here in Madison, a pleasant experience that included a lot of food I shouldn’t be eating as well as a chance to catch up with relatives. The afternoon was spent with Lisa’s side of the family, ending with a round of gift giving that netted me over $300 in Express gift certificates (holy crap). Lisa and I gave two very squeaky toys her parents’ westies, gifts I’m sure will eventually lead her parents to seek revenge in some form.

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Well, it’s getting late, so I should turn in. We obviously don’t head back to work tomorrow, but I do have a bunch of work-related stuff to take care of. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, etcetera, etcetera, and so forth.