A Battle with Stuffed Mushrooms, 700 Wins, and a Tree Lighting- A Story of Thanksgiving Break

The Thanksgiving break always goes by too fast. I really can't believe I'm sitting here getting ready for another week at work. Where did the time go?

Let's see. I'm extremely lucky to have had Wednesday off... no crappy half day malarkey for me. I can't even explain how wonderful it is to have the whole day off before Thanksgiving. It really makes the break seem like a break. Thanks to a brilliant plan, thought up by a good friend, I spent the day drinking sangria and eating yummy steak quesadillas at Casa de Pedro. The delicious lunch was followed up with a trip to the nail salon and some pre-Black Friday shopping at Target. Lets just say that I am totally ready for tree decorating next week.

Thanksgiving day was a lot less stressful than it has been in the past, with the exception of the stuffed mushroom incident. My mom sent me off to the high school football game with a plate of stuffed mushrooms for my twirling coach. There was no way I would actually be able to deliver these mushrooms since you can't bring outside food into the stadium and the mushrooms would be unrefrigerated for about six hours before my coach could even think about eating them. This was a bit ridiculous but we played along. My dad stuffed the plate under my passenger seat so my mom wouldn't catch on and we were off to the game.

After the game I had a quick dinner with my parents, avoided the impending allergy attack with a little Claritan, and was off to JO's for dessert where I enjoyed a delightful evening of board games. We returned home and I was stuck parking pretty far away. As I was gathering up all of my stuff from my car, including a 3/4 down jacket that I love... but didn't get to wear on Thanksgiving Day due to the unseasonably warm weather, I remembered that my dad had put that plate under my seat. I figured I couldn't leave the mushrooms there overnight so I grabbed them and set off down the street to our apartment. The problem was that my hands were pretty full and that jacket is pretty bulky.

I was almost home when the mushrooms slid out of my grasp and started dropping all around me. I didn't really care about the mushrooms but I did care that they were falling onto my jacket! I did something I'm not proud of... but it had to be done. I ditched the plate, with the remaining mushrooms on it, on top of someone's trash barrel. Unfortunately it was too late for the jacket, which is now covered in mushroom grease. I'm hoping the dry cleaner's can get rid of the stains.

Friday arrived, and so did a monsoon, but it didn't stop us from going to the UConn game. We had a great time and got to see Coach Auriemma win his 700th game.


Saturday started with major debacles at the grocery store and at the rock gym. In addition our street was closed for a while due to a gas leak. Luckily, we recovered in time to hit up Harvard Square for the annual tree lighting and a toast at Daedalus Resturaunt. This is definitely one of my favorite holiday traditions that JO and I have. The tree looked beautiful, despite the 40 mph winds I wasn't cold at all in my mushroom stained down jacket. Any time we were indoors though I was like a furnace.

Unfortunately we weren't able to get seats at the bar at Daedalus at 6:30 p.m. on a Saturday so we went next door to Trata and toasted with some sparkling white wine. Trata is no Daedalus so we tried again to get a spot at Daedalus but no such luck so we hit up Garden at the Cellar: 991 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA ... for one final drink before heading home.

Today I took advantage of the gorgeous weather and did some Christmas shopping in the square. I only have a few more presents to buy. Tonight I'm going to kick the holiday season into full gear by working on my Christmas cards and watching Elf with good friends.