Tis the Season

December is always a fun month in the city. This December started out with our friend's birthday outing. She always picks such fun places to try out. This year she picked Kingston Station and Stoddard's. I really enjoyed both places and it was a really fun night in the city.

Last weekend we walked down the street and picked up our Christmas tree at Ricky's Flower mart in Union Square. This has become an annual tradition for us. It's so convenient to be able to walk home with your tree and not deal with having to secure it to the roof of your car. Thanks to three strands of LED lights our tree is glowing and certainly visible on the street.

In fact, after we put the lights on we wanted to make sure you could really see it from the street so we ran outside. While staring at our tree we noticed a film crew outside of All-Star Sandwich Bar and went to investigate. Sure enough, Chad Ochocinco was hanging out with a restaurant full of his friends. Just another celebrity to check out our neighborhood.

This past weekend we decided to go out and enjoy the holiday season in the city. Our first stop was It's a Wonderful Life at the Brattle Theater. I absolutely love this movie and always tear up at the end. It's become one of our holiday traditions and I always look forward to it. After the movie, we headed over to dinner at NuBar at the Sheraton Commander Hotel in Harvard Square. The hotel looks so beautiful with all of the white lights. We had eaten at NuBar once before when we had our wedding tasting but we hadn't had anything from their actual menu so we were looking forward to checking it out. The appetizers are outstanding. I had the serrano ham with arugula salad. The dressing on the salad was the perfect match for the peppery arugula. JO got the squid and really enjoyed it. I got the clam roast for dinner and it certainly lived up to the billing. It was featured on Chronicle a while back. The clams had some really deep flavor and I loved the roasted tomatoes and bacon paired with them. Dessert was also delicious.

We spent a few minutes hanging out in the lobby admiring the Christmas tree and remembering different things from our wedding day. One of the reasons we picked the Sheraton Commander for wedding was that we wanted a place we could go back to and reminisce about the day.

Despite the frigid weather, we headed into Boston after dinner. We wanted to check out the holiday decorations at the Omni Parker and stop by The Last Hurrah, one of my favorite places in the city. We took some time to admire the tree in the lobby before grabbing a drink. I will never grow tired of this place. I love the old charm and the quiet atmosphere. I also love that you can get really dressed up, or be totally casual.

It was a perfect city night and just what I needed heading into the last week of school before the vacation.