Impervious

It was zero degrees when we landed in Buffalo this evening, but you wouldn't have known it by looking at some of our fellow travelers. A frigid draft chilled the baggage claim area each time the sliding glass doors whooshed open, but those guys in shorts didn't flinch at all. And I wrapped my scarf tightly around my neck before zipping my coat all the way up and putting on my hat and mittens, but that perma-tanned lady with the in the hot pink Vera Bradley shift and matching slides never wavered once as she shuffled straight out into the bone-chilling night without even a jacket.

Honey Do

Heidi does not love playing games, but she knows her in-laws well.  As stocking stuffers, she got each of us a game to play.

AND even more impressively, she spent the day playing them with us today.

Now that's the Christmas spirit!

Process to Progress

After a delicious dinner and some traditional Christmas cracker hilarity, one by one the family members drifted from the enormous round dining room table, some with unkept promises to return and others with goodnight wishes for those of us who stayed behind. At last it was only Treat, Victor, Courtney and me, and the conversation turned to politics and the state of our country in these tumultuous times. For two hours we spoke and listened earnestly, trying to reconcile our beliefs, experiences, hopes, and fears.

"Are you guys solving all the world's problems?" Jordan asked me when I stepped into the kitchen for some ice water.

"No," I sighed, "but we're doing a good job identifying them."

We laughed.

"I guess that's the first step to fixing them though," I shrugged and headed back in.

White Christmas

3:45 came early this morning after a fun Christmas Eve of dinner and gifts. Lucy spent a restless night, too, sighing and snuggling hard into Heidi or me on the bumpy foldout couch. When I opened the back door to let her out, she bounded into six or more inches of new fallen snow, and the flakes were still swirling steadily from the sky.

A quick check confirmed that our 6 am flight was still on time, but a glance out the front door revealed a silent wonderland of undisturbed drifts with not a plow to be found. With a knot in my stomach, I called the cab company to confirm, but my call went straight to voicemail. The minutes crawled by as I sent text messages and emails to ensure our ride to the airport was on the way, but without a word in return, we finally woke up Heidi's dad from a sound winter's sleep.

He was ready in a flash, and in a few moments we were crunching our way over the luster of the unplowed thruway. We made it with a little time to spare. "White Christmases are over-rated," the gate agent had joked as he scanned our boarding passes, but I couldn't agree, even though when at last our plane climbed above the storm and headed south into the starry dawn, I felt like I'd had a full day already.

Taste Testing

I got an email early last week from SOB, Step Out Buffalo, describing "5 Hidden Gem Chocolatiers You Probably Don't Know About". They were right about that, living 381 miles south as I do, but I wondered if Heidi's parents were equally in the dark. And so yesterday I proposed a little tour of the five, and despite snow and ice, the four of us headed gamely out.

Heidi's dad actually grew up in a candy store in Buffalo, his father's business until business turned bad in the early fifties, and he was rather skeptical that these places might exist without his knowledge. We hit some matinee theater traffic on our way to the first one, and on top of the weather, it was closed when we got there.

The next stop was around the corner, though, and we found parking right in front of an early 20th century brick building wth plate glass windows and a wooden door with jingle bells. Inside wide floors creaked a little under a shiny pressed-tin ceiling. Wooden shelves held packages of handmade chocolate in holiday wrappers, and an old brass cash register sat next to a glass case full of single truffles and turtles and squares of bark. A green accountant lamp spilled yellow light over a big desk in a cluttered office, and in the way back of the place we could see stainless equipment in a tiny chocolate factory. The clerk offered us generous samples, and the chocolate was delicious-- creamy and sweet, but not too sweet.

We left with a shopping bag full of treats and headed off to the next place which was a vegan chocolatier and bakery. Heidi was especially pleased with the maple sponge candy, but I was impressed by the guy sculpting donuts and cupcakes with the snow he shoveled from the walk. We decided to stop for lunch to balance the sugar, and ended up at a fun burger place with 24 beers on tap, all offered in 5 ounces.

I could have stayed there for a while, but it was a little early in the day to start drinking, so we headed off to the last stop, a place outside of town and closer to home. They had ice cream and 25 different types of filled chocolates and truffles, but by then, I couldn't try another bite, and so I was content to sit in my wire and wood parlor chair and chat with Gary as he polished off a turtle sundae. The owner of the place overheard our conversation, and mentioned a couple of other places we missed. Agreeing to save those for another day, we piled into the car just as he was leaving too.

"Have fun with your chocolate crawl!" he waved, and I laughed, because that's exactly what it was!

Now That's What I Call Christmas Lights

There is no question that holiday light technology has come a long way in the last 50 years. A quick stroll through the neighborhood tonight furnished views of spiral trees and giant candy canes, illuminated reindeer, polar bears, and even a golden doodle, giant inflatable snowmen and minions, Santas with and without sleighs, neon-style snow flakes and trees and angels lighting up windows, and laser shows ranging from red and green confetti to messages such as Let it snow, Happy Holidays, and Ho Ho Ho. Some houses draped their trees and bushes with LED light strings, heavy on the blue and purple, and there were some with white icicle-style lights of the type very popular 20 years ago or so.

Collectively, all these lights gleaming in the snowy night were thrilling, but individually they were a little soulless, sad and cheap. Especially, when now and then we saw spotlights brightening up a decorated evergreen in the yard or wreathe on a door. Oh, and there were even one or two places with single candles glowing in each window, and a few others with old-fashioned strings of ceramic C-9 lights neatly following the roof line, in classic form.

One Stop Shopping

We were out running a few Christmas errands in an unfamiliar section of Buffalo early this afternoon when we came upon a wondrous sight:

a shopping center with both a huge Target and an enormous Wegmans!