christmas 3-day weekend

Having Christmas Day fall on Saturday this year was the best!  The Eve was on Friday and it was the official holiday off since the 25th was Saturday.  Usually I have to work on the Eve, then have to go right back to work the day after Christmas, but this year, the day after was Sunday so the extra day off was a bonus.

So we had dinner at home on the Eve and opened presents then since Jan and Craig were over.  I got Ryan a new iPod Touch since he lost the one we gave him last Christmas after the speeding ticket debacle.

But his favorite gift was a GPS from Aunty Janny and Uncle Craig!  He ran right outside to the car to set it up.  Now if it could transmit me to me where he is, I wouldn't have to worry about him so much when he's out and about.  More about that later...

We usually go out to brunch on Christmas Day but it was nice to stay home this year during the day and prepare for the Baba family Christmas dinner at my Aunty Shige's house.  This was our last Christmas in the house.  It was sweet how a couple of my cousins' kids got nostalgic about it, Brent remembering where his dad Marcus always sat when he came over, Robyn wanting to take pictures so she'd remember how the house was. 

And I got to take the generational photos again - Yonsei (Ryan's generation) and Gosei (4th and 5th generation).  Missing a few though.

Then here's the Nisei (my dad and Aunty Shige are the last ones remaining, the two youngest of 9 children) and Sansei.

As always, we had a potluck and soo much food:
Uncle Sadao - ham
Jan - shrimp pasta salad, sushi
Carolyn - mushroom rice, minute chicken cake noodle, caesar salad, pumpkin crunch
Bobbie - kalua turkey, coffee
Marcia - miso pork, dessert
Kari - dessert
Kathy - steak, spaghetti casserole
Misa - pupu
Mari - fish dish, dessert
Aunty Shige - salsa/dip, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, rice, juice
Brent - dessert 

I actually got to bake and cook this year (usually Kin Wah Chop Suey is my friend and makes my contribution).  I made "Mushroom Rice," which someone in the Marketing Dept at work brought to an office potluck.  I got the recipe and planned to make it.  On the Eve, Darrell and I were some of the crazy people who went to Costco (after he had his TB test read at Kuakini...more later).  I got my portobello mushrooms and caesar salad there.  It was hot and sunny in town, but when we almost hit the Wilson Tunnel, it started raining hard.  When we came out the Kaneohe end, it was crazy-raining, flash-flood style.  I was going to drop Darrell off at home then go out again, but because the weather was so bad, he said to just go straight to Foodland.  We lucked out with a handicap stall right in front, which was over the storm drain and fortunately it was right next to the curb so I could step out of the car right onto the pavement; it was actually probably more than ankle-deep with rain there.  Got into the store, got my items, and then went back out to the car, getting pretty wet even with the umbrella.  The next day when I started to make the mushroom rice, I couldn't find the recipe!  I had it in Foodland but with all the rushing to the car I figured I must have dropped it somewhere.  So I had to wing it.  I NEED recipes, I'm just not a wing-it kind of cook (not much of a cook either way).  But it came out GOOD!   Very surprising!  Here's "my" recipe (for posterity, since it's not very often I'm going to come up with my own recipe; it's much less involved than the recipe I got):

2 blocks unsalted butter
2 heaping tsp garlic salt
10 cloves garlic - minced
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp dried basil
 
5 portabello mushroom caps (from Costco) - chopped into small pieces (like cream of mushroom soup, per Ryan)
1/4 cup unsalted mac nut pieces (maybe half the bag)
5 cups cooked white rice
1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
 
melt butter in large pan (large enough to hold 5 cups of cooked rice)
add next 4 ingredients
 
add mushrooms to butter mixture, then add mac nut pieces.  cook until done (not sure how long, until the mushrooms seem cooked?)
 
add rice to butter mixture in pan, coating rice.
fold in the shredded parmesan cheese
serve warm.


And then when I'm done, I find the recipe in my wallet.  Must have decided it was a "safe" place but forgot where that was.  Oh, well, it came out fine.


We had such a nice time with my cousins Christmas night!  Our generations are kinda mixed up because of the large age gap for nine children in the second generation; my oldest aunty's children were closer in age to my dad (the youngest) than to his older siblings.  Then my sister and I were closer in age to our older cousins' kids than to our cousins.  Ryan is kind of in the in-between stage too, as the youngest of his generation; no one really close in age to him.  But we've found that as we've grown older, we've gotten closer to our cousins and have more to talk about.  And it's fun to see all the kids!

The day after Christmas I was able to get together with my best friend Karen, who was visiting with her family for the holidays!  We decided to brave the after-Christmas crowd at Ala Moana (I don't even remember ever going shopping the day after Christmas because I usually work). We got there maybe two hours after stores had opened, so I thought the parking situation would be worse, but we were ok.  And we got 50% off at Banana Republic!  Lunch was at the Pineapple Room again, which was slammed, but we got a nice table and a delicious lunch after a short wait.  When we were leaving our parking space, the mall had definitely gotten busier and people were vicious!  I backed out the car and two cars were waiting on both sides to get into the stall.  When I was out, they both tried to get in and horns were blaring!  We left them to duke it out and got out of there!  So nice to see Karen, Neal and Nicky twice this trip (they took me to Diamond Head Market for lunch earlier in the week).  Miss you guys already!


So the three-day Christmas weekend was awesome!  And 2011 has another 3-day Christmas weekend too!