Xmas Eve

I don't know what Leina did this afternoon or morning, but around 6:00 she pulled up to Erica's parents house to have christmas eve dinner with Erica's family and mine. Leina brought some tofu salad which, despite the fact that eyebrows were raised when she announced she was making it, was quite good and apprecaited by all. She spent some time eating dinner with us, learning about my mother's Italian-American holiday traditions, making conversation with Erica's mom, her cousin Paul, and my father, and eating crabs and calamari spaghetti and her salad and a potato gratin and a different salad with Point Reyes blue cheese and walnuts and pears and then she had a little dessert which was a chocolate hazelnut tart and some cookies. We toasted our departed families, and it seemed like Leina's night was over, and she was ready to go, but then I called her out in front of everyone and wouldn't let her go because we had some gifts to exchange. So Leina had to sit and watch and act amused while we did our family gift exchange and finally, after we were finished and she got a Zagat's from Erica's mom, she was able to slip out and go home.