The Rest of TXmas 2023

Looking back from New Year's (which felt very topical and timely when I wrote about it at the time), it occurs to me I should jot down some of the Texas experiences we had prior to that celebration.

Things got off to a delightful (if early) start when our flights to Houston on Christmas Day were completely hitchless. This may seem a mundane thing to celebrate, but I am a very wary and anxious traveler, particularly when border crossings are involved. There had been drama already when one booking site's autocomplete had mussed up a traveler's name and escaped my notice until after the tickets had been paid for, and then more when my vacation was almost denied due to a blackout imposed 6 weeks before departure, 12 weeks after I had purchased non-refundable tickets and 11 months after I had submitted my vacation request. 

So very little sleep was had on Christmas Eve, and it had nothin' to do with Santa. But all's well that ends well, and we landed in Houston late Monday afternoon, and Tara and Jerry arrived in short order to whisk us away to their lovely home outside the beltway.

It was close to 6 pm when we left IAH and I was kind of hoping we would hit up an awesome Texas Whataburger on our way home, but true-to-form, Tara had already prepped an immense charcuterie table for us, which we enjoyed on their patio.

The thick red liquid in our glasses is a remarkably weird beverage -  a fruited imperial sour beer called Elf's Blood, from the local Ingenious Brewery. What makes it weird? Well, let's start with the fact that it is the very first beer that my ale-hating wife has finished a glass of. We can move on to the fact that despite rocking an impressive 9% abv, it tastes like a tart fruit smoothie, but Elf's Blood earns its weirdness appellation primarily because it looks like Dracula should be sucking it out of an IV bag. I desperately wanted to bring some back, but having an unpasteurized live beer in my luggage for 14 hours felt like a terrible idea.

We gathered to open presents the next morning and discovered that Tara had purchased Xmas pajamas for everyone (as well as rainbow blanket scarves) so we could start TXmas Day off properly.

All the gifts were thoughtful and well-received, but the real treat was everyone coming together to help prepare the immense and tasty Christmas dinner menu. Peeling, pushing, crock potting and barbecueing all coalesced into a feed that Audrey and I were still eating leftovers from when we left nine days later.

Much of the rest of our time in Texas is a blur of eating, relaxing, conversing, sitting by the fire table or lounging in the hot tub. 

Or quiet time catching up on reading, both leisure...

...and professional.

Oh, and no small amount of drinking, including the excellent Goose Island Bourbon County stouts Jerry always procures as part of his Black Friday pilgrimage. They were excellent, as usual, and Jerry was delighted to see that Bobby was just as much a fan of them as he and I are.

And spectacular dinners out abounded; from seafood at BLVD in Galveston:

To excellent Mexican fare at nearby Don Ramon's:

And of course, our semi-elegant night out at McGonigel's Mucky Duck to ring in the Irish New Year:

Introducing Bobby to the Johnson Space Centre and Buc-ee's in the same day [CORRECTION: Buc-ee's was actually after Galveston!] trip was almost overwhelming - so much scale!

But all good things must come to an end, with Fenya and Bobby returning to Toronto and Glory heading back to Edmonton Jan 2, with Audrey and I getting home late on Jan 4.

My depression this weekend had very little to do with the return of cold weather to Edmonton and a precipitous drop in both stout and margarita intake. But looking back over these photos tonight and in the future will be a great reminder of a wonderful family time.