Category Archives: Boston

Today marks this year’s Boston Children’s Holiday Hour, and it looks to be one of the largest we’ve ever thrown, with eighteen people cramming into the two-room condo (one room of which will be off-limits ever since a knocked-over candle wax mishap – karma for my brother and I spilling a candle-lit potpourri pot at the Ko house as kids). That means eighteen people in one room and a mini-kitchen. It will work. It has to. I’m not sure about the clean-up, but Suzie won’t leave me high and dry, especially since the sink will be filled with water as it doesn’t quite drain properly. Ahh, mayhem at the holidays…

Other than the larger influx of my favorite people, the event will pretty much remain the same: families are encouraged to explore Boston for the first part of the day, and when that magical siesta hour approaches (3 PM or thereabouts) they’re welcome to stop in for some hot chocolate and marshmallows, mulled wine (Christmas-in-a-glass), and general merry-making. To make dinner plans easier, we’ll either order a pizza and/or send the festive troops on their way. The company is what makes this holiday hour(s) so fun, and since I haven’t seen some of these wonderful folks in a couple of years, it’s going to be a grand reunion. They will be coming in from all over: Albany, Detroit, Washington, Syracuse – and even South Africa. I hope Boston can handle all the bonhomie.

Continuing the madness that is Mercury in retrograde, our intended Red Line stop at Porter Square, from which we had planned on walking to Harvard, was not a stop that was open for this weekend. (The same thing happened last year, thank you fickle Red Line, but this year I was not hopping on transfer buses.) We made a quick recalculation and got off at Central; we would enter Harvard from the other side of Mass Ave. There were a few Tibetan stores on the way in, and much has been done with that area since a guy offered me a swig from his paper bag way back in the 90’s. It was only about 5 o’clock, but it might as well have been midnight, so dark had the sky suddenly turned. Christmas lights and the merriment of some Santa con event gave everything a festive air, and the feeling of the holidays was finally coming through. It had, up until that moment, been strangely elusive. I embraced it, and we slowed our steps. Good friends are in sync that way.

At the first Tibetan store, Kira found a hat just like the one she had recently lost (one that she procured on one of our first Holiday Strolls, so the symmetry of the find was fitting). I perused woolen shoes with pointy toes, countless strings of prayer beads, and elephant-patterned pants. Jewelry in amber and turquoise seduced the eyes, while incense tickled the nose. We find a certain peace when surrounded by all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the colorful silks, and minimalist Tibetan flute music. We browsed a few more precious gift shops (by precious I mean ridiculously expensive silly shit) that have found their way to the area, and soon it was cocktail hour. The warm and cozy bar of Harvest proved a happy spot to convalesce and seek out dining options on OpenTable, even if a single rum drink proved one too many for Kira, who was soon growing giddy and said the room was spinning, so we made our way to the Red House, which we had passed earlier, and had an open slot after 7.

Lead past an open fireplace, we had made the right choice, at least ambience-wise, and a cozy little dinner was enjoyed as we rested from our extensive ambulation. Making our way back from Cambridge, we switched to the Green line and exited at Copley so we could pause at the Lenox Hotel lobby, which was festooned gloriously for the season, and had a roaring fire with two sitting chairs just for us. The remainder of the evening was spent doing one more bucket brigade, and the start of ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’. We never did make it to the penultimate ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ but that’s what next year will be for. That night, the rain arrived – a heavy wide-ranging blanket of it, impossible to escape for the whole of the next day – so when I rose at 7:30 and saw the dismal state of the outside world, I closed the blinds and for the first time in forever we slept in until 11:30.

We’d had the foresight to get some food supplies just for this circumstance, so we lazily took our time, assembling some bagels with gravlax, and a quick egg dish. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying some quality time with a friend at the condo, especially when the rain is tapping at the windows. Eventually it subsided, so we rushed and got ready for one final shopping spurt.

As the light lowered on another day, and our seventh annual Holiday Stroll came to a quiet close, I dropped Kira at the T-station and hit the Mass Pike. We had done a lot – securing most of the items needed for the upcoming Boston Children’s Holiday Hour – and checked off quite a few of the boxes from our respective gift lists. Mostly, though, we simply enjoyed the company at this time of the year. That’s what Christmas should be anyway. The hustle and bustle is bearable when you have a friend to share in the fun. 

Saturday opened with a burst of happy sunlight, which unabashedly illuminated the undrained kitchen sink. Our time was too precious to be bothered with a five-hour window for a plumber, so Kira came up with the idea of transferring the dish water to the bathroom for draining. She took a plastic container and scooped the water into a pot. Once it was full, I ran it into the bathroom and poured it down the toilet. Our bucket brigade hummed along for several trips until the sink was mostly drained. Such is the making of a meal in the midst of Mercury in retrograde madness. We had a fast breakfast of panettone and tea, then began the stroll in earnest.

We began with a route from an earlier stroll, turning right onto Columbus and stopping at the Luke Adams gift shop, which was still closed. Apparently we were just a bit too early for its 10:30 opening, so we walked on and headed up Mass Ave. Kira loves Dorothy’s Boutique, so we paused in the costume store where she found a cozy winter hat in the style of Elmer Fudd. I told her not to do it, but when you’ve known me for twenty years you know enough not to listen.

As we crossed Boylston, the wind picked up. In spite of the sun, December’s chill was in full effect. We ducked into Muji for a moment of sweetly-scented calm, before braving the frenzy of Forever 21. (Where else can one find a unicorn headdress for a Rainbow Unicorn Holiday Party that we’re hosting in a few weeks?) Kira found a top (to make up for some items she forgot to bring) at Uniqlo, where we walked the rainbow staircase and realized it would soon be time for a proper meal. After browsing a few more stores, we took our lunch at Cafeteria. Like Sonsie’s, Cafeteria has become one of those Newbury mainstays that I have largely avoided, for no real reason other than I assume there will be time to visit in the future. On this day, we tried it out for the first time. The drinks were good, but the bacon was soggy and flabby, so hit and miss, and it’s now on the record books. We meandered along the rest of Newbury, turned back on Boylston, then headed to the condo for a very quick break before heading into Cambridge.

These little breaks, of rest or rejuvenation, are usually the favored corners of memory, where a few choice relics occupy stately yet subtle space in some cherished cabinet of curios. The sun streamed in through the bedroom bay window, and it was my favorite time of the day to be home there. It was due to rain that night and all the next day, so we stopped and took notice of the light. Always make time to bask in the glory when it’s good enough to present itself.

I tried on my outfit for the Boston Children’s Holiday Hour, glittering in the ample sunlight, while Kira lounged on the couch, resting tired feet and sipping tea. It was the perfect little siesta, and without reservations for dinner, or any concrete plans at all for that matter, we didn’t need to rush. Still, there were dangers and wastes involved in getting too cozy and comfy, so we rounded up a second wind, changed into evening attire, and headed back out, where the sun was already well on its way down.

{To be continued…}

Kira and I tried to figure out how long we have been doing these Boston Holiday Strolls, and the nearest we could guess was that this marked our seventh year. As such, we tried to change things up a bit which left us feeling slightly off-kilter. Mercury still being in retrograde didn’t help matters much either, as we had to contend with a kitchen sink that didn’t drain, key forgotten wardrobe items (I’m told that when you’re wearing a sheer shirt and no bra, some other sort of undershirt is required), and some uncharacteristic indecision on my part. (See, I’m so much better with an itinerary.)

It began on Friday afternoon, when I did some shopping for the upcoming Children’s Holiday Hour (which now has a planned nine children in attendance, and their various parents). I stopped at the market to pick up the ingredients for a quick pasta dish for Kira, then returned to the condo to finish the holiday decorating and making of a meal.

The candles were lit, and I was hoping to be too. I tried concocting a gin/Campari/grapefruit/rosemary cocktail that was largely a failure, but it looked pretty enough for a holiday picture. Taste-wise, it was a big fat no, thank you Mercury. As the kitchen sink filled with the incidental water from filling pasta pots, washing hands, and rinsing various utensils, dinner came together and by the time Kira arrived we were almost ready to eat. After a quick gift exchange and toast, we sat down to dine and decompress.

Some of the best moments of our Holiday Stroll weekend are the ones in which we are not strolling or roaming around Boston. Catching up with an old friend over dinner, as candles flicker and Christmas music plays softly in the background, will always be one of my favorite holiday escapades. As will our annual viewing of ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner’. Before the latter, we hunkered down in our holiday pajamas, popped a pair of sweet potatoes in the oven for our mid-point movie break (they pause for ‘Hot Sweets’ during the skating scene) and prepared for the show. Sleep came, as it usually does, before we finished the whole thing, but upon waking we saw the happy final scenes, at which point the strolling portion of our weekend finally began.

{To be continued…}

Like we did last Christmas… and the Christmas before… and the Christmas before…

This weekend marks my annual Holiday Stroll with Kira. I think it’s our sixth or seventh, maybe even our eighth, and clearly no one’s counting. It’s become one of my favorite holiday excursions, whenever we manage to do it, and every year we seem to add a few new components while doing our best to maintain a couple of traditions. One mainstay is the viewing of ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner‘ – an old Bette Davis film set at Christmas time. At one point, while ice skating, they purchase a pair of ‘hot sweets’ – apparently baked sweet potatoes were once sold like hot dogs at a baseball game. As a nod to that scene, we bake a few in the oven and pause the movie when the skating part comes on to try them. We are invariably disappointed and left wondering what all the fuss is about, but we do it for the ritual.

Another tradition is a bowl of soup, preferably pho, and often somewhere in Chinatown. The latest thing we’ve added is a walk in Cambridge, from Porter Square to Harvard usually, where we peruse a couple of Tibetan stores and find something warm to wear.

The one year I did a full-blown and intricately-detailed itinerary was a year when it rained on the parade, throwing the entire minute-by-minute production into a chaotic shambles. Since then, I’ve avoided such intensive planning. This whole tradition began on a whim, and is best executed in the same manner. I can’t wait to see where this year’s takes us…