Did you make Christmas dinner or go out?

[Die_Capacitrix]

Went into the mountains and stopped at the Indian restaurant (basically a food truck menu in a building) at the base of the cable car. Tasty, but basically food truck food.

The one worker had lived in New Orleans at an internship with the NBA (not a player), so he was curious about the Americans in central Switzerland on Christmas Day.

When we lived in the U.S., my sister-in-law’s family demanded her presence on the day of, and she was happy to comply. So we were usually on our own for Christmas Day, so we had some really good Christmas dinners at restaurants.

While we’ve been here, we’ve 1) visited family in the U.S., 2) went to a hotel and 3) stayed home.

[Voyager]

@bordelond

My wife’s family for years went out to one of the local (downtown New Orleans) hotel Christmas brunch buffets. In recent years, it’s been prime rib at her family’s for lunch and a huge spread of delicacies at my sister’s in the evening (most all of our close family lives local).

I’m curious about the availability of Chinese restaurants on Christmas day in other areas. Am I correct that in the large northeastern cities – NYC, Philadelphia, Boston, etc. – that finding an open Chinese restaurant on Christmas Day is fairly easy? Around here, Chinese restaurants seem to be universally closed on Christmas – but I’ll cop to not checking exhaustively.

One Christmas, when one of my daughters was in Germany, we went to New Orleans over Christmas with the other one, and had Christmas brunch at a hotel on Canal Street. It was great.
The Christmas we did on another day we had Christmas lunch at a Chinese restaurant in the Bay Area, no problem, after seeing a not very good movie made by the people who did the TV show my daughter was on.
Before I got married I didn’t do anything special on Christmas, whether I was by myself or went to visit my parents over the break.

[Dendarii_Dame]

I made it.

[Telemark]

We flew to Aruba on Christmas morning, and had dinner at the hotel bar/restaurant along the beach that evening. But we an easy meal at home Christmas Eve before our trip.

[Tibby]

It was just me and our 5 cats +1 kitten here for Christmas. My live-at-home daughter and her boyfriend spent the day at his mother’s house. Daughter is vegan, so I didn’t mind—I’ll make a delicious non-vegan Christmas feast for one and relax alone in front of the TV for the holiday.

I roasted a Rock Cornish game hen in my trusty airfyer and served it with instant potatoes, Stove Top stuffing and canned peas. Martha Stewart, eat your heart out.

I set my plate on my TV table in front of the TV and cued up a nice Christmassy show to watch: lecture #21 from the Wondrium streaming service, The Middle Ages around the World series entitled Late Medieval Disasters: Climate and Plague. Not quite as heartwarming as It’s A Wonderful Life, but close enough.

I took a bite of my roasted Rock Cornish hen (and it was indeed delicious) and realized I didn’t have a proper post-apéritif to wash it down with. So, I went to the kitchen, poured a glass of diet coke and returned to my seat in front of the TV.

Hmm, something seems amiss. Instant potatoes; check. Stove Top stuffing; check. Canned peas; check…Rock Cornish hen; uncheck! Where the hell is my Rock Cornish hen? This is a Christmas mystery of biblical proportions.

And then I remembered the 6 obligate carnivores I cohabitate with. Could they? Would they? Surely not. I feed them well. I pet them. I provide them with room and shelter. I even get them high on catnip! Would they really deprive me, their benevolent caregiver, of my simple Christmas meal?

Scientific FAQ: Cats in general are assholes. Mine are more assholish than normal. They are the James-Younger Gang of the feline world, and Meatball is the leader of the pack. He’s the fastest claw in the Southeast. I’ve seen him snatch and run with meat from my plate so fast it’s a blur, you can’t see it without slo-mo video. Kitten Ollie is following fast in his paw-steps. The worst of the worst. True sociopathcats (there’s a photo of Meatball and Ollie next to that term in the ICD-10 manual).

Sure enough, when I tracked the notorious gang down in the dining room, Meatball and Ollie were engaged in a tug-of-war with my entree’s left leg. Benny, Coconut, Fish, and Pee Pee (known for peeing on my valuable stuff) were gnawing rigorously on the rest of the carcass. It was a bloody birdbath, fowl in all respects.

Oh well, Merry Christmas cats, you furry mother f@&%^$s!

[Snooooopy]

Thankfully, one of my favorite local watering holes decided to open up on Christmas at 5 p.m., so I went there for dinner. I ran into a couple of people that I know, including a former coworker, and it was all very pleasant.