Saturday, December 2, 2023
Lunch at Frost's with Noel. Afterwards we hit the Alexander Ramsey House gift shop, or lack thereof as the case may be. Usually the visitor center is tricked out with holiday merchandise for sale. This year? Nothing except some mugs and a few ornaments. The guy checking people in for tours told us the James J. Hill House up the road is where the Minnesota Historical Society is doing it up big for holiday merchandise this year. We told him that was our next stop. Upon arrival we found ourselves sadly disappointed. All they had were a couple of trees with ornaments on them, a rack of Christmas cards, a small table of unremarkable full priced items, and a small picked over table of half priced items. We each ended up getting a few small half priced candles.
Every year the selection at stores gets a little smaller and seemingly less remarkable. Not that either of us needs anymore Christmas tchotchkes but a little more volume and some better quality stuff would at least make the shopping experience more enjoyable. After years of collecting we're both at a point where anything we buy has to be pretty remarkable and stores are playing it safe the more they're having to compete with online retail. This has been going on for quite a while but the pandemic really accelerated the change. Oh well, change happens.
Cigar in the garage after getting home from my get together with Noel.
My view from the garage.
Also had an Old Fashioned.
After my cigar I joined Dale inside for more cocktails and Christmas music.
For dinner Dale made hamburgers on the grill. They were quite satisfying. We also had potato salad, and a broccoli-cauliflower mix. For dessert we had a red velvet roulade with cream cheese frosting. Also we watched, or, more accurately, Dale, watched Christmas in Connecticut. I kept falling asleep.
