Friends Dinner

Although most people will tell you that Christmas is about family, I believe it should be about your

friends too. Tonight I went to dinner at Carrabba’s with some of the girls from work and we had a great time chowing down on massive amounts of food and chatting anything that came to mind. If you've never been to Carrabba's, you must go, at least to try the bread and the oil + seasoning they give you. It is amazing. We had a lot of good laughs for the two hours we were there and we only left because our waiter kept passing our table asking if we needed anything else after we had already paid our checks.

RADIO: Cinnamon Bear “Flying Hat”, Jump Jump and the Ice Queen “The Palace of the Ice Queen”, Jonathan Thomas and his Christmas on the Moon “King Squeebubly and Santa Claus”

MOVIE: If there is debate on whether Gremlins is a Christmas movie, there is most certainly debate on whether Serendipity qualifies. Upon re-watching it, I found that very few of the scenes are actually set during Christmastime; in fact, the holiday acts as bookends to a story based heavily on miracles. So while the entire film may not center around the date of Christmas, the sentiments of the season are certainly prevalent.

Sara and John meet while shopping for their significant others at Christmas. They both go for the same pair of gloves at Bloomingdale's, and the attraction is instant. She is very superstitious and believes that if their meeting was destined, that fate will bring them back together again. Although trial after trial shows that it was indeed serendipitous, she refuses to truly believe it and they part ways, but they never forget each other. Years later, they are both engaged but questioning whether they’re in the right relationship and if they possibly let the right one get away all those years ago at Christmas, so they search for each other one last time.

It is an incredible chick flick that I love to watch year after year.

SONG: “This Christmas” by Joe

GIFT MEMORY: One year when I was in middle school, I told my parents I wanted a TV for my room. I already had one but it was black and white and older than me. My mom had it in her apartment before she and my dad got married. It wasn’t the most reliable set in the world and I couldn’t always get a picture by fiddling with the antennae, but it did its job and I didn’t expect to get a replacement. But my parents surprised my sister and I that Christmas after we were done opening our presents by bringing up boxes of more gifts from the basement. We were shocked; we thought we had opened everything and we were perfectly satisfied with what we had. But my parents threw in a brand new TV and VCR for each of us for our bedrooms. I was ecstatic and I still have both of them residing in my bedroom today in perfect working condition.