First Christmas Bash of the Season

Today was Barbara's and my traditional Christmas party lunch where we each wear our matching Christmas light necklaces, eat well, and exchange presents. Yes, we are 12 years old!

We ordered from Gracie's and here it is having just arrived:

Barbara had her usual BLT on rye toast, and I varied by having French Toast & sausage.

Then we shared our well done fries...

My French Toast:

And here's Barbara enjoying her BLT:

Of course, since this was a PARTY! Barbara stopped (at my suggestion) at Little Red Hens (bakery) on the way to my place to get us some cupcakes:

She got me a coconut cupcake, based on Cathy's Thanksgiving recommendation, and she got herself a Chocolate/Chocolate cupcake.

Here's the review of the coconut one: The frosting is heavy with flakes of toasted coconut. When you bite into it, the cake part is so airy, so light; it's like biting into a cloud. It made me do a double take. On the first bite, I didn't get any cream, but on the second bite, I got the light-light cake along with a cold thick pudding chock full of coconut. Honestly, I have to say it was probably the best cupcake I've ever had.

Luckily for me, Barbara doesn't like coconut so I didn't have to share, but she did offer a piece of her chocolate cupcake. Same light but rich cake, and the frosting was so chocolately that you get an immediate chocolate hit, followed by this fudgy aftertaste. I sound like an idiot rambling about cupcakes, but they ARE this good.

So then it was time for presents... Oh wait, we had presents first... anyway, in preparation for the dystopian society that may come in 2016, I gave Barbara a solar-powered, hand-crankable emergency radio that can also charge cellphone and is a flashlight. I want her to be prepared. She joked that she had considered buying a gun, so I said this radio is a stop-gap measure. I also gave her a box of chocolates.

For me, I got three things -- two presents and one "un-Christmas present." The first present is a zippered pouch from the Strand (bookstore):

And my second present was a box of these wonderful chocolates that have sea salt on them that she also gave me last year from a candy place in Brooklyn:

Then what was labeled as an un-Christmas present, she gave me a paperweight from her collection. I collect paperweights like this, but Barbara's collection has paperweights that are Lucite with real plants and flowers in them. In fact, I pored over eBay looking at these paperweights and just couldn't decide if the ones I saw would fit. Told her this and said she had once commented how difficult it is to buy something for someone else's interest. 

But she was right on with this paperweight, which unbelievably she bought at a thrift shop for one dollar. She was giving it to me since it just didn't fit into her other ones. Of course the photo doesn't do it justice, but it's like the inside of an ocean wave, swirly and blue... I have it sitting by me now.

And not a present, but a pass-along book. I've read a bunch of these series, and this is the latest: