Our family tradition for the holidays is to have a huge and when I say huge, I mean MASSIVE seafood feast on Christmas Eve. Mountains of crab, shrimp, oysters, clams and many kinds of fish laid out over a huge table covered in newspaper with bowls of melted butter for dipping. Last year, we probably had at least 25 people over for the feast.
This year though, we just couldn't make it happen. We got back from our family vacation 6 days before Christmas and between getting the house ready, shopping and doing all the cooking, mom and I just couldn't get it together.
So, we decided to have a very low key Christmas. Both of us were still really wiped after our vacation. Ten days of traveling and theme parks and being away from home, really take it's toll. You almost need twice that time to recover. Not to mention that I'd gotten a pretty bad cold while on our way home.
The only thing I wanted to do for Christmas, was spend time with a close friend. With him, I knew it would be really low key. I could cook a nice dinner, we could see a movie and just have quiet, stress free time.
For dinner, I made lobster with browned butter over angel hair pasta, sauteed calamari and green beans with garlic. It was all delicious. I'd never made calamari before, so I was very surprised how easy it was. The hardest part was cleaning it and even that wasn't difficult, just had to get over the gross factor.
After dinner, we went to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I love the series of books and I really excited to see the movie and how they would adapt it. Sure they changed some things, but how often does a movie follow a book exactly? I wasn't crazy about some of the actors they chose, but all in all, I think it was really well done.
Definitely wasn't like any Christmas I've had in too many years to count, but it was exactly what I needed. Nice, quiet and relaxing.
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