Christmas is a wonderful day to set aside for family, if one has the luxury to do.  Tradition for my Bride and her sisters is to have breakfast with her Mother and that certainly precedes me in the timeline.  The sisters and as many of their children and grandchildren all show up to greet the day.   There are pastries everywhere to pair with the coffee.  Christmas breakfast is scrambled eggs, bacon and Fresh Kielbasa.  It is a bit of an acquired taste, but after all of these years, it has grown on me, though I admit that I am still more partial to Smoked Kielbasa.  We also enjoyed Mimosas, which we brought to the festivities and I know that you are all surprised.  I mean in the civilized world what else does one enjoy during breakfast or brunch?  One of my brothers-in-law would prefer a Bloody Caesar, those Canadians are a breed apart.  In case you have never heard of a Bloody Caesar, it is Clamato Juice and Vodka. We used a Michigan sparkling wine for the day.  We had M. Lawrence Sandpiper Batch #7 Extra Dry NV by Lawrence Mawby.  Sandpiper, which we have had before, is only available at the winery, it is aged in Stainless Steel and undergoes two fermentations and it a blend of Chardonnay, Vignoles, Cayuga, Riesling, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Traminette.  It may have been overkill and definitely too nice of bubbly for a Mimosa, but it sure tasted great. 

We stayed there, while people were coming and going.  Some were planning on going to the cinema, and some were going to reenact the day depicted in The Christmas Story and have Chinese food for dinner.  We stayed until it was time to go visit another household for a Christmas dinner at one of my cousin’s home.  She traditionally had Christmas dinner, but after her son married, she had announced that she was only going to do it every other year, so that she could travel to see her son on the odd year.  Well he already upended the schedule, because he and his wife and their newborn child came, so that we could all enjoy the new infant.  My cousin always has a house full, because everyone wants to enjoy the Armenian dishes that she always has before the dinner even begins, and one has to be careful or there will be no room for dinner, at least for me, these days; the college crowd still maintains the tradition of having hollow legs when dinner time comes.  After all the appetizers, we sat down for a dinner of Roast Beef, Clams and Pasta, Caesar Salad, Armenian Pilaf and all the other sides that one needs, because they didn’t eat enough earlier.  Then when all of that was cleared away, it was time for the desserts and they filled up a whole table.

We brought some wine, along with the requested dish for the dinner.  I brought a bottle for a house warming gift, as if they did not have enough, and also something unique that I could write about that was from the cellar.  We had a Parsonage Village Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmel Valley Village 2000.  Bill and Mary Parsons and their daughters planted the seven-acre Parsonage Village Vineyard in June 1998 with Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot, and the first to plant Syrah in Carmel Valley.  This was their inaugural vintage and this wine while predominately Cabernet Sauvignon had some of the other varietals blended in as well.  There were seventy-five cases made of this wine, and their total production that first year was two-hundred cases total.  For a first wine, this wine aged very well and was smooth, the tannins had mellowed and a finish of dark fruit was still there.  It was not big and jammy, but then it was no longer a kid, it had matured very well and a great way to finish out Christmas.