We kicked off the celebration mid-December with my office party at the Olympic Club. I'm very lucky to work with people that I actually like to hang out with during my time off.
Tyler and I celebrated our 11th anniversary a few days before Christmas. We had a lovely night starting with dinner at South Park Cafe and ending with the Smuin Ballet's Christmas Ballet. 
The first half of the program is classic Christmas with dances set to Bach and Handel. The second half lightens up considerably with the likes of Santa Babay and Christmas Island (both pictured.)
The weekend before Christmas we discovered a new breakfast joint. I had read in San Francisco Magazine about the amazing apple and raspberry turnovers at Mission Beach Cafe. We decided to head over and try them for ourselves. We only intended to get pastries, but the plates of pancakes and eggs benedict rushing by us tempted us to stay for breakast. Tyler ordered the breakfast sandwich with a homemade English muffin, sausage and bacon. I had eggs benedict with proscuitto and Midnight Moon gouda drizzled with porchini hollandaise sauce. We had our turnovers too! The styling of the small space made for a perfectly relaxing morning. The interior is modern and warm with ivory upholstered chairs and lacqured wood tables. For a finishing touch everything is served on earthy brown Heath ceramic plates. They even serve Navarro grapejuice. Next came our outing to the Mission to get all the ingredients for our Christmas Eve celebration. Read more about this in my La Palma post.
Christmas Eve brought our traditional afternoon outing to the beach followed by dinner and celebrating with friends over homemade chili and fresh tortillas.
Christmas day brought gifts and the most delicious French toast I've ever eaten. Adam made Brazilian French toast, which is basically sliced baguette dipped in sweetened condensed milk and deep fried. It's like doughnut French toast! He didn't stop there either. We also indulged in eggs benedict, bacon, sausage, pumpkin bread, and gingerbread cake. Marlo made her first trip to the museum on Boxing day. We spent the afternoon browsing the Marie-Antoinette and the Petit Trianon at Versailles exhibit at the Legion of Honor instead of the sales racks.
To ring in the New Year, we invited a few friends over for a casual evening. Our new apartment has a view of the Bay Bridge and the waterfront near the Embarcadero, so we were able to watch the midnight fireworks from our livingroom.
We wrapped up the holidays with walk along the Embarcadero and a delicious brunch on the BBQ New Year's morning. We made gingerbread pancakes with lemon curd and blueberries. The pancakes were good, but they tasted more like brown sugar molasses pancakes than gingerbread. I'm still on the hunt for a recipe that tastes like Zazie's.
Happy New Year!!
