Saturday night, Anne and I went to Joe’s Christmas party.  Joe, a co-worker of mine, has been holding this party for about a dozen years.  We went for the first time last year.  What makes Joe’s Christmas party special is that it is a Christmas cookie party.  Anne brought a batch of cookies that she made to share, as did many of the other guests.  The chocolate-cherry mice were easily the biggest hit in this department.  The food artist used the stem of the chocolate dipped maraschino cherries for the tails and almond slices as their ears.  They looked too good to eat, well almost.  At the party, fixings were provided to make and decorate your own cookies.  Anne and I both made a plate of cookies.  The winner is this department was Chris, also from work, with his cookie Christmas tree.  I just couldn’t get him to straightenout his star.  Chris is a great man and a good friend and I won’t let him down this week.

Joe and his wife are rightly proud of all of their children, but they should be especially proud of their eldest daughter.  She is currently a PhD. candidate in genetics at Harvard.  We’ve been joking at work for years that we need to clone Joe, because he is the only one in the company that can do what he does.  Finally, there appears to be a path forward.

I rode by myself on Saturday, but on Sunday, Anne I rode together.  We only did ten miles in the Park, but in these cold and dark December days this counts for much more.  Simply getting out on your bike is a major challenge.  Heck, just putting on all those clothes is hard enough.  The picture below of Anne was taken on the return run, at Wydown and Big Bend.  The cold weather had managed to bring some color to her cheeks.  Anne is my best friend forever.  Who else would put up with biking with me in such crappy weather?

Danny and Annie flew in from the left coast on Sunday night.  Before they took off from LAX, he had posted to Facebook that he was looking forward to enjoying Red Hot Riplets and Schlafly beer.  For the edification of you out-of-towners, Red Hot Riplets are hot barbecue flavored ridged potato chips.  As the bag says they are made with real Saint Louis style hot sauce.  Personally, I find them to be too spicy, but each to their own.

Annie’s folks picked them up at the airport and we all dined together at the Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood.  Since last year’s Belgium-fucation of Anheuser-Busch by InBev, Schlafly’s has almost overtaken A-B as the hometown favorite.  Pretty good for a brewery that still has not managed to meet the impossibly high standards of the City of Saint Louis for beer brewing.