Christmas Time 2023
The happiest time of the year!
Here are some photos of the season from Encinitas, the beach, our house and Debbie and Mike's visit.
Beautiful day for a stroll on the beach. Had to stop by the tree at Seaside Reef to take a selfie. And a shadow selfie! Merry Christmas!
Our first "live" tree in a few years. Looks like Santa was here!
My sister Mary made the Santa quilt and Lorri arranged her "Snow Village" below
Setting up for Christmas dinner
Our fake tree got relegated to the family room this year. My mother made the Christmas Star quilt.
Christmas Eve dinner - king crab, roasted baby potatoes, lots of butter for dipping!
Christmas morning. Yes, Santa was here!
Santa was so generous!
Christmas Day! The Fillings took the early bird special from BWI and arrived in San Diego at 9 AM!
We fired up the old selfie stick (and popped a bottle of bubbly!)
And here we are!
It was sunny and warm in San Diego!
Santa even left stockings for Deb and Mike!!!
Celebrating in the family room
Our 7-pound prime rib roast getting ready to go on the bbq rotisserie
The dinner table
The cheese board
Aerial view of the cheese board
We were joined for dinner by part of the Evers clan. Here we have Lynn and Frank.
And here we have Steve and Ashley with Debbie
And here we have Mike and Jack
And Jack and Lorri
Getting set up for our traditional family Christmas pic
Controlling my iPhone camera with my selfie stick Bluetooth remote!
Preliminary. What did Lorri say to Ash?
Lorri's eyes closed
Debbie looks grumpy
Pretty good!
No hats!
Mike looks guilty of something.
Mike modeling Deon Sanders Blenders shades at their store in downtown Encinitas
On the beach.
Another beachy one
The vines at Halter Ranch in Temecula. We drove up there on Wednesday after Christmas for a tasting and lunch.
My new Halter Ranch hat. Deb and Mike joined the HR wine club when we visited their Paso Robles winery a couple years ago. In the meantime, Halter Ranch took over the old Hart Winery in Temecula and opened a tasting room!
We were treated to lunch at Avensole and this is what it looked like.
Shrimp cevice
Chicken sandwich
Good burger! Needed more fries. Come on! Fries are cheap!
After lunch we cruised down the road for a tasting at Wiens.
The Barrel Room at Wiens. Members only.
Tasting Wiens wines.
On the way home we stopped in San Marcos to check out Karl Strauss' new "Outpost". We expected something resembling Stone Brewery's outdoor facilities, but this was rather Spartan, to put it nicely.
Well, that's it! Christmas is over, the Fillings are back in Baltimore, the tree has been dismembered, stuffed in the yard waste bin and taken to the giant mulch pile in the sky.
2023 is over. It was a good year and it was great to spend the last few days of it with daughter Debbie and son-in-law Mike!
Here's to 2024!