Sunday, December 13, 2009

A Christmas Tradition

Ever since I was a little kid, we would go to the Dayton's Christmas show, which evolved to the Marshall Field's Christmas show, and now to the Macy's Christmas show, over the course of various ownerships. The sad part is that Macy's only committed to 2 years after purchase, and this is the 2nd year, so they might kill the many years of tradition if they don't keep this up next year, which I think would just be sad in addition to absolutely stupid on their part because the free show brings so many people downtown to the store that would otherwise not make the trip.

For example, we wouldn't have come down for lunch if we weren't going to the show, and The Oak Grill is a pretty nice restaurant. This was a SUPER delicious meal, and of course I took pics =) as well as pics of the Christmas show. So here we go!

The Macy's in downtown Minneapolis is 12 stories tall, and one of the things on the top floor is this restaurant, the Oak Grill:


After you place your order, everyone is provided with a popover as an appetizer (kind of like the cheesy biscuits at Red Lobster ... but BETTER). This is an eggy kind of bread thing that reminds me a lot of like a panakuken, and served with honey butter:


I got Asiago Crusted Chicken, which came with the best mashed potatoes I've ever had & green beans:


My uncle started out with a bowl of Lobster Bisque, and then moved on to an Angus Beef Hamburger with fries:


My mom & my aunt both got this Thai Chicken Salad that came with peanut sauce:


And grandma had Shrimp Spring Rolls & a cup of the Lobster Bisque - & beer, which you can glimpse in the background =)


Of course, it's not complete without dessert & we got a bunch of forks & split these 2 around the table. On the left we have Chocolate Bread Pudding with vanilla sauce, which was super-good although not as chocolaty as I expected, and much denser than anticipated too. On the right is a Frango Mint Chocolate Ice Cream Pie with a cookie-crumb crust & a dollop of whipped cream on the side, which originally struck me as kind of boring, but was actually super delicious:


Boy, after all of that I really could have gone for a nap, but we still had the show to go to! So we went down from the 12th to the 8th floor, to check out:


This is actually the same as the show they did last year, although they added 4 new scenes. Another bad sign that this may be the last year. I didn't try to take pics of everything, because the lighting was so tricky ... using flash washed everything out & ruined the ambiance, using no flash a lot of my shots were turning out too blurry. So I just picked the cream of the crop to show you guys:


Do you have any Christmas traditions you look forward to? My next favorite thing is making cookie with my grandma, which I'll be doing Thurs, and decorating the cookies with the whole family, which I'll be doing next Saturday =) I'll have pics of those yummies for sure. Thanks for reading.

~Colette

3 comments:

  1. What a cute show, it would really be a shame if they stopped that!
    We don't really have traditions in my family, just being together already feels good as we live far away from our parents.

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  2. Thanks for sharing your pictures. All that food certainly looks delicious. I used to go into Center City Philadelphia when I was little and go to the Christmas shows there with my Mother. There were these old department stores Lit Brothers, Gimbels and Strawbridges & Clothier. They all had Christmas shows. There was also Wanamaker's which had a fantastic show. I went to those shows for years. Then I went with my girlfriends as a teenager. We also used to get lunch in one of the department stores. I used to shop all day with my Mother. I miss those days.

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  3. CHOADDICT - I agree spending time with family is most important =)

    LUCY - I wish there were more places that still did this kind of thing, all those sound like a lot of fun =)

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Thanks for commenting! I will read every comment, and try to respond to any questions =)

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