Saturday marked our official stroll day, and we began where we ended last year: Cambridge. A sunny start to the day was fortuitous for the crowds at Harvard Square. Apparently Harvard was playing Yale in a football game, but we were headed in the right direction (away from Harvard and out along Massachusetts Ave. toward Porter, where several shops (and a pho lunch) awaited our wallets.
We began, as everyone should, with a gift or two for ourselves. I explained it to Kira like I was a flight attendant: you have to secure your own oxygen mask before helping anyone else. That gorgeous silk scarf I found at a Tibetan store was my means of securing my mask before I could help anyone else. Kira found two scarves, and then we were ready to consider aiding the children in our lives.
At Nomad, colorful and unique sundry dazzled our senses, as Kira found a gift for her daughter and I found something for a co-worker. The walk to Porter had been a long one (there was a T issue and Harvard was the last stop that morning) so even though it was early in our expedition, we were already famished and ready for lunch. Nothing beats pho for that.
After filling ourselves with that glorious bowl of goodness, we were back for serious retail action, backtracking to Harvard (and several more Tibetan stores) before traipsing all the way to Central Square. Hands filled with shopping bags, hearts filled with Christmas spirit, and shoes filled with tired and sore feet, we hopped on the Red line back to Boston, where both of us needed a quick break before dinner.
The sun was just starting to descend, the last rays of it draining from the bedroom as the streetlamps flickered to life outside. We changed for a fancy belated-birthday dinner, and took in the moment. These were the in-between times that I cherished most, the moments everyone seems to forget, but that form the bulk of living when you think about it. We would have our fancy dinner and cocktails, and we would toast to our holiday stroll and long-past birthdays, but the real happiness was everything that led up to that.
There was one more morning left, and Sunday is always a wild card when it comes to the holiday stroll…
