Christmas Eve in Korea

feast of seven-ish fishes

dweeb alert

photo op: a green egg oozing gold and gold coins

mesmerizing

santa came early to daegu

Sly got off work early today. I had great plans of baking cookies and a beautiful rum cake for tomorrow. Instead of doing anything productive I dressed our kitties in a Santa costume and made instant ramen eaten while we binge watched The Jinx, another true crime series. Nothing puts you in the holiday mood like documentaries on sociopaths. By the time we finished the entire season we no longer felt like making dinner/cooking/doing anything. Besides, we planned on cooking all day Christmas, better to take the day off and rest up…

Several years ago my sister started the tradition of eating a feast of seven fishes on Christmas Eve. Though it was one of our newer holiday traditions it has already become one of our favorites. It was highly unlikely that a restaurant here served a feast of seven fishes meal so instead we tried a new sushi place located on a trendy street near one of the nearby universities. Obviously it wasn’t quite the same (food or company) but like our itty bitty Christmas tree, sometimes the smallest, newest traditions can go a long way in making one feel a little more Christmas-y and a little closer to family.

After dinner we did the Korean equivalent of driving around neighborhoods to look at lights. In this case that meant checking out the light display at the Daegu Bank Plaza (of all places). A huge tunnel with seizure inducing lights surrounded by several statues / sculptures of gold bars/bags of money/gold piggy bank (symbolizing good fortune for the new year?) created a very festive atmosphere. Holiday music blared on a mysteriously hidden loud speaker, food trucks sold goodies, and children ran around and wrote wishes (or was it some kind of lottery ticket thing?) that they put inside little mailboxes beside one of the money-themed sculptures.

I stayed up late baking spitzbuben cookies while watching It’s a Wonderful Life and Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas. The kitties were strangely obsessed with my cookie making which in turn made us feel guilty which led to us giving them one too many treats.

It’s finally, after all this time, starting to feel like the holidays.