Riverside Rendezvous (37)

Mami and Auntie Christel have long met for lunch in Riverside at the Mission Inn each year before Christmas, a halfway destination to share the holiday spirit and hand off gifts in the parking lot when they are done. In recent years each of their Irmgards have joined them, German pair upon German pair, and this year I got to go, too. The inn takes decking the halls seriously, the main entrance lined with 50-yard rows of poinsettias a brilliant red and the lobby sporting a real two-story fir.

Every balcony hosts wooden carolers and toy soldiers who I'm told will move and sing though we didn't get to see that, and there are Christmas figures framed in lights on the massive outside walls, promising more wonders in the dark of night. Our food was both tasty and pretty, and the conversation was as animated as the wooden carolers were not. I has happy to get to meet Auntie Christel's Irmgard who I'd heard so much about, glad to have an unexpected bonus visit with Mami and Auntie Gardi before Christmas and thankful Auntie Christel wanted to include me in their rendezvous.