DH
never gets excited over Christmas, hates Christmas music, finds winter
disgusting, and abhors shopping so it has been a surprise to me that for three
years he has expressed the desire to see St. Charles, Missouri at night while
decorated for Christmas. This autumn he asked to put it on the calendar this
year. So I made a one day plan for meeting our Sunset Hills friends there for
the day.
When
this agreeable wife also agreed to the Ceiling Project from Hell and it ran six
weeks long, I thought we should skip the mini-trip. But after the carpet was
stretched and steam cleaned it had to dry anyway so we took out for the East.
Then we learned our friends had been sick with a virus and had to pass on a
cold Christmas walk.
We
went anyway with a weather report of maybe hitting 50 degrees. That didn’t
happen. The closer we got to the St. Louis area, the darker the skies. It never
hit 40. The skies were so dark I felt like a heavy ceiling was about to fall on
my head….a ceiling again! But we arrived at the Drury with no near mishaps on
I-44. It had been restful driving with some music and sitting without knee deep
sheetrock dust.
The
next morning we had a nice Drury breakfast. Motel breakfasts are not superb but
Drury does well, and frankly even tasteless gravy can please me if I don’t have
to make it and I can walk away from the mess. We waited for the rush hour to be
over and then eased ourselves down to The Hill, the Italian area of St. Louis.
It was another dark and cold day but no wind so walking in and out of those
wonderful Italian grocery stores was pleasant. The shelves are crowded with
brightly colored cans of olives and tomatoes along with numerous brands of
attractive bottles filled with golden olive oil. The spices are fragrant, and
oh, the smell of that pungent salami! We bought frozen raviolis and bags of ice
to bring it home, a load of pasta for winter. I bought a jar of garlic pepper
that I hope will do two things: 1) Lure DH into eating a wee bit more pepper,
and 2) ease us away from some salt.
Getting to Ragazzi's!
Then
we ate a great lunch at Ragazzi’s, a place we found last summer. DH asked if I
wanted to try some place new, but I wanted to go back to this place famous for
their fried ravioli. We found it with ease and it is not a flamboyant place, in
fact it is stuck near an old viaduct and train yard. One feels like black
sedans carrying Al Capone might show up any minute. But once inside food is
wonderful. Some student nurses were celebrating having finished a heavy final
and many other diners were filtering in. I ordered the fried ravioli appetizer
with a small salad instead of a meal. The salad was as wonderful as their
ravioli and their idea of small was way larger than I could have imagined.
We returned to our room for shifting some of our groceries, stealing a a brief rest, and
then heading to St. Charles. The brick streets and decorated store fronts were beautiful
and the day dark enough already the lights were glowing. St. Charles, a river
front town preserves its ancient brick buildings well and at Christmas they set
a scene of the 1800’s with strolling Father Christmas characters, a pioneer Santa,
carolers in long skirts and top hats. The stores offer items that I don’t need
or want, but it is fun to wander in and out looking for something special. I
picked up some small gifts along the way, but having just weeded this house of “stuff”
(and I assure you there is plenty left!) I was leery of toting home more things
that were “cute” dust collectors.
We
visited our favorite bookstore now under new management but looking the same as
always. It was finely decorated for the season. We ate at Braden’s although
neither of us were very hungry after such a spectacular lunch. The place was
crowded to the hilt; we got the last tiny table for two. We had big cups of hot
tea and BLT’s we barely finished. I went to the washroom and when I came back I
passed a table where I matched eyes with a lady who seemed familiar. Whoops,
could it be? I asked if she were Becky? Yes. Becky Povich? Yes. There sat one
of the first bloggers I ever read and was followed by. We had never talked on
the phone or met, but wow, did we know each other. She and her husband were
having a very rare date night; we had never been to Braden’s before. What were
the chances we would be six feet away from each other on a December night? What
fun to meet her in the flesh and to introduce our husbands. This was a real
gift for the season.
Favorite bookstore
My
one disappointment was not tasting the roasted chestnuts when the English
characters roasting them were late and had to build a fire yet. We were tired
and cold and with a 45 minute more wait we gave up. Also the very old brick
sidewalk and odd curbs were potential disasters for us in the dark night.
The
next morning our friends managed to meet us for breakfast although they
were washed out. None of us could give up the opportunity to
see each other for even a brief while. We have been friends for about 45 years,
meeting in an apartment complex when we were all newly married. The time was
short but better than nothing. They lacked energy and we had a long road ahead
to get home. More work waited!
Home on the Hill decorated for Christmas
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