All I want for the holidays....

Over the Winter Break, I will be going home to Pebble Beach, California to visit my family and friends. I like to use that time to spend at home, because I do not get to see them very often during the year. As soon as I get back to Pebble Beach, I plan on playing in a Guest Day event with my mother and her friends at Monterey Peninsula Country Club.

Since my extended family and I are close, but not everyone can make it into town for Christmas, we have several parties and gift exchanges. Before Christmas, I get together with my mother’s side of the family at my aunt and uncle’s house. We have dinner, take family pictures, do a gift exchange and catch up with each other. It is one of the few times per year we are all in one place, so it is a special time for all of us. Christmas Eve is spent with my grandmother and namesake, Corinna, and my parents.

We do a small formal dinner, have a fire and enjoy each other’s company. Usually, later in the evening some of my very best friends come over for drinks and dessert. Christmas Day we have Christmas brunch with a majority of my father’s side of the family. We trade off hosting the event with my aunt and this year it is at my house. My cousins, one of them married with two children will be there along with my grandmother, my aunt and uncle and my parents. Christmas brunch is the only formal meal of the day, where we serve my aunt’s homemade sweet rolls, a family recipe for egg puff, green jello with fruit cocktail along with mimosas and bloody marys.

Christmas dinner at my house is an informal buffet where my mother’s parents come over along with some of my friends. We sit and chat in the living room with a fire in the fireplace and simply enjoy each other’s company. In the week following Christmas my cousin on my father’s side who lives in Southern California come up for a visit with her husband and their three children. We do another small dinner along with visiting and a gift exchange. During their visit, I will play at least one round of golf with my cousin, my uncle and my father.

I usually spend a quiet New Year’s Eve at home, but I have plans this year to go out to First Night in downtown Monterey with my friends. After New Years, my parents and I will drive up to San Francisco to spend the day there. Usually we go before Christmas to admire all the decorations, but this year we could not fit it into the schedule. While in San Francisco, we walk around the heart of downtown window shopping. We then take the Cable Cars to Ghirardelli Square, have lunch in a local restaurant in Chinatown and then continue to window shop in Union Square. Besides these specific plans, I will spend most of my time practicing and playing golf with my family and my golfing friends.

I plan on playing a lot of informal matches with my friends, keeping all of us in competition over the winter. I will also be running and working out quite a bit with a couple of my other friends. Winter Break is a very busy time for me, but I enjoy every minute I get to spend where I grew up with my family and friends.