With holiday season around the corner, we took advantage of my parents’ visit to join in on the parties and celebrations. My lab organized a hot pot potluck complete with retina-decorated macarons, followed by a Westley-led origami session. We managed to finish the copious leftovers before Thanksgiving dinner, which we kept simple to prepare for my family reunion on Black Friday. After months of coordination, I managed to gather aunts, uncles, and cousins from SF, Portland, and San Jose for a day of dim sum, family photos, Super Smash Bros, and seafood banquet. The second wave of leftovers fed us for another week, leaving little opportunity to cook or to go out to celebrate my dad’s 80th. I did manage to get a cake with numeric candles that Westley suggested keeping for his 08th birthday. We continued gorging ourselves at the Alta holiday party at Mulvaney’s B&L – with a short presentation by the owner himself, dim sum with Melody’s OR staff, and the Eye Center holiday party, which felt less crowded and less festive than previous years. Melody and I also tried out the omakase menu at Chef Frank, which was less impressive in presentation, quality, and price than the one at Okesutora. At home, we spent more time exploring the depths of Hyrule and collecting poes. I checked out the Fall of the House of Usher and season 1 of Last of Us. Mike Flanagan’s new horror miniseries on Netflix smartly reflected the gothic works of Edgar Allan Poe, while HBO’s video game adaptation captured the deep, emotional tone of the Naughty Dog classic. Before my parents departed, we took them shopping in Roseville, ordered our cloud sofa, then visited Old Sac for the Theatre of Lights show with the Dea’s. The Asian dinner option was closed, leaving us settling for pizza which was better than expected. With cold winter rains settling in, we look forward to staying inside with just the three of us.