Christmas Day - Cook Out Special

Opryland Christmas Lightings

My husband had a big official vacation period at work, 24^th Dec to 1^st Jan! We decided that we did not want to go out of town vacationing, considering we have a 9-month old and also that it’s chilly and freezing most of the days. My biggest concerns are by son’s food; as I give him homemade food everyday using Cerelac while on a trip needs a bunch of arrangements. So why not just skip the travel. Moreover, we haven’t seen much of Nashville yet.

Intricate lighting job!

So my son turned 9 months on 24^th and 25^th was my mother-in-law’s birthday. So I decided to make a common cake for both on 25^th. 24^th we went out to a resort close by, The Opryland. It’s a huge area with hotel and recreations, not to mention it’s probably designed for the richest class of people. But they have a free entry to watch Christmas lighting…for 20mins..beyond which you pay for your car parking.

It was freezing at about -2 degC and we for some reason decided to go and watch the lightings along with my husband’s colleagues. 10 mins out of the car, walking through the lighted area and my hands were numb from holding the camera and clicking pictures. I instantly got a fear of my son falling severely ill; though we had 3 layers of warm thick clothes on him. The place was small enough to drive around in your car and enjoy the lighting so I told my husband that we’d just drive around and leave. Nothing’s more important that my son’s good health. We all rushed back to the car and drove around.

Lights and Birth of Christ arrangements

So Christmas lighting's at the Opryland was a 15 mins event for us! But it was pretty beautiful. They could make it more colorful though! And since we were already in the area and the Opry Mills Mall is right next door, we thought lets go into the Mall and let our son play in the play area. He loves it there. He’s quite social as in, he smiles at other kids around him, goes close to them, doesn’t touch them though. He is always the youngest child in the play area..every other kid there is a walker or much bigger! So sometimes I feel sorry that my son is crawling around and watching other kids walk and run all over the place! He’ll get there soon, he’s quite close to walking. These days he is leaping a lot or raising his hands in the air as if to stand up…raises himself to ever elevated piece of furniture, box, wall, fridge, bath tub!

Buns brushed with milk, ready to bake

Pretty much everything is closed on 25^th Dec in the US..may be some stores will stay open exceptionally. So we knew we’d be stuck at home all day long, no place to go out. I already had plans of baking a cake. So decided to multi-task and use the oven at a stretch and bake couple of things, spicy savory buns – Iyengar styled added to the cake job!

Iyengar styled Savory buns - edible gifts!

My husband wanted to cook Dal Makhani for a while, so I planned to use the “25^thDec-stuck-at-home” day for it! Soaked and pressure cooked it for him and by lunch time he served me a delicious lunch of Hot Rice and Dal Makhani…such a comfort food on a cold wintery Christmas Day! I spent the afternoon baking an amazingly light white cake and Iyengar Khara buns that I devoured so often in Bangalore!

Super yummy Dal Makhani made by my husband

To sum it up,  Christmas day turned out to be a cook-out day. We ended it with meeting a friend of mine from Pune who was relocating to Michigan. We visited them with some Christmas gifts and Spicy buns for the two lovely girls they have!