I spent Christmas in Boston this year, the first time I'd ever been there. A nice town, more working class-seeming than either SF or Mpls., but it was too cold to really explore the city much (it seems I've acclimated to the warm California weather much quicker than anticipated).
On Christmas Eve, we went to the Nutcracker (my first trip to the ballet), followed by champagne at the Ritz Carlton with the former mayor of Boston, shopping on fashionable Newbery Street, and fine dining at an elegant restaurant. Well, we didn't exactly have champagne *with* the former mayor of Boston, but he was seated at the table next to us. And the shopping trip was more window in nature than anything else, although I did buy this nifty A Clockwork Orange poster.
Christmas Day brought a partial solar eclipse, which we were in an excellent position to view; the moon obscured almost 60% of the sun in Boston. I made a quick pinhole camera so we could look at it safely. We also viewed the eclipse through the thickness of a CD, which worked quite well.
