A Christmas Memory 1999

Another Christmas in the Emerald City: 1999 was a good year and a memorable Christmas. That year I received from my wife a Weber grill which I still use today. It was on the lanai Christmas morning, along with the appropriate grilling implements.

We developed a ritual of Christmas shopping down town each year, one we kept as long as we lived in Seattle. We would buy a few gifts at the Pike Place Market (pictured) each year, though we would often buy fresh seafood and produce at the market year round.

In 1999 we were two DINKs living in the city in the city without many responsibilities. A year later, my wife would be very pregnant with our first child, and after the baby arrived Christmastime changed, but not in a bad way. We transitioned well from celebrating Christmas as a couple to looking at the season through the eyes of a child. I would not change a thing, but I do recall those Christmases before our daughter was born with great fondness.

That was another life.