Merry Christmas from San Diego! The boys were excited to wake up to find their uncle in the room. Luckily he was already awake by the time they woke up!

Breakfast and the Gym

The weather outside was sunny and in the 60’s making the palm trees in the background look more appropriate to this New Englander. We headed down to breakfast which was available to all guests in the hotel and not a perk of my wife’s status. It was pretty busy as the hotel building contains two different hotel brands and shared some of the facilities.

We found a table and took turns getting food at the buffet. It was definitely a step down from the lounge at the previous hotel. The fruit wasn’t the freshest and they had an odd mix of cereal and bread options. They did have a waffle station with many choices of toppings which contributed to the long lines there.

After breakfast we got changed and headed to the gym for a Christmas workout. The gym room wasn’t large though it had four treadmills, three elyptical machines, and two bikes to go with several weight machines and free weights. We managed to get in a solid hour of sweat before heading back to the room to catch some of the Christmas NBA basketball games.

Holiday Sports

Back in the room my wife was watching some horrible Christmas movie she found on the complementary Showtime app on the TV. Tomatico and I found a corner and started watching the Celtics play Toronto on the iPad. We’re dedicated fans!

After a bit my wife decided to let us have the TV in the room while everyone else went for a walk outside. They had a great time enjoying the nice weather while Tomatico and I cheered our hometown team to victory!

After the game we still had an hour before our surprise reservation at Ruth’s Chris steakhouse. We needed to keep the kids occupied and not thinking about how hungry they were in order keep the reservation a surprise. We ended up watching a sports documentary.

Lunch

As the time of our reservation approached we all got ready to “walk around and see if we could find a place to eat”. We walked outside and towards the hotel next door. Our destination was about a block away. When I saw it I tried to distract the kids by having them look in a different direction. True to form, Tomatico was too quick and asked if we could go to Ruth’s Chris. I tried to deflect and said they were probably booked up as we would need reservations. He pressed on and I had to admit we had a reservation and he responded with a jump, fist pump, and a not-so-subtle “YES!” in response.

We had a wonderful and relaxing dinner that was extremely filling. It was one of the better steaks we’ve had at the chain. Even the worst steaks there are amazing so the bar is pretty high. They boys enjoyed their meals and we all splurged on dessert as well. We had gone to the gym in the morning to prepare so we deserved it!

We were all in a virtual food coma in our zombie walk back from lunch. Luckily it was only a few minutes walk. Back in the room we were all more or less ready for a nap. We put on the rest of the sports documentary and watched another one as we were all more or less cat-napping.

Dinner Snack

It was getting towards the evening and somehow the kids were getting a little hungry again. I found a nearby burger place on Google Maps that said it was open and only a 15 minute walk away. We could all use the walk to burn off some more of our lunch so we decided to check it out.

When we got there, it turned out it was in an outdoor mall. Not much was open since it was Christmas Day. We eventually found the burger place, but it was closed. We saw another restaurant that was open but were told to come back in 30 minutes as they didn’t have any free tables. From what we could see it wasn’t busy but we assumed it was due to a skeleton staff due to the holiday.

We walked around to see if there was anything else open and found everything else of interest to be closed. When we returned to the restaurant they were able to seat us. The restaurant itself is on stilts and is over the water with great views of the bay.

None of the adults were very hungry so we shared an adult meal and the boys ordered from the kids’ menu. Overall it was pretty tasty and I’m sure the views during the day would have been even more amazing with the floor to ceiling windows.

After dinner we walked back to the hotel and called it a night. While we didn’t really do much activity-wise we had a great Christmas. It was great to share the day with my brother inlaw and we had an amazing lunch to celebrate the gorgeous day. It was a very Merry Christmas!