An Afternoon in Dallas

As a fun Christmas activity, mom and I had the idea to take the family to downtown Neiman Marcus and play a little game. That store is famous for their Christmas decorations and in particular, their Christmas tree which is displayed in the front window. When we got there we divided up into teams (Caylin and Dad, Mike and Mom, and Me and Chris). We each got a list of questions and $30 to buy 2 gifts which we would exchange later. Chris and I started at the top floor because I knew there was an area up there that had the answers to some of the questions. I don't have them in front of me but they were something like: What year did the store burn? What was the name of the book written by Mr. Marcus? How old is the company? What is the most expensive thing in the store? We found several answers there and made our way down the 6 or so floors to search for the 2 gifts. We didn't find anything in Mens, womens, gifts, wedding, home or accessories. Well, we found a lot, just nothing under about $50. Finally we saw that there was a coffee bar in the store and knew that would be perfect. There were lots of treats there that were much less expensive. We found some spicy Neimans pecans and some chocolate covered cherries. For the most expensive thing in the store, we headed to the jewelry section. 2 things topped the list, one was some earrings that were about 15 total karat weight diamonds for 1 million dollars. To top that was a string of pearls, each pearl was about 1.5" diameter. It took them over 5 years to find enough pearls that were the same size. The clasp of this necklace was all diamonds. The price of this was 1.2 million and they let my sister try it on. When she sends me the photo I will post it. After that, we all went to the steakhouse in the Crescent Hotel- Capital Grille. We had a wonderful 4 course dinner and exchanged gifts- the way where you can steal if you like something better. I got some fancy tea and tea trays- I just enjoyed some and it's fabulous. I guess expensive tea does taste better :-) The photo is of us at dinner.