I stand in front of a familiar window. Holly, candy canes, and the words “Season’s Greetings” are painted on the glass. Carolers in Dickensian skirts brush past me, singing “Joy to the World.” Fading sun glints on the control tower. A Sky Chefs truck rolls past piles of snow. Christmas has come to Logan Airport.

Last December my flights were so delayed (I spent a night in Logan, and the next night on a cot in O’Hare) that the airlines graciously bestowed food vouchers on me. The food voucher looks like a boarding pass. You can spend it on anything in the airport except alcohol. I ended up buying myself a bottle of water and a fellow passenger a Big Mac. One year, one snowstorm, and one voucher later, I turn my attention to the food at Logan Airport.

Did you know that the Legal Seafood next to the security gate packages up live lobsters to take on your flight?

I forego the horrific prospect of trying to sleep with a lobster tucked under the seat in front of me, or worse, in the overhead bin.

I stop at UFood Grill, whose pastel-colored signs proclaim: “We bake, we grill, we steam. We never fry – ever.” To further drive home this point, the fries (baked) are named UnFries. Other offerings: smuuthies, prolattas, and proccinos (protein-injected shakes), and a slew of wraps, rice bowls, and grilled meat. My day job at a fast-food truck involves hand-cutting fries and deep-frying them to order, so I try the UnFries ($1.59). They arrive instantly, and are decent, if a little reminiscent of baking soda. Something oily (oil?) clings to them. My red tray and I sit down.

A student sitting next to me talks to his dad, spooning blood-red soup from a Cosi cup. He’s done with an exam. “When they called time, my friend Chris took a bottle of tequila out of his bag and started pouring us all shots,” he says. “The proctor didn’t know what to do.”

I wish I had a shot of tequila.

Next stop: lunch at Cosi. I order the “duo,” a half-salad and a soup. They are out of the lobster bisque, so I get the tomato basil soup and the “signature” salad. It comes with a side, either bread or carrots. “What do you recommend?” I ask the cashier. “The bread,” she says with a kind smile. “For the soup.” The bread is by far the best part of the meal, flaky, with the yeasty taste of pizza dough. Soup (blood red) is lukewarm. The salad is mixed greens, grapes, pears, pistachios, cranberries, and Gorgonzola with a sherry shallot vinaigrette. Pears taste like either metal or pineapples, and the dressing is like sugar water. In Italian, cosi-cosi means “so-so.” The food matches the name, but the smiling employees make me leave happy.

By the time dinner rolls around, I have an hour before my flight and my body aches. I slink up to Asian Fusion. The bar, whose specialty is the saketini (sake plus flavors like crisp lemon and ripe strawberry) is attached to an Asian buffet serving pork, rice, and udon. The most aggressive order-taker in the airport latches on to me, forcing eye contact, and before I even decide to eat something, I am ordering a miso soup with ramen noodles and tempura vegetables. It is the best thing I’ve eaten all day, but not cheap at $9.32. The miso is hearty, the noodles chewy. I float the plump slices of battered sweet potato in the soup. Next to me, the carolers are on a break. They text, rave about their Cosi wraps, complain about the price ($8).

Regret comes on the overfull plane to Dallas, seat 11B, the middle seat. And again, at the Baymont Inn, Grape Vine, Texas, where (only after a stranded pregnant woman cries) American Airlines puts a group of us after we miss our connecting flight.

–Lucia Jazayeri