Christmas and New Year's Eve!

I know, I've been slacking with this blog, but I have a very good reason: I'm a natural born slacker. Now that the events of late December are at the foggy edges of my memory, I guess its time I write them down.

First off, Christmas, that magical time of the year when commercialism runs rampant and the happiness and joy is forgotten in favor of spite over whether we should say "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas." For the record, I side with Jon Stewart by saying "Happy Holidays" because it takes too long to say "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year." But enough of that nonsense, on with the good stuff! I had a pretty good Christmas, with some DVDs, a Dave Barry calendar which I have not actually opened as of this writing, and a subscription to a humorous political newspaper from Nicole. My parents decided to address my interests in cooking as well as our dearth of decent dicers by getting me a very nice set of cooking knives. I will no longer be infuriated by agonizingly dull knives, and I look forward to be infuriated at having fewer fingers.

Christmas night at Grandma's was fun as usual, with a lot of good food and much fun was had by all. We have a family tradition of singing the Twelve Days of Christmas after dinner, which is made more interesting by the fact that none of us can actually sing. I think collectively we would all rather contract the plague than be saddled with the five golden rings verse. Also, I forgot to bring my cousin Barry his gift, and it's still sitting under my bed, completely unwrapped. Sorry, Barry, I'm sure you'll get it some day.

After leaving Grandma's house, I went out with The Guys to (surprise!) Annie Moore's for some karoke and general good times. This was made doubly fun because there were a few people from my days at Lakewood that I hadn't seen in a while. Andy Frasetto was there, who I haven't seen in two or so years, and Tracy Fender whom I haven't seen since I wore the cap and gown. By the way, good luck to Andy on sealing the deal. We capped off the night with a trip to 7-11 for cubans and hot dogs, made all that much better with cheese and chili toppings administered by a machine that made a sound like someone trying to start a 1985 Corolla on a cold day. Staying out until 3 in the morning seemed like a good idea until 7AM rolled around and I had to be up because my sister decided we should all go to MOSI and see the Bodies exhibit. The exhibit itself was quite fascinating, and I encourage everyone who has a chance to go see it. Having said that, prepare yourself for seeing a bunch of dead bodies that look like beef jerky. Trust me, it'll take you a couple of rooms to truly get over that and appreciate what you're looking at. Also, take someone who knows anatomy, it'll be much more interesting. I recommend a med student, who in addition to explaining the finer points of what's in the Lucite cases, but can also share delightful anecdotes about their own human dissections.

Next, we embarked on the rocket sled ride that is the week between Christmas and New Year's which is actually kind of a fog now that I sit down and try to think about it. I'm positive I worked a lot, and I know that we all went to Arigato for dinner, where true to my word I ordered the Karate Chop with only extra veggies, but due to a paperwork mix-up on the part of the chef, I got extra rice for free. This dinner at Arigato fatefully set up a schism that would come down to what we would all be doing on New Year's Eve. Traditionally, we would all get together and blow stuff up, which, when mixed with the proper amounts of alcohol, can be loads of fun and excitement! However, Ben announced that he would be spending the evening with his new girlfriend, and Russ decided to side with Ben. I elected to go with Karol and Michele, who were renting a limo and getting a hotel on the beach with some of her friends, and most importantly, not going to Tampa.

New Year's Eve was pretty good, with the exception that due to a timing conflict, I actually spent the stroke of midnight asking the hotel manager what room they were in. After that, I went outside to watch the fireworks show and met up with Karol and friends. This was not the giant city-sponsored firework spectacle I was expecting, but rather a home-made event put on by the Bilmar, which has a much smaller budget. After the firework "show" we wandered around to various beach bars in search of a party, but apparently even New Year's Eve is not reason enough to stay open later than 2 AM. I should note that December 31 is Michele's birthday, and this year was the magic 21, which explains why the hotel room was full of birthday party favors. Among them was a bag of those long balloons that clowns can bend into various shapes. I would like to say that I can now form a poodle dog, a bunny rabbit, and a very artistic interpretation of a flower.

Nicole left the day before New Year's so that she could be back in Nashville. A few days after New Year's I left to go to Wyoming for some skiing, which was both unbelievably fun and far too extensive to write about now. Hopefully I'll get tales of that adventure up soon. For now I have just under 350 days to prepare for next Christmas, which retailers would have me believe should cause a sense of urgency!