Monday, December 19, 2011

Winter celebrating not necessarily associated with a particular holiday

I think this will be another Christmas-type post. I guess all I do anymore is celebrate the Christmas season. I was actually invited to a Hanukkah party on Sunday, which might have lent my blog some much needed balance and perspective (and also granted me my annual opportunity to gorge on latkes). Sadly, a prior engagement kept me from attending. Nevertheless, the weekend was still wonderful, for the following list of reasons:

1) People played board games with me. This is an all too rare occurrence sadly. I can't count the times I have hopefully dragged board games to a get together only to have the night end game-less. There's nothing lame about Scattegories. And I stand by that.

2) An enjoyable tree-trimming party at my friend's apartment (well, I showed up too late for the tree trimming, but was just in time for the brie and mulled cider, so it was a party nonetheless!). Also, I made these little guys:
They're Texas snowmen! Or I guess the snowmen of the warm climate-d place of your choosing Some of them are blissfully unaware of their fate, but the more self-aware snowmen have the appropriate expressions of horror. And what is any holiday party without morbid, sentient snowmen death?

3) My first shopping spree with a Make-a-Wish child. It was a wonderful experience and it was totally worth braving the toy stores on the last shopping weekend before Hanukkah and second to last shopping weekend before Christmas.

4) The discovery of absurdly tacky quantities of Christmas lights in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. I suppose I wasn't the one to discover this as the Dyker Heights Christmas lights are apparently the stuff of legend, but for some reason I only read about it this year. I have quite a history of going on tacky light tours. There is a neighborhood near(ish) my parent's house that requires homeowners in their deed restrictions to put up absurd quantities of lights and obey their block's theme in the grand tradition of taking things way too seriously. That said, it makes for some great displays. Also, when I was a kid I went on a tacky light tour through Richmond, Virginia that involved a limo, three hours (plus an additional 30 minutes for us because our limo almost instantly sprung a flat tire leading to countless Gilligan's Island references while we waited impatiently in the cold), and driving all over the city to see Richmond's tackiest homeowners' handiwork.

This was not one of the beautiful, professionally decorated houses (because those didn't come out in photos quite as well), but this was definitely one of the tackiest.

5) My boyfriend's family coming over for lunch allowing me an excuse to make this:
Yep, that's asiago mac and cheese with caramelized brussell sprouts and cranberries. You can probably tell I didn't take this picture, and I don't want to take credit for it either way because this chick is awesome.

Really, that wasn't as Christmas-centric as I thought. Perhaps my next post will be though, as I'll be celebrating Christmas in earnest next weekend in Richmond, Virginia--the land of tacky Christmas lights and high-end outdoor shopping malls.


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