Recently in Holidays Category

Happy New Year! I hope your New Year's Eve celebrations were as riotous as ours. We got together with some friends and played Im Schatten Des Kaisers, a boardgame that Michele and I bought in Germany. We were armed with a crude English translation of the rulebook, but it still took us a few turns before we were correctly identifying all of the playing pieces. (Turns out it's an excellent game--very strategic, in the vein of Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne.)

You know you're getting old when it's 11:00 on New Year's Eve and you're ready to pack it in. That's right--we didn't even stay up late enough to witness the Dropping of the Ball (a ceremony the appeal of which has always eluded me). One of our friends had a sermon to deliver at church the next morning, and you don't want the pastor dozing off during the service. So we called it a successful New Year's Eve.

Oh, and in other exciting New Year's news, I played around with the theme and layout here on the ol' blog. Gone is the Squad Leader visual theme, although it's sure to return at some point given my fondness for it.

Hope your New Year is off to a good start!

From the stygian depths of Christmas vacation I have returned. (Actually, technically, I'm in between vacations at the moment--Christmas vacation is over, and New Year's vacation kicks in in a day or two.) It's been a wonderful Christmas--for me and Michele, it was a pleasantly quiet holiday and an excellent excuse to hole up in the apartment amidst the mountains of books we each brought with us into our marriage. I hope that your holidays were as filled with joy as was ours. And those of you who had a difficult holiday are constantly in our prayers.

Among my Christmas highlights:

• ...watching Return of the King, of course. I have little to add to what others have said already about this film, so I'll state simply that I loved it. Not even the Tolkien purist within me, who so bristled at the discrepencies in the Fellowship and Two Towers films, could muster the will to protest this one. It was just too good.

  I do, however, have a special message for the Lord-of-the-Rings-movie-viewing public. That's right, just lean a bit closer and I shall whisper it in your ear: ENOUGH WITH THE PIPEWEED JOKES! By all that is holy, if I hear one more neanderthal in the movie theater burst into a fit of snorting junior-high giggles when "pipeweed" (sometimes hilariously shortened to "weed"--just like marijuana!) is mentioned, I will be forced to start dispensing a bit of indiscriminate justice. By the Valar, this ranks up there on the Things That Annoy Andy chart slightly above people who refer to Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi as "Star Wars 2" and "Star Wars 3."

• Er, ahem. Anyway, another Christmas highlight was the hefty amount of visiting with friends that occurred. I learned how to play the Settlers of Catan boardgame, ran a really fun D&D game, and enjoyed other such social diversions. One of the perks of visiting with friends this December was the fact that it was often accompanied by delicious meals prepared by Michele, who outdid herself this Christmas by serving, among other things, Nebraska steaks and teriyaki shrimp. Tasty!

• It seems we're finally settling in on a church home, as well--Beckwith Hills CRC, located not too from from the Leonard/96 junction. It was a blessing to have something like a stable place of worship, especially during the holidays.

• Christmas loot is always a highlight as well. Suffice it to say I've got plenty of reading and gaming material to last well into the New Year. Michele surprised me with Wolves of the Calla, Stephen King's latest Dark Tower novel; it'll be fun to dive back into that series. Between Jonathan and me, you will probably be hearing all about that book in the near future.

But of course the biggest highlight of this Christmas was being able to spend it with Michele--our first Christmas together. A merry Christmas to all. May the New Year bring you peace and happiness.

Thanks have been given, turkey has been eaten, and overall Thanksgiving can be declared to have been a success. Michele's parents are visiting for the holiday from Nebraska, so despite the geographical distance from our hometowns, we managed to have some family time over the holiday. Hope you all had relaxing and spiritually uplifting holidays as well.

A few items of interest (to me, at least):

• we went to the Frederick Meijer Gardens last week (I had not yet seen them). I was quite pleasantly surprised. Currently featured at the Gardens is a big Christmas-around-the-world exhibit of Christmas trees representing the holiday traditions of a large variety of countries. Although I had a hard time believing that there is that much of a distinction between, say, German and Austrian Christmas traditions, or between American and Canadian Christmas traditions, it was an excellent exhibit overall. I recommend making your way there before Christmas--it's the sort of thing that'll put you in a pleasant Christmas mood.

  Oh, and France goes on record as having the Worst Christmas Tree Ever, with Italy coming in a close second. Go check out the exhibit and I think you'll agree.

• it was quite a surprise to check the news on Thanksgiving morning and read that the President had made an unannounced visit to Iraq. Color me exceedingly impressed. Nice speech, too.

• Michele and I assembled and decorated a Christmas tree yesterday! There is nothing quite so fun as a brightly-lit Christmas tree in the corner of the room. I don't think Michele was quite prepared for the truly vast number of Star Wars Christmas tree ornaments I unpacked. I did my best to arrange them tastefully--no more than one Star Wars ornament per tree branch.

• Since I stayed out in Michigan for the holiday, I missed my ten-year high school reunion last week. That's something of a disappointment, although I keep in more or less regular contact with a decent percentage of my graduating class (only 24 students total, I think?). I'm sure some of my blogging classmates will be along to let me know what I missed.

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving!

I was to take a break from the usual routine here for a moment to wish everyone a merry Christmas! I'm going to single out for especially emotional holiday greetings my fellow bloggers, whose musings give me great joy and amusement: Ron (Ron: I hope you get what you deserve for Christmas), Joel, Peter, Alan (a pox upon Alan, who cleverly baited me into that most futile of Internet activities, posting about politics), and my wonderful wife-to-be Michele. And Brian, who doesn't have a blog yet, but should.

Merry Christmas! You are all appreciated.