Monthly Archives: December 2010

The Time of My … Year

2010 was a fun year. I’ll be reflecting more on the year gone by and the one to come as the day –and night — goes on, but it seemed an appropriate time to look back on the year through the pictures that I took. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel like I had a whole lot of pictures to choose from. Very strange indeed. New Year’s resolution #1: take more pictures!

The video is chronological and hits some highlights like:

  • Snowpocalypse in Manassas
  • A trip to Phoenix with Mom
  • Dylan’s prom and high school graduation
  • Three beach trips
  • A New York visit
  • Jessie’s 25th birthday
  • Hokie football at FedEx Field
  • Punkin Chunkin in Delaware
  • Turkey Festivus #2 and the mess it left in its wake
  • A trip to San Francisco for work

I’d like to thank in advance those friends of mine who are featured — I appreciate your understanding and sense of humor. And I’m grateful to the Black Eyed Peas for remixing one of the best year-end (or end of anything) songs of all time.

I think (read: cross my fingers) that it looks better if you view it on YouTube. I swear it’s not that poor quality.

2010 was a good time.

Here’s to more fun, beach, dancing, food, and football in 2011.

I've Been Distracted

Getting toys on Christmas is something I would miss if I weren’t still getting toys for Christmas. No, I am not too old for this.

Last year Santa got me a Wii. I instantly loved the Wii, mastered a few of the events in Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympics and learned that I’m pretty bad at all of the Wii Sports games, especially baseball.

This year Santa gave me a game I’ve been coveting for months.

And it has had me distracted all week. It exceeds all my expectations and is my favorite game for Wii so far. I like it even more than Mario Kart. I said it. All of my spare time at home this week has been spent killing turtles and collecting coins and failing miserably at certain levels.

For the sake of my productivity, I hope the obsession wears off soon.

But I’m not holding my breath.

Christmas Morning

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Merry Christmas to me! And to those who eat my cooking.

And merry Christmas to everyone else … it’s been a great Christmas so far and it’s only just started. We have more family fun at the Lee Grandparents’ this afternoon, and I’ll stop posting cell phone pictures soon.

The Night Before Christmas

My Mom’s side of the family celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve, every year. It used to always be at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, where Grandpa had set up his trains around the artificial pre-lit tree, the cousins and I would play checkers or Duck Hunt in the basement, I’d read The Night Before Christmas to whomever would listen. Two to three sets of aunts and uncles, three to five cousins, plus Mom, Dad, me and Dylan, always made for an action-packed night to look forward to. I think the gathering of all of us in one place, along with the traditions I learn more about every year, is why I get so excited for Christmas Eve.

The traditions, though they remain, have evolved over the years. The fact that I notice this is how I know I’m getting old. The cookies are a really good example of this.

For the past few years we’ve celebrated at our house instead of Grandma’s, which I love because preparing all day makes me feel like I get a full day’s worth of Christmas Eve and not just dinner, dessert and presents. Aunt B moved to New Mexico some years ago, so she’s not always physically present at Christmas Eve — this year we’re finally catching up to the technological wave and will be skyping with Aunt B and Tim after we open gifts. Two years ago we switched from everyone giving everyone a gift and adopted a Secret Santa approach. The first year there was a minor hiccup:

Yep, some lucky relative of mine got two gifts while I got none. Of course I wasn’t hurt, in fact I found it really entertaining. But since then I’ve asked Hugh to proctor the Secret Santa process, just to ensure its perfection. And so we can say it was audited by EY (chuckle at our nerdy joke).

My parents manage to continue their own tradition of ending Christmas Eve by watching the broadcast of midnight mass at the Vatican together. No matter how old I get, I’m still unable to stay awake for it. Maybe, in the spirit of getting older, this will be my year and tonight I’ll watch it. Maybe.

Merry Christmas Eve!