Holiday

Despite getting home at 3am this morning – I feel like a champ. The highlight of New Years Eve 2008 was my first experience with Rockband at chez Crimenotes. I admit to being a mic hog – and perhaps the fact that I was reliving my childhood dream of being a singer contributed to not having a hangover, as I was more focused on belting out songs than finishing my drink. For the low points of the evening – there is a tie between seeing a young guy in handcuffs, face down on the side walk during our walk home (the worst being that it was like 10 degrees out which made his predicament that much worse) and the fact that roughly 50% of the women out last night were wearing skirts, high heels and had bare legs. I mean, again with the 10 degree weather – is it really worth it?

Before we pull everything down – I did want to take some pictures of our 2008 Holiday. Two firsts for us – our first Christmas tree and the first year we sent out holiday cards.

Our tree is in a sad, sad state at this point – I was probably less than perfect about watering it and since I rallied to get the tree 2 days after Thanksgiving (for full season enjoyment) it’s getting a bit old.

I refused to buy any ornaments – only lights because I didn’t want to buy a bunch of crap ornaments out of desperations to get it decorated. I really wish I had the foresight to buy ornaments in all the different countries Hart and I have visited over the years but we’ll start that going forward. I asked my mom and aunt for nice ornaments for Christmas and got some beauties that I will treasure and hold onto forever.

As for holiday cards- this was more fun and less stressful than expected. Again, this took a bit of convincing to get Hart on board but by the end we had to buy an extra box as our list grew longer. We got some great cards this year and I think the craziest part is the downfall of the traditional folded card – we had to employ the help of my Kurt Vonnegut screen print and Persian print (which features my name in Farsi – big props to anyone who can figure it out) to hold up all the photo cards.

Finally, a shot of our New Years dinner. A big favorite – home made pizza, recipes courtesey of Alton Brown. See here for the pizza dough recipe and here for the tomato sauce. Only wish we had leftovers for all the college bowl games we’re watching today.