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first christmas
first christmas
Christmas
first christmas, part 2 |
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first christmas, part 1 |
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first christmas, part 1 |
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make your own christmas television special, in five easy storylines |
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the lady sparkler and i are watching our way through our annual list of christmas specials, and as far as i can tell, there is a grand total of five unique storylines:
i’ve run through a list of 54 christmas specials and movies, and each one falls into at least one (if not more) of these five buckets. if i am missing a storyline, i can’t come up with it … |
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found: first snow |
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first christmas tree |
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turns out, we might have been a little too eager to get a christmas tree this year.
we started thinking through how we were going to fit one in the house back in October, and rearraged the furnature by mid-November. and then, come the first day after Thanksgiving, the lady spakler, baby sparklet and immediately jumped in the car and roared off in search of something tall, skinny and green. finding a tree lot in DC is about like finding a gas station … they are around, everybody has their favorite, but you never can seem to find one when you are looking. we started off looking in glover park, and the lot over there that we usually use still hadn’t opened for the season. we then drove out connecticut avenue to a stand i had last used in 2005 … only to find that the whole area had been plowed over and turned into a gas station. by the time we crossed into maryland, we were feeling pretty good … because soon after we passed an SUV going in the opposite direction with a tree strapped to its roof like road kill. and sure enough, after 15 minutes and trying two more “known” lot locations (from when i lived in bethesda, circa 1999) we finally found a lot that was open. we bought the lot’s third tree of the season. and, given how hard it was to find a christmas tree that was open, i’m guessing we bought the city’s third tree of the season as well. now we just have to dig out the hot chocolate maker, and we’re all set for the winter. Explore the Photo Set:
Christmas Tree 2009 |
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knitting and snowing |
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the weather down this way has been crazy. in the last month, we’ve had just as many days above 60 as we had below freezing. it’s rained, it’s typhooned, it’s snowed, it’s blizzard-ed. i wouldn’t be surprised to see dennis quaid snowshoe by, murmuring about having to save Jake Gyllenhaal (tho, to be frank, i would toss Jake back and focus my attention on saving Emmy Rossum). i digress. the lady sparkler and i are spending the long weekend on the coast of Delaware with Lighting Chick Knits, whose sister happens to have a house out here with a spectacular view of the sound (pictures of the view on facebook). much as her blog would suggest, Lighting Chick Knits, well, knits. and, being the Renaissance man that i am, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to add another tick to my “wide, not deep” resume of skills, probably best symbolized by my musical skills (guitar, bass, piano, violin, and harmonica) or my interest in foreign languages (russian, arabic, spanish) — all of which i can “do,” just none particularly well. and so it is with knitting … i am neither exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. knitting fits nicely into my need for immediate gratification, but my skills are no where near the point they’d need to overcome my internal demand for perfection. we’ll see. so far, i’ve made it through 20 rows of a scarf, which is just enough to make smallishly-sized bookmark … which seems like a just reward for annihilating the last remaining shred of my masculinity. |
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two signs of the coming apocalypse: it’s snowing at the beach, and i’ve learned how to knit.
happy new year |
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so, it’s officially January now, and the lady sparker and i have yet to send out our (mostly) annual holiday card. it’s funny. thanksgiving snuck up on us this year, as did christmas and now new year’s. i guess it’s only fitting that sending out the card snuck up on us as well. so, it’s going out this weekend, but just in case yours gets caught up in some super aggressive spam filter, you can view the card online right now. as for timing, we’ll do better next year … i *promise.* |
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photos: christmas in williamsburg, virginia |
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Christmas in Williamsburg, Virginia |
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![[Photo]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3121/3163224369_452594aea9.jpg)
photos: christmas in washington, dc |
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Explore the Photo Set:
Photos: Christmas in Washington, DC |
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a (mostly) friendly christmas competition |
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working in online fundraising, the fact that the end of the year is coinciding with the complete and utter collapse of our economy is casting a bit of a pall on what would otherwise be a festive time of the year. this minor set back (alone) could have be taken in stride … but, when our philanthropy department neighboors started getting all up in our grill about how they were going to out “festive” us for the holidays, it was game on. i mean, we can handle trying to compensate for the decline of western civilization, but to be called out for decorating supremacy was just a bridge to far. we responded to this tyranny with resolve. we raided our collective attics, mobilizing all sorts of lights, ornaments, bows and garlands towards the decorating war effort (photos of the mobilization above). but, in the end, it was over before it really even began … and philanthropy surrendered before we had the chance to get much past the “shock and awe” stage:
i’m a tiny bit sad they caved so quickly, because we had one more salvo of decorations we could have deployed had we needed the reserves to secure our merriment objectives. i love the smell of trash talk in the morning.
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we got her a couple of small things centered around Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman, but this was definitely the calm before the storm … we slept in until 10 am, dawdled around with breakfast until noon, didn’t start unwrapping presents until 2 pm, and took our dear, sweet time. i’m pretty sure that’s the last time we’ll be able to say that.
if sparklet has a christmas of awe and wonder this year, i’m thinking it’s going to be when we go to see the Christmas lights display at the National Zoo. she’ll stare at our little tree for hours, so i can only imagine what will happen when she sees dozens of displays at two or three times the size.