No Silence This Night

Every December, we invite a small group of friends to join us for an energetic Christmas gathering. This celebration has evolved over the years and now has its own long-standing traditions. Those traditions range from tasty to tacky… and sometimes borderline nasty. Here are a few of them.

Wouldn't you want this prancing around your rooftop on Christmas Eve?
Wouldn’t you want this prancing around your rooftop on Christmas Eve?

Dinner is served. This time it came in the form of blackened chicken pasta, provolone and salami salad, cheesy breadsticks, chocolate cake, and buttermilk pie from Magleby’s. The food they provided seemed ample enough to feed a mass much larger than our little crowd.

Games are played. Common among them are pool, shuffleboard, Just Dance, and ping pong. I love Just Dance even though it tends to repellently jiggle everything the good lard gave you.

Jason wore a Star Wars sweater and I wore a Doctor Who one. Remarkably, we weren't the only couple dressed in that exact combo.
Jason wore a Star Wars sweater and I wore a Doctor Who one. Remarkably, we weren’t the only couple dressed in that exact combo.

We go around the world. A few matches of Around the World involving everyone are a standard at our Christmas party, although most of us don’t have the ping pong skills to even go around the net.

Christmas sweaters, mostly of the ugly variety, are worn. (Is there any other variety?)

If it is juvenile, puerile, vulgar, or detestable, it is likely to occur at our party.
If it is juvenile, puerile, vulgar, or detestable, it is likely to occur at our party.

And, of course, a white elephant exchange game is played. In our version, nothing is opened until the end. We like our guests to fight over the boxes that inevitably end up containing old socks or something with Justin Bieber’s face on it.

This year, I did add one new diversion to the merriment. I brought my camera equipment and took some shots of any attendees that desired them. I’m not entirely sure if I will do this again. It ate up too much time and it was hard to focus on my photography with so many distractions swirling around me. Still, it’s not every day you get a picture of Jeremy in tight sweats and antlers… oh wait, it is.

We encourage the wearing of tasteless attire to our party.
We encourage the wearing of tasteless attire to our party.

Cheers to the tacky-sweater-sporting and outrageous-present-begetting gang that joined us this year. Thanks to them, Santa’s got a brand new bag, a bean bag, and moose knuckles, in a miraculous feat of science, have been transplanted onto reindeer. I’d say the party was a success.

Gobbling a Holiday

Thanksgiving, as far as holidays go, gets grossly overlooked. It’s often just seen as a stepping stone to Christmas, a marker passed on the way to the shopping season. Heck, now stores don’t even wait for the turkey to get cold before opening their doors for the holiday rush. The fixings and gatherings of Thanksgiving may seem modest compared to December’s showy gifts and twinkling lights but I appreciate its simple focus.

Like a prophet in their own country, no one listens to a photographer in their own family... and this is what happens.
Like a prophet in their own country, no one listens to a photographer in their own family… and this is what happens.

For me, Thanksgiving means making delicious foods from scratch for the people that matter most. It means enjoying some sunshine on a pre-gorging run and then forgetting about calories. It means consciously acknowledging the many things I’m lucky to have in my life.

Jason requested I make caramel apple pie again this thanksgiving.
Jason requested I make caramel apple pie again this thanksgiving.

I usually get assigned the desserts for my family’s Thanksgiving dinner and I don’t skimp on the cream or the preparation time. This year, with assistance from Jason, I made caramel apple pies and almond fudge cake. Yes, of course my crusts were created from scratch. Duh. Both treats turned out pretty tasty.

Every family has a silly side. I think my family had had a few silly <a style=

After staying up late to finish those dishes, we rose early on Thanksgiving morning to compete in the Pilgrim 5K. This is an entertaining race where participants dress as pilgrim folk and pretend they’re courageously running across Plymouth instead of lamely over a golf course. It was absolutely frigid during the event. Temperatures were in the 20s but it was the wind that really cut through our bonnets. Still, clouds of exhaled mist hanging over packs of respiring runners were a curious and amusing sight.

This cake had a chocolate glaze and cream-cheese filling so it's a good thing calories don't exist on Thanksgiving.
This cake had a chocolate glaze and cream-cheese filling so it’s a good thing calories don’t exist on Thanksgiving.

We spent the afternoon with just one family, mine. We got to enjoy dinner with Jason’s family on a different day due to work schedules. I won’t lie, not having to hurry between two feasts made the holiday feel much more like an actual holiday instead of a cramming circus.

Thanksgiving is one of the many things I’m grateful for in my life. It doesn’t demand much, just a home-cooked meal and a few laughs with kin, yet it leaves you with a satisfied belly and numerous sweet recollections.

Moab Part II: Delicate Towers… and Intestines

Our second day in Moab, we decided to trek through some familiar and unfamiliar terrains in Arches National Park. The day’s extraordinary loveliness was expected; its extraordinary leakiness was not.* Let me elaborate.

We started out with a 3.4-mile hike to Tower Arch, the sole path in all of Arches we hadn’t wandered. A dirt access road made it a little harder to reach the trailhead but Tower’s distinctive steeple of stone and 92-foot span were worth the trouble.

It takes a little effort to reach Tower Arch's sculpted sandstone and knobby chimney.
It takes a little effort to reach Tower Arch’s sculpted sandstone and knobby chimney.

Delicate Arch, our second and last hike for the day, (Drat that brief winter sunlight!) was a repeat. Although we’ve climbed the miles to Delicate’s iconic curve a number of times, on this occasion it hurled us a few extra curves.

Tower Arch opens to a secluded landscape of twisted rock and sparse vegetation.
Tower Arch opens to a secluded landscape of twisted rock and sparse vegetation.

We decided to start our ascent late in the afternoon so we could catch the sun setting on the arch. This plan, we knew, meant fantastic pictures but also freezing temperatures. We were correct. I got some wonderful shots of the moon rising in the arch and it was 31 degrees on our return hike.

It's a good thing my Photoshop skills are decent enough to remove inconsiderate landmark-hogging tourists. Don't look too closely though, my talents aren't that remarkable.
It’s a good thing my Photoshop skills are decent enough to remove inconsiderate landmark-hogging tourists. Don’t look too closely though, my talents aren’t that remarkable.

Yes, we anticipated every detail of our Delicate journey… except Jason’s delicate intestines. About the time we reached the arch, Jason started complaining about his stomach not feeling so good but he insisted he was fit to continue our picture-taking plans. However, he did not proclaim his gastric fitness for long.

The nearly-full moon nestled itself inside Delicate Arch for a minute or two.
The nearly-full moon nestled itself inside Delicate Arch for a minute or two.

Only minutes into our return journey, Jason anxiously remarked that he would most likely require use of one of the pit toilets back at the parking lot when we reached them because his GI tract was squirmier than a nightcrawler on a fishing hook. Unfortunately, the mere suggestion of a potty altered his necessity for one. All of a sudden, he declared that he needed to use the bathroom right then and there… minus the bathroom, of course, because we were far from anything of the sort.

Frame Arch provides a perfect frame for Delicate Arch pictures. Hmm... I wonder how it got its name.
Frame Arch provides a perfect frame for Delicate Arch pictures. Hmm… I wonder how it got its name.

Those of you who have hiked to Delicate Arch before know that it is a very popular trail. It’s still well-used in November. So, lots of tourists were milling about us but, at this point, Jason’s pressure transcended the presence of people. After our brief potty talk, he barely made it five feet, equipped with the three Kleenexes and one wet wipe that I scrounged out of my backpack, before he could go no further without going.

We did some intimidating maneuvering to get into the basin below Delicate Arch.
We did some intimidating maneuvering to get into the basin below Delicate Arch.

I became lookout, ready to fend off hikers before they came across other things that would definitely fend them off. Did I mention that the landscape, being a desert and all, possessed little in way of vegetation, i.e. gawker blockers?

At least the photographing part of our Delicate Arch hike went as planned.
At least the photographing part of our Delicate Arch hike went as planned.

Miraculously, no ramblers approached just then and Jason got to have his violent evacuation in peace. And, mercifully, this experience was a one-time number-two crisis; it did not repeat itself at a later point on our hike. Phew! Jason blames his GI upset on the cold he was getting over. I don’t see how loose bowels have anything to do with nasal congestion but whatever puts your sphincters at ease.

Dalton Wells Road, like most of the Moab area, holds unique and curious scenery.
Dalton Wells Road, like most of the Moab area, holds unique and curious scenery.

The next day, we biked four miles down Dalton Wells Road. But we didn’t make it to the slickrock playground at its terminus that we were hoping to reach because, regrettably, I had a class to get back to and we ran out of time.

Moab was an adventure as always. There were chills (Brrr!), and thrills, and even spills… of the anal variety. It was another fabulous outing in our favorite outdoor playground but, just for the record, Moab is not our favorite outdoor potty.

*The extremely embarrassing details of this story, surprisingly, were published to the world with Jason’s permission.