Most of us have at least a few friends who would appreciate a cheeky Christmas gathering. For Jason and me, that group has been established for decades. Every year we hold a wacky holiday event with the same crowd. Here’s how it went last December.
One of the white elephants we contributed was lumberjack themed.
We had a gang of 16 attend as two couples were absent due to vacations and sickness. The meal consisted of brisket and chicken cordon bleu, which was ordered from an official caterer. We weren’t interested in repeating the previous year’s issues that made our meal an hour late. (See that post for the details on how someone’s dishonesty caused our delay. Shame on you Jason C.!) Getting all the foods in our bellies wasn’t entirely impediment-free though. The caterer forgot our cheesecakes, and we had to have a friend pick up substitution cookies on her way. However, since cookies also contain a high quantity of sugar, that was only a minor inconvenience.
Juvenile pictures are a standard at our seasonal shindig.
We usually play Just Dance at this shindig but not this time. Jason insisted it was a no-go because I couldn’t participate. My foot was just barely free from a two-month, boot-enforced hiatus resulting from a fractured talus, and dancing was still on my list of forbidden activities. As fate would have it, there wouldn’t have been any time for grooving anyway. We finished the white elephant exchange at 10:20 and had to hurry and clean up so we could be out of the facility by its 11:00 closing. Note to self, exchanging white elephants takes between 1.25 and 1.5 hours… those pale beasts sure are needy.
We ladies aren’t immune to the puerile.
That’s my shortest post in a long time. Though it does not necessarily follow that it’s also the sweetest. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good fall!
Decorating for our Halloween party is always a major task. In 2022, it was more than that; it was a love note to one of our favorite shows: Stranger Things.
For this theme, our favorite to date, we took on quite a few large and unusual projects that required construction, programming, painting, coloring, and even gardening skills. Let’s talk about a few of those projects.
If you don’t know the referenced scene, you aren’t a fan of Stranger Things.
We attempted to recreate the tunnel maps from season two of the series. While our exuberance did not go so far as to replicate the thousands of sheets used in the filming of the show, we did color 186 pieces of paper. I scribbled 36, Jason colored 63, and our niece completed 87. For this endeavor, we bought a box of 800 crayons. The scheme ended up not requiring as many Crayolas as anticipated. Anyone in need of 750+ crayons?
Jason harnessed his inner Will and scribbled like a shirtless boy possessed.
Jason decided to build a portal complete with escaping vines. I thought this undertaking had a high likelihood of turning out less than spectacular due to its complex nature. I was happy to be wrong. We didn’t stop cultivating vines there though. Utilizing some kind helpers, we fashioned dozens more of them for our Upside Down backyard employing foam pipe insulation, pliable wires, and black duct tape. These also turned out better than expected. By the way, if you find online tutorials for making these vines that include instructions for coating them in a layer of latex, don’t bother. We tried that, and the latex didn’t add much except stickiness, so it wasn’t worth the bother.
Good thing Jason took woodshop classes back in high school; portal construction is a necessary life skill after all.
Another project that proved time consuming was a strand of lights Jason and a helper programmed in Arduino to flash 20 different phrases from the Upside Down in connection to a vinyl alphabet displayed on the wall. Such a setup can provide hours of diversion, just ask the Byers family.
Our tunnel maps confused or delighted guests depending on their familiarity with Stranger Things.
We also transformed our garage into the Snowball Dance. Like any self-respecting 80s, middle-school dance, it had cheesy streamers, a disco ball, a balloon arch, strings of lights, and plenty of metallic fringe. Awkward tweens were the only thing missing… plenty of those came later.
The nostalgia and neon were thick at our event.
In addition to our big projects, we made sure Easter eggs were stashed throughout the event space. These included a Lite Brite with “Run” twinkling on it, a boombox playing “Running Up That Hill”, “Papa” pictures, Have You Seen Me? posters, the rainbow art on Eleven’s door, slimy blue slugs, and crayoned drawings of the Mind Flayer.
Jason patiently knotted all the jute for Dusty’s ghillie suit.
Since our decorating tasks were extensive, I was thrilled I didn’t have to sew costumes at least. However, our getups did require a lot of jute knotting and hot gluing, which required a lot of sacrificial hand burning. I glued both ends of over 100 nails and painted gore on them. These were attached to trashcan lids for Eddie and Dusty. My fingers weren’t the only digit casualties during our preparations. Jason also fell and jammed his finger horribly while carting decorations up the stairs.
We look like just buddies, right?
Other extremities were bigger problem makers. My ankle was broken, and therefore I was wearing the mandatory boot for such an injury during all of this. That boot made party preparations exponentially more tiring and uncomfortable. I was on my feet for 18 hours one day and nearly that long the next. Have you ever tried to stay on your feet for 18 hours while you are wearing a massive boot and have a fractured ankle? I wouldn’t recommend it. Plus, the boot made navigating the many boxes and decorations littered about our house much more hazardous. The stairs were particularly perilous. I nearly toppled many times, and going up and down them while holding all that stuff? Even worse. It’s surprising Jason was the only one who tumbled.
We were completely committed to our tunnel map motif.
Fortunately, we had kind volunteers assisting us and our extremities. One friend came to help many days after work. Another shared her artistic talents by painting vines while her husband labored on our programming problems. A brother-in-law and multiple nieces and nephews helped create fringe and tunnel drawings and took on full ownership of a section of our portal tunnel. Our niece said decorating for our party was as fun as coming to our party.
Wavy streamers and lights provided the correct amount of ceiling tackiness for our Snowball Dance.
After all that, how did the event go? We were still scrambling until right before it started. It turns out making portals and vines and talking lights and 80s dance scenes takes up a lot of time. Luckily, our costumes did not require much effort to put on, or we would have been very late to our own shindig.
I’m never gonna give you up. Also, I am your father. Anyone want to go to Camp Crystal Lake?
We had about 72 guests that evening, which was manageable but almost too many. Party happenings included three 40-minute D&D campaigns led by a veteran Dungeon Master, carnival games, bingo, an outdoor screening of The NeverEnding Story, an opportunity to vote for Steve or Eddie, a contest for deciphering messages from the Upside Down via Joyce’s lights, a selfie spot, and a photo booth with a professional photographer. Food came in the form of corndogs and fries from the Corndog Commander, cupcakes and cookies from Alisha’s, and waffles from Eleven’s Eggo Buffet. The buffet featured a toaster, chocolate chips, marshmallows, fruit, whipped cream, Biscoff Cookie Butter, and Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup, along with the required Eggos of course.
We always have a heap of costume contest prizes at our party.
This year, for the first time since 2020, we opened up the main floor of our house for the party. The mix of inside and outside space seemed appreciated though external temperatures were warmer than the previous all-outside year.
Jason made a fantastic Eddie, but he didn’t know how to hold his guitar.
I put together 68 party favors encompassing a selection of options. For starters, I compiled two dozen bags for the younger kids filled with a gnarly assortment of 80s goodies. Back-to-school sets with Trapper Keepers and 4-Color pen combos were another alternative as were Stranger Things coloring books paired with themed color pencils. (Friends Don’t Lilac and Frozen Waffles are always in vogue hues.) Rubiks cubes and banana clips, 80s standards, were the stars of yet other favors, and Dungeons & Dragons starter kits provided an additional possibility. Finally, I built nearly 30 character-themed bags focused on either Max, Eddie, Steve, or Eleven. These bags contained items like bracelets made from recycled skateboards, waffle shaped bath balms, 80s metal band pins, and replicas of Eddie’s guitar pick necklace. After the event, we had 13 favors left, six child and seven adult ones, only because some people apparently have an aversion to neon.
Our portal turned out far better than I expected.
Although the party required an incredible amount of work, we enjoyed sharing our love of Stranger Things with other appreciative fans. That extended beyond the confines of our shindig. On Halloween, we set up our portal and gave candy away in our backyard. We went through 198 candy bars, and the portal was a hit. Kids returned with their parents and texted their friends to come too. Eddie was a rock star and greeted warmly by many.
Stranger details were scattered throughout our house and yard.
Many thanks to our totally tubular aides who helped turn our world upside down last fall and our radical party guests who helped turn it right side up.
We made it to Amsterdam in time to enjoy a lovely, but nippy, outdoor dinner at Eatmosfera, one of our favorite restaurants from previous trips. The house-made pasta, sourdough pizza, and tiramisu were worth the cold feet.
While the meal was delectable, it was not still. The streets that night were overflowing with people, particularly at the Rembrandtplein, a major square of Amsterdam’s downtown. Jason and I had never seen the city so crowded. We later discovered the mobs were due to a football match between Belgium and the Netherlands that was taking place in Amsterdam the following day.
Amsterdam is a biking city with more than 881,000 bikes for only 780,000 residents. In comparison, there are only about 200,000 cars.
Day 8
The next morning, we went to the Anne Frank Huis. Although Jason and I had both been before, it was just as somber and poignant on repeat. This time we listened to a substantial part of her diary in the weeks prior to our vacation so we would get more out of this visit. While the ending never changes, I still lose it on the exhibit about Otto Frank putting an ad in the paper seeking information regarding whether his daughters were still alive.
We took our time wandering back from the Anne Frank Huis, as in several hours, while it rained on us periodically. We stopped for friets (fries) at Heertje Friet and stroopwafles at Melly’s Stroopwafels, which we couldn’t successfully eat after all the friets. Chocolate shops and bakeries distracted us as well. It was a scrumptious ramble!
Despite all the pastries and cheese, I didn’t gain any weight on our trip. Walking 23 miles during those 10 days probably helped.
Later that afternoon, we went on a canal cruise with Friendship Amsterdam, another activity Jason and I’ve done on multiple occasions. It’s different each time depending on the route taken and the guides’ narration skills.
Boat bubbles? Why not.
Lumbini Indian and Nepalese Restaurant finished our day with delicious momos, masalas, and lassis. Oddly, our best meals in Amsterdam were geographically removed from Dutch cuisine.
Day 9
Our final day in Amsterdam, we visited the Van Gogh Museum, another duplication for Jason and me but a fine one. The Van Gogh Museum houses 200 paintings, a third of all the painter’s works. It took us about three hours to soak up the offered art and information, information that revealed stereotypes about Van Gogh’s approach are all wrong. In contrast to the emotions his creations stir, he was methodical and organized, not some free-spirited, impulsive, hippy painter like he is usually portrayed.
Our group was usually not prepared for rain, except on this occasion.
The rest of our day was filled with perusing (and buying) antique tiles at Kramer, Kunst & Antiek and pursuing dinner at Portugalia Tasca. I ordered a whole sea bass per the recommendation of our waiter. As this was an entire fish, head and all, I was a little skeptical, but it was delicious. Others also took their taste buds out of comfort zones. My mom tried octopus for the first time via an octopus salad. Adventure, your name is our name too!
Early the next morning, our journey home began. Schiphol Airport traffic was designated “normal” instead of peak. I guess normal means no 2.5-hour security line because we didn’t have to deal with any of that this time.
There are 165 canals in Amsterdam and 1,700 bridges. Apparently, that’s 1,300 more than Venice.
That was our trip. In closing, I’d like to mention just a bit about the stressors and joys of this outing, namely COVID and family. It’s easy to get caught up in the problems of a vacation while you are experiencing them. It’s easy to forget that over time hard moments recede into memory and what remains is the wealth of common experiences, moments of laughter, and shared discoveries. But, while I do still remember these, here’s what caused a few difficulties.
COVID was still a concern when we took this trip. Hence, Jason and I wanted to be as prepared as possible for the possibility. We took four boxes of COVID tests, an oxygen monitor, and a thermometer just in case. The updated booster for Omicron became available about a week and a half before we left. Jason and I got it just a day after it hit pharmacies and doctors’ offices. That meant our vaccines were fully active about five days after we departed, which made us feel a bit more confident.
Every year between 12,000 and 15,000 bikes are fished out of Amsterdam’s canals.
As our preference was to not ruin our travels by contracting the #1 undesirable, we wore masks in airports and planes on our way out, but, admittedly, we didn’t don them many other places as COVID counts were low at the time. At some point, you just have to set worry aside, or your vacation won’t be much of a vacation. Maybe we should have continued to slip on our masks though as my dad came down with COVID three to four days after our return. Thankfully, he recovered just fine. If he’d gotten sick in Europe, his illness would have been a much bigger deal though. Phew!
What about the bug that’s always with you, but you can’t spread? You can love your family dearly but still have some tension with them over exactly how to approach a vacation. Jason and I are fortunate in that we have very similar vacation styles, so our travels pass with little drama. With the larger group on this trip, incorporating different styles without conflicts or frustrations arising sometimes proved tricky. Plus, family is a funny thing. One day you might be weary of them and feel like an outcast, and the next you might be laughing at dinner over inside jokes and stories of bygone years. While there were a few rough moments on this excursion, by the end, everyone recollected the events with fondness. (And these last few paragraphs, at some point, will be largely erased from remembrance.)
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