The holiday season has officially begun...

Half Fast

Half Fast

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Half Fast
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Every year my wife and I kick off the holidays by spending a few days in Atlanta volunteering with Samaritan's Purse "Operation Christmas Child." This year our two adult kids joined us, and it's been nice having the family together and working on a worthwhile project.

Mrs. Half Fast pulled out all our Christmas movie DVDs and brought them along, and we're all sitting in the hotel room at the moment watching White Christmas.

I'm becoming thoroughly saturated with Christmas movies, carols, and cookies.

So how are you kicking off the holidays?
 
I love Christmas. By far my favorite time of year.
 
Some of our outside lights are up, as are most of the inside decorations. On Saturday, we watched "Christmas In Connecticut", while eating goulash. If you've seen the movie you'd understand why we had goulash.

We've also bought a Christmas narwal, because nothing says Chrismas than a one horned sea mammal.

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Also, I'm not sure how I could have forgotten, but Sunday was our annual Baklava Sunday, where I spend most of the day making baklava and distributing it to our neighbors.
 
FormerHangie said:
Some of our outside lights are up, as are most of the inside decorations. On Saturday, we watched "Christmas In Connecticut", while eating goulash. If you've seen the movie you'd understand why we had goulash.

We've also bought a Christmas narwal, because nothing says Chrismas than a one horned sea mammal.

52367304
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What, you don't like Chris Moose, the two-horned land mammal?
 
FormerHangie said:
Some of our outside lights are up, as are most of the inside decorations. On Saturday, we watched "Christmas In Connecticut", while eating goulash. If you've seen the movie you'd understand why we had goulash.

We've also bought a Christmas narwal, because nothing says Chrismas than a one horned sea mammal.

52367304


Also, I'm not sure how I could have forgotten, but Sunday was our annual Baklava Sunday, where I spend most of the day making baklava and distributing it to our neighbors.
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Yep, watched "Christmas In Connecticut" last night, but without the goulash. :)

One of my favorite Christmas flicks is "We're No Angels." Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray, and Peter Ustinov are escaped convicts on Devil's Island at Christmas time. It's quite funny, and Bogart does comedy amazingly well.
 
Hank S said:
What, you don't like Chris Moose, the two-horned land mammal?
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I had to look him up, this is the first time I'd heard of him. The narwhal thing came from "Elf", I do believe.


Half Fast said:
Yep, watched "Christmas In Connecticut" last night, but without the goulash. :)

One of my favorite Christmas flicks is "We're No Angels." Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray, and Peter Ustinov are escaped convicts on Devil's Island at Christmas time. It's quite funny, and Bogart does comedy amazingly well.
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We watched "Christmas in Connecticut" for years without making goulash, one year it just occurred to me that we should make it. I'll have to check "We're No Angels" out, we could use a few new (old) movies.

We already have Advent calendars for my now teenage daughters, and thanks to Trader Joe's, one for the dog as well.
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FormerHangie said:
I had to look him up, this is the first time I'd heard of him. The narwhal thing came from "Elf", I do believe.




We watched "Christmas in Connecticut" for years without making goulash, one year it just occurred to me that we should make it. I'll have to check "We're No Angels" out, we could use a few new (old) movies.

We already have Advent calendars for my now teenage daughters, and thanks to Trader Joe's, one for the dog as well.
tjs-1.jpg
Click to expand...


If you like old Christmas flicks, you might also enjoy "It Happened On Fifth Avenue."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Happened_on_Fifth_Avenue
 
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Didn't Christmas season 2018 start December 26, 2017???? Or do you mean the frenzy part of the season, which is now?
 
I thoroughly enjoy Christmas. Definitely one of my favorite times of the year. I keep that spirit by doing my very best to avoid Christmas overload by ignoring all the Christmassy bull crap until about a week before the actual holiday. People seem to start with the holiday stuff earlier and earlier as time goes on, and I think if I started in October like many do these days, I'd want to take my own life by the time Dec. 25 rolled around. 2 months of Christmas just waters it down for me and makes it less special. It's kind of like eating your very favorite dish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a couple months. Eventually, you won't even want to look at it anymore. Don't even get me started on the idiocy of Black Friday {shudder}.
 
We like to read as a family the New Testament Bible accounts of the birth of Jesus. Other than that we don’t decorate or give Santa much thought. Well much more thought than the media will allow. I do enjoy the carols about Christ.
 
I stopped in at the local Diner for lunch yesterday. When done, I was already tired of sappy Christmas Carols. I am no Grinch, yet I pity the poor souls who work there.... They get to hear it constantly.

Long ago I lived in Brooklyn, and commuted by subway to Manhattan. There was a music store near the subway entrance that played "Jingle Bells" by the barking dogs through external speakers CONSTANTLY through the Christmas season. Shoot me now!

-Skip
 
Believe it or not, my wife likes to start the holiday season by watching the Godfather series of movies...
 
About all I enjoy are the colored lights everywhere. I can’t stand most Xmas music and I hate all of the commercials and special shopping days nonsense. Black Friday, small biz Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, etc. Give me a break. Surprised there’s not an Empty Wallet Wednesday!

I do admit though, I like the idea of flying reindeer.
 
SkyDog58 said:
About all I enjoy are the colored lights everywhere. I can’t stand most Xmas music and I hate all of the commercials and special shopping days nonsense. Black Friday, small biz Saturday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, etc. Give me a break. Surprised there’s not an Empty Wallet Wednesday!

I do admit though, I like the idea of flying reindeer.
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texasclouds said:
go in the corner and make a pretzel to calm down. i owe you 2 put-ups since I gave you a put-down. you are a valuable POA member and I like your dog picture.
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Oh no you don’t! Don’t go and try to make me feel better and get me out of the drinking mood you put me in. I planned to drink myself happy dagnabbit. Geesh!

But yeah, my dog is a handsome boy.
 
I'm not making that stuff up. That's what the public elementary school taught my son.
 
Cut a fresh tree down. Decorated the tree, made a few new Christmas cookies and ate them. I mean you have to test them. :)

Then started watching bad Christmas movies from Lifetime on Netflix.

Sent from my SM-J737T using Tapatalk
 
My wife loves to tell the story about her father (my late father-in-law) going out one year to cut a tree. This was when he was young, maybe late 1940s, just starting out in the world after WWII, and didn't have much money. My FIL, his young son, and a neighbor went out into the woods looking for a Christmas tree. After much searching, they spotted a beautiful cedar, just the right size, in a clearing. They set to work with a cross-cut saw to fell the tree, and just as the tree toppled over they spotted the house that went with the tree and the yard they were standing in......

They panicked, grabbed the tree, and ran.

We teased him year after year about the family tradition of stealing a Christmas tree.
 
Human sacrifice on the Winter Solstice. Last year it was a country music singer; this year I'm going with the blues. . .wanted to do a virgin two years back, but couldn't find one, so ended up cutting a telemarketer's throat. Souless sumbitch didn't bleed!

Topping it off New Years eve - gonna bury some "artifacts" at a crossroads at midnight, while naked, build a fire over the stash, and dance around it drinking tequila. When I get tired, and/or the fire goes out, gonna smear myself with ashes and blue aniline dye, and throw spears through neighbor's windows.

Then pancakes for breakfast. . .
 
Sundancer said:
Human sacrifice on the Winter Solstice. Last year it was a country music singer; this year I'm going with the blues. . .wanted to do a virgin two years back, but couldn't find one, so ended up cutting a telemarketer's throat. Souless sumbitch didn't bleed!

Topping it off New Years eve - gonna bury some "artifacts" at a crossroads at midnight, while naked, build a fire over the stash, and dance around it drinking tequila. When I get tired, and/or the fire goes out, gonna smear myself with ashes and blue aniline dye, and throw spears through neighbor's windows.

Then pancakes for breakfast. . .
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You forgot bacon.
 
Sundancer said:
Human sacrifice on the Winter Solstice. Last year it was a country music singer; this year I'm going with the blues. . .wanted to do a virgin two years back, but couldn't find one, so ended up cutting a telemarketer's throat. Souless sumbitch didn't bleed!

Topping it off New Years eve - gonna bury some "artifacts" at a crossroads at midnight, while naked, build a fire over the stash, and dance around it drinking tequila. When I get tired, and/or the fire goes out, gonna smear myself with ashes and blue aniline dye, and throw spears through neighbor's windows.

Then pancakes for breakfast. . .
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How festive!
 
Our tree..... ;)

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"The Lemon Drop Kid," my favorite Christmas movie. If you don't like Bob Hope, you suck.
 
Holidays? I am sitting in a hotel room in Austin, sick, exhausted and getting ready to go in for another business discovery workshop. I thought maybe the holiday starts tomorrow, but there will be more work and a Jan deadline.

Why do we do these things to ourselves?

Meeting the wife and son for a few days in DC, then coordinating in-law visits...I think I will be ready to start Christmas next Thursday. Should be baking a stollen on Monday, we’ll see if that comes together.
 
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