:::Christmas Season Mega-Post:::

1. Mt. Vernon by Candlelight with Elizaben


- The decorations
- Watching my Hobbit sister doing festive little jigs in the visitor center
- Drinking cider and laughing around the bonfires with complete strangers, booing when other groups were called to go on the tour


- Cracking inappropriate jokes during the tour
- Watching the real, live blacksmith


- Volunteering to learn a period dance in a group demonstration.
- A Christmas tree that decorated with books, scrolls, quill pens, and ink jars. I will be stealing this idea one day.




2. 2009 Office Angel Tree


- Spending two hours in Target searching through their meager toy offerings for little boys
- Playing with my favorite toy in the whole world


- Having a panic attack
- Calling my mom who tried to talk me down
- Cell phone dying in the middle of the intervention
- Having an epiphany and getting a scooter from the bike aisle
- Finding the space shuttle
- Throwing in the remote control car, and spending every penny of my $150 allotment


- Our conference room filled with toys on collection day


3. White House Christmas Tree With Elizaben


- Walking three blocks to find a place to cross the snowbanks when they came to pick me up
- The ugliest White House Tree we've ever seen

{ What's up with the red stars, Comrade?}

- Inside paths around the tree closed due to a light dusting of snow

- Outside paths covered in ice and slush open to the public...


- Yelling (sotto voce) at the White House for Malia to come out and shovel the walks
- Face planting on 14th Street -- no struggling or flailing involved, just one, big, beautiful and fluid transition from walking upright to laying spread eagle, face down on the sidewalk

{Elizaben points out the scene of the incident}

- Random trip to Chinatown afterward so Squints could get a salad...



4. Secret Santa Exchanges


- Giving both people Snuggies.


5. Christmas Eve at National Cathedral with Elizaben (See the program here.)

- Driving through parts of town that I never get to
- Seeing familiar landmarks from different angles...


- This Christmas tree somewhere on the way to the Cathedral...


- Driving through Georgetown and seeing all the rich people walk to Christmas parties in their furs and pearls
- Christmas trees in rowhouse windows

- More inappropriate jokes (is nothing sacred?)
- Working through the recitations and watching the rites
- Hearing Latin again (the language of heaven)
- Being in a massive church with little nooks and crannies...


- Watching the high-flying ribbon thing during The Entrance Rite...


- All the sitting and standing
- This part of the program...

"Presider: The peace of the Lord be always with you.
People: And also with you.
The people greet one another with a sign of God’s peace and then are seated."

- Everyone hugging those they came with and shaking hands and wishing Merry Christmas to strangers


- Messing with my camera on the way home to take funky pictures of lights


5. Christmas Eve

- Packing clothes and gifts and enough stuff to keep me busy at Elizaben's...


- Our Cratchet Family Christmas Eve Dinner...Heaven help us...
- Christmas Crackers!


- Playing with the toys inside


- Wearing crowns


- The Christmas goose that I couldn't eat because I thought it looked the way that cooked cat meat would

- Asking if we could go to Taco Bell
- All of us deciding that a Cratchet Family Christmas Dinner wouldn't be happening again


- Finding out that roasted chestnuts are nasty and taste like turkey
- Mastering my poor man's bokeh technique to get the Christmas tree pictures that I've always wanted

{With shutter button pushed halfway down, hold a finger in front of the lens to make your camera think you're shooting macro. Once camera has refocused and the Christmas tree lights are blurred, move finger away and press down shutter the rest of the way.}

- Watching A Muppet Christmas Carol and actually enjoying it


6. My Third and Final Elizaben Family Christmas

- Gentle Ben's famous stockings in a sock

- The Huntington Beach ornament from mom


- The matching aprons mom made for each sister, and for Molly and Sophie!


- Faerie Tale Theatre from Elizaben
- Another Christmas Bible dinner


- Setting up camp in 'my chair'