Fallen Trees

I know it’s been a whole day since I’ve been on here but post-Thanksgiving holiday with the departure of friends and family is always a time to reflect and be depressed. I didn’t have any time yesterday to write since my wife and I launched on first phase operations of my absolute favorite time of year – Christmas! Since we are definitely post-Thanksgiving I can abandon any reluctance I felt about getting “up” too early.

Saturday saw the remnants of Thanksgiving leak away. Keene Friend, changing up his usual Modus Operandi, actually hung around to share breakfast with the rest of us. Buddy was the immediate winner because if Keene Friend is in the house in the morning that means he’s required to take the wonder pooch for a walk. Buddy exorcised his post-Remy anxiousness in a one-bag tour of the neighborhood.

My wife prepared a fabulous breakfast for all of us including my son’s childhood favorites. After breakfast and Keene Friend’s departure it was on to a galaxy far, far away. In preparation for the upcoming Star Wars release the ABFA has finally agreed to allow my son to repair the gaping hole in her pop culture education. She’d never seen any of the Star Wars movies and I just happened to have blu ray copies of all of them. We settled in to watch Episode 2 which was a fine way to assuage the demons of the day before and the abundance of adult beverages that were sacrificed in honor of Thanksgiving (day 2).

My Favorite Panamanian wandered into the room at some point and became engrossed in the story. She’s always looked askance at this most telling evidence of my rampant geekdom but the force overpowered her doubts and she was hooked. After the movie the ABFA and favorite son headed north for a Christmas market in Nashua while my wife was kidnapped by the next door Mafioso. They were last seen headed for a mall and emerged several hours later when I enticed my wife back with a promised diner date. We ended the night watching Episode 3, Revenge of the Sith, at her insistence, another doubter has fallen to the power of the force!

Yesterday, in addition to the aforementioned avoidance of blog writing responsibilities, saw the normal Sunday pre-work requirements, church, grocery, laundry, NFL Red Zone plus the added pleasure of Christmas tree purchase and set up.

My Favorite Panamanian Tree Hunting

We returned to our old Charlton haunt for the Christmas tree and it was kind of bittersweet if not infinitely cheaper because we effectively halved the height of our tree with the move to Worcester. Gone are the days of the soaring 14 foot Christmas trees that had to be secured to the wall after the whole, unfortunate falling on top of my wife episode. It seemed every step of the process was comparing how much easier it was to maneuver the small seven foot tree as compared to earlier years while at the same time missing the challenge and immensity the taller predecessors provided. Some things are weirdly hard to let go of. It’s remarkably easier to set up the smaller tree though and my wife banished me to Couch Potato Position/Red Zone for the actual decorating (this goes down as a win).

And It's Up

Lighted

And Almost Finished

The Patriots rampage through the NFL came to a halt last night and though they went down fighting I was left with a real bitter taste in my mouth. I’ve always thought it was lame to blame officials for a game’s outcome but last night definitely had me thinking a fix was in for the game. The Patriots were called for some critical nitpicking fouls while the Broncos were allowed to do pretty much anything they wanted, including launching themselves at Brady’s head with no repercussions. The biggest downer of the night though was losing the Gronk to a hit hat was eerily reminiscent of his season ending injury of a couple years ago. Buddy slunk downstairs and hid because of all the angry shouting I was doing late in the game.

Ouch!!!!!

Finally a college friend rightfully called me on the carpet for my last blog post in that I wasn’t effusive enough in my praise and glorifying the miracle that is the First Blog Reader. These photos clearly establish that I have been remiss in my failure to laud. Since this blog is aimed at her I think I can confidently state that when she reads this, in a couple decades, she’ll know just how special and earth shattering her first couple weeks of existence were. She continues to amaze and charm all who are fortunate enough to meet her. She divested herself of her umbilical cord remnant over the weekend which allowed some “belly-time” for the first time which brought her already impressive neck muscles into play. So far the only non-positive thing I can think of about my first grandchild is the incredibly distant location of same. She continues to rock!  

A Real Fox

Alright, That's Almost too Cute!

Call me Grandma!

Chillin

Post-bath Stare 

Yes, I Am!