We went to go see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra Saturday night and as usual, they friggin’ rocked the house (and my socks off)! If you have never seen them live, I strongly suggest you do so at least once before you kick the bucket. It’s pretty powerful and in the past few years has become a part of my yearly Christmas traditions and rituals.

This was my third year, my mom’s second year, and my dad, brother, and girlfriend’s first time seeing them.  All three of them were in awe.  The light show, the pyrotechnics, the energy, and humor, the music, it’s all da shizzle!  (I did NOT just say that)

As great as the show was, it unfortunately and officially marks the end of my Christmas season (*pauses for a moment to pout*).  So the last couple of days have been cleaning house and taking decorations down.  All we have left are the outdoor lights and the trees.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas season and a happy new year!  May good things come and bad things be corrected in 2008!

I don’t know if anyone caught the usual cartoon lineup this past Sunday on FOX (Family Guy, Simpsons, American Dad, King of the Hill) but this week’s American Dad raised a good and obvious issue: IT’S MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU @#%!

I completely agree with not stepping on anyone’s toes when it comes to whatever holiday it is that you celebrate, but we’ve ALWAYS been able to clearly distinguish between them with their own phrases. It should and will always be either Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, or Happy Whatever-Holiday-You-Celebrate. NOT HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

No matter how you say it, Merry Christmas should still be the primary greeting. Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings, etc. should still take secondary status. The more Happy Holidays tries to take precedence, the more you will start to confuse it. Really, you could use Happy Holidays for ANY holiday of the year, so what says that Happy Holidays always means Merry Christmas and not Happy Easter, or Happy Valentine’s Day, or Happy Dogbert Day (for those of you Dilbert TV Series fans)?

This politically correct crap is getting a little out of hand, and really there is no 100% tried and true way to keep church and state separate, but this holiday greeting issue is only as far as I can go. I could rant on all day about too much if I let this wander off.

And to all the monkeys responsible for “running” our wonderful country: BAH-HUM-BUG! You shouldn’t be allowed to celebrate CHRISTMAS or HANUKKAH anymore.

What’s up you holiday nuts you?!

I wanted to take a few minutes here to write and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I hope you all are getting a chance to spend time with your family today (and Christmas Eve yesterday of course!). I am back up north (not the North Pole) with my family too, just chillin’, catchin’ up with family I only see this time of year, and overdosing on egg nog like I always do (hey, I’ve warned you before to call Egg Nog-aholics Anonymous, but nooooooo you didn’t listen!).

Well, I suppose I should get my butt back to the festivities here. Besides, It’s my turn to make sure Grandma doesn’t get run over by a reindeer again. You’d think by now either she or the reindeer (or Santa for that matter) would have realized this to be a yearly issue and try to avoid it. Oh well, by now I’m kinda used to it. Call it a new and odd tradition if you will.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Seasons Greetings all you happy people!

Well, today is the day that we have chosen (or have to) travel for the Christmas celebrations up yonder. We will be mounting the silver sleigh (Chevy Equinox) with all wheel drive later this afternoon to make our first stop at the Milwaukee airport to deliver toys to little girls and boys (and to pick up my aunt flying in from Vegas)! After that, we’ll soar over the land back home to pick up Lexi and her things (meowing cat, meowing cat, meowing all the way), and then be on our way to our final rooftop of the evening, the North Pole (Central Wisconsin.. home sweet home?). Anyway, until then, I get to pack and clean house today! Woo!

Thursday night we had our company Christmas party. It was kind of short, but a good time. A little food, a little air hockey, and a little Halo 3 on a huge TV is always a good way to celebrate the spirit of the season! I don’t know about you, but sometimes I think instead of Santa and his eight tiny reindeer, it should have been the Halo soldier and his eight tiny alien creatures. Doesn’t that just really warm your heart?

As a final thought, today marks the first day of my rest-of-2007 vacation! I am officially off of work now until January 2nd. Holy crap do I love this time of year!

That’s right!  Today’s post goes out to all of those hardcore Overlive fans that know what that means!  It also brings me to this point: my main rhythm section partner in crime, Mr. Chippie Man King is back from his term in the service for good and has moved to Madison!**

(**Mid-Post Foonote: For those unfamiliar, Overlive was the name of my high school band, and Mr. King was our bass player.  He and I extended the intro and some other parts of Chick Magnet by MxPx.  I wish we had a recording of it.  Rock out with your sock out. Woo!)

We’ve met up a couple times already since his return to the Midwest, but this weekend will be his first time at our Madison residence as our neighbor (across town).  He, his girlfriend, and a small group of friends are headin’ over to our shack for some Christmas cheer and some friendly Wii competition!  Bring it on you maggets! (er, I mean cool friends!)

On an unrelated related note (huh!?), attention dudes and brothas!  Have you retired YOUR “chick magnet” status and proposed to that one special girl of your dreams?  Well, impress her even further by telling her you’ll be in charge of the wedding invitations and head on over to http://www.coquidesign.com!  These are starting to prove themselves as the best invitations in Southern Wisconsin.  Don’t get ones that bite!  Check out these awesome invites!  (lame rhyme alert; take cover Bert!)

Judging by the lack of good taste in those rhymes, I think it’s bed time (d’oh!!).  One more day of work before the weekend, and then I’m down to one more week before my Christmas vacation. 

To all a good night!

Tuesday night re-cap!  I’m full of crap! :)  Turns out the guitar battle with Tom Morello wasn’t so bad after all.  Then again, it was still in the Easy level. :P  I even accomplished the encore song that I got to play along with Tom on.  (so sad, this game may actually be addicting)

Anywho, it was overall a pretty sweet day.  It started when my boss called me at 7:30am and informed me that we had the option to stay home today due to the ice and snow storm that was about to rock our world.  So yes, I got to stay home today, but I still had to work some.  Oh well, it wasn’t all bad, and I got a bunch of other stuff done today too.  Yeah I know I rock! (Quick!  Someone pop my ego balloon!)

Also, if you’ve been following along with my holiday posts, I updated my .Mac web gallery today with more recent photos of our finished decorations.  You can check them out in the left column (Holidays > Christmas 2007 Gallery) or use the link in the other post titled “Christmas Pics”.

Don’t forget, only 14 days left until Christmas!  Time is running out to buy me something!  (even if it is just a fashionable lump of coal that has my name written on it in multi-colored glitter)

Ok, I’ll take the blame for this one. The reason we went from Autumn to Winter in a couple days time is because of me. I blew it. The big guy upstairs finally got all my prayers (aka wishes in disguise).

Being a pure Wisconsinite (ya der hey) I grew up with snow all through December. Christmas snow is always the best. Well, the last few years have been almost on the verge of being a brown Christmas. True, it’s always snowed like a day before or the day of Christmas, but that was always cutting it too freakin’ close. I’m keepin’ my eye on you up there!! (as long as a snowflake doesn’t fall in my eye and blind me)

This year was apparently my year. I’ve been contributing to God’s Make-A-Wish Foundation for the last several years and he’s finally cashed in on my donations: instan-a-winter! We were blessed with a snowglobe effect between Thanksgiving and St. Nick’s Day. And guess what?! It’s still comin’ down like every 1-3 days!

Anywho, I guess the point of my post is that I finally brought back my childhood (in several ways) this year and have been reassured of having a white Christmas this year much further in advance than the last few years.

For those of you who hate the snow, feel free to blame me. That’s right! Go ahead! Stop talking to me out of anger! I don’t mind the peace (and quiet) on earth and good will towards me.

As promised, I finally decided on a couple of quick and easy ways to publish a chunk of photos we had taken during the early stages of decorating our house for the season. I basically had an array of options to choose from of ways to take photos from my iPhoto to the web, and the new .Mac web gallery and Flickr became my two methods of choice. Woo!

You can check out what I have so far at the following web address: http://gallery.mac.com/localsounds/100043

Also, to make everyone’s lives a whole lot easier (or conveniently lazy, you decide ;P ), I have updated my blogroll in the left column to include links to my new flickr profile/pics and to the .Mac gallery (each new .Mac gallery would get its own link, in case you were being driven into madness by not knowing that).

Finally, I’d like to say Happy First Official Day of December! And what a freakin’ crazy day of snow! We got about 2-3 inches here plus a layer of sleet and frozen rain. I made a short attempt to drive in it, only to turn around and come home. Poop on that! I had more fun shoveling today than driving (bizarre!).

For those of you who celebrate, tomorrow marks the first Sunday of Advent. Not a whole lot going on this Advent Sunday, but the second Sunday we will be holding a celebration with a bunch of family, so that’ll be exciting (or so I like to think *sarcastic laughter from the audience*).

For those of you who don’t know this face, I’d like to introduce you to my “spoiled child”, Lexi. Unless someone begs to differ, I doubt you will find another animal on this earth that loves Christmas as much as she does (unless you count humans, then I take the cake here!). I wanted to share a couple of her highlight moments for the 2007 Christmas season so far.

For starters, she loves egg nog. I don’t share with her often since I’m an addict myself (somebody please call Egg Nog-aholics Anonymous), but when she does get a special treat it’s like a seasonal blend of cat nip.

Second, she enjoys spending time watching the little magnetic figure skaters on my Department 56 ice skating pond. I realize it’s probably more like an attack position (they move! I’m gonna get ‘em!) but hey, she hasn’t pounced at them yet, so technically she’s still just keeping herself occupied by spectating.

Finally, she loves to lay next to the fireplace and tree. Sometimes she helps herself to a munchy snack at the same time (the bottom fake branches) but she’s starting to learn that they aren’t as edible as she once thought (insert sarcastic tongue sticking out here from the photo).

On a final note, I hope everyone had a wonderful and filling Thanksgiving and is enjoying the start of the Christmas season. Santa and New Year’s Eve will be here before you know it!

Not to sound like a sell out, but it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Two weeks ago we found a most excellent deal on a new artificial tree at Menards. Before I go any further, I want to point out that yes, I think artificial trees are nice and may have environmental pros and cons, but nothing beats a real tree, so one day I will probably go back to that tradition to see if I remember how it used to be. I do draw the line at pre-lit trees though. What’s the freakin’ point?! All the fun has been taken out of having a tree that way! If this keeps up, by this time next year they will start coming pre-decorated!! All you’ll have to do is pull the rip cord holding it together in the box and BOOM! Instant-unfold-a-tree. (um, if I wanted my Christmas to come in a little box with a red button that when pushed magically did everything for me, I would head over to Staples)

Ok, enough about the Christmas tree. On a green note, we did manage to dig up enough LED lights to make our tree use almost zero power. Damnit, what will they think of next? Wireless power? (oh right, it’s already been done) The best part about those little LED buggers is that they never get hot. I know that this technology alone will help my dad get more sleep since he doesn’t have to wait for the so-called “fire hazard” of a tree to cool down until 1:30am (you know I’m right! hehe).

Aside from the tree and its lights, our house is looking pretty sweet. The front, back, and insides are pretty much done. I do plan to add some more to the front soon, but I guess we’ll play that by ear. I hope to get some more photos up eventually.

To top things off, the egg nog has been flowing for weeks already and the Christmas music has been pouring out of the stereo, Internet, and car radio! Woo hoo!