Chrismas Eve

So we made it through our fist family christmas at home. It started with preparations for Santa. The first one was new for me, putting out some food for the reindeer (think oatmeal with glitter in it). The reindeer food serves two purposes, it reflects the moonlight so the reindeer can find
the house and then of course as a snack while the reindeer wait for Santa to leave the presents. Here's a movie of my son putting out his reindeer food:

Second was the more traditional milk and cookies. We baked the cookies that night, so they would be fresh for Santa. Actually they were more like brownies, but I'm sure Santa was okay with that. Though there was some debate over whether Santa leaves all his presents by the fireplace or if he just does the stockings by the fireplace and then puts any presents he brings under the tree. In this case he ended up leaving all the presents by the fireplace, but that's probably because the stockings were overflowing and he just decided to leave everything together.
Christmas day was good. I'll put movies from that up later, I shot it on the video camera, rather than the little digital one. I makes me want to save up and get a camera that records to solid state media so I could just dump straight to a hard drive. Oh well, maybe next year sometime if production work keeps up at the current level I'll be able to get something together.

Finally, skipping ahead to today. We took an unexpected trip to an ice skating rink. We had to rent skates, I don't think I've been in ice skates in 15 years. But it went much better than I had expected. With the exception of the two times I tried to use a heel brake, like on rollerblades, I was fine. And my son was walking in the skate almost immediately after getting them on. And was able to skate with the use of the stability bar (as seen in the picture) and me holding onto one of his belt loops. We were out on the ice for about 20 minutes before we had to clear out for the Zamboni. After that my son wasn't interested in going back out on the ice, but "Maybe later". We'll see, if his interest increases we'll see about getting our own skates. My only concern is his skating aptitude and his previous interest in hockey sticks. Cross your fingers for no hockey.

Why is the snow burning my face?

So we went sledding yesterday. The first pass was not so much fun or my son. Here's a picture of us before our first run. It's how we went sledding in our backyard last year. But this time we went to a bigger hill and there was fresh powder, the result was a lot snow spraying up in his face. He was very unhappy about it. So the second run, I went down by myself, face first in the sled. No snow in my face, so my son wanted to tray again that way, with horrible results as can be seen in this video.

At this point my son was ready to go home, but I talked in him to one more run, with me sitting in front to black the snow. This went much better and we ended up sledding for about half an hour, or until he was to tired to walk up the hill and I was to tired to carry him up. After we got home we ended up playing outside with the neighbor kids. Then coming inside for some Sunday football. We put on our jerseys, my son's is a Dolphins jersey (#23 RB Ronnie Brown) that was an early christmas present from nana and papa and mine is my jersey from high school.

On a football note I have just discovered that all the Sunday night games on NBC and all the Thursday games on the NFL Network are simultaneously broadcast on the internet. That's right, at the same time. Actually the internet broadcast is better, because it will let you cut between 5 different camera shots of the game. What I want to know is why nobody told be about this earlier. I could have been watching lots more football. Well, at least I got to see a good game last night (good being defined by an exciting finish and the Panthers loosing).

Well, more later. As we're down to 3 days until Santa.

Winter Wonderland

Well, just in time we're getting some good snow for christmas. And it looks like its going to stay cold enough for it to stick. Maybe some sledding tomorrow. The holiday festivities are beginning, my wife's brother and his family visited today (more on that later), we went to a christmas party hosted by one of my wife's colleges and we finally got pictures for our holiday cards done (so late that they're going to be New Year's cards this year).
So now it's time for a cozy night at home with some sort of mini-marathon of television shows.

Finally, I was impressed by my son's restrain today. With the visit of my brother-in-law's family we did a mini-present exchange. And though he did ask if he could continue opening the rest of his presents under the tree, only had to be told once that we were waiting until christmas day to open the rest of our presents. That being said, he has also developed his own victory dance. It's funny but also vaguely taunting with it's usual accompaniment of either "See I told you. I was right, Uh huh, uh huh, huh huh." or "I beat you, I win. Uh huh, uh huh, huh huh." Here's two movies one with him celebrating making it trough a snow tunnel (no taunting on that one) and one after winning the race upstairs at bedtime (some taunting on that one):

One Week Untill Santa

How will Santa know to stop at your house and leave presents? You put up lights, like at the airport. Here's our Santa signal:
And yes, that's mostly grass in our yard still, the snow just won't stick this year.

I think all that's left is shipping some remaining presents and baking cookies for neighbors. Speaking of neighbors, my son & I ended up in the neighbor's so he could play with the 3 year old boy across the street. They're very close in age and will end up going to school together, so getting to know each other now seems like a good think. Well, I have discovered that they are a no toy weapons family (no guns or swords). Now my son doesn't have any guns (except the ones the Transformers shoot each other with) but swords, axes and clubs are sort of plentiful in our house. It's hard to avoid with the SCA around. And he's very good about not hurting people and not attacking unarmed people. I'm just wondering how it's going to go when they end up over here playing Power Rangers, Transformers & Ben 10. All kind of violent, but still fun. I guess on the up side, the neighbor's kid spend about half the time at his house using legos to build guns. So, I suppose exposure to swords at our house won't hurt too much.

Finally, who looks angrier in this picture, my son or the elephant:

Fully Awsome

So we went to a friend's 30th birthday party yesterday. It was up in Syracuse at a Lazer Tag arena.
Here's the scoreboard from the second game, when we ditched the teams as played all individually.
I think if I ever blow out an elbow or shoulder and can't fight in the SCA anymore, I'm switching over to competitive Lazer Tag.
We also finished our christmas shopping over the weekend and put up our lights, pictures of that coming soon.

Xmas preview

First, here's a movie of my son opening an early christmas present at the thanksgiving present exchange my brother's and I had.

If this is any indication, christmas morning is going to be very exciting for him. Actually it may be christmas all day, because I have no plans of rushing him through gifts and he likes to open and play with everything for a while. And since this is going to be his last christmas as the only child opening presents I figure we can let him savor it.

December

Well, Turkey Day was great. It's really a Wed-Sunday thing, with trips to Toga and Connecticut.
I won the weight loss contest with my brothers. Yay! Now we'll see if exercise and sensable eating will keep me at this weight.

Last Wed, before we left for Thanksgiving my son and I went to see the local mall Santa. He's a great Santa. He comes up from North Carolina to work as Santa for a month and my son has seen him every year, the the photo studio where I get most of my video work runs the photo/Santa village at the mall. Well, this is the first year that my son was willing to sit with Santa and tell him what he wants for christmas, he even had a question for Santa, "Where are the reindeer?" Anyway here's the picture of the Santa visit:


So the rest of month is a bit hectic. Some deadlines, christmas prep and it's about time to start setting up a training for crown tourney in May. And I'm hoping I can fit in some time to enter a couple of video contests this month. Finally I need to get my focus back to short films now that the video contests have gotten me moving again. So, I think I'll shoot for end of the year to have my short film from North Carolina ready and out for festival submission, at least one feature script far enough along that I could get and editor to help me polish it up and another serious short film project ready to shoot in January or February.
So that's three goals, we'll see how I do.