Best Christmas 2005 Run Down

Hey, remember yesterday? It was Christmas! Here's some stuff that happened at our house.

Here's Mom and Dad with the Five Points Brunch Cookbook, which is what I gave them. What, you haven't Sunday brunched at Five Points? What, you didn't run out and get the cookbook either? Come on.



I got a new camera for Christmas. A new, positively deadly super camera with dozens of presets, presets like "Baby." So here I am, trying out the "Baby" setting on Baby Rachel.



Can you even guess what this is a picture of?



Grandma got the grown up guys laser pointer pens . . .



And this is what happens when you shine a laser directly into the lens of a brand new digital camera. Pretty cool, right? I mean, all our lives, we're being told not to look directly at lasers, and it turns out this is what we've been missing out on. I know . . . kind of reminds you of the first time you looked at Medusa's reflection in your mirror shield, right?



Present opening started to wind down and people started working on making breakfast and I snuck upstairs . . .



Wait a second . . . could it be?



The Christmas Mustache! Has Returned!


I know, I know. I'll give you a second to take in the awesome.

With all the new presents opened Blake, Cory, and Greg broke out "Don't Break the Ice" from, I don't know, Christmas 1987. That game is ruthless!



Back to the kitchen to try out the "Baby" setting on my new camera again . . .



And the "Mom" setting . . .



"Self-Portrait" setting!



"Self-Portrait!!"



AND my camera has a "Food" setting . . . so I had to put that to work at dinner.



Ham, hiding.



"What's taters?"



And this is dinner on the "Dinner" setting.



Trying out the "Soft Skin" setting on Owen.



The "Mom" setting again . . .



Wait, does "Self-Portrait" still work?



Breakfast and dinner eaten, presents opened, we all wound up in the den for the usual Christmas evening sluggishness. Looks like maybe I lost a fight on the Gamecube?



RIP Handsome Beard of Winter 2005



And that was Christmas!

Wait. Here's a present for you. It's Phil Spector's Christmas album from way back. Sure, we all love Sufjan's Christmas record(s), but once you've had enough banjo, I invite you to enjoy the Wall of Sound take on "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and all the rest. And yeah, while Christmas is over, lots of these songs are winter songs, so you can play it around the house without being totally out of style.