Kelly and I had a wonderful Christmas this year and we visited with every remaining segment of our respective families and even had time for friends. Kelly and I stayed the night with my mother on Christmas Eve and woke up Christmas morning and opened our presents. I haven’t done that in quite a while and I was glad to be able to do it again. Mom sent me some photos she took on Christmas morning, and you can find them in the 2006.12.25 – Chrimbo Morning gallery. My personal favorite? Grandma with the Santa hat!

Finally, Christmas is finished for another year, and I’m kind of glad it is. The run-up is long and joy-filled with parties, get-togethers, family and friends. I do love the holidays, but in the same way that I love, say, a tornado. They are awesome things of nature that happen every year with consistency that inspire wonder and amazement, but at the same time a certain level of stress.

The big news is that Kelly’s sister Cherie gave birth her second child Katie on Tuesday, the day after Christmas! Kelly and I took care of our nephew Andy while mommy had a planned C-section in the morning. Little Katie “looks just like Kelly” and was 8lbs 2oz with dark curly hair. Kelly and I visited with the happy family later in the day, and we snapped some photos of the blushing baby girl.

Remember how I said I was going to make a large catapult and call it THE POWER OF LOVE? Well, I did it! It took me only a handful of hours to complete over the 4th of July weekend, and at M@ and Sara’s 4th of July Party, it made it’s debut!

M@ was kind enough to video the thing in action (firing incendiaries) and put it up on YouTube:

Behold the Power of Love!

A few years ago, Kelly and I started donating to Goodwill on a regular basis. For a while, we didn’t keep records of what we gave, but then we decided to start claiming that stuff on our taxes (especially when we were going to owe!). We just keep tick marks of each piece that we donate, and then use a donation valuation guide to tally it all up at year-end. A note on the valuation guides: Goodwill nor the Salvation Army have an “official” guide, so use discretion. Imagine explaining claiming $6 for a ripped Def Leppard t-shirt to an IRS auditor. Each few months, we end up donating a couple of trashbags full of ill-fitting clothing and stuff that we never use. In the end, we cut our tax bill down considerably, and the Goodwill benefitted.

Kelly’s family also adopts Angel Tree children instead of exchanging gifts. Again, tax-deductible and much better than having to hem and haw over what horrifying sweater to get your gram! I helped out one year, and was given charge of a 13 year old kid and proceeded to kick out the Christmas present JAMS (literally!) It was a lot of fun.

Finally, the venerable Hunter Dixon for the last few years has been flexing his B&N muscle and buying a bunch of books for children with donations from friends. With the employee discount, he can purchase just tons of books for kids. It’s great! And to top it all off — he donated his poker winnings for December to the cause, thereby making this year the most bookalicious for needy kids. In the end this year, the official final tally was $360, allowing us to purchase 103 books. Dang. That’s awesome.

Hoo-ray for charity!

The weather sages around town say that snow en-quantite’ is incoming to Louisville tomorrow, so in reaction I’ve updated my silly little exploding snowflake javascript thing called snow2. Originally written way back in 2002 (also here), it has been updated to work in today’s modern browsers. Enjoy!

12 hours and 4 houses later, Kelly and I have returned home exhausted and both sad and happy that Christmas is over for this year. We had a great time at each house and are glad that we got to see everyone. Many presents were exchanged, though the I’m glad to know that we not only gave gifts to the Angel Tree program this year, but also helped out Hunter with his “Books for Caritas Kids” thing at B&N. It feels better to give back to those who have so little, and books are often the perfect gift.

Tomorrow we plan on doing nothing save for meeting the long-lost and far-flung friends at Wick’s Pizza on Baxter.

Merry Christmas all, and to all a good night.

Holiday cheer has come to my beloved Interactive Department here at work in the form of a $16 Christmas tree from Walmart. Mix with left-over lights and a bevy of plushie animals, and you have the makings of mirth in tree form.

In other news, I made beer yesterday evening. I have had this
Brewer’s Best Steam-Style beer kit since last fall, and just now got around to making it with a little help from Winemakers & Beermakers Supply on Westport Road. Nice, helpful folks they are!

On a side note, Thanksgiving was also very nice. We house-hopped between Indiana and Kentucky and had a good time all around. The holidays are starting off well this year.

Hey! It’s the birthday of my favorite Japanese native ever! That’s right -Mayumi’s birthday today. Apparently, November in the late 70′s was a hoppin’ time for many of our parents, and out popped Eve, myself, Nick, Mayumi (among many others, no doubt). Anyway, give Mayumi a shout-out today and wish her a happy 26th birthday!

Her birthday also occurred last year, on this very day, and i made a note of it. You may also want to search the gallery for photos of Mayumi.

To round it off nicely, I had some of my office-mates pitch in to help say “Happy Birthday Mayumi”. The resulting images can be found here: Happy Birthday Mayumi gallery.

I gots lots of cards and gifts and shouts-out over the past couple of days for my own birthday, but don’t forget that we’ve got two birthdays coming up — N. W. Smith on the 21st of August (tomorrow!) and Jackson Jacksonius Cooper on the 23rd of August. Let ‘em know that theys old when you get the chance.

For today is my 26th birthday. Yayay! I have received well-wishes via voice mail on two different systems, via the Internet (link), in person, and in the form of lemon tarts!