We wanted to have a Christmas celebration at our house even though we will be in New England on the 25th this year. So we made up our own holiday “Faux Christmas” and convinced Santa to fill some stockings and drop some presents by, since he was in town for the Christmas parade anyway.
Great Grammie knitted those wonderful stockings for us. Ted especially liked that they have a little bell on them.
Last year we spent Christmas here in North Carolina, far away from our families. At the time, we had recently purchased a house and our travel budget was reallocated to conveniences like food and electricity. It was still a nice Christmas with Kate’s mom and husband Bill stopping by.
This year we decided to tell our families we’d not be joining them again. I needed to save my vacation time for Ted’s birth in 2008 and with Kate working in retail, we wouldn’t be able to make it up north for Christmas. This was what we told them. This was, as it turns out, a lie.
Just after Thanksgiving we started putting the plan together. We found an operative (Kate’s step-dad Bill) in the north who we could trust with our plans and work as our point person. We found a transport vector to get us up the coast (a cheap car rental) and our operative arranged extraction back to Rockland-Ave (they drove us home yesterday).
With logistics taken care of, we started our campaign of misinformation. Emails and phone calls were made. We told our family it would be another “Skype Christmas.” We asked them to check on the status of presents we said were shipped up north. We even used Rockland-ave.com as a way to say we are celebrating in the south.
With work arrangements taken care of and rations issued to the cats, we went dark on Saturday and hit the roads. Our point-man Bill kept in contact with us through the trip, advising us of the situation up north. After 15 hours in the squeekiest rental car ever, we were locked in on our first surprise target.
Our first victim was occasional Rockland-ave poster and semi-frequent visitor Chris, who’s door we knocked on at 12:30am on Sunday morning. She was not prepared for guests, and too sleepy to realize what was going on at first. We then had her call our operative to start the second surprising – Kate’s mom. She was dragged out of bed under false pretenses only to find her youngest daughter waiting outside her bedroom door.
Having shocked and awed most of Kate’s family on Sunday and Monday, we had to maintain radio silence if were were to surprise my family on Tuesday (Christmas day). I made a decoy blog posting, as if it were just any old weekend at Rockland-ave. I sent emails as if they were from work, and kept checking our home answering machine just in case someone decided to call.
Christmas day we hit the road early and headed to see my folks. It was pretty sweet to surprise them, Kristen and Josh, and lots of extended family.
The whole weekend was great, and felt way too short. We got lots of good eats and a car full of prizes (including the pictured Optimash Prime) and lots of good stuff for Ted. We also got to spend time with new cousin Jack, who was enjoying his first Christmas and taking the pressure of the holiday season in stride.
Here are some pics:
It was great see a plan like this come together with resulting dropped-jaws on our relative’s faces.
Saturday I went and took the Celica to get inspected, and besides a license-plate-light that was out, it passed and received a new sticker. Pretty crazy that it’s the second North Carolinian inspection for my car… but more crazy that its the seventh inspection for the car since I drove it off the lot. Seems like just yesterday I was throwing all my savings into a shiny silver car. I really didn’t think it would last this long, but am glad it did as we really can’t afford another car as shiny as the Celica. Kate’s car is getting a turn on the ol’ inspectotron this weekend. Her car’s had even more inspection stickers then mine… but she doesn’t drive like a maniac so it’s not really surprising that her ride still rides.
Festivus
Kate and I did our holiday shopping in (almost) one fell swoop over the weekend. We also picked up a tree from the Raleigh Farmers Market, as its all about locally-grown-tree’s and nice people who put trees on stands for you. Our friends Kat and Matt invited us over for Christmas day this year, so we’re looking forward to that.
iMac
I like my job and what I do, but up until last week my job only provided me with a computer built in the same year as my car. It was a great computer in its day, but not really up to snuff for today’s modern website worker. I don’t have proof, but I suspect it was burning oil. Or silicon.That all changed when they brought in a brand new iMac for me to use. This computer is sweeeeet in every way a computer should be. Big screen, dual monitor, and chock full of ram so Photoshop runs quickly. It even has software that runs Windows on it, which makes testing websites much easier, since I don’t have to get up from my desk and find a Windows computer every time I make a new page. It’s come a long way from the original iMac.
Photo Gallery
Our Rockland-ave photo gallery is currently busted. The hosting company upgraded their server software, and our gallery software apparently doesn’t play nice with it. Hopefully this weekend I can check under the hood and get it to work. Makes a guy want to print out all his photos and put them in a shoe box.
Today Pat and I are going to meet up with one of my coworkers and her family at the local Christmas parade. I am not quite sure what to expect, having never been to a Christmas parade before. Really to me, it feels like Christmas should have come already. At work we have been getting ready for it since August. And the day after Thanksgiving was such a big deal, now it almost feels like things are winding down. Sure the store is still really crowded, but everything Christmas is marked down and next week we start getting shipments of spring merchandise… Christmas is over before it has begun!
We have been having very cold weather lately. Two nights in the twenties and yesterday I had to scrape a thick sheet of ice off my windshield for the first time this season. Oddly enough it is supposed to be 75 degrees on Monday and Tuesday. I am still not used to the weather down here.
I have started feeling Ted kick. Very surreal. Even after months of morning sickness, ultrasound photos, and a rapidly expanding waistline, it doesn’t feel real that we will have an actual baby around here in April. The kicking and punching going on inside is definitely making it feel more and more like there really is an actual infant in there.
Zoe has been climbing all over me like a mountain goat lately. She insists upon sitting directly on my belly. Maybe it is less mountain goat, more mother hen trying to hatch an egg. I wonder if it is the warmest spot around or if she somehow knows there is somebody in there.
Saturday my Mom and Bill came and helped us hang up all our pictures and a few cabinets, install our new thermostat and shower head. It was great to get so much done, though I did feel guilty for putting them right to work after so much traveling. I have been pretty busy with the sewing this month. Here is a photo of the Pointy Kitty that I made for my Mom. And here are the Cat Pins. The two I just made for Chris have red scarves. Last night for New Year’s we went over to Kat and Matt’s place. We had Mongolian Hot Pot, which was very, very tasty. Pat got to play with their Wii and I got to play with Kiba, their new kitten. We also watched the Acorn drop. Much fun.
We haven’t made any New Year’s Resolutions yet, though we probably should. There has been a lot of ice cream and cookie eating around here and not much exercising… I generally don’t like the idea of New Year’s Resolutions, so maybe I will just try to eat a little healthier and spend some more time exploring our neighborhood on foot and not actually tie it to a resolution….
Lots of green traffic lights on my way into work today, which is great, except that I'm 20 minutes early. So random. 2010/07/29
@DaraDemiLevine Time to start injecting secret messages into your speeches? Or maybe start each one with "Four score and seven years ago..." 2010/07/29
Glad skype video chat is free.The 98 minute video call between Ted and his Grammie tonight would've been pricey on a long distance land line 2010/07/28
Happy that mowing the lawn was pleasantly interrupted by the rain. 2010/07/28
Cooled off a bit this morning. Nice to step out of the house and not hear every central air unit in the neighborhood running at full speed. 2010/07/27
@DaraDemiLevine It was a good time. We went to Fort Macon, the beach, and then the aquarium. 2010/07/25
Whoa that last tweet was timed all wrong - we were at the beach at like 10am. We just got home. Good times. 2010/07/25
At the NC Aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores. 2010/07/25
Off to the beach. 2010/07/25
Watching toilet tank valve repair videos on youtube. Please, don't be jealous. 2010/07/24
Door to door political people -.calling me by my name without me introducing myself to you isn't heartwarming, it's creepy. 2010/07/24
Watching Ted dance to punk rock makes me a happy dad.Although he'll probably rebel in his teens and listen to adult contemporary soft rock:) 2010/07/23
Learning a lesson about user passwords.Turns out 64 character generated pw's w/lots of extended characters are hard to type in mobile phones 2010/07/23
Christmas day we hit the road early and headed to see my folks. It was pretty sweet to surprise them, 
