Getting into the Christmas Spirit

For some reason, I am extra pumped for the Christmas season this year. Maybe it's because my co-teacher Natalie is Christmas crazy. I meant to get some garland to hang in our apartment to make it smell amazing, but I don't think that's going to happen now because there's only one more full week until Christmas break!!!!

These are some of the wonderful things about this time of year:

Celestial Seasonings Holiday Tea. It's the best! I'm currently sampling Sugar Plum Spice, Nut Cracker Sweet, and Candy Cane Lane.

These are the quintessential Christmas albums:

Charlie Brown Christmas! We've discovered that this is the perfect album to play in the classroom when we want the kids to chill out and get some work done. It also helps us teachers relax, too. I recommend that you play it at your home or workplace, too.

A Christmas Gift to You from Phil Spector!

Low's Christmas album. Perfect. Making me excited to spend some time back in the great state of Minnesota.

Hanson's Snowed In. A classic, duh.

Have a merry Christmas/Hanuka/Festivus, everyone!

celebrities

I just don't care to hear another word about Tiger Woods or Sarah Palin. Who cares anyway?!?!

What is interesting to me is the rumor about Billy Corgan dating Jessica Simpson. WHAT??!?!?

Thanksgiving

As many of you know, yesterday was Thanksgiving. Dylan and I went over to our friends Sarah and Frank's place.

I made a sweet potato pie. Steamy sweet potatoes:

And the stuffing! It turned out a lot like great grandma Bea's stuffing, which was a nice. I think it's because I used plain white sandwich bread.

I also made a green bean casserole with fresh green beans, a homemade mushroom sauce, and homemade fried shallots. I will admit, the fried shallots were a bit of a pain to make, so I'll probably just buy the canned ones next year.

The menu:

Thanksgiving for four...

Dylan basting his tofurkey ball.

Watching some football.

Sarah and Frank getting it ready.

Carving the turkey.

Pickles wants some turkey!

Look at this glorious feast! I made the sweet potato pie with pecans on top, the stuffing, and the green bean casserole. Sarah made the apple pie with amazing crust, the cream cheese corn, the cranberry relish. Dylan made the tofurkey.

Frank made the mashed potatoes and the cornbread. Sarah also made this amazing turkey and the gravy.

My first plate.

Happy Thanksgiving! Now it's time to get into the Christmas spirit!

Rock Concert

Last night I took Dylan to a Sonic Youth/Dinosaur Jr. show for his birfday.

It was pretty fun!

The Phillies

Last weekend I took a bus with some friends to Philadelphia. Some people call it "Philly".

This is some old bell.

Next stop, Jimmy Johns! (There are no Jimmy Johns in NYC, so Caitlin had to get her fix.)

This artist guy went crazy and made all the buildings look like this.

Matt L. lookin' cool.

Of course we had to pick up some cheese steaks. We all thought they could use some Arby's sauce.

There's a lot of history there.

And also a lot of intense murals.

This is a cool looking building, don't you think?

We had some fun with these statues.

Stairs from Rocky, I guess.

Halloween Festivities

Halloween is the best!

Can you guess who we dressed up as???

We saw Mario and Luigi holding hands.