Unique Christmas Gifts

Hee hee hee! A Brian puzzle! Mom must have LOVED getting this fantastic, unique Christmas gift from her favourite son!

Katy Perry Sent Me A Greeting From Santa!!!

Wow, I didn't know she cared! The kids can hardly believe it!

http://www.portablenorthpole.ca/watch/LnmOSaeCEmttd2IPpKPmmA

Christmas Party

We had our company Christmas Party at the Pacific Rim Hotel this year. Yup, the hottie in the picture is yours truly. Very dapper, what with the perfect two point pocket square and all. Oh yeah, and Judie is the one in the red dress.

Holiday Express

All aboard! It's time to roll out the Holiday Express!

Truth be told, this is another space consuming Christmas decoration taking up a valuable spot on our garage shelves. The box for this thing is massive! I don't know if it is "garden" gauge track or what.

I strained my back pulling it out and it is so massive we have to set it up in our living room around the ottoman. It is so big I can't even do a circle around our tree without the tracks spillling into the hallway! Nonetheless, the kids love, Love, LOVE it. Justin has been playing with it all morning. Sheesh. I guess as much as things change, an electric train can still captivate the imagination of a little boy.

The set is very colorful, with flashing lights on every car. Pretty good for a Costco special. We must have had this set for at least 5 years and it has become a favourite Christmas tradition with the kids...and every other little kid they invite over during the holidays!!!

There is something that moves on each car too. Santa waves from the engine, a little elf pops out of the back of the tender, the elves saw a candy in half on the Candy Dancer car, and chop wood on the Log Mill car.

My personal favourite is the Tanker car, where a little elf on a magnet spins around as if he was skating.

And Santa's toy shop is in the caboose.

Along with a jolly little...clone trooper??? OK, now I understand why Justin likes it so much. The Republic has commandeered the Holiday Express for a special mission against the Separatists.

And to top it all off, there's a Station that plays non-stop Christmas music while the Holiday Express chugs around the living room. Did I mention there is a remote control to make the train go fast or slow, forward and reverse, and make an assortment of sounds?!? Oh dear, I have a headache already. I need to go check to see if there's any rum in the house for my eggnog.

Breakfast With Santa

Brooklyn got all gussied up for Breakfast With Santa at Canada Place. Fancy dress, straight hair, the whole nine yards. The event featured perennial Vancouver kids' favourites Music With Marnie and Bobs and Lolo and I guess they threw in the Show Stoppers (a glee club) for the parents. That's an angel painted on her face...yes, they had face painting for the kids too.

And don't worry, unlike the Trudeau's, we only wear fake fur in my family.

Naughty Or Nice???

Holiday Happenings

Well, apparently I have ruined Christmas for my wife by getting a tree that's a little short and fat. I've nicknamed it Pavorottree after the fat tenor. She's facebooking about how awful it is and everything. Sheesh. So, instead of a picture perfect Martha Stewart tree, we have adorned Stumpy with multicolored lights and all the kids' homemade decorations! Hey, it is all about the kids isn't it? They had fun decorating it and that's all that matters. Since it is short and squat, they could reach most of the branhces without my help. Now if only Brooks would leave the freakin' decorations on the tree and stop playing with them!!! The other good thing about picking up our Douglas Fat from Home Depot is it came with a $25 coupon for January. The tree is basically free!

I'm sure my parents cursed me for goofing off when I was a kid when they were trying to take a picture. Thank goodness for the digital camera, or the folks at the photo-mart would have a good laugh developing the film from our house.

Justin, in particular, is a little freak. Half the time I think he's trying to replicate 80's robot dance moves or MJ's Thriller video.

The kids are pretty excited about Santa this year. Let's just say that their letter to Santa involved taking the Toys'R'Us flyer and crossing out a couple of toys they DIDN'T want.

In the meantime, Judie decided to buy a 1,000 piece Christmas puzzle to keep the kids busy over the holidays. It was a good idea except the puzzle she picked was freakin' impossible!!! We ended up doing most of it because it was far too complicated for the kids. I don't even want to guess how many hours we spent on this. Thank God it is done. Whew.

Next Saturday the Leafs are in town and we've got tickets for the game. Nothing would make the season more complete than having the Canucks kick Toronto's butts.

Lights On

Well, US Thanksgiving is over, and it was a dry Sunday, so I figured it was time to put up the Christmas lights. This is an annual undertaking that I both love and loathe. On one hand, I know I'll end up falling off a ladder, cursing in front of the kids, destroying shrubbery, or electrocuting myself. On the other hand, I look forward to the look on the kids' faces when they see the house lit up for the holidays. It also marks the first step in the building excitement to Christmas.

I was very organized this year. I assembled my tools and got out the ladder before I started carting lights out of the crawl space.

Things got off to a bad start as I bonked my head in the crawlspace as I was digging out boxes of lights and decorations. Ugh. Anyway, I had neatly packed things away last year and as I pulled each string from storage, my plan of attack came together and I was eager to start. I was soon up the ladder ready to go. ARGH!!! What the heck? The gutters were full of leaves! Urgh! What a pain, having to stop to clean the gutters before I got started. Oh well, minor setback.

I set to work, meticulously lining up every single light with a clip so that they were perfectly aligned along the gutter. Believe me, squeezing every single light on a string into the plastic clips was getting hard on the fingers after awhile. I was making good progress until I reached the peak of the porch and realized my step ladder wasn't tall enough. Off to the garage to dig out a taller ladder.

It was about this time that the kids came outside and starting running around under the ladder (don't they know that's bad luck...especially with a 185 pound klutz clamouring above them?). I enjoyed the company until they started stealing my tools and supplies. For some reason it was funny to take my bag of gutter clips and chase around the yard while I was yelling obsenities from on high.
After I got my gutter clips back, I had to contend with the overgrown shrubbery to complete my gutter string. A few wobbles, a few close calls, but in the end no falls from the ladder and no blood drawn by the bushes from hell, although I nearly impaled myself on a branch. The hard part was over and the garland and lights around the doors were easy by comparison.
I was feeling proud of myself for getting everything done as I hung the wreathes and cleaned up. Empty boxes back to the crawlspace, tools to the closet, ladders to the garage. I did the grand lighting and everything looked great.

I love the OOO lips from the Garfield Christmas special. From Christmas lights to fireworks, nobody does better OOO lips. Anyway, it was only at this moment that I realized that one of the porch lights was out...AFTER I put the ladders away!!! ARGH!!! Back to the garage.

Not many new additions to the decor this year...so far! But, hey, it's not even December yet! There's lots of time to add new stuff.

I hope the kids appreciate the end result. Wow, that was a lot of work.

Christmas Dinner

Brooks got her hair straightened for Christmas dinner at the Kim's house last night. She was so happy to have "beautiful" hair. Sheesh, if it was straight she'd want to curl it I'm sure.

Mrs. Kim put on a good spread...turkey, stuffing, kimchi, jellyfish salad, tuna sashimi, spicy pork ribs...all washed down with a little Christmas cheer!

The Year Without A Christmas Card

The Christmas cards we ordered from Kodak weeks ago got lost in the mail. We only received them today...the 23rd!!! Needless to say, no one is getting a Christmas card from us this year!!!

I put up our cards for 2009, 2008, 2007, 2005 and 2003...not sure what happened in 2004 and 2006?

The Super Mega One Year Blog Anniversary Post

Can you believe a whole year has passed since I created this blog? The blog with a stupid name about nothing? I surpassed my goal of achieving 72 posts...this is number 93. That works out to one post every 3.92 days, for those of you who criticize me for not posting often enough. And they said it couldn't be done!

In following the Lobster With Kimchi tradition of posting about nothing, I have a monster post with pictures, music and video!

The pictures portray the events of the week at the Lobster household. First I bedazzled the outside of the house with lights and shiny red balls. Judie hates it but everyone stops to look...I think it looks great, and what else matters, really. Now if only I could get an inflatable Santa to stick on the roof....the possibilities are endless! After much debate about getting an artificial tree this year, we ended up with a 7 foot Douglas Fir, and I have to admit there's nothing like the smell of a real tree filling the house...unless you're the poor sap covered in sap from wrestling the damned thing into the stand and into place. I've had squirrels following me around for days now!

The kids did a fine job decorating the tree, and although Judie won the battle of white lights over multi-coloured lights this year, the kids won the battle of homemade decorations, construction paper and all. Bwahahahahahaha. Brooklyn was so excited she decorated the tree with her toy beads and necklaces as garland before I even got the lights on it. If you click on the fourth picture of the kids standing in front of the Christmas tree you'll notice Brooklyn is holding a bottle...it is the "Florida Snowman" melted in a bottle that Mom sent us years ago. The kids finally "got" the joke this year. Sheesh.

Justin also finished up his skating lessons today. Congrats, dude, you really gave it your all this time around.

Seems like the whole city is gearing up for Christmas now, and I guess it's just around the corner. One of my favourite Christmas songs is by the Vancouver band, Payola$. Yes, the same Payola$ that sang "Eyes of a Stranger". As far as I know, this song is out of print, which is a shame. Here is "Christmas is Coming" by the Payola$, a great song that kind of makes me miss my brother Barrie this time of year.

The video is from Brooklyn's dance recital. Ah, watching 4 year old girls dance is just so...so...so painful!!!

Thanks for reading...and hey, if you really want to encourage me to post more often, how about leaving a few comments, would ya?

Merry Christmas,

Brian

Snow Miser - Heat Miser

One of my favourite songs of the Christmas season, Snow Miser - Heat Miser is from the 1974 classic "The Year Without A Santa Claus". Snow Miser kicks ass!

Starbucks

Anyone who's been to Vancouver knows there is a Starbucks coffee shop on every corner...some corners have two!

I love Starbucks coffee..."coffee" being the key word. I like drinks that actually have coffee in them, not the carmel-vanilla-pumpkin-spiced-gingerbread lattes and all that crap. It drives me nuts when someone orders a "venti, no-fat, decaf, no-whip, caramel macchiato, dollp of foam, one and a half pumps of vanilla, dusting of nutmeg, at 98 degrees". Be careful what you order, you might actually taste the coffee!!!

Having said that, my 3 year old daughter is already ordering a "kid's steamed milk, no foam, no whip, and a shot of vanilla". OMG!!! What have we created ?!?

This is a leftover video from Christmas...it is beyond my technical abilities to figure out how to rotate it so you'll have to watch it sideways. This is Brooklyn singing as much of Rudolph as she knows...and yes, if you look closely, she is singing on the toilet!!!

Christmas Eve Jammin'

I suppose every family celebrates Christmas in their own way. We've tried to make it a traditional Christmas this year for the kids, since we're not travelling anywhere. We have lights decorating the house, a tree, presents, gingerbread houses and even snow! When it comes to Christmas Carols, however, things got a little crazy.

Picture of the Christmas Tree for Mom

Pre-kids, Judie always used to have a picture-perfect "Martha Stewart" tree, with white lights, bows hand made with Christmas ribbons, shiny glass balls and golden bells. But then Justin came along, and now "white lights are s-o-o-o BORING". Last year we broke down and bought multi-coloured lights for the tree to appease him.

Well, this year the kids and I trimmed the tree while Judie was out running errands. When she got home I heard her scream "What the $%!@*&#!". She had forgotten...no, perhaps completely blocked the memory...of the multi-coloured lights. I told her she was lucky because when Justin and I were at Canadian Tire this year he wanted to buy multi-coloured lights that CHANGE COLOUR! Well, come on, what could seem cooler than that to a 6 year old?

Justin did a fine job decorating the tree and actually helped put hooks on the balls for his sister. He was a big help. Brooklyn, on the other hand, still wanted to put 3 or 4 ornaments on every branch and kept moving the gingerbread men and snowmen around. On and off, on and off, on and off. All in all though, I think they did a great job. Thank goodness for "shatter-proof" ornaments, though, or there would have been a pile of glass beneath the tree with all the "oops" and "uh oh's". If you look closely, near the top is the Bluenose ornament that Dallas and Stella bought for us in Halifax. A nice reminder of home.

Thanks to our friend Jen's idea, the Christmas tree dilemna will be resolved next year. Judie is planning to get the kids their own, smaller, tree to decorate as they see fit, with multi-coloured, colour changing lights and all. I'm not sure if we're supposed to throw a blanket over it when company comes to visit or stick it in the closet or what, but if it brings peace to our home, then I'm all for it.

Holiday Merriment Moderation: Reason No. 1

Reason No. 1: There's no telling what your 3 year old daughter will do to you once you've passed out.