Oh Christmas Tree!

December brings with it my favorite holiday of the year, Christmas! I enjoy other holidays, such as Halloween and Thanksgiving, but Christmas is the holiday I remember most from my childhood. The lights outside houses and the holly draping inside them – it is always so festive and welcoming. I also loved decorating gingerbread houses with my cousins, singing Christmas carols with my friends, and watching Christmas movies with my mom.

In all the crazy, joyous events surrounding Christmas, my all-time favorite event is decorating the Christmas tree. While my mom and I would decorate the rest of the house ourselves, the Christmas tree was the one decoration that my whole family would do together. My dad would set up the tree and put on the lights, and my mom would open up the Christmas boxes and pass ornaments to my brother and I to hang on the tree.

We all had our favorite Christmas ornaments. My dad liked the crystal ornaments (except for this one crystal ballerina with fat legs. LOL); my mom liked the handmade ornaments from nuts and yarn; my brother liked the train ornaments and usually took them off the tree to play; and I liked a dog ornament that was made out of tiny little pine cones.

Many of our ornaments had stories behind them, such as who made it and what event it was created for. My brother and I had our first baby ornaments, and there were the ornaments that grandma had made, including the decorated nuts and pine cone dog. There were also countless ornaments that my brother and I had made in school or church over the years. Even the ornaments with next to no story were always greeted as friends when they were unwrapped from their protective tissues.

First Christmas ornament I ever made
Though I live on my own now, I still treat my Christmas tree the same way I did when I was little. The first thing I do is pick out a nice live tree. Fake trees work just fine if you have enough room for a second tree in a house, but the family tree, that protects the presents until Christmas morning, MUST be a live tree in my house.

The process of decorating the tree is sacred, and being the strange person that I am, I do it the same way every year. After the tree is in its stand, I put on the lights. First twining them against the trunk of the tree; then, circling them out on the edge of the branches. Next, I wrap a pretty ribbon, usually red or gold, around the tree. The ornaments follow shortly after. All the fun, unique ornaments go on first, making sure our favorite ornaments get the best locations. The colorful bulbs go on next to fill in any empty wholes. A few small red bows usually get scatter around, and finally, I hang a box or two of classic candy canes all over.

The result is always wonderful, and I love staring at the tree for the rest of the holiday season. Here’s a picture of this year’s Christmas tree!

In addition to a few of my favorite old ornaments, Dan and I’s tree is decorated with some of his favorites and a new one that we picked up the night he proposed. :)

Dan's favorite ornament

Ornament from where Dan proposed to me
As Christmas and the other holidays celebrated in December draw closer, I wish you all at least a few moments peace in all the craziness. Remember that the holidays are supposed to be about giving and spreading joy to others, which does not have to come in the form of a present.

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! And a wonderful New Year to all!

Robots on a Christmas treee? I wonder where that came from!

My Epic Visit to the Hallowed Grounds of ThinkGeek HQ

In addition to Star Wars, Star Trek, and binary, one thing that I love about being a geek is the geek culture itself. Gone are the days when we geeks had to hide behind monitors or book bindings. Today, we have a culture of our own, and we can proudly display it on our clothes, our cars, and our pizza cutters!

When I was young and new to the working world, my coworkers taught me many important facts, such as: accurate ICBMs (inter cubical ballistic missiles) are vital for cubical survival, office soccer is allowed if work is mostly done, and ThinkGeek.com is an essential resource for geek culture supplies.

A week ago, I saw a ThinkGeek tweet about a lightsaber training event being held at their HQ building for 50 local fans. It only took a few seconds to enter Dan and I into the drawing, and I got to spend the next few days in nervous agony wondering if we had won this coveted honor. Needless to say, I was ecstatic when I received our email invitation. Finally, I was going to be able to cross another item from my bucket list and visit ThinkGeek HQ. Huzzah!!

Dan and I arrived at the *undisclosed* location right on time. It was really hot and humid outside, with temperatures in the low 100s, but we were undaunted by the weather. Some friendly ThinkGeek staff signed us in and placed us on the Flyboys team, handing us blue swatches of fabric and blue lightsabers (ie: spray-painted dowel rods. No laughing. They were badass).

Dan and I with lightsabers
We walked into the loading bay (employee lounge), read through the evening’s itinerary, and enjoyed a few minutes of A New Hope while waiting for things to begin.

The Itinerary
For us Flyboys, our evening began with a great tour of the facilities. We got to see all the important areas where the magic of ThinkGeek occurs, as well as spotting lots of important items from ThinkGeek legend.

Admiral Ackbar Fish

Sighting of a Flux Capacitor

Timmy Outfits
My own personal quest was to discover the Mutant Jello, of which I have been a transfixed follower for over a year. Seriously, any group of people who can make a cult following for something like a cratered piece of dried jello is awesome in my book.

Me with the Mutant Jello
After our wonderful tour, we moved to lightsaber training. At the training grounds, we met Bette and Paul, who walked us through the process of film-staged combat. How awesome is that?! When I first signed up, I thought lightsaber training would be something like a fencing class, but learning the ins and outs of stage combat was way cooler than just a fencing lesson! Dan and I practiced back and forth, inserting sound effects and dramatic acting. It was brilliant.

See the ThinkGeek image of us on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thinkgeekmonkeys/7490240692/

Sweaty and hungry from all of our efforts, we made our way from the training grounds to the Noms station. Aware that hungry padawans are angry padawans, ThinkGeek had prepared for the training by asking a Stix food truck to provide nourishment for the event. We were all quite happy with the delicious food, and we even got to watch some great scenes from Empire Strikes Back while we munched.

See the ThinkGeek image of us on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thinkgeekmonkeys/7490242622/

Our evening concluded with an epic battle in the training grounds, which was lit by the blue and green lightsabers of our trainers. As the sky faded to black, members of the ThinkGeek staff also gave out tons of raffle prizes to the lightsaber trainees. Dan was especially excited when his name got called for the inflatable Star Trek Captains chair. :)

Dan sitting in his new chair the next day
The evening of lightsaber training was a smashing success for ThinkGeek, and Dan and I enjoyed it immensely. We are definitely planning to keep our eyes open for future events (which were rumored to be in the works). If you are interested in learning about them yourself, be sure to like or follow ThinkGeek on Facebook and/or Twitter.

May the Force be with You!

Special thanks to ThinkGeek for letting us join them for this auspicious event and for the links to a few pictures that I was unable to get, due to being in a battle or stuffing my face. :)