How Are You Enjoying Your Time Off?

I realize not everyone is able to take time off for Christmas/New Year, but hopefully most of you are. I thought I would start this thread as a place for people to pop in and share what they're up to during their time off from their normal schedule.

I'm in Grove City Pennsylvania, sitting in my in-laws' living room with my laptop. Holly just spent the day shopping with her mom while her dad and I stayed home with the boys. They were on pretty good behavior today, which meant I had some extra time to get back into some Nintendo DS gaming. Castlevania: Harmony Of Dissonance (2nd in the handheld branch of the franchise and third in the "Metroidvania" series started with "Symphony Of The Night"). Lots of great game packed into this little cartridge. Can't say I'm missing my 360 one bit at the moment!

Made my traditional chocolate covered peanut clusters yesterday while watching Elf. Monday will be making Seven Layer Salad and Easy Cheesecake while watching Scrooged.

Dinner will be served soon, and sometime later Holly and I will probably practice the song we'll be singing in church tomorrow. (Joy Has Dawned, if you're curious. Though I considered a version of Necromancy with sleigh bells added to it.)

Enjoying the weather and even had the chance to make a snowman a couple days ago!

Go here for picture:
https://www.facebook.com/holly.frandsen.9

Pretty cool for this Arizona kid.

That's all for now!

I've just been hanging out with my family.

Also, no snow which is nice since just a few weeks ago I was knee deep in - 30 degree temperature before windchill.

Have fun with the in-laws Paeter!

No snow here in the ville, sad to say. It's what I always wish for each year. Usually don't get it though.

So far, on vacation, I've done....well, nothing! Saturday was just a special breakfast out, selecting a new wedding band, and hanging out with the wife.

Today has been worshipping at church, hanging out with middle schoolers, and taking a well needed nap. I'm off to do some RPG (Fate) with some good friends. tomorrow is last minute shopping, exercise, and preparing food for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Merry Christmas all.

There is snow here in central IL.

I mostly just hung out with family. My Grandma (on my dad's side) came over the Sunday before Christmas, I went to my Grandma's house (on my mom's side) on Christmas Eve, and my Grandpa (on my dad's side) came over on Christmas day. I re-watched Hellboy with my brother (it was his first time) and I watched the new Total Recall for the first time. We also played some Just Cause 2 and Rainbow Six 2. Fun stuff!

Got a poorly timed throat cold that killed my voice just before I was supposed to sing with Holly last Sunday morning. But she sang by herself and did a beautiful job. (Stay tuned to hear her briefly sing as Ebony in SB: A World Of Shadows!)

Had a great Christmas Eve. Attended an 11pm quiet, traditional service that really facilitated my desire to focus in on the birth and incarnational nature of Jesus. Had tears in my eyes as I experienced the relief of the words "O Come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant". Was reminded that we can be joyful because God sent a rescuer for us and we can feel triumphant because our battle has been fought and won by Jesus. All the weight of striving we may feel is misplaced and can be given over to Jesus. A powerful truth for me right now that I'm grateful Yahweh brought to mind.

Made my traditional Christmas Eve dinner (described above) and it went well! In fact the leftovers were so popular I plan to make it all again once we're home so *I* can get the leftovers I'm used to having available! ;-)

Had fun opening presents and watching our boys open theirs. We got them a Wii this year, but here in PA we just had them open a controller and then use their Uncle's Wii for a bit. Over Thanksgiving they developed a love for the NES mario games and my parents will be giving them New Super Mario Bros Wii when we get home. So some nerdy fun awaits our family very soon!

Watched RIPD with some in-law guys and am considering recording a "phoned-in" review for it while I'm here. Wasn't a terrible movie. But so conventional, average and forgettable that it felt "phoned-in" in many ways.

Got on google+ for a couple hours with my parents and sisters on Christmas Day. My parents live near us in AZ, but we are all in different parts of the world right now (Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Missouri and Rawanda) with varying qualities of internet connection. Our conversation was about as shallow as it gets because of technical issues, but we haven't laughed so hard together in years. My parents were on a constant 10-second delay. (And no, they weren't the ones in Rawanda.) Count to ten right now and you can imagine how stupid and funny that experience was. Me and my sisters would ask them a question and then talk to each other while waiting for their response. It was like the classic "Who's On First" routine but on steroids sprinkled with crack.

Had a bunch of super-cheap but awesome stuff on my list this year (old blu rays, DS video games and trade paperback comics) so I'm swimming in nerdy fun. Already making plans for a fun-filled New Years Eve!

Didn't have the chance to pop in and say it before, but Merry Christmas, everybody! I'm grateful to have you in my life!

Due to some stuff we decided to postpone our Christmas until January 5th so haven't gotten or given presents yet but we did see Walter Mitty which was good and had a really cool fantasy action sequence

Spent 4 days at my parents, December 24-27. Happy and a bit sad as well. My dad's leukemia is getting worse and he's not doing too well. The 27th he even had to the hospital to get some ermergency blood platelets. Coming Monday some further examinations. All in all not too great, it does not bode well. I fear this might have been our last Christmas together as a (complete) family.    I pray I am very wrong about that.

Sorry to hear that ComiKate. Just said a prayer for your dad.

We had a family lunch on Christmas day and then headed down to Snug Caravan Park for a couple of days on the beach. We had a nice time. Lots of reading.

Sorry to hear about your Dad, ComiKate. If you haven't yet, please feel free to update us as you like and let us know how we can pray for you in the prayer request forum. Meantime I'll try to keep you and your family in mind as I pray.

Hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve last night! We had my parents over and watched a Christian artist live concert event(something impact, or impact something) and then The Amazing Spiderman. Even better than I remember and made me want to dig out my Ultimate Spider-man trade paperbacks(from which it clearly takes inspiration)!

Just kicking back with the family today. The boys have been enjoying the Wii we got for them, playing New Super mario Bros and Wii Sports (while I've been reminded why I once cursed the name "Mario" in my youth for his horrendous "groundhog day" gaming practices). I'm working on finishing up all the DLC for Fallout 3 and watching special features on some of my new blu rays.

This week I'll still be doing some work here and there, but it will mostly just be about spending time with the boys until school starts again next week.

Paeter wrote:Watched RIPD with some in-law guys and am considering recording a "phoned-in" review for it while I'm here. Wasn't a terrible movie. But so conventional, average and forgettable that it felt "phoned-in" in many ways.

Ug...I did think RIPD was terrible.   There was a few good things in there, but it was just smothered in bad.    When I did a review for it on my show I did basically the equivalent of a "phoned-in" review, because I didn't want to spend the time writing a review or thinking about it.