Holidays 2008

Christmas has come and gone again for another year. And I look now longingly at The Tree knowing that shortly after New Year's the "Holidays" will officially be over and the Tree will need to be taken down until next time. Grief follows happiness. So the cycle continues.

Gwen and I endured our final Christmas in Europe on the down-low. Most of the week leading up to Christmas I myself was working heavily on the wards, rounding on patients and dodging the various VIPs that like to make their own rounds in the hospital at holiday time. Dennis Farina? I have no time for you - I have patients to see. (I also heard that Kid Rock was around about a week ago. Though I did not see him myself. If I had, I would have probably been implored to tell him that his new song sucks and is a total rip off of far better songs, and to stop rhyming words with themselves. And, uh, thanks for supporting the troops.)

I worked on Christmas itself which was mostly peaceful and fairly pleasant with small exceptions. My favorite part of working in the hospital on the holidays is commiserating with the patients and other staff who are stuck there by constantly commenting that it's "the most wonderful time of the year!" This is my go-to joke in hospital during the holiday season, and it works every time when a patient laments spending Christmas in the hospital, or a fellow employee laments that we're working that day, etc. Whether I actually sing the verse with verve or mutter it almost under my breath, it doesn't matter - it's money in the bank every time. And the busier it gets, or the worse the situation, the funnier the joke.

Christmas night I got home and Gwen and I exchanged gifts. This year I received a batch of Giants Stuff, which is always welcome, some DVDs, books, among other things. My big gift to Gwen this year was a a Kindle, which, after doing research and talking with some people who own one, I feel is perfect for her. This is a woman who reads full books in 1-2 day periods, rereads the same books while wating on other books to arrive, etc. There are not enough books to go around for her, an insane thought but nevertheless true. We have four full size bookcases jam-packed with books, and more always on the way. It's as if the Kindle was made for her, and in fact should have instead been named, simply, "The Gwendolyn".

Unfortunately it's currently on back-order, and it can't be used in Europe anyway, so we're waiting a bit to get it in our hands. Still, our next trip to the States nears, and when it does come that thing is not going to know what hit it.


After presents and dinner Gwen and I scuttled off to Man Room to renew our now annual holiday tradition, that of viewing the Lord of the Rings trilogy in it's Extended Edition entirety. This is fabulous thing to do each year, if one can find the 37 hours necessary to spare to actually sit down and view all of it. We went nightly through the three movies beginning on Christmas with Fellowship and ending on the 27th with Return of the King.

I find myself continually transfixed with this trilogy, and each year it becomes more and more difficult to tell myself that there other movies, anywhere, about anything, more worthy of my time. The trilogy is a masterpiece, and I reaffirm this every time I see it, often in the first few minutes of the first movie, while Sauron poses with the Ring during Cate Blanchett's narrative back-story. The flaws are few and far between, and require what seems like extended and deliberate effort to find. These movies grip me in a way few other films dream of, and they've clearly taken the mantle from Star Wars as the series du jour which defines my love of science and fantasy fiction.

The Two Towers, in particular, continues to grow on me with subsequent viewings. I've said this before but I'll say it again - I think it benefits the most from the Extended Edition treatment and, similarly to Empire, it really adds some of the universe's subtleties which make the entire trilogy more enjoyable. Also it features prominently my two favorite secondary characters, Saruman and Faramir.

The high points are simply too many to list here, but I will say that every time I view the Wizard Fight in Fellowship I find myself thanking Sweet Jesus that I am in fact alive and granted sight. I also enjoy watching Gwen turn into a quivering heap of tears for the entire second half of Return of the King. It gets me every time. It seems I already can't wait until next year.

Lastly, I will mention that fantasy football is officially over for another year. I had four teams in the semi-finals, as I mentioned, but alas, only one took home the Championship The lowly ManRays, of the TFL, who were just 7-6, a lowly 6th seed, became all of a sudden the little team that could while all my other teams, number one seeds all of them, faded away into infamy in some form or another through the rest of the playoffs.

Now football returns to a purer, if somewhat less involved form. Wins and losses are all that matter, and my attention diverts again, like the Great Eye, entirely to the New York Football Giants and their quest for a repeat championship.




"Time? What time do we have?"

Holiday Recap

We took the tree down today - it was time. It's always sad, taking the ornaments down, stuffing Yodas and Darth Vaders back into their boxes, effectively putting the whole operation in Carbonite. But it must be done. The holidays are gone for another year and I suppose this is about my last chance to recap them in a somewhat relevant time frame. So here we go.

Obviously the big deal this year was the fact that my parents came out to Europe. Not only that - we were joined by long time family friends Ceil and Ken (Mom and Ceil were best friends growing up back in the Jersey 'hood) for a good portion of the trip as well. I hadn't spent a Christmas with my parents since I was a fourth year medical student, some five or six holiday seasons ago, and obviously it was nice to break that streak, especially all the way out here in Europe. And New Year's? Well, it's been at least ten, if not fifteen or twenty years since my parents and I were together on New Year's. Ironically enough when I was young we often spent New Year's Eves over at Ceil and Ken's down on the Jersey shore; Mallory and I and their children playing together and wondering why the adults got so loud and giggly as midnight approached every year.... So it was pretty cool to be together again.

The entire visit encompassed about two weeks from start to finish. Mom and Dad came in on a Friday, and were picked up by their former neighbors in Virginia, two Germans, one of which had worked for their government during their time in D.C. They hadn't seen each other in a long time, and had a good time catching up. Gwen and I met up with them on Saturday, in Koblenz, a neat little German town neither of us had been to before. As always, I rather relished the chance to ask real Germans questions about the language, culture, and customs. Particularly cool in this setting was the fact that both Dietrich and Waltraut and Gwen and I could compare and contrast what we each thought was best about the American way of doing things as well as the European way of doing things. Clearly there are advantages to both.

That night we walked around a Koblenz "Christmasmarkt", drank some gluhwein, and perused the trinkets. It was cold - a recurring them of the trip no matter where we were. (In fact, now I'm officially a "scarf-dependent wuss", a trait borne of this trip.) We went back to the house and had dinner and drinks and caught up. We spent the night there and headed back to K-town in the morning.

Christmas came and we had a big dinner over here at Gwen's house. Mama Stup helped Gwen cook up a fine meal. (And I dominated at lighting the candles.) Pete, his brother, and his brother's girlfriend joined us and we had a nice old family Christmas meal. It was nice for Pete to spend some time with my parents - both have heard much about the others. And of course, courtesy of my mom, Pete and his gang learned a lot more about Mallory than they ever thought possible....

On the day after Christmas Gwen and I had to work. We had to abandon my parents to pick up Ceil and Ken at Frankfurt Airport. From work I kept calling to check in, making sure they were doing all right and not getting too lost on the foreign highways. This was a classic role reversal here. They did fine, however, and when I got back from work Ceil and Ken were there and everyone was catching up.

Oh, I'd be remiss to mention that on Christmas Eve we spent at least two hours doing full on car care. Once my dad got it into his head that my wipers weren't ideal, and that Gwen's power steering fluid was low, there was no stopping him. I'll say that again - no stopping him. Gwen and my mom giggled while dad and I mussed with stuff in the freezing cold. After the cars were satisfactory, we went out to Strasbourg, France on Christmas Eve - see the pics for details. That was perhaps the coldest night of the two weeks.

On the 27th, we rolled up to Heidelberg, a nearby castle town which makes for a good day trip. We saw the castle, had some more gluhwein, and stayed for dinner. On the 28th, we were off to Cologne via train, and stayed there two days touring around and seeing the city. Highlights included the Cologne cathedral (already featured on this blog in previous posts), the Roman Museum, and the Gestapo Prison Museum (happy fun time!).

Next up was Brugge where we spent a few days as well as New Year's Eve. It's a beautiful Belgian city, which Gwen and I had not been to yet. Highlights there included the rustic look, the quaint feel, beer, chocolate, and large Christmas market. We had New Year's reservations for dinner which included a set course menu that turned out to be ridiculously expensive. It was good for sure, but one of those things probably not quite worth the money. Still, everyone got nice and dressed up, the wine was top notch, and we had a great time making toasts, chatting along, and simply enjoying each other's company, all of this going to make the night a success. We almost missed the fireworks because the dinner took four plus hours, but we hurried out of the restaurant and caught the show from the center square. I've now spent New Year's Eve in four different countries. (Everybody hurry up and think about how cool I am.)

On the 1st, we braved a horrific Belgian Train strike and spent all day making new plans to get back home - it was a long and stressful day but we were able to audible our way back and not lose too much time.

Speaking of audibles, one of the highlights of the two weeks for me was having Papa Stup in Man Room watching Giants football. We haven't been able to watch a game together in over two seasons, so this was a nice treat. The game in question was the Giants vs. Bills on the 23rd I believe. We ended up winning, despite the play of Eli Manning at the time, which made it just about a perfect experience for me. Giants won, but Eli looked terrible, something my dad would quickly and continually point out. Awesome. (This is the perfect kind of Giants game for me. The Giants win, but the players my dad hates (Eli, most of the secondary, several linebackers, at least two receivers, multiple coaching staff, etc.) play poorly, giving him an open forum to rant and rave.)

The Giants played the Patriots a week later while we were in Cologne. The game was one of those night games so it came on here at 2:30 am. I, being weak, was too tired to get up and watch, but dad took the laptop and hooked up the slingbox, and watched. The next day he recapped the dramatic game at breakfast and made me wish I had stayed up and watched it. Lesson learned, I suppose. (Hence my watching all of the playoff games diligently no matter the time.)

Anyway, it was a great visit and great to see my parents for a few weeks of catching up and joking around. It was great to have Ceil and Ken around as well - I hadn't spent any significant time with them since before high school. At the risk of sounding trite, I will say that the holidays are always a little brighter with family around.

What follows are some pics - unfortunately I only have the pics from my camera. Many more pics are out there from my parents' camera as well as Ceil and Ken's camera, so there are gaps here. Especially in that I had ZERO good pictures of Ceil and Ken. But here is what we do have.

Holidays 2007