[CLOSED GROUP]Team Festivus 2014: Let's party! Where's the eggnog?

[Fezzle]

My holiday cards usually goes something like- see a nice pack of cards and buy them. Forget I bought them until right before I leave for the US when a coworker puts a card in everyone's pigeon hole and makes me feel like I should return the favour. Realise I know very few of my friends' current addresses. Send out about 3 cards to the ones I do know. Leave rest of stack until next year.

So, I have a decent stockpile of Christmas cards already. I've moved 4 times in the past 5 years so hardly anyone knows my current address.

OH wants us to send them out this year, but only because 1) he's never been in a relationship where he can smugly joint-sign a card and 2) it would really be me doing all the cards.

Maybe we'll wait until there's a baby to put on a card. I wanted to do a card with the cats but OH thought that would make us look like saddos!

 

[Pirate]

We sign our dog's name on the card every year. Yeah, we're that lame.

 

[Fezzle]

We got a thank you card today that was addressed to the cats too! It made me happy!

 

[Pirate]

That's awesome!

 

[LillyTame]

Yea, we sign for the cats and even send out cards from them AND our family either sends them their own cards or mentions them on our card

 

[GingerPanda]

I don't usually send out Christmas cards, but maybe I can make Biblio's avatar into a card for this year.

We need to get GP and her artistic skills on this, STAT! I'm thinking something along the lines of Jesus in a santa suit riding a raptor (through Walmart) that has a decorated Christmas tree in his mouth. It could be the Team Festivus 2013 Holiday Card!

OMG. I wouldn't be able to do that, just because I would be laughing too hard!

 

[Lionchild]

I will post the GF stroganoff recipe (with my recommendations based upon the result) on the Crackpot thread as soon as I have more than a minute free (likely Wednesday). It was delicious, there were just a few things I found problematic in the original recipe.

Ginger, every holiday thread needs a grinch. I'm not usually very festive in terms of Christmas, but I will throw a Solstice party. I love winter weather though. There are a dozen mountain ranges in my state and we're 3 hours from the excellent CO skiing. We like to ski and snowshoe. I agree with you about the ice on the car in the morning, it blows! I actually ride my bike all winter long (in crazy winter gear) so I don't usually have to deal with it though (except at the most inconvenient times).

I love all the people signing for their pets on their holiday cards! DH and I have never sent cards out—mainly because I'm terribly unorganized and always late with any type of nonessential task like that. I will try again this year. I want to get a picture with DH, me and the dogs in front of one of the old adobes to put on the front of the card.

 

[MIZZYD]

I stopped sending Xmas cards 3 years ago, mostly because postage got pricey, lol.

 

[Ameli]

My holiday cards usually goes something like- see a nice pack of cards and buy them. Forget I bought them until right before I leave for the US when a coworker puts a card in everyone's pigeon hole and makes me feel like I should return the favour. Realise I know very few of my friends' current addresses. Send out about 3 cards to the ones I do know. Leave rest of stack until next year.

This sounds like me!

 

[GingerPanda]

When I worked at a printer's, people would bring their "Christmas Newsletters" to get copied and send out. They were like little year-long reviews, and people would write the most stupid and depressing crap in them! I always thought, "I would hate to get something like this in the mail. I'm having a bad day, then BAM! I have to read your sad fucking letter written from the point of view of your dead cat like it's an angel watching over your family, relaying everything that happened this year, and how sad the cat is that it ate the rat poison and died of internal hemorrhaging, because it didn't get to be there for it."

WTF

 

[Ameli]

Ugh, yeah my aunt and uncle send out a newsletter. Theirs is more like a brag-fest each year. They talk about the trips they take and the new things (usually vehicles) they bought and enjoyed.

 

[Fezzle]

My parents know two families who send newsletters every year- they crack me up sometimes! With Facebook, I think most people know what's going on in people's lives now though.

My family does a family Christmas photo every year with a theme, usually a bit of a piss take of group outfit-coordinated family photo cards (especially where we're from, white shirts, khakis and barefoot on the beach is a big one). We've done hoodies, tuxedo t-shirts and moustaches but haven't come up with one for this year. I wish we could all have a bump but even if I get pregnant this month, it'll be too early!

 

[Ameli]

Your family pics sound cute Fezzle! The bump idea would be hilarious...hopefully you have a baby for the next one, but if not a bump for all of you would be great!

 

[Fezzle]

I know! I hope my next Christmas there's either an actual baby or a sizable bump. But, hopefully it will be a baby and we can use the idea for baby 2!

 

[LillyTame]

So what's does everyone do for Thanksgiving?

 

[mara16jade]

Our Thanksgiving usually involves a small argument over who's house we're going to. LOL Since this is the first year that we've been married, we were trying to figure out how to do holidays....until my Grandma called yesterday and invited us to Thanksgiving at her house. So now we have to figure out if my DH's parents can make it. Ugh....I love family get-togethers, but sometimes they are a real pain in the ass.

 

[Lionchild]

Stopping in to wish all those in England a happy Guy Fawkes Day!!

 

[Fezzle]

My family's typical Thanksgiving was spent with my mom's family in Northern NJ- imagine loud, big Italian-American family with loads and loads of food, both traditional and Italian-American. All day eating, football on tv, card games with dessert.

Since I've been in the UK, sometimes I've celebrated it, sometimes I haven't. I've occasionally just had other things on since it's just a normal Thursday night here, like roller derby practice. I've had dinner with other American ex-pats a few years too though. Last year I didn't do anything; this year I'm having a little Thanksgiving party (buffet style) with OH and his friends that's a combination of a party for them to see another friend who is visiting us from Africa that week.

 

[Pirate]

My family's Thanksgiving has always been very informal and laid back. Good food and family is what it is about. Hubs' family doesn't really celebrate Thanksgiving. This year his parents will be on a cruise and his brother and his family will be at Niagara Falls. We're hosting dinner this year just like we did last year. It will also be very laid back. We've told everybody that if they can make it, great, and if not, maybe next year. I love to cook so there will be a ton of food!

 

[txbiscuit]

Our Thanksgiving will probably depend on how and when Ellie decides to make her arrival. If everything goes well with the birth and Ellie and I are healthy, we'll probably do two Thanksgiving dinners, one with my sister's family, and one with OH's family. OH is really excited because since he'll be on paternity leave, he'll actually get Thanksgiving off work. (It's normally a day most police officers have to work, since people are getting drunk and fighting with their families and/or accidentally setting their houses on fire and/or engaging in fisticuffs in line outside Best Buy and Walmart.)