Christmas Eve--Pie and Rock Band

Christmas Eve we continued our annual Caissie-Provost combo gathering. This year, Dave and Amy stopped by too. We started off the night with a pie extravaganza, provided by Jay and me. We made a french meat pie, which no one can stop talking about, two chicken pot pies, and a veggie shepherd's pie, which was mostly consumed by me but was delicious. The pielicious spread is seen above. The rest of the family were in the picture too, but I cropped them out because, well, they looked like mutants.

After dinner, we played Rock Band and some of us drank too much. To protect the guilty, we won't say who "some of us" are. This year, Jay and Josh had made avatars for everyone and gave them all funny names. Mom Caissie was "Antsy Metzy", the nickname bestowed on her by a pronounciation-impaired little Emily.

Sarah Casavant was "RedHotSarahPepper" due to her excessive use of the Red Hot Chili Peppers as a vehicle for her vocal prowess. Other name highlights were "Rubber Band Denis", whose catchphrase is certainly, "Just like a rubber band!" His avatar was designed to look like he wasn't wearing pants, the reasons for which were unknown to all except the creators. Uncle Dave was "Ticketless Dave" because of his unfortunate timing in giving up his Red Sox season tickets. And Dad Provost was "Dennis Pukevost" as a tribute to last year's Rock Band night.
I'm not sure what Jay is doing in this picture, but it amuses me.
Josh looks very serious in this one.

Christmas

At Christmas, we went to NH for a few days. Here is my gingerbread house version of the Caissie abode.
More Christmas pictures on the way.

Ready to blow

Lately, things have been insane. I have a huge stack of papers to grade, tests to give, gigs to play/sing/dance, holiday stuff to do, and a dissertation to revise (which I haven't even looked at in two weeks). The only reason I have a moment to type this is because I'm giving a final as we speak. It's a little sad when the only time you have to yourself is when you're at work.

I'm not really complaining. Things could be much worse, of course, in the grand scheme of things. However, I do feel the need to apologize to anyone who I've threatened to kick, punch, verbally abuse, or otherwise offend in the past week or so. Really, things will be better next week and I won't be on a murderous rampage. Special apologies to the cat, who is on her "pre-holiday diet," also known as "I keep forgetting to feed her."

You may have noticed a distinct lack of photos on our previously photo-rich blog. That's because our digital camera is possessed. Sometimes it turns on but won't take pictures. Sometimes it turns on but spouts random words, like "Memory card full!" when there isn't even a memory card in it. Sometimes it just doesn't turn on at all. In other words, it's broken. So if you get a new camera for Christmas and you're looking to unload your old one for an inconceivably low price, we're your customers.

We did manage to get our tree up on Wednesday night (we started at 10:30 at night...you take the time you can, right?), which looks great. It took the cat a whole ten seconds to obliterate our Gary the Snail ornament. I would post a picture of the tree, but...you know...

Additions

Two more additions to the Dad list, courtesy of the family at dinner last night:

5. When I was in high school, the infamous inbreeding episode premiered on X-files. You know the one I'm talking about. It's the one where they keep the deformed, limbless mother on a roller under the bed. I watched it and was completely freaked out. Anyone who knows me well knows that I can't watch scary movies or shows. I have a very active imagination, and I stay awake all night imagining whatever zombie or alien I'd just seen on TV is in my room, waiting to attack. Apparently this time, Dad forgot about my delicate consistency. After the show, I was in my parents' bedroom talking with my mother, sitting on their bed. Dad decided it would be a great idea to roll out from underneath the bed to scare me. Well, this seventeen-year-old immediately burst into tears. He says he still feels bad about that.

6. One from the "That Just Happened" files: apparently Dad was transporting a crock pot full of clam chowder to an event a few weeks ago when the whole thing spilled into the front seat of his truck. That's bad enough, but he didn't clean it for a week. Then, when he finally deigned to get off his butt and drive to get some products with which to clean the festering mess, the truck died and he had to subject a poor, defenseless mechanic to the smell of rotting clams and cream.

For Dad

He said he couldn't think of anything weird, so for today's show, we have: Weird Things Dad Has Said or Done.

1. There is the ubiquitous Dad quote, "just like a rubber band!" The story: he snapped his Achilles' tendon in an ill-fated Christmas Day football game and his telling of the story always included that fateful phrase, which is how he described the feeling of the tendon snapping.

2. We also can't forget the "six-foot tall deer" he saw in the neighbor's yard one day. (He is slightly prone to exaggeration, if you haven't guessed.)

3. One of my favorite stories from childhood: once I was riding with him in the car when the song "Oh Won't You Stay Just a Little Bit Longer" came on the radio. The man sings very high in one of the verses, so I asked, "Dad, how can that guy sing so high?" Dad's response: "He had an operation." For years I thought he meant that he actually had an operation on his vocal cords...sometime in high school or college it occurred to me that it was an entirely different type of operation Dad was alluding to.

4. Another one from the childhood vault: Josh and I were eating watermelons one day when Josh swallowed a seed. Panicking, he ran in to ask Dad what would happen, and Dad told him that a watermelon would grow in his stomach. After assuring Josh that he was kidding, Josh appeared to forget about it--until the next day when Dad took Josh to the supermarket. As luck would have it, the headline on the National Enquirer was "Boy Grows Tree Out of Stomach," which featured an accompanying photo. I think Josh may still be scarred from that one.

Any others from the peanut gallery?

High Five!

A friend gave me some photos from Jay's party and this series caught my eye. The scene plays out in the background of a conversation between me and Kristin. In the first picture, Josh is giving a rather unenthusiastic high five to no one:
In the next, he rachets up the enthusiasm, but alas, no one responds:
Finally, a victorious high five!
The high-fiving actually continues for several more pictures before it descends into some sort of weird high-foreheading:
It also looks a little like I have Josh's head coming out of my cup in the last one, which delights me.