Tomorrow is Maddie's birthday party. Her actual birthday isn't until the 7th but we can't hold it next Saturday because of Shelley's engagement celebration dinner. Just like what they had for Connie (though I missed it being in Chicago at the time), it'll be a full blown Chinese banquet with all the assorted rigamarole. Overall, I'm not a big fan ( Read more... )

Seeing as it's only a few days until Christmas, I've had a song running through my head lately from Toradora. It's been on my mind since I've been reading a fan-translated version of the visual novel the anime was based on. Toradora is still my favorite anime series I've seen this year and it's a perfectly fitting mix of bittersweet for this time ( Read more... )

Right after christmas last year the lego store had a sale on those advent calendars and I ended up buying around a dozen of them. Since then they've sat down in the basement and now I'm finally going to try to offload them all. I always liked the idea of advent calendars but I never actually had any as a kid. We celebrated Christmas early on, but ( Read more... )

Sometimes, the europeans really surprise you. They paint this pleasant picture of living in an egalitarian, post-modern, socialistic paradise but every once and a while if you dig a little, you find some real gems. In this case, it's the Dutch and christmas ( Read more... )