Celebrations

This is a photo from this past Christmas. Note the influence from my side of the family. For you American(s), Christmas crackers have been a British tradition since they were invented in 1847. Inside you find a paper hat or crown, a prize and a joke. Bill found these at Costco. Apparently you can get anything at Costco. Its sort of like the warehouse store version of Harrods.

The other influence would be the quote on William's sweatshirt: Apathetic Agnostic; Don't know, Don't careBill and Brad Pit. I mean Buddha. Easy mistake.
Each year, David and Pete give me a fishy ornament. This year they gave me a bassoon instead!! It looks just like mine.
Pete cooking brunch.

David and Pete are finally tying the knot on Sunday - their 16th anniversary. They actually got married a couple of weeks before bigots and other mor(m)ons voted in Proposition 8. This is the ceremony that counts, though.

Here's a link in case you haven't seen Prop 8 - The Musical.

Tradition

Well, we got our Christmas tree today. We brought it home on my car, and I just thought this was a funny juxtaposition: A Christmas tree on a car with a Darwinfish, Invisible Pink Unicorn, and this bumpersticker: Note that the COEXIST magnet has NASA images rather than the usual religious symbols. I just didn't want all those religious symbols on my car.
From the side:Enlarged side view:Gee. Those water spots really show up. You can tell I'm not very fastidious about my car. Or about much of anything, really (anybody who knows me is nodding right now).

But it's not even Halloween yet!

UPDATE: Hey! PZ stole the title of this post! At least his wasn't about band.

Last night I missed most of the VP debate because I had band rehearsal. Yes, I know. That's dedication. A few years ago, our Holiday^[1] concert was not up to our usual standard pretty darn awful sucked because for various reasons we only rehearsed for it twice. Since then, our Director has started inserting holiday music into rehearsals earlier and earlier, which is how we ended up playing White Christmas,^[2] The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire), Silent Night (the Mannheim Steamroller version), and Greensleeves^[3] on the second of October. I'm already getting in the spirit! I feel the urge to run out and buy presents right now! What does everyone want? Unfortunately, we've never played my favourite Christmas song - Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.^[4] My mother has never liked that song for some reason, even before she became a grandma...

Thank God the FSM our Director we also rehearsed the un-Christmassy Gustav Holst's Second Suite in F for Military Band,^[5] and Richard Rogers' Victory at Sea.

[1] It may be called a Holiday Concert, but the vast majority of music is Christmas music. We did play The Dradle Song one year, but I don't think that makes up for it. Lucky Christmas is now a secular holiday.
[2] Written by that famous agnostic, Irving Berlin
[3] Since when did a traditional 16th Century English folk song supposedly (but not likely) written by Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn become a Christmas favourite? What's next? O Tannembaum becoming the state song of Maryland?
[4] Actually, my favourite is really Sleighride by Leroy Anderson, which we do play.
[5] I love Holst. Maybe I'll get a bumper sticker to that effect to go with my Darwinfish, COEXIST with NASA images rather than religious symbols, Charlie Brown for Congress, and Obama/Biden ones.

I'm a hypocrite

I'm a hypocrite. So sue me. I love Christmas. I love the lights, the colors, the festive decorations, the fact that I have an excuse to give presents to people (although I always feel a little uncomfortable receiving them), the colder temperatures (in the temperate regions of this hemisphere, anyway), the cheeriness of people; I even like that my birthday is just a few days before Christmas.

Christmas music is some of my favorite music. My band just had a "Holiday" concert, in which most of the repertoir had the word Christmas in the title (at least we worked in the Dradle Song last year). We always play a couple of my favourites including The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) by Mel Torme and my favourite seasonal song of all time--Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson. We don't do it quite as well as Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, but we do it pretty darn well for a community band.

I very much doubt that a man who may or may not have existed was born that day, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the season. I also like the fact that the winter solstice is very close to Christmas (coincidence? I think not), and the days start getting longer from then out.