Christmas highlight reel

Here's the scoop on Christmas things that have happened this year:

 Lander hosted a big Christmas shindig this year before the semester ended.  We had a big tree lighting ceremony, an ugly sweater contest, musical entertainment, and free hot chocolate and cookies.  There was a Christmas photo backdrop set up for everyone to use.  I think the bright light washed us out a bit.  

 One of the sweater finalists was Scarlet, an art major who featured the art faculty on the back of her sweater.  

 But it was Singletary and her matching chihuahua that won first place.  

 The art department ruled this university wide event.  We dominated the sweater contest and the gingerbread house making contest as well.  We also consumed a lot of cookies and hot chocolate.

 We normally make a point to take in our local small town Christmas parade.  We found out about it late this year but still tried to make it.  Our schedule that day was going to push us to make it to the square without exceeding the posted speed limits by double digits, so we stopped off in Greenville and ended up eating good food and still being early to their bigger parade.

 One of the singing show people was the grand marshal.  And Santa got his hat knocked off by a low hanging branch right in front of us.  Good times.

 Oddly enough, it was cold the night of the parade.  This winter has been very warm and we've spent most of our days in shorts.  Parade day was cooler so we were lucky enough to have on pants but not all of us had socks since we weren't planning to stand out in the cold all night.  On the way home, hot chocolate and coffee were necessary to raise the body temperatures.  Blue and Violet love to pretend they're drinking coffee.

 The art faculty party was a jon and Lori's house this year.  I was jon's secret Santa and I loaded him up with Miley Cyrus gear.  We have a running disagreement about Taylor Swift and Miley.  I hear he slept in his wrecking ball shirt that night.

 TeamArt is the best.  I love these people.

 Our elf came back with the tree this year.  He love to get into trouble and tease the kids.  He got a taste of his own medicine when Timber dog broke into his gift fortress and dragged him out for play time.

 Elfie discovered selfies this year.

 Some kind of weird light show thing came to Simpsonville this year and we drove up to see it.

 Blue and I got to ride the camel.  This was very cool.  I did not wake up that morning and think there was any chance I'd ride a camel that day.

 At the annual McAbee party poor LJ selected not one...

 but both of the gag gifts I brought for the Bingo/Dirty Santa game.  Sorry LJ!

 There are a lot of McAbees in that panoramic photo.  This was during the hot potato gift unwrap game.

 Christmas Eve was filled with presents and food.

 Christmas day was filled with presents and food.

 Santa was nice enough to bring me a Taylor Swift signature guitar.  It's very cool.

 And after a good  nap we trucked over to the Waffle House for more food.  They had a very merry bunch of employees and excellent waffles.

A couple of days after Christmas we got to meet up with Donovan, Megan, Ginger and Scott.  We laughed, drank coffee and ate giant chocolate chips that Megan apparently carries with her at all times.  You have to respect that.