Feats of Strength...

Last night was the last Christmas show of the season. This year we saw five different shows. Which is a lot. Normally I try and do at least two, but with special pricing offers and emails sent at exactly the right time to tempt me we ended up with five.

The best two (and we agreed) were the Holiday Pops by the Oregon Symphony and The Jinkx and DeLa Holiday Show. Very different shows but both really enjoyable. We'd do both of them again. And they are yearly things here in the area with a different show every year so we might get the chance for sure.

Oh Christmas Tea was third. It took a little bit to get into what we were watching and then it was a little long. But overall it was cute and had some very funny bits. Though I'm not sure Brent will ever get over the sense of betrayal he felt when I verified that my feeling that an "improvised" bit was actually planned. I thought it was amazing how well they pulled off the feeling of it being an accident, but he did not appreciate the con job.

The Holiday Gospel Oregon Symphony was fourth, for all the reasons I wrote about before. It was well done, very talented, I think most people would probably enjoy it, but it just wasn't for me.

And bringing up the rear was The Tony Starlight Christmas Show. YEARS ago, when I was still working for the ad agency, our media director went to the Tony Starlight Neil Diamond show. He (TS) does a pretty good impersonation and she thought the show was great. Very cheesy and over the top. Though I had to explain to her that an actual Neil Diamond show is very cheesy and over the top so of course a tribute band would be. Then because she loved it so much she went to his Christmas show. She told me I had to go. That it was right up my alley. Cheesy, full of Dad jokes, REALLY Christmassy. Which could be seen as insulting if it wasn't all true, that stuff is right up my alley.

So we bought tickets either the next year or a couple years later, I can't remember but the night we were going to go there was a massive snow storm so the show was cancelled. And I've never made it line up with our schedule since. But this year he was going to play the Reser Auditorium, which is a theater out here in the burbs and there was a Sunday afternoon show (sue me, I love an afternoon show) and it was perfect. Those tickets were the first ones I bought this year. Ready for some over the top lounge act cheesy Christmas!

We knew we were in trouble when the show started with the National Anthem.

So yeah, it was not for us. It wasn't cheesy enough to be fun, it wasn't sincere enough to be moving. It was just in this really meh middle ground. With a pitch for the missionary work he's doing in Africa as well. Brent was surprised I didn't get up and walk out when the bible verse was projected on the screen behind the band.

Talented band playing with him. One of the trumpet players played with Katie a few times in PYJO and we are pretty sure TS's band director directed at least one band she played with as well. So good horn section. Good drummer. One of his back up singers had an amazing jazzy voice. But...yeah. Not for us, not what we were expecting, not great and would not go again for sure. I mean, the National Anthem...at a Christmas show.

Tonight marks the start of the family Christmas time. We will go to dinner with Katie and Amber (her girlfriend) for Festivus and then they will come stay at the house until Christmas evening. And I know what you are thinking, isn't dinner out kind of against the whole anti commercialism spirit of Festivus? Which to that I say, Do you want to get on the list of grievances? Because that's how you get on the list of grievances!

The dinner out started as a different holiday tradition when Katie was in middle school or high school, I can't remember how long ago we started. We would go to dinner at one of the places in the mall then go to the candy store and buy our stocking candy. It was the weekend before Christmas most years, and eventually it settled out to the 23rd when Katie was coming up from Bend. Then the candy store closed and we stopped doing stockings so the only thing left was dinner. And since we locked it down to the 23rd it became Festivus dinner.

Last year after we ate and I said, "I've got a lotta problems with you people and now you're gonna hear about them!" and Amber looked shocked we realized that she wasn't not born yet when the Festivus episode aired and had absolutely no idea what we were talking about. Ouch. Add that to the list of grievances!

So tonight dinner at Din Tai Fung, tomorrow dinner at Benihana (I eat fish on Christmas Eve, Amber is allergic to shellfish, Brent got food poisoning at Jake's a few years ago, so we have been on the hunt for a new place to get fish and also something else, this year Benihana made the cut!), Christmas day Brent will make a prime rib and Katie will make my very favorite risotto. We will also watch a few movies. Amber got her first taste of our odd no gifts Christmas last year and as she's back again this year we think we didn't break her brain too badly.

Thanksgiving is about food, games and football. Christmas is about food and movies. And family. Oh yeah, family too.

But tonight is all about the airing of the grievances...which luckily for the people I will be eating with they aren't on that list.

Happy Festivus for the Rest of Us. May your feats of strength be impressive, your aluminum pole be suitably unadorned, your list of grievances be short and keep an eye out for your Festivus miracle.