Jingle All The Way

Two weekends ago, I made the familiar trip to La Crosse for a little Christmas gathering with some of my friends. In an effort to provide a little background on the festivities, here's part of the event description: "In the spirit jollity, let us join together for a special day of movie watching, Mariah Carey dancing, Chinese food eating, and Rotary Lights gazing! Our goal for the day will be to watch 4 selected holiday movies (more on that later), eat some great food, and walk through the Rotary Lights hand in hand. Simple yet awesome."

The event idea was conceived by L and our friend Matt, and in case you're wondering about the movie selection, here's what went down. All the people who had committed to attending (about 10-ish of us) were to submit a list our top 4 Christmas movies. From that list, L and Matt narrowed those movies down to a list of 16. At that point, they were presented to us in "battle" format, kind of like a basketball bracket, and we had to vote for whichever movie we wanted to win that match-up. We did this until we reached a final four. You'll see a photo of the winners below, and once you see which movies we selected, I think you'll realize that there was clearly some humor and fun involved in terms of which movies made the cut.

Anyway, we spent most of the day together, watching movies, snacking, drinking, dancing, etc. We also went to see the Rotary Lights, which was beautiful as always. I had a blast and am sad that it'll be over a month from that event before I even have the chance of getting up there again. Damn it, not having a paycheck in December is REALLY cramping my style. Anyway, it was such a fun day that got me pretty pumped for the holidays. Sadly, I haven't had much time to get really festive this holiday season, so it was nice to take part in something that reminded me the holidays are upon us. Maybe next year I'll have a tree and be able to afford presents for my loved ones. ;) That being said, if I'm not back before, Merry Christmas (or happy holidays) to all of you. Hope you have a great time with your friends and family! :)

L in his holiday get-up with his creepy Mrs. Claus doll.

Part of the event involved bringing some sort of holiday decoration. Here we have Mrs. Claus holding a Babysitter's Club Christmas video next to a bear skull wearing a Santa hat. Yeah, no one said the decorations had to be "normal." ;)

The movie winners!
(Jingle All The Way; Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale; Holiday in Handcuffs; and The Muppet Christmas Carol)

Every time "All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey came on, we had to dance. Clearly some people took this VERY seriously.

See L up on the stage? Yeah, he was doing some random dance, and other people thought he was part of the Rotary Lights. Hilarious!

This one makes me laugh EVERY time. L's face is so far into the hole while the rest of us ladies are so far back. Good stuff! ;)

Me and L. :)

The group (UW-L alums) in front of the UW-L Eagle!