Christmas 2023

[marurun]

Cheesecake and pie are the perfect breakfast foods. One has eggs and cream cheese (or ricotta) and the other has fruit and biscuit.

[PretentiousHipster]

Worked the 25th and the 26th, with an outbreak starting Christmas Eve. It hit the staff to the point that I, a dishwasher, was cooking the lunch meal from scratch and being the sole line cook. A guy with no experience and barely above the hourly minimum wage doing something that school graduates that probably get paid a good few dollars more should be doing.

[Ziggy]

Speaking of pies... I made two pudding pies. One chocolate in a graham cracker crust, the other vanilla pudding in cookie crust. Only I couldn't find an Oreo pie crust anywhere, so I had to settle for a store brand "cookie" pie crust. It just wasn't as good. The texture is like the Oreo crust went really stale.

Aaaaand, now I just remembered that I made zeppoli batter and forgot about it in the back of the fridge!

[stickem]

I got Diablo 4/Xbox and Koumajou Remilia II/Switch. Watched Christmas Vacation, The Night Before, and Home Alone 1 &2 on Christmas Eve wrapping presents all night. Then got together with family for Christmas dinner and back home to rest. Speaking of the Christmas Story movie, I've seen it so many times I can't stand that movie now lol. Christmas Vacation I can still watch over and over.

[Raging Justice]

Yeah, I'm trying to find new holiday classics to enjoy every year. We already know the popular ones that get brought up year after year and there's only so many times you can watch some of them.

I really like Violent Night



It's like a mash up of two other movies that people tend to watch every Christmas, Home Alone and Die Hard

You guys know of any great holiday video games? I tend to find that mascot style platformers are great for the holiday season and easy to enjoy with family. Games like Mario, Sonic, etc, etc. I have some nice Christmas memories revolving around certain video games. I love the trailer for Kaze and the Wild Masks because I can easily imagine this all happening on a Christmas day

[stickem]

^Daze before Christmas is a platformer from sunsoft worth a playthrough. kinda easy but only released in Australia for the mega drive so I pull out my repro and give it a go around this time of year.

[marurun]

I got a package of roasted chestnuts this year for Christmas. I’d never had them before and was curious. They are weird. They’re soft and even a little moist. I guess when you roast them their water content causes them to sort of steam instead of getting crunchy like most nuts. I’m glad I tried them but I can’t say I recommend the experience. Maybe if they were fresh instead of packaged there would be more to appreciate.

[Ziggy]

Speaking of the Christmas Story movie, I've seen it so many times I can't stand that movie now lol. Christmas Vacation I can still watch over and over.

Yeah, A Christmas Story was definitely better this year for me after skipping watching it for a few years now. Another thing that made me sick of that movie, aside from the movie itself, is the amount of merchandise. Every store you went into had leg lamp this and pink bunny pajamas that. You just couldn't get away from it. Luckily, this year I really didn't see ANY Christmas Story merch. Instead, "they" decided The Grinch should have merch EVERYWHERE. You know it's lame when you start to see stuff that doesn't make any sense. Like a coffee mug with a Grinch on it that says "Bah Humbug."

Only in recent years did I start watching Christmas Vacation regularly, so it's still very fresh for me. And it helps that it's a great movie. Very quotable. Pretty much anything written and co-produced by John Hughes is gonna be awesome. Planes, Trains and Automobiles is another movie that I recently started watching almost yearly. It's not a Christmas movie (I guess you could call it a Thanksgiving movie) but it's a good lead into the holidays.

[Reprise]

I got a package of roasted chestnuts this year for Christmas. I’d never had them before and was curious. They are weird. They’re soft and even a little moist. I guess when you roast them their water content causes them to sort of steam instead of getting crunchy like most nuts. I’m glad I tried them but I can’t say I recommend the experience. Maybe if they were fresh instead of packaged there would be more to appreciate.

I remember having fresh roasted chesnuts about 25-30 years ago from a market store during Christmas. You used to get a lot of that around Christmas time, with shops staying open late and you'd have all these different markets offering roasted chesnuts, fresh doughnuts, sweets and other festive treats. It's not such a thing now, maybe in some parts of the country, but not really where I am, I guess the highstreet is slowly dying.

Anyways, for some weird reason, as a kid I always wanted to try them, but then I finally did when I was about 9 or 10 and I hated them

For Christmas, I got Kirby and the Forgotten Land. It was my son's idea, mostly because he wanted it himself and thinks he's being clever at sneaking another present in, but I am ok with it. We had played the demo together and both really enjoyed it and I did want to get it at some point anyways. We also both got Super Mario RPG, which again was something I wanted to get at some point and my son kept on going on about wanting it, so Christmas seemed like the right time (usually I'd say I am waiting for a sale, but Nintendo games never go on sale )

[marurun]

Kirby and the Forgotten Land is actually super good for playing co-op with a kid. When they are younger they can be Bandana Waddle-Dee and as they get older they can take the lead as Kirby.