December 24, 2005

The Holiday Present Extravaganza of Xmas 2005

I pretty much hate all organized religion and I'm a devout (ha!) atheist, but I there's nothing I love more than cozying up during the winter and celebrating family & friends with food, drink and lotsa presents. December 2005 turned into a holiday celebration of epic proportions! Settle on in for 150+ pictures of Holiday Cheer.

See Also:

Christmas with The Battjers 2003
Christmas with the Battjers 2002 (includes White Power Santa!)
A Christmas Story 2001
An Indorvillage Xmas
Modem Media Christmas Party 1998
A Holly Jolly Crackhouse Christmas 1997

Friday, December 23rd

grant — After a last-minute present run, Grant and I returned to my apartment (aka - Gift Central) to start wrapping them.

Two-thirds of the paper we bought was dredle-themed because about 66% of our friends are Jewish (or at best, Jew-"ish").

After we'd finished wrapping all the gifts, Grant and I decided that we were going to go out and buy a Christmas tree! Rather than just simply bring the tree to either of our apartments, we decided it would be way funnier to break into Fatty's apartment and set the tree up in there. We did this for two reasons: 1) Despite being Jewish, no one seems to love Christmas more than Fatty and we figured he was long overdue for a tree. 2). We'd already broken into his apartment to paint a mural in his backyard and he didn't get angry OR take away Grant's keys to his apartment...so why not! Here's the view of the Christmas Tree place on Ave A & 10th St. all draped with lights!

grant — We picked our tree and got it wrapped!

grant — Here's Grant with the tree on our short, 4 block walk to the Fatty's house.

grant — The Fatty was scheduled to return to his apartment in a couple of hours, so we had to set everything up quickly! Here's Grant assembling the tree-stand.

grant — Once the stand was finished, it was time to place the tree! Grant tightened the tree into the base and then it was time to...

...cut off the wrapping and string some lights! Check out that tree! Quite a looker, eh?

After the lights were on, we decorated the tree with ornaments and put all the presents we'd wrapped earlier in the evening underneath! The tree looked gorgeous, but it was definitely lacking something. Then it hit us, we didn't have a star or an angel to top the tree off with! So we decided to look around Fatty's apartment and improvise. Grant poked around under Fatty's bed and found...

grant — ...a condom! Make sure you start at the tip and roll it on down! (Those reservoir tips come in really handy when you're putting them on pine trees!)

The condom was funny and all, but it looked a little lonely up there all by itself. So we decided to look around the apartment for something else that we could add to the top of the tree.

fatty — That's when we found this gem! Fatty's driver's license from the late, hair-metal 80s. This is back when he was in a band called, and I swear I'm not making this up, Nasty Magic!!!

There! Much, much better!

grant, me — Our decoration complete, we put my camera up on Fatty's mantle, set the auto-timer and snapped this pic.

Then we turned down all the lights in the apartment (save for the Christmas lights!) and waited for Fatty to come home so we could yell "SURPRISE!"

fatty — Fatty came home about an hour later and he was totally surprised! Here's happy Fatty in front of his very first Christmas Tree / Hanukkah Bush.

Saturday, December 24th

aunt ann, uncle walt — Saturday was Christmas Eve so I went down to South Jersey with my family to attend my Great Uncle and Great Aunt's annual Christmas Eve party. Here's my mom with my Great Uncle Walt and Aunt Ann!

dad, uncle bob — And here's my Dad with my Great Uncle Bob!

We ate a ton of food and watched A Christmas Story.

On the drive north back to my parent's house, we stopped at someplace near the Garden State Arts Center (or whatever it's called these days) to check out some drive-through Holiday Lights show.

It was tacky...

...but awesome.

Sunday, December 25th

Sunday was Christmas Day for the Battjers! It was kind of quiet this year because my brother was out in Ohio with his girlfriend's family so it was just me and...

dad, mom — ...my mom and dad. My mom kept hiding her face because it was really early in the morning and she didn't have any make up on and she told me that she "didn't want the Internets to see her this way." Hahaha.

Luckily for my mom, one of my gifts to her was...

mom — ...a cashmere scarf that she was able to use to hide her face from the entire world wide webs!

dad — Now that my dad is retired and my mom is still working, she said it's only fair that HE should start cooking dinner a few times a week. She's been saying this for years and I think it's yet to happen. So for Christmas she got him a few of Rachael Ray's books to help him along.

*HINT, HINT*

dad, mom — After we had finished with all the presents, we...

...hopped in the car to have Christmas Dinner with the Carrick's (my cousins) and my mom's parents. As soon as we got into the car, my dad proudly queued up the mp3 Christmas Mix cd he'd created and proceeded to torture us for the entire drive down. I mean, c'mon! Track 34? Holy, Jesus! (Literally!)

aunt elaine, grandma, grandpa, uncle wayne — Here's Christmas dinner with my parents, grandparents and my Uncle Wayne and Aunt Elaine.

After dinner was over, I hopped on a train back to New York City and headed over to Fatty's house for the big present exchange!

Check out how many gifts we had to give each other!

grant — But before the gift giving, we all had plans to head down to Chinatown for dinner (Which is the traditional Jewish observation of Christmas). Here's "Granta" anxiously awaiting everyone else's arrival. (This kid has NO TOLERANCE for tardiness).

We killed time by watching MORE of 24-hours of A Christmas Story on TBS. ("It was...SOAP....POISONING!"

After another 30 minutes or so of waiting (during which Grant almost ended up REVOKING presents), the gang all finally showed up and we headed down to Chinatown for Chinese Christmas Dinner!

amanda, grant, meredith, siege — Our blurry entrance!

amanda, fatty, meredith — We made sure we had a segregated table. The Jews sat on one side of table and repped for the Tribe with this awesome chopstick Star of David...

grant, me, siege — ...while us non-Jews repped across the table for anarchy...

grant, me, siege — ...and Satanism / Mötley Crüe. Hahahah. (We would've outnumbered Team: Jew but Katie was out in Minnesota spending the holidays with her family).

amanda, fatty — At some point during the appetizers, we noticed that Amanda was wearing a hoodie with a zipper that went all the way around the hood! So when she zipped it up ALL THE WAY...

amanda, fatty — ...it looked like we we'd taken our gimp out from under the stairs for his annual Christmas dinner! (Hey, 'tis the season!). Speaking of JC's birthday, after we looked at this photo, we realized that the wood trim on the wall behind Fatty sort of resembled a sideways crucifix. Which immediately led to...

fatty — ...THIS AMAZING PHOTO! Hahahaha. Holy shit, this pic makes me LOL every time I see it. (Bonus points for the chopsticks standing in as a spear to the ribs!)

siege — Siege shows off his Christmas Feast!

One of the many weird veggie entrees ordered by Meredith and I. I think this one was tofu skins, soy beans and spinach. Looked grody, tasted awesome!

amanda — Amanda is excited.

fatty — Fatty is the Walrus.

grant — After dinner, we all headed back over to Fatty's for presents! But first, we had to make sure to cozy the place up. First we got a fire going in Fatty's fireplace...

...then we queued up the "Happy Holiday Hearth" DVD on Fatty's tv...

...and to make things just completely over the top and ridiculous, Siege pulled out his video iPod and put on a different version of a log burning in a fireplace!

So we ended up with a real fire underneath a plasma fire next to a tiny iPod fire on the mantle.

With the coziness factor now taken care of, it was time to start giving out presents! Someone would put on the Santa hat and then give out 1 gift to each person. After everyone had gotten 1 gift, the Santa hat would be passed on and the new Santa would pick out 1 gift for everyone. It was so much fun! Ok, onto the gifts (I'll go fast because there were sooooo many gifts...and I hardly remember who gave what to whom!).

siege — Siege shows off some Sphincterine - the breath mint, for your ass!

amanda — Amanda shows off The Blind Watchmaker (which HAD to be gift from the Fatty - he's been all about Richard Dawkins since before he became a household name).

fatty — Fatty got No More Mr. Nice Guy - a book about getting what you want with chicks! Hahah.

grant — The gift I gave to Grant turned out to be from Amanda and it was filled with...

...homemade undies with sayings on them! Suspicious Package!

Radioactive!

Cash & Prizes!

Objects in the mirror!

meredith — Meredith got The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (which is, hand DOWN, the worst movie of all time. It's one of those movies that would usually be so bad that it's good, but this one goes so far, that it veered back around to being bad again) and Back Door to Heaven.

siege — Siege got...

siege — ...Camomile Marigold Herbal bath salts (this dude loves him some baths).

amanda — Amanda got two vintage metal signs for her apartment.

fatty — Fatty got a Star of David ornament for his Hanukkah Bush!

fatty — And a sweater with a Triceratops iron-on that Meredith made!

In addition to a bunch of little gifts, there were a few "big" gifts in the mix. Meredith's big gift to me...

...was this fucking awesome water-proof case for my camera so that I can take pictures while scuba diving!

siege — A History of Britain? Had to be from Grant!

me, meredith — I got this homemade iron-on shirt from Meredith...

...that had a "secret" iron-on inside the shirt. Awwww.

meredith — Meredith got...

meredith — ...something naughty.

meredith — Santadith.

fatty — Fatty reads up on Flirting 101. Hahaha. He bought everybody Richard Dawkins books and everyone bought Fatty books about how to succeed with women. Hahaha.

amanda, meredith — Amanda and Meredith open some of their dredel-themed Hanukkah gifts.

siege — Clayton Claus.

grant — Grant got Playboy's big book of ~~Gingers~~ Redheads.

fatty — Fatty shows off one of his few gifts that wasn't about how to better succeed with women; this coffee cup set from Grant and I.

amanda — Mrs. Peepers Claus.

Then it was time for Siege's gift from Grant and I (check out Santa's boner!)

siege — He unwrapped it and was bummed to discover we'd gotten him a $9.99 second-hand copy of Lovely and Amazing...

siege — ...but than was totally stoked to open it up and find that we'd just used the DVD case to hide some Viagara!

siege — Hahah. Siege likey!

meredith — Meredith's a huge b-movie horror fan so she was totally stoked on this box set of 50 horror movies that Grant got her.

After you're done unwrapping a gift, you have to throw the wrapping paper in the fire because it makes the flame burn in all sorts of different neat colors.

In the next round of presents, I scored big-time with Call of Duty 2 for Xbox!

grant — Grant scored minimally with a stuffed monkey with a banana in his mouth. (Check out his total "WTF?" face as tries to pretend he loves it. Hahahah).

fatty — And Fatty got The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dating. Hahahahah. See? Are you starting to see a pattern here? (Check out his "Haha - fuck you guys" face).

amanda — Amanda shows off her card that Grant decorated with what he called "Hanukkah stuff:" dredels, stars of David, menorahs, and a guy with a big nose holding a bag of money. Hahah.

grant — I got Grant this shirt that says "GRIZZ" in a font that has pictures of naked ladies!

siege — Siege gets a different Richard Dawkins book - Fatty strikes again!

meredith — Then Meredith got my "big" gift to her...

meredith — ...which was this Wacom drawing table so that she could start doing some of her cartooning on her computer instead of in her notebooks!

Then it was time for my two-part "big" present from Fatty, Grant and Amanda!

The first part was the Xbox version of Dance Dance Revolution!

The second part was...

...a DANCE PAD so that we could play Dance Dance Revolution in my apartment! Incredible!

amanda, fatty — Fatty got The Ultimate Ice Cream Book (he was stoked to get a book that wasn't a subtle insult) and...

amanda, fatty — ...a motherfucking ICE CREAM MAKER! WOOOOO!

grant — And even with all the gifts we'd received, there were still more to go! Granta Claus checks out the remainders...

siege — Siege got Blanche Barton's The Church of Satan!

amanda, siege — Amanda prepares to open the giant, over-sized nativity scene card that I got for here that played music when you open it! (The MIDI version of "Silent Night, Holy Night" if I recall correctly).

meredith — Fatty got Meredith The Art of Photographing Women! Ooooh, la la!

Amanda, Fatty and Grant embraced my newfound vegetarianism and got me...

...a guide to the best veggie restaurants in NYC! Thanks, guys!

fatty — Fatty got his 14th book of the night! The 30 year pictorial history of CBGBs!

amanda, grant, siege — Amanda got Grant a DVD player that plays DVDs from all regions so that he could watch DVDs from England!

amanda, fatty, siege — Amanda (I think!) got Siege...

siege — ...an LED belt buckle that you can program to display custom, scrolling messages on!

fatty — Siege gave us all awesome, limited-edition signed prints! Fatty got this portrait of himself (that was an out-take from Fiasco's first band photo shoot that Siege did).

meredith — Meredith got this rad picture of white-trash me cupping her ass that Siege took at his White Trash Birthday Bash!

me, meredith — I got this awesome print of naked Meredith showing off her dope-tastic boo-tay.

amanda — And Grant got a picture of Amanda that was an out take from when she appeared in Ghostbusters and got attacked by Slimer.

grant — Grant got a giant thing of massage oil - because everyone knows that he's super into hours of candle-lit foreplay and erotic massage. That guy's a dyed-in-the-wool sensualist!

siege — Siege got a game called "What the F*ck" that's supposed to help you instigate naughtiness at parties. (Yeah, like this fuggin' guy needs help in that department).

siege — He also received a lump of coal. Hahaha.

grant — And finally....Grant got a new backpack! (By the way, there were like 20 other pictures of lots of little gifts but I decided to not include them because this entry is already ridiculously long). After we were done with the present giving, we talked Grant into giving us...

grant, siege — ...a fashion show of his new underwear! Check Siege's expression! Hahahah.

fatty — The funniest part of the night is when I sat down to look something up on Fatty's computer and when I typed in the letters "G" and "I," Fatty's Google history totally sold him out and revealed one of his previous Google searches: "gifts for guys that like guitars with babies" that was clearly from when he used Google to try to figure out what to get his little brother for the holidays. This is fucking priceless and I still laugh every time I see it.

Monday, December 26th

grant — The next morning Grant came over to my apartment bright and early (wearing his GRIZZ shirt, no less) to test out Dance Dance Revolution!

Best. Gift. Evaaaar!

hanukah, meredith — Later that night, Mer and I went uptown to visit her parents and light the menorah!

ellen, ian h, john f — Later that night I went to Piano's for some "Karaoke Killed the Cat" action. John, Ellen and Ellen's brother were all there!

ellen s — So was the OTHER Ellen in my life! Karaoke performer extraordinaire, Ellen Stagg.

kimila — I also finally got to sing karaoke with Kimi! I met her in passing at a party back when I was living in San Francisco (back when she was a blonde!) and we finally got to hang out after I ran into her after she'd moved to NYC!

amanda, goldteeth — Amanda and Chris!

amanda — Beltin' out Barracuda.

vadim — Vadim was there. So were his finger-less karaoke gloves.

vadim — Rokk!

john f — John hit the stage and got down to business for what I believe was his very first singing karaoke!

john f — He killed it!

goldteeth — Hahahah.

amanda — Amanda again! This time I think she was singing something by Heart.

amanda — Amanda, much like me, favors any song that involves a lot of SCREAMING!

goldteeth — Chris approves.

bret gelman, kimila — Bret Gelman and Kimi sang a duet!

amanda, vadim — Vadim and Amanda's tummy. Hahaha. So there you have it. One of the bestest Decembers ever. Happy Holidays!