holiday plans are filling up the calendar

It's hard to believe, but it's just one week until Thanksgiving and just five weeks until Christmas! Our calendar has really filled up over the past few days, and I think we will have just the right combination of external activities, friends and family time, and alone time to have a very nice holiday season. Some of our activities are annual, some are special occasions, and some are new additions to our calendar. So, what are we doing for the holidays this season?

November 8 - TSO concert (as posted about previously)
November 27 - Thanksgiving Dinner with Ben, Deb, and Ari joining us
November 29 - Chris' birthday dinner
December 2 - Chris' birthday
December 6-7 - Dogwood Pacesetters Christmas flyball tournament
December 9 - Child's Play Charity Dinner and Auction
December 13 - Christmas Tree selection and decoration
December 14 - Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis
December 15 - Seattle Men's Chorus holiday concert
December 20 - My mother and sister arrive for Christmas

I'm very excited about our plans for this year, especially our tickets for the Child's Play Charity auction and dinner. This is the charity that Chris and I donate to every year, and you can learn more about what they do at www.childsplaycharity.org. In a nutshell, Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade set this up in response to claims that gamers are a blight on society, and the aim of the charity is to donate games and other items to children's hospitals. The first year include just Children's in Seattle, and it has grown every year since then to include children's hospitals across the USA and now around the world. They provide Amazon wishlists and Paypal links to each hospital, and donors select what they want and send it directly to the hospital of their choice, so the CPC guys don't need to put much overhead cost into the charity drive at all. If you'd like to give back to your community, this is a nice direct way to do so - it's wonderful knowing that I picked out a Game Boy and four board games for a hospital, instead of just writing a check.

I hope everyone is having fun planning out their holiday season! While we will not be visiting the East Coast during the holidays this year, we are tentatively planning to come out next year. We will definitely be at Dan's wedding in September in Ohio, and we hope to be able to swing another trip in December for Christmas. As always, however, we will have to wait and see!