Do S'mores Go Better with a Red or a White?

About six weeks after we moved into our new place with our friend Kelly, we decided the apartment was finally organized enough to throw a house-warming party. Though the walls were still pretty bare, the furniture was in place and the dishes were in the cabinets, so we moved what was left of our boxes into the back bedroom and invited our friends over.

Since the fall was beginning to transition into winter here in Chicago and since we wanted to make use of now having a working fireplace, we decided to make it a s'mores party. So we went to Costco and bought chocolate and graham crackers and marshmallows in bulk, and in the Facebook invitation that went out, we encouraged people to bring firewood. Whether it was a whole bundle or just a few sticks found on the side of the road during their walk to our place, we figured anything would help keep the fire going for a few hours. But this is how I know we go to a progressive church: no one brought any wood at all. Instead, all of our nearest and dearest Christian brother and sister (who were the bulk of people we invited) showed up with various forms of alcohol. Though I may prefer to pair my s'mores with milk, others apparently prefer champagne or ale. Either way, the party went on smoothly...though with a limited amount of firewood.

A couple of weeks after our housewarming, Thanksgiving arrived. Like last year, Cary Anne and I planned on sticking around Chicago for the holiday, and luckily most of our friends decided to do the same, so we arranged a couple of potlucks. The night before Thanksgiving, Cary Anne found out she would be largely responsible for cooking the turkey, a task she had never before done. So on Thanksgiving morning, she headed over to Nick and Michelle's place (since they were hosting the potluck) to get started, while I stayed back to oversee a couple of casseroles. I am by no stretch of the imagination a cook. I've managed to mess up instant mashed potatoes in the past, so I was a bit nervous, but thankfully things turned out OK. By the time I arrived with the dishes, the table was already full of delicious looking food.

Josh was brave enough to step up and take on the turkey carving responsibility while the rest of us piles our plates high with green beans and sweet potatoes. Cary Anne did a great job with the bird considering her total lack of experience, and we all spent the afternoon eating way too much food, talking about the recent discovery of a meth lab in a Kentucky Walmart bathroom, and watching reruns of "How I Met Your Mother."

Later that night, the two potlucks merged for a night of board games and dessert at our place. Our kitchen counter became crowded with several different kinds of pie as we stood around drinking coffee and talking about our day. Soon, we decided to open up the board games. One of the highlights of the night came when we opened the "Cranium" box and realized that the playdough used in the game had grown hard and was starting to crystalize and mold. I told my friend Ben I'd give him a dollar if he put it in his mouth for 2 minutes. I said it as a joke, but to my surprise he actually did it. Somewhere out there, there's cell phone footage of him enduring a very long 120 seconds of a mouthful of germy clay. I ended up giving him $1.50 for sheer commitment and ballsiness.

Overall it was a great holiday, and the next day, on Black Friday, Cary Anne went crazy at Michael's, buying up all the Christmas decorations she could fit in her cart. Within days she had our place decked with garland and wreaths. But more on that next time...

Thanksgiving Things

Last weekend, Chicago had it's annual Lights Festival, which is when the city decides it's close enough to Christmas to turn on all the stringed lights along Magnificent Mile and throws a parade. Since Cary Anne and I have been making an effort to get out of the apartment and actually see what the city has to offer, we decide to take the Vespa downtown to check things out. As you can imagine, there were about a million people there (and, based on the population of Chicago, that estimate is probably not hyperbole.)

Though the actual festival is an all day event, Cary Anne and I just made it down for the parade portion. Apparently this town loves parades so much that they have one for the Lights Festival, then they have another one 5 days later for Thanksgiving. However, this parade started at 5:30pm, and the Thanksgiving one kicks off at 8:30am, so you can guess which one I'd rather go to.

Overall, the parade was everything you'd expect: big floats, marching bands, screaming children. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday night in Chicago.

Then, yesterday was Thanksgiving. When Cary Anne and I decided to move to Chicago at the beginning of November, I wasn't sure what to expect for Thanksgiving. I knew we really wouldn't have money to spare to go to either one of our home towns, and I thought there might be a good chance that the holiday would turn into Cary Anne and I eating turkey sandwiches alone in our apartment, which was a depressing thought. But then, lo and behold, we got invited to two Thanksgivings here in the city (which is really just God showing off).

First up was Thanksgiving at our friend Stacey's apartment. Stacey and I each attended Pace University during our Freshman year of college, then we both transferred to schools closer to home, and we've just recently reconnected here in Chicago. Thanksgiving at Stacey's was basically an Orphan Thanksgiving, where a bunch of people who had no where else better to go ended up together. So the whole thing was 15 relative strangers sitting around, sharing a meal together, and getting to know one another, which was really cool. 

Next, we hopped over to Jesse and Ruth's, who are friends of ours from church, for desert. Much like Stacey, Jesse and Ruth were hosting several friends who had nowhere better to go. It was a really great time getting to know a whole bunch of new people (for the second time that evening), and we are continually surprised by how many people God has put in our lives in such a short time when we really knew no one in this city. All in all, we got to eat good food, play a lot of games, and thank God for how He has provided for us over the past year while celebrating where is is leading us.

After celebrating new friends, we got to celebrate something even closer to the American spirit: consumerism! Thats right, we stayed up til midnight to score some sweet deals on presents for friends and family (which really was necessary this year seeing as how we blew the majority of our savings on the move and being unemployed for a month). If you want to hear details about our Black Friday adventure, hop over to Spencer's comedy blog.