Mid-Holiday Lull

So here we are in the eye of the storm, between the craziness of Christmas and the New Year.  Life has kept us all busy during the past few months, and I've actually felt the itch to blog far more often than in 2010.  I'm making regular posting a priority for 2012.

After two years of being tardy with the holiday spirit, we actually started decorating the day after Thanksgiving.  Hosting a holiday party on December 3rd gave us the perfect motivation for getting the tree up, the lights on the outside of the house, and festive lit garlands inside.  And the party was, I believe, a rousing success - what with the fifty-some people crowded into our tiny main floor, the Winter Warlock theme cocktail* and the karaoke machine going full blast in the living room.  At one point, someone found me in the kitchen and said, "you need to come see this..."  I pushed through the crowd of stunned onlookers snapping photos with phones and digital cameras to see my 17 year old son giving a karaoke performance for the ages.  As longtime readers know, Tyler is not the most outgoing or social person, and coupled with his hatred of crowds and the normal teen angst, performing FOUR karaoke numbers in front of fifty plus people was not exactly high on my List of Things I Thought I'd See, Ever.

But when it came time to pile into the car and head north to Bellingham for Christmas Eve, my boy was back to his hermit persona.  Which we're actually learning to be okay with.

Said Christmas Eve celebration in Bellingham was a lovely gathering at my mom & stepdad's place (formerly my grandparents' home), including my sister & niece, brother & sis-in-law, stepmom and grandmother.  We shared a wonderful meal, exchanged gifts, drew names for next year's exchange, and headed home.

On Christmas day, we stayed home and didn't do a thing.  Oh, we did the stockings and gift thing, I cooked breakfast, and we mostly lounged around in our pajamas all day, watching movies.  Kayleigh got The Lion King blu-ray, and I was the happy recipient of Thor, Amadeus, Stand By Me and Citizen Kane bu-rays.  Kayleigh also got a bit choked up when she found a framed version of this photo in her stocking:

Kayleigh with Bob Schneider at the Triple Door, Seattle (2011)

It was perfect.  And Boxing Day was perfect too.  Now we have a short week, and the New Year this coming weekend.  My New Year was back on November 1st, but what the hell?  It's a reason to celebrate with friends.

Then, in a few short weeks, we'll be in production on The Collectibles episodes 4-7.  Looking forward to getting back on the set with some terrifically talented people.

And then there's Green Light, the screenplay Raechelle and I have been planning for two years.  We finally outlined it this year, and now the first draft is almost done.  It's the somewhat fictionalized story of what happened to me after Samantha died, and what happened to Raechelle after her breakup with her ex, and how there were several opportunities for a crossover of worlds, but we didn't end up meeting until a certain guy placed an ad for a vocalist on a certain online bulletin board.

Crazy.

Anyway, we're almost done.  When we have a workable first draft, we'll give it to Dan Heinrich and Lisa Coronado to look at.  From there it will be honed, sharpened, shopped, sold and produced.  Hopefully here in Seattle.  Although the Washington State legislature just tied our film industry tax incentives to a homeless spending bill and drowned it to death.  But that's a topic for another post...