Movies, family gatherings, and a gaming session.”Assassin’s Creed” is a video game movie. The setup is horrible science fiction, but once you swallow the HUGE initial improbability load, the story stays true to its own rules, and works pretty well. We enjoyed this one. But the initial setup is REALLY silly.“Sing” is an old fashioned “Let’s put on a show” musical done with animated anthropomorphic animals. It has some wonderful moments, but most of the characters are poorly conceived, and many of the sequences attempt simple innocence and fall into childishness. Not reccommended.

We did the household gift exchange on Yule, mostly to clear out the clutter around the fireplace.

We got together with brother Pete and family on Christmas Eve, had steak fondue, had odd conversation, and played Scattergories. This gathering is a long standing tradition; this year was the first time that there was no one from the previous generation in attendance. Time goes on.

On the 28th I drove south again to join Pete and his family, again, at my father’s residence, for dinner. Afterwards in my father’s room, we called my father’s older sister Corneilia on a speaker phone. Aunt Neil told stories of her childhood, which I MAY have heard before, but am vague on. Apparently my grandparents sent the kid’s off to go carolling with another relative on Christmas Eve every year, and while the kids were gone, the two of them set up and decorated the tree, hung the stockings, and hid all the presents around the house for a Christmas morning scavenger hunt. Sounds cool, but WOW a lot of work.

On the 31st we stayed home, watched Farscape, packed it in at about five minutes after midnight.

On the 1st I drove up to Lake Geneva Games and played Feast for Odin, again. Game owner Tom Wham was a bit too successful at recruiting, and since he already had four players, chose to stand by as game master, observer, and occasional coach. I ended up winning by a significant margin. I was ahead anyway, but Tom gave me some last round advice that probably doubled my victory margin. The game still seems REALLY random in the early stages, though.

On the way home from Lake Geneva I detoured through Zion to visit with Ed, Doug, and Don R. at their new (since July) house. It has a witch’s hat tower over the entryway. I haven’t talked to any of them face to face in far too long.

And finally: Final tally on the rowing machine for December was 167 KM, against an initial goal of 155. Not sure where I am going in January…

Uncle Hyena