Happy Life Day

Happy Life Day! And what a day it was. Though no one has laid claim to when Life Day exactly is, we here in this household are putting it in November, as the original intent was for the Star Wars characters to mirror a Thanksgiving holiday, rather than a Christmas one. So November 3rd it is!

Okay, so there are probably many non-geeks out there that are trying to figure out: what is Life Day? Put simply, it is the reason there is a "Star Wars Holiday Special." Chewbacca and his family celebrate it, and he's got to get home in time for the big gathering. Will he make it?

The better question is, will you make it? This is a very bad television program from 1978. In fact, it is so bad that George Lucas is credited with saying this statement: "If I had the time and a hammer, I'd track down every bootleg copy and smash it."

Fortunately, he hasn't been to our house yet. That would be awkward.

This was the year that Daddy decided we'd go through a rite of passage as true Star Wars fans. We'd never seen this atrocious bit of television before. We chose this because it is the slightly Christmas season. That's the time of year before Thanksgiving where things are slightly Christmasy, and not quite yet the full yuletide onslaught. We generally pick "winter" music, and try to watch movies that have a Christmas theme, but aren't so in-your-face with Santa and the North Pole. So "The Star Wars Holiday Special" it was. Yikes!

Yesterday, we began the season off at church in the office. Madison and Mommy came to visit, and everyone from the office sat in the auditorium for the annual screening of "Claymation Christmas." There were cookies and cupcakes, and afterwards Christmas music and even small trees with lights plugged into USB ports. Definitely fun! Madison enjoyed it, just as she did last year.

So what did we do for Life Day today? Good question! Well, first, we did a lot of homework in the morning. There was quite a bit of speech homework practiced - but soon we had a dilemma: basically, Daddy needed a giant apple costume. I am not making that up. We're doing a Juicy Fruit series this weekend, and Daddy wanted a giant apple costume. SO, we drove our car down to Duluth to a costume shop that we frequent - and there we found our giant apple costume. On the way back, we decided to stop at the Disney Store to pick up our copy of "Cars 2." And while there... we found Madison's Cinderella dress. We had a few great coupons, which in total chopped off $25 from our total bill, so that was pretty cool. The employees there were enamored with Madison, who had probably the best time she's ever had at a Disney Store here locally. First, she got to parade around as Cinderella in her dress and shoes. But then there were the toys. And the fawning. Yes, the employees were quite impressed with our little princess - so much that they gave her a few stickers. I have a feeling if we stayed any longer, we could have gotten much more. BUT, it was time for ballet practice.

We got there just in time. Talk about a full day! Mommy nodded off a bit while we waited outside. Meanwhile, Madison was having a fantastic time inside, dancing like a cat - or other creatures that dance.

It's been very rainy today. And windy. Still is, in fact. But, it was a good day. We got home in time to share a milk with Madison and get her off to bed - she was quite tired. But so were we! We sat here with the hanging question: what do you want to watch?

And then Daddy came up with a brilliant idea...