Merry Christmas from Relient K!

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How great to be alive in the Christmas season, surrounded by holiday cheer and the people who care about you. Some of the things I love:

– Hot apple cider with cinnamon and cloves
– Cheery fires in the fireplace
– Big, fat, falling snowflakes
– Snowboarding (finally!)
– Slippers
– Christmas lights (especially the blue and white ones)
– Family and friends

Ok so I think I just made myself puke a little with my excessive schmaltz, but really I am a sucker for the holidays. On Sunday we had a Christmas party at our clubhouse. We had a metric ton of our friends there, and since it was a Thanksgiving/Christmas thing, we had turkey and stuffing and everything like that. Scrumptious. At the end of the evening we did a White Elephant gift exchange, and I have to say, Sarah and I really outdid ourselves. We brought a singing Santa, a horrendous ceramic Strawberry-Shortcake-esque monstrosity, a book containing everything you ever wanted to know about the band Hanson, a second-hand Awesome Blossom™ maker, and a Windows 95 for Dummies book. How happy we made some of our friends!

Then last night our church had an event at a nursing home where everyone gave some gifts to a resident or two. We brought a blanket for a woman and some sweatpants and socks for an old guy. How sad that that’s what he asked for! I hope they keep him warm. We picked him because his name was Tex Payne. I wish I had an infamous comic book name like that! The night ended with some of our friends leading everyone in some Christmas songs. Good times.

Well I hope you all get a chance to get close to your near and dear ones in the next few weeks. And don’t let the hustle and bustle crowd out Christ who is born into our hearts!

Listening to "Get Behind Me, Santa!" from the album Songs For Christmas, Vol. V: Peace by Sufjan Stevens

Wiser men than me once summed it all up by saying, “All things must pass.”

I always get this sinking, end-of-summer-camp feeling on the last day of tour. It’s when I start to realize that hey, maybe I should have hung out with this guy more, or man, I should have gotten to know that guy better; I’ll miss seeing his smiling face pass me by on my way to coffee. But so it goes.

The Appetite for Construction tour has really been amazing. First of all, it’s the first tour we’ve done in a while where some of the proceeds go to charity. And a great charity at that. After being on some of the builds and getting to know a little more about Habitat, I feel honored to have been at least a small part of something so meaningful.

Getting acquainted with Switchfoot a little was wonderful as well. We’re not separated by many years, but I felt like a youngster next to them, looking up to older brothers you’d like to emulate. With Switchfoot, what you see on stage with them is what you get. They are a bunch of humble, funny, engaging guys that are an encouragement to be around, and they led Bible studies on Sundays that were a source of nourishment and camaraderie. I think God is pleased with them.

Ruth are a bunch of frank, hard-working fellows whose affections are genuine and whose affectations are none. They definitely fall under the should-have-gotten-to-know-them-better category. Once or twice one of them would say something so endearing in conversation it took me totally off-guard.

High points of the tour:
1) Habitat builds that made me feel like a normal person keeping normal hours
2) Bocce ball
3) DANCE PARTIES on Switchfoot’s bus
4) Copious amounts of Guitar Hero
5) Watching our bus driver Eddie’s miniature wiener dog perform miniature tricks

Low points of the tour:
1) 12 people is too much for one bus
2) Embarrassingly and painfully hitting my thumb with a hammer on a build
3) “Tour Olympics” that didn’t quite turn out
4) Being weepy watching Dave leave the stage of his last tour show

Listening to "Like an eagle stirs its nest" from the album songs hidden in eggs by Roger Flyer