All of this was inspired by my friend Robin Russo, always a source of inspiration, whose holiday card I received today in the mail.
Here is a photo that does it no justice:
The greeting reads, "Christmas can't kill me if I kill myself first!"
We can always count on Lady Russo to deliver the darkest in Holiday humor.
God i miss her.
Anyways, in preparation for one of this year's award-winning gifts, I started browsing through my iphoto looking for pictures to draw from, and ironically stumbled across photos of last year's Christmas, aptly named: "Streblow Christmas 2006: No illin'". Other handles included: "Walden Christmas" and "Strebwalden".
I was immediately submerged in dreamy thought marveling at how awesome last Christmas was. Instead of the usually troublesome extended family bonanza of pain, we decided to take it back to the promised land, just the four of us. We rented a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina on Christmas day and did the hardest chilling I have done in a long time. This was much earned, as the prior year went down in the books as "Most fucked-up holiday ever". My grandfather died that year and it was packed with show-stopping performances from everyone. That's a whole story on it's own though.
Here are some pics from our rustic mountain getaway:
This was pretty much dad's M.O. the whole time.
I think this is like 11 in the morning. And I'm pretty sure that's a cocktail.
This is a terrible photo of our delicious Christmas dinner.
After many drinks, we took it to the hot tub and took intoxicated photos of each other.
(The light looked magical ok?)
As if we weren't already having a good time, it start snowing and then it really was magical...
Let me tell you a little bit about where I come from:
we grow tobacco and love a good slaw dog.
Let's back up a few days though, and talk about how Thomas got stabbed at a party 2 days earlier. We had our Christmas Eve ritual a day early since we were going out of town, and all had a great time over at my Godmother Candy's house. This is more like the real 'family' if you ask me, and we always drink lots of champagne and wine and she fixes a Tortiere, which is like a French meat pie that makes everyone fart for days but is really delicious. There is always a "Christmas Date" hidden in the mass of ground meats and whoever gets it wins a prize and then we exchange gifts and sometimes play Charades, or just watch my mother and Candy be inappropriate, which is often the case. You should have seen the year they both tried anti-depressants and alcohol...
Anyways, we got home around midnight and Thomas against better judgment decided to go to a party. I went to bed after a fun but emotionally confusing evening only to be awoken by a phone call at 2:30AM from Thomas to take him to the emergency room because he had been "knifed at a party". Lest I remind you dear reader, that this is the suburbs of Winston-Salem North Carolina. So I went to come get him at this party which was a nightmare of cops, drama, blood, and annoying high school bullshit to drive across town and sit in the hospital til 5AM while he got stitches. Oh and I got to hear the 'story' about 50384 times.
So the story goes:
After an unwanted guest was asked to leave, he returned with his meth-fueled mountain posse of miscreants who called themselves the "King a Lings", as they are from a horrible place called King (pronounced kang). So the kangalangs pretty much showed up in Deliverance fashion and just started slashing. One suspect was donning a Confederate flag Dr. Suess hat. Thomas and many others had no idea they had been cut until they felt wet pools of blood.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
He was really excited about how hard this made him.
The other marking highlight of this particular trip for me was giving and receiving two of the most meaningful gifts; I made a portrait of the late patriarch for mom, and my long-time family friend Anthony gave me the most amazing jewel-encrusted turtle with a letter inside that is also another story...
Let's hope this year will be just as spectacular.
