It’s getting to be Christmas time again. That means a lot of awful annoying music that might have been fun at some point but after while just feels soul crushing, but also some that’s actually kinda good. Once again me and Erin have tried to assemble some of the better music (some new some old) to improve everyone’s holidays.

We just try not to repeat any exact tracks from previous years. I’m not sure we’ll be able to keep that up forever, but we managed to do it again this year. Some of our favorite Christmas songs are on previous year’s list, so you should check those out too (2012, 2011, 2010). If you listen to all 4 plays lists back to back, that’s over 4 hours of Christmas music.

Here’s a CD’s worth of Christmas music that Erin and I will be listening to this year. Merry Christmas!:)

1. Weezer - Hark! the Herald Angels Sing

   From the Christmas With Weezer album, one of my favorite Christmas albums and one of my favorite Christmas songs.

2. We Wish You a Merry Christmas - John Denver and the Muppets

   From the A Christmas Together album. We (me and Erin) really like the Muppets but I’m afraid I was unfamiliar with their “Christmas together” with John Denver until Erin showed me the light. It’s good stuff. Erin says that for this song’s full effect you need to see it, I can’t find a video of it though. If I find one, I’ll put a link here.

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My girlfriend Erin and I have put together a Christmas Playlist for 2011 of better than average to pretty good Christmas music.

1. Crash Test Dummies - Good King Wenceslas - Jingle All the Way

2. Guster - Tiny Tree Christmas - The Christmas Gig: Two Thousand Ten

3. Julian Casablancas - Christmas Treat

4. Low - Just Like Christmas - Christmas

5. The Killers - Joseph, Better You Than Me (feat. Elton John, Neil Tennant) - (RED) Christmas - EP

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So, while I was on my road trip (almost 6 months ago now) I took some video (mostly while I was driving). Maybe not the safest thing in the world, but I had some time to kill. I figured I would edit it all together when I get home. Put it to the tune of Mr Space Man. The hi-light of course, being the shuttle launch. Alas, no shuttle launch, at least while I was there, so I kinda lost some of my motivation to finish putting the movie together. I finally made my self finish it though. Nothing amazing, but hopefully it will help me remember how much fun I had (making it sure did).

We had to get up early to get our flight home. I got to see Clair in the morning during breakfast. Eric told her I did not cry this time when I rode the Metro.

Eric gave us a ride to airport. They have a pretty sweet ‘84 BMW (that’s 2 years older then Carol, but in a lot better shape).

The plane ride home turned out to be a lot better then the one to London. We were a little concerned going through the airport because the lines were so long, we made it through with a few minutes to spare though.

I surprised myself, and woke up just enough to mumble “goodbye” to Elysia as she was going out the door (didn’t manage to get out of bed right then though). Then me and Heather slept in longer then we wanted to. We were planning to actually go inside the Louvre today, and considering it was Sunday there might be long lines. We did manage to find time to stop for a croissant before we got on the Metro though (always a good decision). Turns out the line wasn’t too long and we got in pretty quick.

We slept a little later than usual (that’s usual for this trip, not usual for me), then we headed over to one of Paris’s premier art Museum’s the Musée d’Orsay. On our walk to the Metro we stopped at a fruit stand and a bakery for breakfast. After that I decided I would try to eat at least one croissant a day.

The Musée d’Orsay was awesome. It’s an enormous converted train station with a huge glass roof. I had not heard of it (or if I had, I had forgotten, I’m bad with names, especially those from romantic languages). Elysia thought the art there would be something more manageable in a short time then the Louvre’s so we decided to go there before Elysia had to go home.

Got up early to catch our train to Paris. One last breakfast at the hotel before checking out. I kinda like Netherland’s breakfasts. It’s mostly just bread, meat and cheese. At first it did not really feel like breakfast food, but after a few days I started looking forward to it.

We got on the tram and headed to central station (fortunately no strike that day or if they did strike again it was later in the day).

One of our main reasons for making Amsterdam on of the stops on our trip was that it was the height of Tulip season. Heather had done some research and apparently a good place to go to look a tulips is the Keukenhof gardens. They are only open for two months every year (during tulip season). They have thousands of varieties of tulips and people come from all over the world.

This turned out to be our first really nice day on our trip. We had, had some sun in England, but the days had been mostly cloudy and always a little chilly. It was sunny and got up to about 65 F.

We had been keeping an eye on the weather so we had planning to spend the day outside.

First we head out of the city to see some windmills. There was a little town Heather had researched a short train ride away called Zaanse Schans so we headed out there. It was touristy, but it was not very crowded and they have 6 operational windmills doing things like making flour, paint, and lumber. Also the town had a big chocolate factory in it so the whole place smelled like coca.