Let’s eat too much food, stay up late watching movies and enjoy our gifts – I got the feeling that not even Chinese health concerns could keep Santa from getting us what we asked (because we’ve been so fucking nice).
In the unlikely event that someone else would read this post before Christmas is over: we wish you a good one!
The best time of the year has officially started. It’s a very busy time for us, we have so many movies and TV shows to watch that, just like last year, we had to create a spreadsheet.
We have built a few new Lego ornaments for our tree and two small trees for our desks. But the greatest new piece is the Christmas train (featured picture). It isn’t complete yet, we’re taking our time, building it while watching the TV Show The Santa Clauses, which is surprisingly good.
We won’t have much time to post in the coming weeks but we’ll try to catch back later. Meanwhile, enjoy the season, get fat, spoil yourselves and have fun.
I’m writing this post as Soforah is courageously doing the grocery shopping while I’m at home with a bit of a cold. I’ve been dragging this bug for a few days now and it has turned into a runny nose with shivers kind of sick (Sing Soft Kitty!). Being sick in December has become some sort of tradition for me and I’d be a bit lost if it wouldn’t happen (as long as it’s not Covid, of course).
Anyway, we’re having an amazing end of 2021. We’re playing many games and, so far, our favourite is Marvel’s Guardians of The Galaxy. That game is incredible and we’ll probably write a lengthy post about it in January.
We’ve already been through a big chunk of our TV schedule for the end of the year and the movie that we’ve enjoyed the most is Finch with Tom Hanks. As for the TV shows, we’ve watched the final season of Lost in Space and it is definitely at the top of our list.
But December isn’t over yet and we still have many great things in stock for the coming weeks… Oh, I almost forgot, above is a picture of the Lego tribute to Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol that we’ve built Wednesday morning. Tis the season!
Edit 1: We don’t have Covid, yay! We just tested ourselves.
Edit 2: In the Christmas Lego above, there’s a secret compartiment that allows you to store super secret stuff. That’s so cool! Now, to find something secret to hide…
One of our greatest pleasures at the end of the year is to build LEGO houses for our Christmas town while watching corny movies. This year, we’ve built Santa’s Visit and it was super fun! It’s the third house from the left on the panoramic. My only regret is that I didn’t take any picture inside the house because it’s really cool and very detailed.
We’ve watched Home Sweet Home Alone and it was much better than what people say, I actually had a few good laughs. Then we watched The Holiday, I had no idea that there was a Christmas movie with Jack Black seducing Kate Winslet, but it was pretty entertaining.
Our Xmas tree is up. We’ve used coloured lights this year and I don’t think that we’ll ever go back to white lights. For us, Christmas isn’t about classic interiors or design decorations, it’s about colours, toys and 80s movies. We both grew up between the 80s and the 90s and our childhood nostalgia has probably something to do with our vision of Christmas. That’s why December will always be a month spent at home, in pyjamas, playing cool games, watching a ton of things on TV and being all dreamy around our Xmas tree.
We didn’t wait for Black Friday, we did all our purchases at the beginning of November, to avoid being victim of the worldwide electronic shortage. I won’t reveal what’s under our tree yet, I’m not even supposed to know. However, we already treated ourselves with some early Xmas presents: 2 new Nintendo Switch Oled and 2 XBOX Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 for our PCs. For the rest, we’ll have to wait the 25th.
December is about to begin… Our PCs are filled with new games, there’s a ton of movies and TV shows to watch on streaming, we even have a lot of books and comic books to read. We’re ready for the greatest time of the year!
I won’t be posting much in the coming weeks, but I’ll make sure to catch back in January. Until then, we wish you all (the only 3 people who visit our blog and the Chinese spam bots), an excellent end of 2021.
Our home working computers are hidden inside of a wardrobe, the apartment is fully decorated (picture above), the laundry basket is empty and everything is planned to the last detail. But you know how it goes, after 3 days the plan was entirely changed…
We were supposed to watch the second season of The Boys, followed by Truth Seekers. Instead, we’re re-watching one of our favourite TV shows ever: Dark and it is as good as the first time we watched it.
TLDR: We’re on holidays, we don’t follow the plan we had made and we’re having a blast. The best moments are often unplanned.
By the way: it’s my birthday and Soforah is making her infamous vegetarian lasagna for this evening, we’ll just have to pop it in the oven, life is good!
We’ve built an entire winter village, we’ve received our Homepod Mini, we’ve transferred our characters to another Realm and we’ve even seen Donald Trump, beat that!
Since it was impossible to log in World of Warcraft this week-end, mostly because of the impossibly long queues, we decided to cozy up and build our Lego Winter Village while watching Christmas movies. It was amazing and I only wish that there were more buildings available or that they would re-release the holiday train (which I’d buy in a blink).
We bought it to replace our Bose Mini speaker. I had no expectations and I was already resolved not to use Siri because I thought that I would feel silly talking alone in my apartment.
First, setting it up was as easy as usual: detected and recognized by all my Apple devices out of the box. The sound quality is amazing, it fills perfectly my living-room without exaggerating the bass like Bose usually does.
What I use the most is Siri. Yes, I know what I said earlier, but operating my music player without having to use anything else than my voice is incredibly useful. I can navigate through my music, set up a timer, check the time or the weather and even add songs to my playlists without having to get up.
Draenor is the most populated WoW server in the world. How does that translate in terms of gameplay: horrible lag, impossible queues and a constant feeling that you’re about to be disconnected. What do you get in return? Full cities and people everywhere, very active chats the feeling to be part of a huge community. Is it worth all the negative points? Certainly not!
We’re now less than a week from our winter holidays and I can’t picture myself waiting 2 hours in a queue only to be disconnected after an hour and returned at the back of the queue.
And the problems aren’t only related to the launch of Shadowlands, we’ve been experiencing laggy zones for months, which makes relaxing activities like fishing nerve-wrecking.
When Blizzard announced the free transfers to lower population realms, we moved our guild and all our characters to Stormscale. The cities are still filled with people, the prices at the auction house are decent and the experience is entirely lag-free, even fighting mobs or summoning our mounts feel smoother.
As the transfers were complete, I had to change the names of a few characters, since they were already used on the destination server. My Blood Elf Paladin is now named “Dumar” and I love it, it has a nice crusader ring to it.
We were building our Lego village while watching Christmas movies, among which: Home Alone 2. As Kevin is alone in New York, he ends up at the Plaza hotel where he asks his way to no one else than Donald Trump.
Donald, you’re everywhere lately!
I don’t think that anyone would be surprised to learn that we’re Lego fans. We’ve already built a few Lego sets in the past, including the Death Star.
A few weeks ago, we purchased the Elf Club House to add a bit Lego fun to our Christmas decorations. Well, that’s how it started… We now have a pretty nice winter village that’s over the 4000 pieces, we also have Lego tree ornaments and a Lego Christmas wraith!
I’ll post more pictures as we complete the builds.
What better time to tell a story than Christmas? It’s cold outside and cozy inside, we’re celebrating with our loved ones… But do we think about those who, secretly, work hard to make the magic happen? Well, this story is all about them.
Finally, the last week-end before Christmas, I can’t wait to celebrate. Unfortunately, all this fighting against the Burning Legion got me delayed on my preparations. There is still so much to do, gifts to buy, cards to send and a feast to cook. It’s going to take me all week-end but I can’t postpone it anymore, I must go shopping.
Normally, I love going shopping with Madstag, but only two days for an entire Christmas shopping is too short, I won’t have time to go chat at the fishing store or spend a half day around a bonfire, I must go alone. I’m sad for my man, he’s gonna have to spend an entire week-end alone, but this is not the time for romance, shopping is serious business.
I woke up early, took my breakfast and silently got out of Moonglade’s inn. Madstag is still sleeping, the poor thing is exhausted after weeks and weeks spent on that dreadful planet. This end of the year holiday will do him good…
First stop, Orgrimmar. Our ornaments got destroyed last year after our tree caught fire when I tried to make a flaming ice cream. It was totally not my fault, I just tripped over the cat. Anyway, I was tired of the white, it’s time to go multi-color! After an hour or two touring the shops, I’m already walking with more bags than I can carry, it’s time to go deposit all of this at the bank.
As I pass in front of the tavern, I can’t help but notice a sad Orc. He’s crying and no one seems to notice him. I walk to him and hand him a cinnamon roll, he accepts it and gives me a smile that means “thanks, but it won’t help much”. I ask him if I could do anything to help but he just shakes his head… Men and their pride, sigh.
I sit beside him and notice that his leg is in plaster. I ask him how it happened, but he burst in tears. After sobbing for a while, he finally explains me that he’s part of Greatfather Winter’s helpers and that he’s in charge of the distribution of the gifts this Winter Veil. He has spent an entire year collecting them but, as he was getting ready to place them under the trees all over Azeroth, he broke his leg and he won’t be able to do it.
What a dreadful situation! No gifts? We may as well cancel this year’s holiday, I won’t let it happen! I tell him that I’m more than willing to help, I’ll still have plenty of time for my shopping during the week.
He tells me that the gifts are hidden in a cave he rented. I ask him to draw me a map, but he obviously drowned his sorrows in more beer than he could hold, I’d better draw it myself. He tells me that the cave is located in Winterspring. The place is easy to find when you’re on the right path, which starts in Everlook.
No time to waste, I’m gonna take care of the gifts. I drop my bags at the bank, dreamwalk to Moonglade and fly to Winterspring. After a short flight, I finally land at Everlook. I take the path East, just as Arnok told me. I walk for about an hour when I finally see the entry of a cave.
I prepare a torch and walk in. The cave is pretty deep, which is weird for a storage place… As I reach the end of the path, I enter in a large circular room. The only light comes from a huge blue pearl on a pedestal located at the center. I can see a Night Elf lady screaming things in a language I don’t understand, then I hear a crack behind my head and everything gets blurred then black.
An entire month spent healing troops on Argus (and rescuing Dragondoe from the perillous situations she got into), I think that I’ve deserved a week-end of rest in Moonglade. I wish I could spend it with my lady, but, let’s be honest, I hate going to town. All that noise, all these people, it’s definitely not my cup of tea.
As Dragondoe is getting ready for her shopping trip, I pretend to still be sleeping. She’d probably look at me with her soft eyes and, as usual, I’d change my mind and go with her. I can’t take that risk, I’ve bought a ton of fishing bait and I can’t let it go to waste…
As I hear her leaving, I open an eye and inspect the room, it seems empty. I stay in bed a bit longer, to make sure that she didn’t forget anything. The coast is clear, I jump out of bed, get dressed and pick up my bag.
It’s gonna be a good one, I can feel it. I make my way to the border of the lake, install my fishing chair, make sure that no one is around and finally take off my boots. You see, people may think that I’m an adventurer, but where I belong is here, in the middle of the forest, with the squirrels and my slippers.
I ready my first cast, that’s usually when some catastrophe happens and I have to leave everything behind. The bobber is bobbing and nothing happens… Could this be real? Could this be THE week-end where I finally get to enjoy the calm and the peace of the nature. But it would be too easy… As I ready my second cast, an orc comes out of the bushes and asks me if I’m Dragondoe’s husband.
I loose it and start yelling “Let me guess, she tried to help someone and ended up in trouble? What is it this time? A sad dragon? An ancient warlord? A long forgotten prophecy? A devilsaur with a toothache? WON’T I EVER BE ABLE TO CATCH A BREAK?”
The Orc looks at me, half puzzled, half terrified… After a few minutes, I calm down and ask him what happened.
He tells me that his name is Arnok and he explains me that he’s one of Greatfather Winter’s helpers. He tells me how he has met my wife and how good a person she is, he also tells me that she’s gone to save the presents but that she might be on her way to the wrong cave. He was, apparently, a bit drunk when he gave her the directions and the zone where the gifts are hidden is also know to host many cultists and pirates lairs.
Afraid that such a good hearted person would end up in danger because of him, he asked around to see if anyone knew Dragondoe. Finally, it’s the owner of Orgrimmar’s fishing shop who told him that I was gone fishing and where he could find me…
After making sure that I have the correct location, I leave the Orc behind and fly to the rescue. From far, I can see Arnok taking my place in my fishing chair… At least someone will enjoy it. I fly straight to the right cave. It is indeed filled with presents, but, as we feared, Dragondoe is nowhere to be found.
I fly the to next cave on the right, it’s full of bandits and there’s no sign of my wife. I decide to check a third cave, this time on the left.
After walking down a long dark path, I can see a huge round room with a gigantic blue pearl in the middle. I shapeshift to cat and prowl to see what’s going on. A Night Elf lady is yelling things in a language I don’t understand to a crowd that seems to be worshiping the pearl.
Far, in a corner, I notice a few cages and Dragondoe is in one of them. Unnoticed, I make my way to her. She tells me that the cultists, led by that mad druid, are about to sacrifice her to the pearl.
There are too many cultists in here, we can’t risk getting both caught, I need a diversion.
I can see a few hay stacks on the other side of the room, I get closer and set them on fire. A thick white smoke quickly fills in the room. The druid and her followers try to put the fire out and, meanwhile, I get the pearl and run out of the cave.
The last time I felt this nervous, I was carrying the flag in Warsong Gulch…
I make my way to the other cave where the bandits are. I leave the pearl at the entry of their hiddeout and let out a huge growl. When the cultists finally arrive, decided to get their pearl back, the bandits already took possession of the oversized jewel.
I discretely make my way back to the cave where Dragondoe was kept prisoner.
As I enter the main room, I notice the evil Night Elf lady, she lays on the floor, where the pearl was before. She’s in tears and my wife is trying to cheer her up “don’t worry, there are plenty of other pearls in the ocean”.
The cult leader makes her best to talk in our language. We don’t understand everything but we get a few words “my precious”, “will not stop swimming”,… Then, she gets up, tidies up her robes and leaves the cave as if nothing happened.
We spent the rest of the week-end flying over Azeroth, dropping gifts at the foot of each Christmas Tree. Winter Veil was saved and I could finally enjoy the rest of my holiday in Moonglade.
As for the cult leader, we can sometimes hear the tale of a crazy druid lady who never stopped searching the seas for her beloved pearl…
This is by far my favourite X-mas movie ever! The film is a serie of interwoven stories tied together with William Shatner as a radio DJ. Shatners’ soothing voice and particular sense of humour create the feeling of warmth and coziness throughout these gruesome tales of horror. The four stories in themselves are great with a twist you’ll never see coming, featuring an epic battle between Krampus and Santa.
I absolutely love this movie! Christmas woudn’t be the same without A Christmas Horror story. It has become a holiday season classic, like “Trick ‘r Treat” for Halloween.
If you love Christmas and horror films, you should definitely watch this one!
Windchill is one of my Christmas holiday favourites. Two students share a ride home for the holidays. They end up in an accident, and, while waiting for help, they are haunted by the ghosts of the neighbourhoods’ brutal past.
I’ve watched this movie twice by now and still love it as much as the first time. It may not exceed in visual effects, but the acting and overall vibe of the movie makes entirely up for that. Emily Blunt is amazing and the snowy landscapes are just stunning. Eventhough I’m not a huge fan of rewatching things over and over again, I think that it won’t be the last time I’ve watched this film.
Like I’ve said before : definitely one of my favourites around this time of the year!
