When in Florissant, you have a Settlers of Catan Christmas, complete with nuns of the Holy Virgin Orthodox Monastery, chickens, and the Hoot n’ Holler.
To get to Florissant, you drive through Woodland Park and Divide. Once you get to the Hoot n’ Holler, you confirm that your cell service isn’t working and pull over. Surely Theresa will find you. While waiting, watch an SUV pull into the winding H&H driveway and consider spending Christmas with them. They seem nice. They waved as they passed. Surely they’ll take me in.
But Theresa shows up, and the Hollerites are denied (spared?) my guestly presence.
Florissant has it all. First, there are endless Settlers of Catan games, all of which I lose because I refer to grain as straw, refuse to build roads (roads are boring — I want more Development Cards!), and drink heavily every time Samuel screams “Catan!” as he builds yet another city. And because Dan cheats. Which is actually fine since I’m the banker, and I don’t give Dan his resource cards unless he asks for them, reducing his resource card acquisition by roughly 43%.
Then there’s the Protection of the Holy Virgin Orthodox Monastery, where pre-nuns hang out for six months in silence without brewing so much as a pint of beer. And there are loads of chickens. And exactly 47 episodes of Gummi Bears bouncing here and there and everywhere. That’s 640 minutes of Gummi Bears, people. Who needs Red Bull when you have Gummi Bear juice? Am I right?
And there are two awesome dogs, three horses, one pony, and one stinking cute burro. Denver and Oxford are the dogs. The burro I’ve named Catan! (for obvious reasons). The horses and pony probably also have names. It would be kind of weird if they didn’t.
And lest I forget, there’s Nook, my new e-reader. I’ve had Nook for 3 days now, and I haven’t let him out of my sight. I’ve watched The Mindy Project (“Stop calling it The Mindy Show. Catan!” ~ Samuel), reread The Westing Game, started reading The Marriage Plot, and caught up with this month’s New Yorker, Cosmo, National Geographic, and In Style. Awesome.
It was a lovely Settlers of Catan Christmas holiday. Snowy and cozy with good eats and drinks and even better company. I hope your holiday was lovely too.
