Not Raining but No Parade

New Year's Day mornings on Sundays are always odd.

It's been a tradition since its inception that the Tournament of Roses Parade is transferred to Monday, January 2, when the New Year is on a Sunday. So it seems a particularly empty morning for the first day of January.

We'd planned to go to the movies this afternoon, but we had coupons at BJs that would run out on Tuesday, and several of the coupons were for things we wanted for our Twelfth Night party. So we drove up to Woodstock while listening to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," under a gradually lowering sky. (It rained while we were in BJs, but otherwise the predicted precipitation was a washout. [Yeah, that pun was intended.]) We stocked up on a few things (including some Q-Tips it turns out we didn't need) along with party supplies, then came home. We had a late lunch while watching a Shaun the Sheep DVD and then HGTV's RV Show 2012 (which was evidently filmed much earlier, as it was high summer in the Hershey, Pennsylvania, setting!). We also watched a Burt Wolf special about New Year's traditions—an unusual program, as you usually see specials at this time of year about Christmas traditions, but never about New Year.

I realized I hadn't watched one of my favorite Christmas stories this season, the Little House on the Prairie episode "Christmas at Plum Creek," so I put that on, followed by Rudolph's Shiny New Year. By then it was time for dinner. We had yummy pork roast with four-color rice on the side, and a pumpkin souffle for dessert. On the fly we decided to go to the movies anyhow...since we had free tickets, it didn't matter if we went to the matinee or more expensive evening performance. So we arrived in good time to get nice center seats for The Adventures of Tintin.

This yarn is pure roller coaster adventure. There's minimal character development and very little explanation, but super CGI and almost nonstop action from beginning to end. Tintin's little dog Snowy is both intelligent and super agile, but most of the time he just acts like a dog, providing several amusing scenes. There's no time to catch your breath until the last scene takes place (conveniently setting up a sequel) and while there's no real redeeming social value, it's also a brilliantly colored, seat-of-your-pants odyssey. Listen hard: there are several throwaway "adults only" jokes that will go completely over kids' heads.

Back home to relax. We discovered we have a necessary errand tomorrow: James has a headlight out. So we'll have to go to Wally World or an auto supply store to get a new one tomorrow.