Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, Happy Hanukkah to others, and a belated Happy Solstice to all!

Those holidays are great and all, but the holiday I’ve been most obsessed with this month has been the birthday of a certain someone, and I don’t mean baby Jesus. Because birthdays are pretty sacred in my book, I did my best to ensure the celebration lasted all month long – because, really, birthmonths are much more fun than birthdays.

Mark’s month of celebrations included the following: tickets to see a cool local-ish band that we like, dinner out at a nice Japanese restaurant, several good beers that I knew he would like (one of which we just shared tonight), a trip to the Duclus & Thompson Meat Shack for some local bacon and sausages, take-out from a great Asian place that we like to have when we’re in St. Albans (I happened to travel there for work), some homemade magnets, a new UVM hat, and this: an overnight adventure at a new water park at Jay Peak Resort.

Those colorful tubes at the top are water slides, and what you see at the bottom of that photo is my favorite part of the new 50,000 sq ft facility – the hot tub.

Mark’s favorite part just might have been La Chute, the red water slide that dropped him in a ~60ft free fall before sending him shooting around, upside down, and splashing through to a big finish.

I was not nearly as brave. Like I said, the hot tub was enough excitement for me.

We both loved the little getaway – from the water park to the 70’s style condo to the free breakfast to the snowboarding and snowshoeing at the mountain. Oh wait, that last part didn’t happen. This gift of going to Jay Peak for Mark’s birthday was supposed to include snowboarding. I ordered snow! But the weather gods didn’t cooperate and for now, the season has been snowboard-less for my guy. Fingers crossed that things will turn around this week (before we head out of town).

The holidays – and Mark’s birthmonth – aren’t over of course: there are Christmas gifts to open and New Year’s celebrations to have. But something tells me that the most thrilling part of the month is already behind us.

Wishing you an exciting holiday season – with or without water slides.