New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve marked the 7th Annual Lord of the Rings Marathon our family has had, two of those having been in Turkey where I was born and lived till I was nine years old. I regret that I have only been a part of that tradition for four of those years, but I have enjoyed every one of them immensely. It is sort of the highlight of the year in our house, besides Christmas, that is. Our tradition has been to take down the Christmas tree in the morning and start the FOTR at 2:00 PM, that way we end at 2:00 AM. We generally take about 45 minutes to an hour for supper and then start The Two Towers around 7:30 or so. This year we watched it the day after getting home from a ski trip to Angel Fire in New Mexico. We got home the day before, unpacked and then went to see The Hobbit again so that we'd have it in its proper place before watching the trilogy the next day. Often people ask us over for New Year's Eve parties and we always reply with, "Sorry, we'd love to come, but we're watching Lord of the Rings." Lord of the Rings is more than a movie to us, more than a story, and definitely more important than fireworks!