CD Day

Today was CD Day - Christmas Decorating Day. This is the day that my dear wife explodes Christmas decorations all over our house. She never manages to get all the decorations up in a single day. Especially since putting up the tree and the outdoor decorations is my job. But she always gets a really good start.

Since the twins have gotten a bit older, all three kids have gotten into helping. This morning as I was levaing the house, as the door closed I heard both twins ask thier Mom, "Dad's gone, can we start now?"

Now I really don't know what goes on in my home on CD day. I haven't been here for it for almost 18 years. Eighteen years ago, before I was ever married several friends and I got together on the day after Thanksgiving to play a game of Advanced Civilization. That day and game has became a habit for us. Now it is a tradition.

Originally we called it out Friday after Thanksgiving Civ Game. We shortened it, for communications ease to FATCG. Then after a couple years of winning the game, Rodney started getting a reputation of being the guy to beat. By this time we had made this game an annual event. So the name was changed to AFAT(RMD)ACG - Annual Friday After Thanksgiving (Rodney Must Die) Advanced Civ Game.

Rodney doesn't win as often as he used to. We don't really gang up on him like the name implies. But we do trash talk about beating up on him, but it is all in fun. Except for the one year that we had a new player join our group and he took the name seriously and spend the whole game attacking Rodney. We finally got him straightened out and he has become a regular for our game.

Just for the record, I won the game this year. I was playing Babylon and really had a lot of breaks go my way. It was almost too easy. I got to pick my civilization first. I didn't have any neighbors really pressing me for land until late in the game. I skated through most of the calamaties. I made several good trades. All in all it was the kind of game that I rarely get to play - one where everything pretty much goes my way.