Ten days out from Christmas and I must admit that I have the holiday spirit. Here we go with my latest Thursday Rundown…

Christmas Bowling Party – Sidney and I are on the holiday party circuit right now. However, we don’t know if any of the gatherings we attend will match the one we went to last Friday. Sidney had her work Christmas party at a bowling alley in Myrtle Beach. I spent the evening hanging out with teachers, eating a lot of finger foods, and of course bowling. Sidney and I played four games and I managed to score in the 140-range for three of them (an achievement for me). For our first ever Christmas bowling party, we had a lot of fun.

This is Sidney and I at the Palmetto Bays School Christmas party.

Reser Kids as Newborns – When I told the story of our 3D ultrasound, I mentioned that Sidney and I looked at the detailed photos pretty hard. We tried to see if we could distinguish any features in ourselves to our developing daughter. My mom tried to help us determine any similarities by sending me the newborn photos of my sister, my brother, and myself. Verdict is still out on whether any similarities exist with our baby but it provides a great excuse to share these photos.

Here is a collage of the Reser kids as newborns. I am in the top left hand corner. My sister is below me. And my brother is on the right.

Killer Dog – I have mentioned this particular food item before, but I need to bring it up again. Last night, we all went out to celebrate my sister-in-law’s 30th birthday at Carolina Roadhouse, a great restaurant in Myrtle Beach. This place is home to a giant hot dog called the Killer Dog. I have ordered it on a couple of other occasions and I made sure to order it last night. The best part was the reaction of my mother-in-law when I told her I was going to get it again.

“But they have such a good menu…” she reasoned.

And she was absolutely right. Carolina Roadhouse is a fabulous restaurant with a mouthwatering menu. In fact, it is such a good place that my parents went there twice when they came this past summer for the wedding. But I had thought about that Killer Dog the whole day at work and by the time I sat down at the table I was craving it. I now have leftovers for the next week.

This was my Killer Dog at Carolina Roadhouse last night. It seems to get bigger and bigger each time I go.

Gold Again – Our social media program at Coastal Carolina University recently received more national recognition. I introduced #CCU Keys to Success as our 2016 summer social media Facebook campaign. Just this past week, it received the gold award in the Education Digital Marketing Awards. We sent members of our alumni community keyboard tattoos to put on the keyboards of their work computers. Once they applied the tattoos, they would take photos (one photo of their hands on their keyboard and one full frontal shot) and send them back to me. With the images, they also included a paragraph on the literal keys to success they learned at Coastal. The images and the testimonials made for great posts throughout the summer.

A screenshot of an actual post used in the #CCU Keys to Success campaign. Thank you to Mr. Dennis Davis for allowing me to use his feature in this post.

From the Archives – I have a few blog posts I wrote over the years on December 15 to present to you for your reading consideration. Three years ago I wrote about five shopping mall trends I noticed while out doing my holiday shopping. Two years ago I gave my opinion on an event that portrays Santa in a bad light and that has gotten progressively worse over the years. Then, one year ago on this date, before fake news was even a thing, I explained how I fell for a Facebook hoax. Once again, take your pick on what you want to click on.

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I suggest this weekend you take an hour or so to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate in front of the Christmas tree. In my opinion, there is no better way to get in the holiday spirit. Don’t Blink.