May your holiday be bright and shiny,
and your ‘verse, filled with shindigs and thrilling heroics.
- Kaylee and Jayne
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Happy holidays, y’all! As I said the other day, I’ve been dying to do some holiday cosplay with Kaylee and Jayne ever since we adopted them five years ago, and this year I finally got to it! I decorated the entire tree with pirates in their honor (The crew of Serenity? Space pirates! Totally relevant to Pastafarianism, since doctrine holds that the decline in pirates is correlated with global warming – and thus in order to avert the apocalypse, we have to bring back piracy. Check and mate.), which was no small feat seeing as I made most of the ornaments by hand over a two-month period. I also hired someone to custom-make Kaylee Frye and Jayne Cobb outfits way back in August. Oh, the planning that went into this holiday card!

Unfortunately, my seamstress totally flaked, leaving me to cobble together costumes from off-the-rack pieces at the last minute. Instead of a green mechanic’s jumpsuit and floral blouse, Kaylee is wearing her shindig dress – that is, a Cotton Candy Dog Dress by East Side Collection. And while Jayne isn’t sporting a trademark brown Jayne Cobb ringer tee, she does look pretty badass in a green army jacket – really an Army Green Utility Jacket by Zack & Zoey.

Of course, the Jayne hat is the star of the ensemble; I actually had three custom-made for me by two different etsians: Sam’s Crochet (that would be the adorably floppy, Rasta-style hat Jayne and Peedee are wearing) and Whitaker Knits (the smaller hats with the orange tie, as seen on Ralphie and O-Ren, below). Rounding out Jayne’s look is a Browncoats logo pin I scored on Amazon. (It’s on her chest and not clearly visible in all the photos.) I also picked up some cute ID badges on eBay, but couldn’t find a place for them in the final outfits. Instead, they became ornaments for the tree.

Here’s a little character collage I put together for my family, who are not Firefly fans (THE HORRA!) and thus didn’t get the reference. Side-by-side comparison time! How do you think I did?

All’s shiny that ends shiny, I say.

Outtakes and extras after the jump!

Here’s the message label for the back of the card; I figured out ages ago that this is way easier than writing a message by hand (BY HAND! INTERNETS, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY PENMANSHIP!?!) on the back of each card. Also: safer and less messy. No bloody bleeding ink!

I also print out my own address labels, with a new design each holiday. The “to” labels have a shiny Browncoats logo,

while the image on the return labels is from the “Can’t Stop the Serenity” charity screenings.

Last but not least, I decorated the festive red envelopes with Alliance Postal and Blue Sun stamps from Ma Cobbe’s Hat Shoppe. Yeah, I totally geeked out this year. How could I not? BEST. THEME. EVER!

Now for the “outtakes”: one per animal – including Kaylee and Jayne, ’cause their outfits were so damn nice I had to do them twice – including one in memoriam for dear Ozzy, who passed away in June. Each card features a quote from Firefly or Serenity and, where possible, the animals are wearing a Jayne hat. (Since they’re new and don’t yet know their sits and stays, it was all I could do to snap a quick pic of Mags and Finnick in front of the tree – let alone in front of the tree AND wearing silly hats. I had to hold Fin in place by the backside and crop my hand out later. That one would rather be shot in the face than have his picture taken, I tell you what!) As for the cat, he cannot be contained. I had to bribe him into place with bits of dried cranberry, which he licks until they’re good and sticky and then just bats around the house.

Also, he really can kill you with his brain.

“I aim to misbehave.”
- Mal Reynolds, Serenity
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“Yes, sir, Cap’n Tightpants.”
- Kaylee Frye, episode 4, “Shindig”
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“Big Damn Heroes, sir.”
- Zoe Washburne, episode five, “Safe”
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“Goin’ on a year now I ain’t had nothin’ twixt my nethers weren’t run on batteries!”
- Kaylee Frye, Serenity
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“She is starting to damage my calm.”
- Jayne Cobb, Serenity
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“Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”
- Hoban “Wash” Washburne, “Serenity” (pilot)
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“This must be what going mad feels like.”
- Simon Tam, episode seven, “Jaynestown”
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“I can kill you with my brain.”
- River Tam, episode eleven, “Trash”
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“I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.”
- Hoban “Wash” Washburne, Serenity
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* Shepherd Book, episode two, “The Train Job”

(Crossposted from.)

The Pirate Tree

What better place to start than the tree? Whereas in years past I’ve gone heavy on the pasta-themed ornaments, this year I decided to do a full-on pirate theme – with a special focus on Firefly. Space pirates are totally relevant when you’re a Pastafarian, yo! Also when you’re the guardian of two dogs who are named after characters on the show! I’ve been dying to do some holiday cosplay with Kaylee and Jayne ever since we adopted them five years ago, but this year I actually took the initiative and did it! (Hence the early planning.) I’ll post photos of the dogs later this week, but suffice to say that their costumes directly influenced the look of the tree. Since I’ve never done a pirate tree before, almost all of the ornaments and decorations are new this season.

The decorations are mix of re-purposed items (pirate toys from the Dollar Store; some cool and inexpensive pirate and nautical wood party favors from Jo-Anne Fabric; glass bottles that look as though they might hold messages from castaways, also from J-Anne Fabric; “gold” skull & crossbones metal charms found on eBay), Firefly merch (ID badges for Kaylee Frye and Jayne Cobb; a Serenity keychain), and diy ornaments made by gluing pirate stickers and photos onto bottle caps and card stock.

It’s this last group that I wanted to make a tutorial for but really, it’s all very simple. Throughout the summer I saved up whatever bottle caps and lids I could (the flatter, the better) and when I had a pretty good collection going, I laid them all out on the floor of the barn (on top of a drop cloth, natch) and spray-painted them black. Since you’re likely to have collected lids made of variety of materials – plastic and metal, mostly – make sure you buy a spray paint that’s suitable for each.

Then hit the internets and gather up as many pirate-y pictures as you can: google Firefly/Serenity (the art produced by this fandom is both plentiful and delightful!), Pirates of the Caribbean, pirate Amy Pond, women pirates (girl power!), etc. (Though that last search term turns up some rather depressing results. To cut down on the number of sexy pirates, search for historical woman pirates. You won’t get many results, but the hits you do get will be awesome!) Next, resize ‘em so that the portions of the photos that you’d like to use are similar in size to your caps and lids, then copy and paste them onto 4×6, 5×7, and/or 8×10 canvases (depending on the size, you’ll be able to fit between one and five images on each), and either print them up at home or order them online at Sam’s Club or similar.

The hardest part is cutting the images to fit snugly inside the lids. Cutting a circle freehand is pretty much impossible, as I quickly learned. Instead, try to find a circular item – a cup or bottle, for example, or even another, slightly smaller lid – and use it to trace a circle on the image. Though still difficult, the guide will help you to cut a much rounder circle. (Just go slowly!) When done, simply glue the photo into the lid. (A heavy-duty, acid-free glue stick works well for this.)

If you can find circular stickers – I happened to have some 1.5″ round skull & crossbones stickers left over from last year – these are a nice option too. While they don’t offer a whole lot of variety, they do come pre-cut. Score!

For hanging, you can either glue a jump ring (used in jewelry making and available at craft stores) to the back of the lid or, if it’s made of plastic and thick enough, drill a small hole into the “lip” of the lid. Either way, string some curling ribbon or a pipe cleaner through the ring or hole to make a loop that can then be used to hang the ornament from the tree. (Curling ribbon is much easier to work with, imho.) We stuck with black to match the tree’s color scheme (namely, black and gold).

Another option is to pick up a book of cardstock paper and affix your photos to these instead of (or in addition to) caps and lids. For extra decoration, cut the paper an inch or two wider and taller than the photo, so that there’s a backdrop to frame it. The paper I picked up was one-sided (most is, if I’m not mistaken), so I glued two pieces together so that the backside of the decoration wouldn’t look so naked. If you have enough pictures, you can even affix one to each side of the paper so that there isn’t a backside. (This works well with images from the same series of artwork, e.g., the “Wanted” posters from Firefly, or the Art Nouveau posters, also from Firefly. I was not kidding about how hard Firefly artwork rocks!)

Since you can cut the paper to size, this method offers much more flexibility. On the other hand, these ornaments are much more one-dimensional than those made from lids. If you can, I recommend making some of each. Mix it up a bit!

To wit:

Of course, we just had to top the tree with a Jayne hat! Handmade Jayne hats are widely available in adult, children and even infant sizes on etsy, but I specially ordered three custom dog-sized hats for the occasion: one for Jayne, naturally, and then two smaller ones for the other dogs. (Even though they didn’t make it on this year’s card, I still had to photograph them for the outtakes! Also: just for general shits and giggles.) The one on the tree is from Sam’s Crochet (yup, that’s my Jayney in the listing!), and the two not pictured are from Whitaker Knits. You’ll see ‘em in the next post, so keep an eye peeled.

When not in use, the hats can double as decorations: in addition to tree toppers, you can put them on stuffed animals – either holiday or everyday ones – to make them more festive. Cookie jars, too!

Finally, since we can’t put “real” presents under the tree (lest the dogs chew them to bits), we opt for “fake” presents instead. Usually this means x-mas themed cookie tins (empty, obvs!), but since our tins didn’t really fit with the tree’s color scheme, we wrapped some boxes with brown paper. Very care package-y. (Back to the Jayne hat!) To snazz them up a little, I decorated the paper with Allied Postal and Blue Sun stamps from Ma Cobbe’s Hat Shoppe on etsy (A wise investment! I wish I’d bought every Firefly stamp in her store instead of just these two!) and finished it off with some ribbons and bows. And my domestic terrorist vegan pirate bear, who’s guarding the stash ’till CriFSMas!

Flying Spaghetti Monsters

My favorite part of CriFSMas decorating is the flying spaghtti monsters, noodles-down! They’re just so cute, what with their sparkly appendages and plush soy balls and huge googly eyes. (Yeah, it’s the googly eyes that do it for me, most definitely. They look awesome on anything!) Every year I make a few more spaghetti monsters and yet I never seem to have enough. You can put them pretty much anywhere, which means that they’re everywhere in my house: hanging from ceiling fans, hovering in the windows, chilling on shelves, looking down on you from soffits, crawling out of stockings, resting on lamps. EVER-Y-WHERE. Since they’re made mostly of pipe cleaners, you can create most any type of hook, loop, strap, or string you need, and yet it still looks like part of the decoration. AND THEY’RE SO SPARKLY!

“TAKE MY NOODLE IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!”

Most of my monsters were born of shiny, metallic red, green, gold, and silver pipe cleaners, which are readily available at dollar stores this time of year; you can also find them in craft stores such as Michaels. Others are made of more subdued, plush beige, red, white and black (etc.) pipe cleaners, which you can find in craft stores year-round. These pipe cleaners tend to be a bit sturdier and thus harder to work with. Plus they’re not as sparkly! But they are nice if you’d like a monster or two for other occasions, such as Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and the like. I’ve even seen ginormous, 1+ foot long fuzzy pipe cleaners, which I just may make into a giant flying spaghetti monster outfit for the dogs next year. I’m picturing a FSM riding on O-Ren’s back, with his noodles spiraling forward and encompassing her body, massive googly eyes extending overhead. It will be ADORABLE and NOTHING WILL HURT. Except for O-Ren’s pride, that is. But hey, I’m good to her the other 364 days of the year!

Anyhow, if you’d like to make your own little spaghetti monsters, I posted a tutorial a few years back. Check it here.

Eye patches for everyone!

If you’re going with a pirate theme, eye patches are a must. Most of mine are from the dollar store – as well as a few online pirate shops and party stores – but some came packaged with pirate-themed dog costumes, too. Use them to dress up stuffed animals – again, either holiday or everyday stuffed animals – as well as stockings that feature animals, cookie jars, and any other appropriately-sized, animal-shaped decorations you may have. Ditto: pirate hats, pirate bandannas, and pirate dog outfits.

If you have any extras, hang them from the tree!

The Wall of Cards

This past summer we installed a special rail along the ceiling over our marble fireplace so that we could hang artwork on that wall without drilling into the grout or damaging the bricks. So far there’s just one very large, two-piece Kill Bill poster over the fireplace; the rest of the wall is pretty barren. Actually, I prefer to think of it as clean and uncluttered, at least 11 months out of the year. But next to the sparkly ribbons and shiny garland that lines the rest of the living room, the wall did look rather dull and cold. So I decided to dress it up with ribbon and holiday cards! It’s a simple if tedious process: punch a hole in the corner of a card, string some ribbon through it, and then hang it from the picture rail using a regular old picture hook. (The rail comes with special hooks and wire for hanging large/heavy items, but cheap picture hooks proved a nice substitution for cards.) You can use new cards, or old ones that you’ve saved up; and remove the cover, recycling the back, or use the entire card. I went with a combination of the two.

No picture rail? No problem! String a length of ribbon, garland, or string from one end of the room to another and use that instead. Or use them to make a mobile.

Bows on ALL the things!

Much like flying spaghetti monsters, ribbons look lovely almost anywhere. This year I picked up a dozen big red and gold bows for a few bucks a pop at a local mega-store and used them to decorate some stationary, non-holiday items around the house: posters, cabinets, doorknobs and baby gates, mostly. Shiny, yes?

While I was holiday shopping at that same chain store, I couldn’t help but pick up three large bags of gift bows at about $3 a piece. Since them, I’ve been putting them everywhere I’m not afraid to stick tape: on tv sets, my pencil and pen mug, the side of the fridge, the washer and dryer, poster frames, stuffed animals; pinned to my cork bulletin board; in windows opposite spaghetti monsters; just resting on piles of books and cabinet shelves and such. Anywhere that could use a little extra sparkle. EVERYTHING MUST SPARKLE! Next to pirates, gaudiness is the work of the day.

How shiny is that pirate in the window?

Speaking of gaudiness, our front window “pirate altar” is a perfect example of everything discussed thus far: sparkles, pirates, bows, flying spaghetti monsters, ribbons, garland, and oh yeah, more sparkles. As per usual, an x-mas red teddy bear pirate sits atop a pile of vegan cookbooks and pirate tomes (my entire Firefly/Serenity collection included). The open shelf is lined with gold doubloons and gold tinsel (so much treasure!), and additional book piles, pirate accessories, and images of Her Noodliness (in frames decorated with macaroni!) round the main display out. The upper half of this built-in is open display shelving with glass sliding doors, which I made more festive with the addition of tinsel, garland, more pirate items, and (new this year) decorative glass beads (like for aquariums) that look a little like jewels, a la The Goonies. (Another dollar store score.)

(James Randi, looking good!)

Not too much different from last year, but I had to include it anyway. PIRATES!

Various and Sundry

I tried my best to organize these photos into like groups, but some just defy categorization!

My laundry room, decorated with leftover garland, some holiday stuffed animals – and bows, of course!

More garland and stuffed animal pirates, this time atop the stove in the kitchen. (Like the stove would be located anywhere else, silly me.)

Homemade magnets on the fridge…

…as well as the filing cabinet in the office. And yes, there’s a tutorial for that!

Dinosaurs on the fireplace mantle. YES, DINOSAURS ARE RELEVANT! Also, I scored a bag of them for less than $10 at a party store. Win-win.

My scrappy sad Charlie Brown tree, courtesy of mum.

A last-minute addition: a wreath on the front door. I’ve always wanted a wreath but for some strange reason, only got one last week. This is a cheap +/- $3 artificial one from a box store; a $4 ribbon and heart-shaped ornament I already had on hand dress it up quite nicely, don’t you think?

Anyway, I’m sure there’s a ton I’m forgetting – I am seriously fighting the urge to caption every single photo in this post – but the day is getting late and I have a few batches of holiday cookies that won’t make themselves. (The 2-hour power outage earlier today sure didn’t help matters any!) And I’m baking in part for our omni neighbors, so I need to bring my A game.

Wish me luck, people!

(Crossposted from.)

For this year’s criFSMas cards, we decided to go with a “pasta and peace” theme. (We aim to put the PASTA back in PASTAfarian here at the Garbato-Brady house, yo! That, and my “domestic terrorist” idea didn’t quite pan out.) Because he’s had a rough year, Ralphie was the obvious choice of cover model. Not to mention, one eye? Totally fits with the pirate side of flying spaghetti monsterism. As per usual, I couldn’t resist creating “outtakes” for each of the dogs. They’re all just so freaking cute, you know? (Rhetorical question; you best say yes!)

The “official” 2010 Garbato-Brady criFSMas card.
- Ralphie -
Wishing you peace & pasta this holiday season!
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Because years spent on the internets have forever ruined my penmanship,
I design and print message labels to affix to the back of each card.
This year’s greeting reads:
Happy Holidays! With love (& lasagna),
The Garbato-Bradys:
Kelly, Shane, Peedee, O-Ren, Kaylee, Jayne, Ozzy & Ralphie
“you’ll shoot your eye out, kid,” the one-eyed cover dog
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Outtakes!
- Peedee -
May your plate overflow with compassion & campanelle.
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- O-Ren -
May love & lasagna warm your belly on a cold winter’s night.
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- Kaylee -
May your heart be filled with joy & gemelli, today and always.
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- Jayne -
May you find friendship & fusilli this criFSMas season!
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Whatever you celebrate, season’s greetings and wishes of peace from all of us to you and yours!

I’ll leave you with this Christmas Manger / Vegan Silent Night video from Bea Elliott. While I’m not exactly a religious person (in the understatement of the year), I find it a bittersweet description of the conflicting feelings I – and many vegans, no doubt – oftentimes experience around the holiday season.

Peace to all; and to all, a good life.

(Crossposted from.)

domestic terraist bear is one of teh kewl girls.
Left to right: Kaylee, Jayne, O-Ren and the pirate-polar-vegan-terrorist criFSMas bear.
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Initially, I’d planned on doing a sort of “domestic terrorist” theme for this year’s holiday (read: criFSMas) cards, using the “domestic terrorist” apron from Green is the New Red as the centerpiece. (Product description: “‘Domestic.’ Terrorist. Get it? There’s nothing funny about the FBI labeling environmental and animal advocates the ‘number one domestic terrorism threat.’ But with the Feds attempting to infiltrate vegan potlucks, why not accessorize? [...] Happy ‘terrorizing’! But be careful in the kitchen. Did you know tofu makes you gay?” Vegan chefs are scary, yo! Also: my dog-kids consume a fair amount of tofu. Additionally, they are super-psyched about today’s repeal of DADT. Draw your own conclusions, mkay.)

While my idea was solid, its execution was not: the apron proved way too large for the dogs (which was to be expected, even though it looks super-tiny – not to mention satiny – on the model), so at first I tried putting it on our pirate polar bear.

I think you’ll agree that she looks super-snazzy in it

but she’s also, well, kind of a big girl. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you; she’s vegan and totes in shape. But it proved next to impossible to fit both her and a dog in the camera frame. And so I re-staged the set, hanging the apron from the tree and surrounding it with fake fruits and veggies and a vase filled with pasta-related kitchen utensils.

(Ignore the white fur on the black apron. Living with four white dogs and a mostly-white cat, it cannot be helped.)

Better, but once I went back and examined the photos on my computer monitor, I realized that the paddles looked really odd and stupid. Tremendously so. Plus, there was still a lot of floor and wall showing. Dislike.

So on day #2 of shooting, I ditched the setup and instead opted for a sea of book piles, coupled with a vase filled with angel hair pasta, and complemented with a sparkly “peace” ornament and baby flying spaghetti monster. The new theme? Peace and pasta.

That taste? Perfection!

Not wanting the domestic terrorist photos to go to waste, I decided to make a series of (VEGAN!) lol dogs out of them. And so I give you: domestic terraist doggehs! (And one kitteh, who barely sat still long enough for me to take three pictures of him. His caption is most fitting.)

title: lol ozzy – is a terror allright
caption: “domestic terraist kitteh” is a redundancy
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title: lol ralphie – thot u said petdown
caption: domestic terraist doggeh will take that patdown now, mkay
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title: lol peedee – go boom
caption: domestic terraist doggeh be a walkin’ thyme bomb
(idea shameless borrowed from a blog of the same name)
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title: lol rennie – be happy 2 show u her mitts
caption: domestic terraist doggeh be hostin a v-gun potluck next week
(u bring teh loaded taters kay?)
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title: lol kaylee – kills wit spiceness
caption: domestic terraist doggeh is about 2 es’splode ur taste budz
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title: lol jayne – is be busted
caption: domestic terraist doggeh pleads deh lish
(hint: if you don’t get it, sound it out loud!)
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In many ways, I think I like this series better than the “real” card I ended up with (and the outtakes I made for each dog; yes, I’ve been a busy bee). But hey, there’s always next year. Well, not really. I’ve already got plans for 2011, and they involve Kaylee, Jayne and Joss Fucking Whedon. (One hint: SPACE PIRATES!) 2012, perhaps. I’m sure the theme will still be relevant then, unfortunately.

(Crossposted from V for Vegan.)

* Which begs the obvious question: why didn’t I think to glue a googly eye on Ralphie’s sewn-up eye socket for our criFSMas card photo shoot? Ah well, there’s always next year.

But seeing as I’ve already taken and uploaded a number of photos, it’d be a shame not to at least throw up a photo essay. So here’s a sampling of this year’s decorations. You can view the entire set on Flickr, along with those from years past. The dogs’ annual criFSMas humiliation is forthcoming – they deserve their own post, dontchathink?

The “pirate altar” in our front window features a mix of relevant books, framed flying spaghetti monster photos, pirate accessories, pasta decor, gold tinsel and doubloons, and sparkly flying spaghetti monsters.
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A closer look at book collection #1, which consists of vegan/vegetarian/Italian cookbooks (including Cathe Olson’s Lick It!, which I snagged in a veganmofo contest) and – of course – a copy of The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
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Adorned with an adorable skull, this pirate knife is perfect for breaking vegan bread! Red bows complement the color palette.
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Displayed in a frame decorated with pasta (garden rotini and farfalle, to be exact), this photo of the Flying Spaghetti Monster depicts her Noodleyness spreading the saucy word. A skull-topped pirate’s chest, filled to overflowing with gold coins, sits off to the right.
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The queen of the festivities, this burgundy criFSMas bear pirate rests on her perch of (mostly) vegan/vegetarian cookbooks. Note the pirate hat, dreadlocks and swanky golden pipe cleaner hook!
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A closeup shot of the pirate altar’s main book pile. Most of the cookbooks are vegan or vegetarian, save for a few of the larger tomes at the bottom of the stack. These are from my pre-veg days and are included strictly for the added height they provide.
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In another macaroni-lined photo, a flying spaghetti monster is shown visiting a crucified Jesus. Probably she comforted him with vegan mac & cheese in his time of need. Daiya is divine, is it not? A glass Christmas tree filled with garden rotini sits off to the side.
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Book pile #3 is the pirate collection. On this too-small stack sits a portrait of our FSM as painted by Edvard Munch. A baby monster hovers above, admiring the portrait approvingly.
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Two of the many festive, sparkly holiday flying spaghetti monsters that haunts my heathen home ’round the holidays. Learn how to summon your own monsters using nothing but pipe cleaners, poms and googly eyes here.
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The mecha-mega-monster, which is made of pairs of regular-sized pipe cleaners twisted together at the ends. Craft stores such as Michaels do sell extra-large pipe cleaners, but I’ve yet to find any ginormous ones that SPARKLE. (Everyone knows that criFSMas monsters sparkle, like duh.) / Pirate altar.
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Throwbacks from my childhood! A very old and tattered Santa Clause holds a stocking with my name on it. Cue the awwwws.
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A baby spaghetti monster shown in her natural pirate hat habitat. So cute! And she’s even got an extra set of balls! Perhaps she’d be willing to loan a set to President Obama?
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Eeyore the pirate is partying like it’s 1725!
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The filing cabinet in our office is adorned with a number of (mostly) homemade magnets. These include photos of the flying spaghetti monster, Captain Jack Sparrow, and the crew of the Serenity (SPACE PIRATES!), all found ’round the internets, as well as past holiday cards. On top of the cabinet you can see the adorable-yet-pitiable Charlie Brown tree my mom gifted us last year; under it sits stuffed holiday Hello Kitty and Pochacco dolls. (Did you know that Pochacco is, in point o’ facts, A VEGETARIAN!? Neither did I, ’til about ten seconds ago.)
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The fridge is also home to a number of DIY magnets.
You can find instructions for making your own here.
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This year, our criFSMas tree features a mix of traditional and Pastafarian decorations: “garland” strands made of pasta (penne, to be exact); red and white lights; and ornaments both handmade and store-bought, including lots of pieces featuring nonhuman animals and pasta. Next to the tree sits our criFSMas terraist pirate, all decked out in a domestic terrorist apron (fresh from Green is the New Red), pirate hat and treasure pouch (perfect for plundering and looting!). At her feet sits a skull & bones goblet, matching dagger, and a massive treasure chest. (Unfortunately, the only treasure it contains is our hammock, retired for the year.)
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A more natural-looking FSM made of raffia tops the 2010 tree. I’ve yet to streamline the creation of this type of monster – raffia can be frustrating to work with, yo!
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Noodles on a cross! Sweet Jeebus, do I love this door hanger.
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The tree, all lit up after dark. (The doubles you see in the first photo is due to the windowed wall in front of which the tree is positioned.) Peace and pasta were the working themes in 2010.
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Last but not least, the staging of the tree for our annual canine criFSMas cards. The first day’s photo shoot, which sadly bombed (pun sooooo! intended!), featured the domestic terrorist apron as its centerpiece. The idea was solid; its execution, not so much – I tried to cram way too much into the frame and failed miserably. On day #2, we ditched the apron and weird spoon-paddle thingies in favor of pirate swag and book piles galore. Yeah, that’s the stuff!
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Homemade peanut butter cups (top), along with peanut butter bites made using the leftover filling (bottom) – perfect for gift baskets and NOMING while decorating alike! Recipe via VegWeb.
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Homemade rocky road chocolate bark (made with roasted almonds and Dandies marshmallows), also for gifting.
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For the dogs in my life: a triple batch of Pumpkin Pie Biscuits. (These smell so good, y’all! You will seriously get a NOM high whilst baking them.) Rennie WANTS! Recipe courtesy It’s A Vegan Dog’s Life.
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Holy kitchen disasters, Catwoman!
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Meanwhile, Kaylee and Ralphie lurk in the background, waiting patiently for a dropped or neglected foodstuff to roll their way. They have three eyes between them, you know.
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I did, however, get my FSMas cards done and out in a timely manner – so much so that I had plenty of time to make some outtakes, too.

While every dog-kid got his or her due in 2009, Ralphie & Rennie took center stage: they were our cover-doggies, complete with a fierce “Booty & The Beast” theme. I’ll let y’all figure out who is supposed to be “Booty” and who is “The Beast.”

Ignore the glaring age disparity, mkay? Normally I don’t like pairing a young little lassie with a much older gent – seeing as how it’s a reflection of our sexist societal norms – but there’s, like, zero chemistry between the two oldest dogs, Kaylee and Ralphie. Seriously, I could not get the two to sit next to one another for more than 30 seconds at a time. And yes, I might have bucked the hetero trend with a same-sex pairing, but I thought that might have come off as homophobic and/or mockingly emasculating, given the theme. (Yes, holidays are political for me; what of it?)

Each dog also got his or her own card; whereas everyone on our holiday card list received a copy of “Booty & The Beast,” these extras only went out to a few people. (The cost of printing adds up, yo!) Mainly, they were for my amusement.

Because I had so many cute photos of Ralphie – and with different themes, to boot! – he got two outtake cards:

He’s actually wearing a baby’s pizza slice outfit in that second shot. It kind of looks like a Snuggie, dontchathink? Either way, he hated it; all he could do while wearing it was drag himself around like a baby seal. Don’t worry, though; all the dogs were paid handsomely for their modeling work. Dried cranberries, yum!

Next up is Peedee. His was my favorite shot this year, but seeing as he was last FSMas’s coverdog, I didn’t think it fair to feature him two years in a row.

I think Peedee was a model in a previous life; he loves having his picture taken. Work it, Peedee, work it!

Rennie was probably the hardest to photograph this year. She totally wasn’t feeling it; all she wanted to do was chase her tennis ball. Hence the back-to-the-camera pose, which was completely unintentional (but made for great pirate copy, nevertheless).

“Savvy,” by the way, is pirate slang for “understand.”

Kaylee’s card is another favorite, awesome in its simplicity: WENCH.

Wench is the new bitch which is the new black, you know.

And then there was Jayne; Jayne, whose loathing of the camera only multiples with each passing year.

I wonder if the lil’ girl will ever make the cover of our holiday card? Nah, probably not.

Not that she cares.

CHRIST in CHRISTmas, Jayne no want. (Me, either.)

Anyhow, now that I’ve dispensed with the festivities, allow me to send you to Animal Rights & AntiOppression, where I’m now blogging (in addition to easyVegan.info, not instead of, mind you). Stephanie Ernst, formerly of the Animal Rights blog at changedotorg, set up shop at challengeoppression.com and kindly invited me (along with several other awesome vegan bloggers) to join her. Primarily I’ll be covering issues of intersectionality – feminism and animal rights, misogyny and speciesism, you know, the usual – which is right at home on a blog about challenging oppression in all its forms.

As for the fate of smiteme.net, I know not. I’d hoped to do some FSMas blogging this year, but the season was so hectic that it never materialized. Perhaps I’ll leave up the holiday stuff and/or migrate the posts to a Pastafarian-themed URL. Wev. I’m not in a hurry. Or motivated, obviously.

Until next year, Merry FSMas, and a happy 2010. And remember: peace starts on your plate, wenches.

But in the spirit of Vegan MoFo, I vowed to try out a new dish this year – but what?

Stephen Colbert to the rescue! (@ 2.27):

Communist Manipesto – that’s the ticket. Naturally, a “Communist Manipesto” dish must involve manicotti and pesto. And sundried tomato pesto is the shit! Blend a pesto recipe with a little tofu for bulk, stuff it in a package of manicotti, and there’s a FSMas dinner to (not) die for!

So I started by Googling around the internets in search of sundried tomato pesto recipes, finally settling on this one from All Recipes:

Ingredients

* 4 ounces sun-dried tomatoes
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
* 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
* 1/4 cup chopped pine nuts
* 3 tablespoons chopped onion
* 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
* 1 tablespoon tomato paste
* 1/3 cup crushed tomatoes
* 1/4 cup red wine
* 1/2 cup olive oil
* 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
* salt to taste

Directions

1. Place sun-dried tomatoes in a bowl and cover with warm water for 5 minutes, or until tender.

2. In a food processor or blender combine sun-dried tomatoes, basil, parsley, garlic, pine nuts and onion; process until well blended. Add vinegar, tomato paste, crushed tomatoes and red wine, and process. Stir in olive oil and Parmesan cheese. Season with salt to taste.

Of course, this was only a starting point – I had to modify the recipe a bit to make it vegan. And, you know, adjust certain ingredients according to what I did and didn’t have in the pantry. And add a few extra steps.

Here’s the final version of the recipe…well, the final version of Chapter 1, anyway. I’m not in love with it, so likely there will be additional “Chapters” forthcoming. More on that below!

Comrade Kelly’s Communist Manipesto (Chapter 1)

Ingredients

For the Sundried Tomato/Tofu Manicotti Filling:

* 6 ounces sun-dried tomatoes
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
* 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
* 1/4 cup chopped pine nuts (optional – I was fresh out of them)
* 3 tablespoons chopped onion
* 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
* 4 tablespoons tomato paste
* 1/2 cup crushed (or diced) tomatoes
* 1/4 cup red wine
* 1/2 cup olive oil
* salt to taste
* 1 12.3 oz brick of Silken Tofu (or similar size)

And:

* 1 package (8 oz) of manicotti pasta
* 1 can tomato/pasta sauce (26 oz, give or take)

* A food processor or professional/industrial strength blender
* A large glass baking pan

Note: As you can see, I increased the final amounts of the tomato products – the sundried tomatoes, diced tomatoes and tomato paste. This was in an effort to offset the taste of the balsamic vinegar and/or red wine, one (or both) of which I Did. Not. Like. (Too sour!) You can follow suit, or use the originally called-for amounts. Or, as a compromise, start with the original amounts, and add in extra tomatoes to taste.

Directions

1. Place sundried tomatoes in a bowl and cover with warm water for 5 minutes, or until tender. If you’re using sundried tomatoes packed in olive oil, skip this step.

2. In a food processor, combine sun-dried tomatoes, basil, parsley, garlic, pine nuts, onion, balsamic vinegar, tomato paste, crushed tomatoes, red wine and olive oil. Process until the pesto is well blended, but still a little chunky. Add salt (and additional tomato products if so desired) to taste.

3. Remove the pesto from the food processor; place in a bowl and set aside.

4. Place the silken tofu in the food processor and process until smooth and creamy.

5. Leaving the blended tofu in the food processor, gradually add in the sundried tomato pesto, a few tablespoons at a time. Process the tofu and pesto until well blended, stopping to taste as needed. Keep adding the pesto to the pesto/tofu manicotti filling until you’re satisfied with the taste and texture.

Note: Depending on your preferences, you may or may not add all of the pesto to the pesto/tofu filling. Really, how much pesto you use depends on how strong you’d like your manicotti filling to taste. We blended a full batch of pesto with one brick of silken tofu. At least I think it was a full batch – we made a double batch of pesto to start, not knowing how much pesto we’d need, so it’s hard to tell how much we actually used. We still have a full batch of sundried tomato pesto languishing in the freezer; Shane swears he’ll eat it on some toast, for reals!

6. Transfer the pesto/tofu filling to another bowl. Save any leftover sundried tomato pesto in the fridge or freezer (or your tummy).

7. Cook your package of manicotti pasta according to the directions on the box. When done, drain, rinse with cold water and set aside.

8. Coat the bottom of your baking pan with a thin layer of pasta sauce; a little less than half a jar/can, perhaps.

9. Using a butter knife, stuff the pesto/tofu filling into the manicotti. (Or, if you’ve got a better method for stuffing manicotti shells, drop it in the comments!) You should have enough pesto/tofu filling for 16 shells.

10. As you fill each piece of manicotti, gently lay it in the baking pan.

11. When done, coat the manicotti with the rest of the pasta sauce.

12. Bake, covered, at 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes.

13. Serve warm with dinner rolls.

Additional commentary

I made this dish on FSMas eve (which fell on the 24th this year), let it sit in the fridge overnight, and then just popped it in the oven 45 minutes prior to dinner the next day.

I actually wasn’t crazy with how the pesto came out, so I ended up making myself pierogies for FSMas dinner. Shane, on the other hand, quite liked the manicotti – which was cool, cause he had the whole batch to himself.

Upon reflection, I think the balsamic vinegar and/or the red wine ruined it for me – the pesto tasted very sour, and not tomato-y enough…even though I kept adding extra tomato paste, diced tomatoes and sundried tomatoes to try and salvage the dish. *Shrug* You win some, you lose some.

I’ve not yet given up on the idea of “Comrade Kelly’s Communist Manipesto” – I think I’ll keep experimenting with the dish until I find a recipe I like.

Some possibilities:
* Repeat this recipe, omitting the balsamic vinegar and/or red wine;
* Try a different sundried tomato recipe;
* Try one (or both) of the above, but with “regular” tofu, crumbled and hand mixed with the pesto, instead of silken tofu;
* Try one (or both) of the above, but with veggies, diced and hand mixed with the pesto, instead of tofu;
* Try one (or all) of the above, but using the pesto as a sauce on spaghetti (or a similarly stringy pasta) instead of stuffing it in manicotti. That was tedious, yo.

To sum up, I wasn’t thrilled with the dish, but Shane was. I’m a super-annoyingly-fussy eater, so be your own decider person.

Either way, it’s not half bad for a recipe which started as the punch line to a campaign season joke on The Colbert Report.

(Crossposted.)

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Tagged: holidays observances fsmas x-mas xmas christmas crifsmas pasta pirates fsm flying spaghetti monster Pastafarian Pastafarianism religion spoof religion parody religion science Intelligent Design creationism evolution global warming food vegan veganism vegetarian vegetarianism recipe manicotti pesto sun-dried tomato pesto sun-dried tomato tofu silken tofu flickr photos communist manipesto stephen colbert the colbert report

Last year, when I initially conceived of FSMas, one of the first diy craft ideas to pop into my head was that of building a Noodle House. (Think “gingerbread house,” but with uncooked pasta instead of cookies and icing…and not at all edible, natch.)

I finally found some time this month to experiment with my first noodle house. Even though it turned out to be a bit of a flop – I spent a good half hour yesterday dismantling what I’d made, so I could at least recycle the cardboard frame – I’m going to blog the process anyway, share what worked and what didn’t, and hopefully hammer out some new ideas for the 2009 holiday season.

OK, well, where to begin? I started with two smallish-medium square cardboard boxes. The larger box, the dimensions of which were slightly longer/wider than the length of a lasagna noodle, formed the base of the house. I taped the top and bottom closed so that all the surfaces were level.

Next, I broke down the smaller box so that it was flat; leaving the top and bottom flaps intact, I cut this large piece of cardboard in half, so I had two sections of six panels each (the two side panels, and two top and two bottom panels). Taking one of these pieces of cardboard, I folded it so that the side panels formed a 90 degree angle. I also folded one end of the top/bottom flaps at a 90 degree angle to the side panels, while I kept the other set of the top/bottom flaps straight and level with the side panels. I taped the folded top/bottom flaps to the side panels to hold this structure in place.

In this case, a picture is easily worth a paragraph worth of words:

This funny little configuration served as the roof.

Since one side of the “roof” was missing flaps, I measured and cut a little triangular piece of cardboard from the scraps, which I then taped to the appropriate side of the roof, like so:

The whole “roof” structure fit snugly on top of the “house” box, and of course I secured it all together with copious amounts of packing tape:

Clearly, one side of the house looks neater than the other, but I didn’t think it’d matter much, as I’d planned on covering the whole structure with pasta anyhow. That said, with a little advance planning, you should be able to create a cleaner “roof” than the one above.

Normally, I have dozens of boxes on hand, but since the Mr. and I moved (and lost a basement in the process), we take more frequent trips to the recycling center than we used to. So when I decided on a whim to try out the noodle house, supplies were limited. Hence the rush job. Another suggestion: if you choose to use lasagna noodles for your “siding,” try to find a box that’s as wide as a noodle is long – then you don’t have to worry about breaking up noodles and hiding seams.

Once the frame was assembled, I started affixing the siding – in this case, uncooked lasagna noodles – with hot glue. I needed four rows of lasagna to cover a “wall,” top to bottom. Each “wall” was a little shorter than four rows, actually, so the top row overlapped the one below it, just a touch. The bottom row was only one noodle deep.

For each row, I also had to break off a small piece of lasagna to finish the width of the “wall.” This created an annoying seam, which I guess I could have covered up with some smaller, decorative pasta – except, I didn’t get that far. Anyway, my bad for a total failure to plan ahead.

By this time, I was utterly sick of pasta, so I took a break for a few days. When I came back to the project, I decided to try out the roof – mainly because I had no clue what to use, and figured that if I was going to fuck it all up, I’d rather fuck it up before I invested a bunch of time and energy into gluing itty-bitty pieces of decorative pasta to the house.

And, well, fuck it up I did.

I considered using penne for the roof, but tossed that idea out because 1) an all-yellow pasta house would be too blah and 2) individual pieces of penne would take forever to glue down. I thought sparkly red pipe cleaners might work, but I didn’t have enough of them to cover the whole roof.

That left me with raffia. F’in raffia. The-bane-of-my-existence raffia.

I bought a ton of this stuff at The Dollar Tree last year, but never used it as it’s such a pain in the arse. It’s wound so tightly in the package that it’s darn near impossible to unravel and use as strands. So. I had the “genius” (read: st00pid) idea of cutting it into little pieces, kind of like confetti, and gluing it en masse to the roof with hot glue.

In theory, not a half bad idea. In practice…totally impractical.

The raffia was so curly and crinkly that it was difficult to keep it flush with the roof. Doubly so when you’re pressing it onto a roof covered in smoking hot hot glue. There was bits of raffia and long, feathery strands of hot glue everywhere: on the house, on me, of the towel, on the floor, on the dogs, even. It was a huge, frustrating mess.

In the end, I liked the textured effect the raffia lent to the roof; I thought it looked a bit like Spanish tile, or maybe a quaint cottage bungalow a la Hansel and Gretal. Problem was, pieces of raffia were still falling loose days later – the glue never got enough traction to secure the raffia to the cardboard. Plus, there were still little spots of exposed brown here and there, and trying to hot glue small pieces of raffia – in the midst of clumps of the stuff – well, it’s an exercise in futility.

Even so, I had every intention of finishing the project – too late to turn back, right? I at least wanted to finish the roof.

Well, funny thing happened. During my down time, I stored the house out of the way, on the dining room table – which is in Ozzy’s side of the house. Within a day, he’d licked a white patch on one small section of the siding:

“OK, well, no big deal,” I thought. “Annoying, but I can work around it, maybe cover it up with some additional pasta.”

I moved the house, placing it on a stack of boxes in the corner of another room.

A few days later, I came back to find this:

Now, leaving the box out on the dining table was my bad – Ozzy sometimes stretches out there at night, and I really should have known better. I was tempting him; how could he lay right next to this strange new toy and not lick it?

But this time around, he seriously went out of his way to get to the pasta. Since there was no way for him to sit next to the house and lick in leisure, he cared enough to stand up on his back legs while feasting on my craft project. Given how lazy Ozzy is, that’s a feat.

The house sustained enough damage that I finally decided to scrap it. But I *will* succeed next year, dammit!

Here’s what I learned from this year’s fiasco:

- Flat noodles (such as lasagna) are thin enough that they don’t conceal the glue – with hot glue, anyway, you can see the glue globs underneath, especially if you cake it on. Methinks three-dimensional pasta, such as manicotti, might work better. Instead of “siding,” you’ll have more of a log cabin look.

- Spend time collecting and measuring boxes – a box that’s as wide as your pasta is long is ideal. For lasagna noodles, aim for rows of one noodle across. With manicotti, which is much shorter, you might have to go with two to three noodles wide, which will leave you with seams.

- For the roof, again, collect and measure boxes in advance so you have a cleaner roof. Mine was ok, but obviously improvised.

- I’m still stumped on what materials will best cover the roof. Lasagna (maybe even painted red) might work, but again, there’s the issue with the glue showing through. Wide strips of red ribbon, perhaps? Red construction paper? Red confetti? Red confetti on top of red construction paper? Maybe I can even find a batch of recycled/reused/reclaimed red tile on freecycle? Ideas? Anyone?

Anywho, in spite of my spectacular failure, I will finish a noodle house, some day.

Until then, Her Noodliness remains a renter. The equity, she must has it!

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Tagged: holidays observances fsmas x-mas xmas christmas crifsmas pasta pirates fsm flying spaghetti monster Pastafarian Pastafarianism decorations decorating religion spoof religion parody religion science Intelligent Design creationism evolution global warming projects crafts gingerbread house noodle house flickr photos