Even though it looked beautiful in the city, the day was cold. We spent the afternoon wandering the new huge Whole Foods on Bowrey and drinking coffee.
Whole Foods has an entire gourmet beer section. This was our favorite brand!
After perusing the wares at the Union Square holiday bizarre, we landed at S'MAC, the glorious wonder that is the all macaroni and cheese restaurant in the East Village.
We destroyed a Major Munch 4 cheese and Cheeseburger variety skillet. This part of our day gets a big thumbs up!
Combine the cake mix, egg, and butter and mix well with an electric mixer. Pat the mixture into the bottom of a lightly greased 13 by 9-inch baking pan.
To make the filling: In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and pumpkin until smooth. Add the eggs, vanilla, and butter, and beat together. Next, add the powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and mix well. Spread pumpkin mixture over cake batter and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Make sure not to overbake as the center should be a little gooey.
Serve with fresh whipped cream.
For a Peanut Butter Gooey Cake: Use a chocolate cake mix. Add 1 cup creamy peanut butter to the cream cheese filling instead of the pumpkin. Proceed as directed above.
Secondly, tonight was yet another edition of FEAST. Tonight's theme: Granny Glam Christmas! This was the first time people actually apologized for the food they submitted. But as we all know, food made post-WWII had some weird rules. 
So Emily made this wonderful platter of meatballs. It actually looked pretty, but her decorating skills have nothing on these Weight Watchers recipe cards from the 1970's.
The cream cheese olive sandwiches were something of a joke, but the Devil's On Horseback (prunes and figs wrapped in bacon) were actually tasty.
And what is not to love about tatter tot casserole?
Finally, dessert consisted of some very scary peppermint jello thing that no one could choke down, my very own strawberry jello cool whip concoction and Baked Alaska. It was an interesting mix of food to say the least. Next month's theme is New Years Baby. (Think baby back ribs, baby carrots, etc.) Any and all food suggestions are welcome.
First I took a quick ride on the F Train. Thankfully, this beeotch of a subway decided to run on schedule over the weekend.
I had a few tasty beverages with Miss Banana and friends at Boss Tweed's down on Essex. Before leaving, I made friends with the bouncer. Always a good plan when on a pub crawl, right?
I also took a moment to capture this sexy photo with my lady. I don't understand how a fine looking woman like Miss Banana - who runs all these events promoting the city, debauchery, and Santa hat love - is still available. Thankfully, she ALWAYS has hugs to share with The Cros!
After a few $2 PBR cans at Welcome To The Johnson's, I gave Santa some props and shot people with the frickin laser beams attached to my head. 
We picked up a few additional crawlers at the third bar, Slainte, and I deflated a few brain cells with several Irish coffees.
Buying drinks for all the fine ladies at the crawl left me in need of a quick stop at the ATM before we hit up Lilly Coogans for more Irish beverages.
I've always wondered if New Yorkers would like their take out delivered by a five foot inflatable bear. No matter what, I know I rock the delivery bike, basket and all.
I heard from Miss Banana that Mel was celebrating a birthday, so I got on the phone to make sure all the last minute stragglers arrived in time for the mystery cupcakes and our trek to Dempsy's Pub. Unfortunately for both of us, I heard he had a similar end to his evening.
Despite the sleet and sloppy drunken loss of memory, a good time was had by all crawlers, especially me. Miss Banana wanted you to know that you can see a full set of photos from the pub crawl here. She also asked me to pass along her love and thanks to everyone for making this a really amazing year of neighborhood explorations. She said you can see photos from almost all the adventures here.
As for me, I'm packing up my Santa hat and hibernating for the winter. Hope to see everyone again this summer for another season of Bad News Bears kickball!
Since the lighting on the field is just about the worst kind for photography, I gave sepia a shot and am pretty happy with the outcome! It's sort of fitting that kickball look nostalgic.
Someone was very upset with the chicken and it's lack of karma in helping us win! You can click here to see more photos of Martin berate the chicken and here to see my friend Sugg's latest professional shots of the games.
Thanks for a great season of kickball everyone. I'm really hoping we get to play together again in the spring.
This is a painting that actually exists in the legit museum art world. In order to protect the reputation of the creator and the museum (not mine) that dealt with it, I'll just leave it at that.
I've been trying to devise a way to describe the utter hilarity, insanity, and stupidity that is Santacon without much success. Since I don't want to postpone updating the blog any longer waiting for inspiration, I will just start rambling and hope for the best.
I was in and around Tompkins Square park for the remainer of the day taking photos and generally having a blast. Please please please click here and take a look at my full set of photos. You will not be disappointed. You can also click here to see Santacon photos from around the country.
OH....and check it out, this photo was chosen by Gothamist, making this my second time since November! All sorts of random people on the Flickr community have made comments and marked this as their favorite! I'm extremely happy!
This is my new friend Miss BoPeep who is rad and hysterical! She dumbfounded everyone at the prom by pulling that classic "removing the glasses" trick and looking totally gorgeous! Me on the other hand -- I just looked strange sporting the RCK flare earrings.
As someone else commented on this photo "From left to right, smoldering gaze, jovial smile, knowing smirk."
This is Kickball Cowboy. For the entire season he was rocking a full beard that earned him the nickname of Beowulf. When he won a novelty award for "Best Beard Growth" it was pretty hilarious!
This is my favorite photo of the evening. I'm not quite sure how the hell this happened since I think it is impossible to achieve a double exposure in digital format, but there certainly is a ghost of bad 80's class portraits making an appearance here!
