Friday Faves 1/3: 90 Day Fiancé, Skillet Breakfasts, Happiness, and Holidays

Best Activity

The holidays are always full of good stuff. Here’s a few things that I enjoyed over the last two weeks.

Clifton Mills: This place is an electrician’s nightmare. Millions (yes, millions) of Christmas lights cover the entire property out in southern Ohio. The mill is still active, and in the holiday season thousands of people pay their $10 admission fee to walk through a covered bridge and into a Christmas wonderland. There’s a light show every 30 minutes to the tune of TransSiberian Orchestra’s “Carol of the Bells.” Between light shows you can check out the miniature model of the Clifton and the surrounding towns, full of flashing lights and sounds and even a flying Santa Claus on a string. It’s rather impressive. They serve some damn good hot chocolate with legit whipped cream (any more whips and it’s ice cream. Just delicious).

Last year, Clifton Mills won $50,000 on ABC’s “Great Christmas Light Fight” in the heavyweight division.

December Hike: We were blessed with some really nice weather in Ohio, so we decided to stretch our legs one afternoon and go for a hike in Yellow Springs. The Glen Helen nature preserve has the actual yellow spring, where minerals turn the water and some rock a yellow-orange color. It was a lovely day, and even though we weren’t quite dressed for a muddy hike, it was very pretty, and I’d imagine the other three seasons have their own charm in those woods.

Flying on Christmas: We travelled back to Boston early Christmas morning, and it was rather delightful. The airport was quiet, and even though we had a layover in Baltimore, it was stress free. If you’re even thinking about flying on Christmas, I suggest doing it.

QuipLash: We spent our seventh straight New Years Eve with our friends Lindsay and Dean. We alternate trips, so this year we drove down to see them in New Jersey. We were all introduced to an incredibly fun game called Quiplash. It’s a little like “Cards Against Humanity” but you use your phone to actually create your own answers that everyone else vote on using their phone. Every round, you get two prompts. You answer them however you’d like. One other person in the room gets the same prompts as you, so you’re going head to head for everyone else’s votes. The winner receives the most votes over the three round game. It’s exceptional, and if we didn’t have to worry about the midnight ball drop, I think we might have played it for a couple more hours.

Best Watch

90 Day Fiancé: This TLC guilty pleasure was introduced to me by my sister and reintroduced over the holidays when we were looking for something to watch one night. The premise of the show is couples have 90 days to marry their non-citizen fiancé from another country. The K-1 Visa allows them to enter the country for 90 days, if they marry in that window, the non-citizen receives a green card. The season follows a bunch of couples who all have crazy stories bordering on the absurd. But they have real stuff to deal with before deciding if they really do want to get married. The images that some of them have of America are incredible… just watch this clip of Robert and Anny in a second-hand store.

Best Listen

Bachelor Party: This Ringer Network pod is a weekly during the Bachelor season, but over the last month, the pod has ranked every single Bachelor/Bachelorette season from 1-39. The top ten, which is broken into two parts, is exceptional. Chris Harrison is the guest and he is honest and tells some excellent stories. #6-10 Pod and #1-5 Pod

Best Read

Is Anyone Happy Anymore?: Written from the west coast of Ireland, this quick NYTimes article takes a look at what happiness means to us and how we try and find it. Of course, an old Irish guy from across the street delivers the Earth shattering quote at the end. NYTimes.com

Best Eat

Sunrise Skillet: There are three things I expect when we travel to Ohio: Polite people, long conversations with strangers, and a trip to Bob Evans. To give you a sense of how omnipresent the delicious chain restaurant is, as we drove to Bob Evans with Tiff’s second-cousin, an 8-year-old, they were debating which of the three Bob Evans in the town was the best. THREE BOB EVANS!? I wouldn’t mind if midwest shared some of the deliciousness and sent some of Bob’s food this way (We’ll trade you a bunch of Dunkin’ Donut stores…). I tried something new this time around, the Sunrise Skillet, basically an open-faced omelet with sausage gravy, home fries, and cheese on top. It’s um, amazing. A once a year type treat, but perfect for the glutinous holiday season.

Irish bacon and sausage: Another staple of home is my mom opening the freezer before bed and pulling out the bacon and sausage to thaw. This used to be a more rare tradition when there wasn’t a British store down the road that my mom could drive to. We used to have family in Ireland ship the stuff to us. If you’ve never had Irish sausages, you’re missing out. They are miles better than the American version. The bacon isn’t quite Canadian bacon, but it also isn’t your typical strips of bacon. My mom’s homemade Brown Bread tops the whole thing off. I like to slice the sausages the long way, splay it open on the bread, and dig in!

Pavlova: If you like meringue, then this is the dessert for you. We’ve coined this fluffy, fruity dessert the “Pope’s Pillow.” It’s a meringue base, topped with whipped cream, and then whatever fruit you can get your hands on. This has been a Christmas tradition in our house for a while, along with an Irish Pudding that you pour whiskey over and light on fire before serving. Pavlova is delicious in any season.

Best Drink

Irish Coffee: I can’t remember the last time I had an Irish coffee, but as I sat sitting at home last week, my sister looked up from her computer and said, “I think I’m gonna make an Irish Coffee.” Well, Irish Coffees we did make. My mom, who has never drank any alcohol (except for the desperate Hot Toddy when a cold gets really bad) has these glasses that give you the proper proportions of whiskey, coffee, and cream. The key is pouring the cream into the coffee using the bottom of a spoon so it doesn’t go to the bottom. We used bourbon for the whiskey, so we just didn’t add any sugar.

After reflecting on the last two categories, I am realizing I need to take it easy this January…

Best Plugs

The Random Division Season Finale: Tiff and I wrapped up our Decade in Review with a recap of events and people of the decade. iTunes (rate, review, subscribe, tell you friends!). Spotify (Follow!)

The Bachelor kicks off with a three hour episode on Monday night. Follow our IG handle for some live updates during the show! @TheRandomDivision. We’ll be podding too, but probably not until later in the week.

My Ohio State Fandom was confirmed: Last Saturday the Ohio State Buckeyes lost a heart-breaker to Clemson. It really bugged me. More than it should have. My fandom application is now complete….