ZMas 2011

How do I describe what Zmas is? It is a marvelous celebration combining a love of zombies, the Christmas spirit, preparation for the Zombie Apocalypse (which I have trademarked the Zompocalypse™), games, prizes, and of course bacon. Drew, Olivia, and Carson started this tradition in 2010 but made the decision to expand the celebration to masses in 2011. Per email invitation from Drew, here is a description of what was in store:

“This year we excitedly announce the next phase of Zmas. We would like you to join us for a zombie themed evening of fun, games, and zombie defense training. We ask that each guest bring a wrapped weapon that could be used to dispatch encroaching zombie hoards to include in a "white elephant" style gift exchange. In addition to the gift exchange there will be prizes awarded for winners of our zombie themed games!
Do not put too much thought into the gift exchange purchases. Simply walk around Home Depot until you find something that appears to have some killing potential. Past weapons have included outwardly benign items such as a cast iron skillet and a crowbar. Any item capable of delivering blunt force trauma to a zombie’s skull is perfect.”

The Zmas story really starts with my weapon preparation. Fortunately I live a block away from Tenebuam Harware. Normally I love their costumer service and abundant attention but seeing as I was looking for items to build a zombie killing weapon I wanted as few questions as possible. I didn’t really know what I was looking for so I just walked the aisles politely declining any assistance. I finally decided on combining the traditional ‘2x4 with large nails sticking out of it’ with a small $10 metal shovel. The wood planks (excuse my lack of handyman technical term knowledge) were very cheap but way too long so I asked a guy there if he could cut it for me. So of course he asked what I was working on and the first not completely weird thing I could think to say was, “oh it’s for an art project for school.” Then when I was trying to find the right size nails in a boxed quantity of less than 5,000 he asked how many I needed and proceeded to open a box, take 3 out, and tell me to just put them in my pocket.  Olivia fiercely models my ZomKiller 3000 below:

Zmas was held on December 10^th this year and was an unforgettable event. As all successful parties require there was a plethora of delicious food and drinks including event themed Zombies (the cocktail) and Rogue Dead Guy Ale and my first attempt at bacon wrapped dates (they were so delicious and have been made several times since).

As well, the sorority girl in me insisted that I make a shirt themed for this special occasion:

Zmas consisted of several events in which the winner received the traditional Zmas gift of a machete. Yes, Drew ordered machetes as prizes. First event was Zombie Trivia in which I slaughtered the competition (no surprise from anyone) and was awarded the first machete. Here’s me looking extremely uncomfortable holding a machete.

Next up was zombie weapon trivia which mainly consisted of knowing a lot of types of guns. Markus took the crown machete on that one. Here he is in his zombie attacked outfit getting way too friendly with his prize:

Then it was time for the zombie weapon white elephant exchange. All homemade weapons were wrapped so that we didn’t know what was inside.

We drew numbers for gift selection order and the process of choosing, stealing, trading, punching, and whining was underway. I was in awe of the time, effort, and creativity of most of the weapons. Once we had all opened our gifts we voted on best weapon. The honor went to Olivia whose weapon was basically a plunger filled with cement with very large nails protruding. A close second (and the gift I ended up with and thought was the most hilarious) was Arthur’s weapon which was a hammer dipped in glue and rolled in shards of glass. As I opened the gift, Arthur warned me to be very careful as the glue had not fully dried and pieces of glass were haphazardly falling off it. Some shots of the Best Weapon winner and runner-up and the whole gang with their Zmas weapons:

The final Zmas event was the Zombie killing contest which involved shooting a BB gun inside Drew and Olivia’s aparment. Drew found these awesome shooting targets where the BB would make the target turn green if you shot the zombie in the head, yellow if you shot the zombie anywhere else, and red if you shot a victim. It’s the first time I’ve shot a BB gun and I was terrible at it but it was so much fun. The winner was the person who had the best shots (3 shots total) in 10 seconds. I took almost a full minute to get off three shots and only hit the target twice. Eric was the proud winner of the zombie killing contest.

Then Arthur suggested one last Zmas event: to end the night watching the critically acclaimed Zombie Strippers. For any of you who want to check out this masterpiece starring America’s sweetheart, Jenna Jameson, here’s the IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0960890/.  Fair warning, once you see a zombie stripper shoot pool balls out her hooha, you can never unsee it.

With bellies full of delicious food and drink, minds full of zombie trivia, hands full of homemade weapons and machetes, and hearts full of Zmas magic, we were satisfied to call Zmas 2011 a total success.