Yesterday the CNP gang (both Web and Print) got together for the annual Christmas breakfast at the Chalet Suzanne. The Chalet is not exactly the place that any of the guys here at cnp_studio would be found, but they do make some great silver dollar pancakes and sticky buns.

Because of those great pancakes, every year I try to get the guys to compete in a pancake eating contest (the restaurant keeps the refills on pancakes coming 5 at a time) to see who's prepared for Coney Island in July. This is the third year for the contest, but it was met with more reservation than excitement, probably due to the fact that you feel like crap after eating all of those pancakes. This year's contest ended with Sean at 14 pancakes, Pete at 28, and me finishing with 33 pancakes. Previous years have seen Pete and I getting up around 50, but that didn't even seem possible this year.

What about Mike? He had to bow out this year because his wife went into labor about 4 hours prior to our 8AM breakfast (come on Mike, priorities man). Around 4:50 PM yesterday, Mike was blessed with a happy, healthy newborn baby girl (8 pounds and 22 inches). Mom, dad and the baby are doing great. Congrats, Mike!

The breakfast then finished up with the annual gift exchange where we got such cool new toys as a Palmsize R/C Copter and a Screaming Monkey Slingshot.

Sean sports the fittingly appropriate "Grumpy" Santa hat

The CNP gang

Pete practices for the next installment in Saturday Night Live's "A Special Christmas Box" sketch (NSFW unless your office is like ours... in which case no worries).