Five for Friday… Christmas traditions

This blog on traditions was originally going to be much longer, but it eventually just became too unwieldy.  So I decided to pare it down and this was a much more manageable format.

I’m the older of my parents’ children.  As the firstborn, I’m the keeper of the traditions.  Sometimes, I insist on traditions just to give my sister fits.  Sometimes, I take advantage of my role as keeper of the traditions in order to make up new traditions on the spot.  It’s a lot of fun.

The traditions in my family are a mixture of lame and love, but I’m not sure the two are separable.  Real families have real foibles, and it’s always useful to be able to laugh at them – sooner or later.

1) Christmas tree selection

When I was young, we used to select our tree from among the trees planted as a wind break at my grandparents’  house.  These trees were not pruned or well-proportioned.  Once our tree had two points.  We used fishing line to pull the branches into place, and put the trees into the corner so that you only had to look at two sides.  My mom loved these trees.  (Ha!)

Now that I  have my own house, we have an artificial tree – the ultimate in lame.  This year I had a great idea for next year.  I’m going to cable-tie a power strip to the trunk to make it easy to plug in the lights.  How’s that for lame?

2) Christmas tree trimming

Both now and when I was young, the trimming of the tree was a family affair.  I helped my dad put up the tinsel and lights, and for the past two years my older daughters have done the same.  Then we all hang ornaments, both homemade and Hallmark-made.  Here’s one from childhood:

My wife thinks it’s ugly.  (The word she used just now is “historical”.)  Frankly, I don’t understand why it offends her.

My parents liked to give ornaments that commemorated something from the previous year.  Often, this meant that the ornament was hand-crafted by my father.  When you do this at the last minute, you open yourself to teasing from your children years later when they write about the ornaments in their blog…

(In case it’s not clear, it’s a thin piece of balsa, colored with marker and lettered with a Sharpie.  I have all of the ornaments that my dad made.  This was not his best year.)

3) Christmas Eve dinner – Oyster stew

No one actually likes oyster stew, except for my father.  However, I enjoyed enforcing the tradition more than I disliked the stew.  (This was because my sister really disliked the stew.)  Recently, the only oysters in the stew have been the oyster crackers.

4) Christmas morning traditions

Christmas morning activities at my parents’ house are very time-honored traditions.  We begin with a breakfast of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls arranged in the shape of a Christmas tree.  (As the family grew from four to ten, we’ve had to use two packages instead of just one.)  Then, we open stockings, which contain some small presents.  For example, I had band-aids and jelly beans in my stocking this year (among other things).  After the stockings, we read the Christmas story (which Oldest Daughter did this year).  Finally, we exchange presents, although in recent years we’ve also made charitable contributions in honor of family members.

5) The Christmas cantata

At the expense of some other good traditions, I’d like to finish with one that is no longer happening.  For many years (40 or 50, although I’m not sure that anyone knows for sure), my home congregation presented the Christmas story with a mixture of song and acting.  The major embellishment was the inclusion of a group of children who went to see the baby Jesus.  When I was young, I played the parts of different children, so that by the time that I was ten or so, I knew the parts of all of the children.  When I got too old to be one of the child actors, I joined the choir.  I still know these songs (especially the tenor lines) and I still enjoy them.

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There’s my list.  Even as type this, I hear that Oldest Daughter is preparing a Christmas party for tonight with my sister.  Maybe it’s the start of something new.

I’d love to hear about other traditions.  Maybe some of the faithful readers from my wife’s family will add their favorites?

Farther over the river and through the woods…

Last month, I blogged the trip that my ordinary family made from our house to my in-laws’ house for  Thanksgiving.  Those random thoughts and observations from the road are the kind of things that I find interesting to read, even if no one else really cares.  And since I enjoy it, I decided to do the same thing today as my family drove to my parents’ house for Christmas.  We began our trip yesterday afternoon by driving to my in-laws’.  That cuts about three hours off the total time, and when the total time includes every daylight hour, it’s nice to start a ways down the road. This morning, the alarm went off at 6:00 a.m., and I skipped my morning shave and shower – don’t need to be presentable to anyone today.  Thus began an amazingly efficient day…

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Oatmeal, juice, and coffee for breakfast.  Check the weather, and get a report from my father-in-law who brought in the newspaper.  Looks like we have some ice to deal with from last night’s freezing rain.

Get the older girls going, but let Youngest Daughter sleep.  She generally doesn’t eat much for breakfast anyway.

Amazingly, the family is packed and on the road by 7:40.  Not much traction on these residential streets, which isn’t a happy situation, but I’m optimistic that things will be fine once we get to the toll road.

My blogging machine is up and running.  Hoorah for Ordinary Spouse, who once again records my dictations (and adds snarky comments that I have to filter out).  At Thanksgiving, she was writing.  This time, she’s typing on our laptop.

The ice is pretty bad on the country roads, but we go slow and don’t use the brakes very much.  Youngest Daughter has a breakfast of cheese and zwieback (“feebuk”) in the van and the girls watch the pink beginnings of a sunrise over Amish farm fields.  We are all filled with anxious waiting for the “fast road” – some of us hope for traction and some want to watch a DVD (which doesn’t get turned on until then).

The toll road (I80/I90) is all that we hoped for – dry and vehicle free.  Cruise control is set at 70 mph and we’re moving right along.  Well – moving right along until…

We stop at the first rest area in order to deal with the breakfast coffee, which has wasted no time in working it’s way through our systems.

Excerpts from random conversations between the adult passengers in the front:

• What is a “turnpike”?  (One of us knows the answer and quizzes the other.)
• The amazing typing skills of Ordinary Spouse.  She never looks at the keyboard, but she never makes a mistake, either.
• How has Google become so large?  I realize that they seem to do everything I ever want to do on a computer, but I’ve never paid them a cent.  (i.e. I’ve never followed any of their advertising links.  I don’t even look at them.)

By 9:30 a.m., we’re twenty miles into Ohio.  The Little Mermaid prequel is playing on the DVD player in the back.  Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Party Doll and Other Favorites” is playing in the front.  We drive past an orchard and under clouds (yes, clouds) of birds that have been getting drunk on rotting fruit.  We run the windshield washers to clean the windshield…

Ordinary Spouse makes a phone call to my parents to let them know that there is a good chance that we’ll be there by supper time.  At milepost 77, she breaks out the snacks for the first time: aquatic animals (goldfish) or land animals (animal crackers)?

Shortly after 10:30, we’re back on the road after our second rest stop at milepost 100.  Curious George is now playing in the back; Rich Mullins in the front.  The adults are having more random conversations.  I don’t know if it’s the daylight, or the grim determination that comes with a long day of travel, but it would appear that all of our conversations are going to be somewhat random.  (Often, we have our deep conversations when we travel after dark between Illinois and Indiana.  The trip is short, and the girls all go to sleep.)

The traffic is getting a bit heavier now before  lunch.  We get the first hints of sunlight, and I also express my appreciation for a friendly driver aware of what was going on around her.   (She was going to pass me, but saw that I was also overtaking the vehicle in front of me.  Since we had three lanes, she pulled to the outside, even before I started signalling.  We need more drivers like that.)

Then I express my frustration that there are considerably more drivers in the passing lanes than in the right lane.  Look folks – most of you aren’t passing anyone.  Pull over and stop clogging the road.

Going around Cleveland, Curious George has ended, and we’re all getting restless and ready for lunch.  We stop at the rest area at milepost 197.  Three of us eat at Au Bon Pain (which is French for “it’s a good hurt”) and two of us eat at McDonald’s (which is English for “greasy”).  After getting gas from the rest area food, we also get gas for our van.  That and some Starbucks to stave off afternoon drowsiness and we’re ready to go again.

I request some music to keep me awake – a mix CD which leads off with Guns ‘n Roses “Sweet Child O’ Mine”.  Ordinary Spouse asks what the lead singer looks like, but then decides that she doesn’t really want to know…

It’s time for naps, but the girls don’t nap when Ordinary Spouse naps, so her nap only last for about fifteen minutes.  By about 2:30 p.m., we’re into Pennsylvania and going south past Pittsburgh on I-79.  Simon and Garfunkel are now in the CD player (such uplifting songs – “I Am A Rock” and “Cecelia”).

The road signs are typical for Pennsylvania roads, warning of weather that doesn’t exist and road work that isn’t happening.  The houses in this area were built in the first half of the last century and cling to the hillsides.  They’re crowded together, just like the lanes of the road that we’re on.

By 4:00 p.m., we’re around Morgantown, and on I-68.  The passengers are getting antsy, because the West Virginia welcome area didn’t welcome us (closed for the season).  Mary Poppins is playing in the back seat, and the parents are discussing health care and the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ack!  The Maryland welcome center is closed, too.  Things are getting desperate by the time we make it to Keyser’s Ridge at exit 14.  At a quarter ’til five, we get back on the road.  Next stop: Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  Twenty-eight miles to go.  It’s time to be there.

The last bit of light is fading from the sky and the Indigo Girls are the last CD of the day as we descend the mountain into Cumberland.  At exit 43B, our time on the interstates has ended.  Twelve minutes later, my father is opening the garage door for us.  5:20 p.m.  Five hundred miles in under ten hours.  It’s probably a record for us, at least with children.

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As I type this, the cousins are all nestled all snug in their beds.  May the Peace of Christ be your most wonderful gift this Christmas.

Gifts for the bald man in your life

When I was young, one of the men in my church said to my father…

God made a certain number of heads.  Some God liked.  The rest God covered with hair.

I’ll let you take a guess at the relative amounts of hair on the heads of both of these men.

Years later at about the time I became a father, I saw a photo of myself from behind and was caught off-guard by the amount of glare coming off my head.  Well – that was an eye-opening photograph.  I decided that given the amount of hair loss which had already occurred, it didn’t make sense to be in denial or to fight back.  Soon thereafter, I got a clipper and sheared everything down to about half an inch.  Those were my “dandelion” days.  (I’ll let you work on that descriptive term for a while.)

Since then, my preferred length has just gotten shorter and shorter: three-eighths to a quarter and then to an eighth of an inch guard on my clipper.  Eventually, I removed the guard altogether.  Finally, earlier this year, I switched from a clipper to a blade.

You may ask, “So what’s your point?”  My point is to share this crazy gift that my wife got me for Christmas:

Yes – your eyes do not deceive you.  That’s a rolling, race-car razor for your head (or for the bald person in your life).  But wait – there’s more.  Because my wife didn’t just purchase the race car for me.  She purchased the whole starter kit.  So in addition to the razor, I also have the pre-shave exfoliating scrub (containing grape seeds and walnut shells), the mentholating shaving cream, and a choice of two post-shave lotions, which give your head either a glossy or matte finish!  There’s an adapter, which allows me to use my favorite razor blades from Gillette.  There’s a t-shirt, so that I can proudly proclaim my lack of hair, and a decal so that my car can do the same.  I’m all set!  (You can be, too, if you visit the website.)

This morning, I tried things out for the first time.  Here’s the 30 sec review:

• The shave was easy and close.  No problem with nicking.  Two thumbs up!
• Two challenging spots will need some work.  The tight area right above my ears was hard to get to, and the wavy part of my skull in the back didn’t get cut quite as close.
• I’m not sure yet how well this will work for the rest of my face.  Having to use two razors could be a nuisance.
• The mentholated shaving cream was the best stuff that I’ve ever used.  It gave my head a cool and refreshing feeling throughout the shave.  The shaving cream (or the pre-shave scrub, or the combination of both) provided an irritation-free shave.
• The glossy-finish lotion wasn’t as glossy as I would have liked.  I was hoping to blind my family.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled program…

The things kids learn in school

Here are the kinds of jokes that I’ll be hearing for the next eight years or so, as my children go through elementary school.  They are brought to us this morning by Middle Daughter… who learned them from Oldest Daughter… who has been telling the same jokes multiple times for the last few weeks now…

Middle Daughter: What’s your name?

ordinary (mostly): Ted.

MD: Spell it.

o(m): I-T.

MD: Good!  You got it right!

As I said, we’ve heard it multiple times – yet somehow, it doesn’t seem to lose its humor…

That one was followed minutes later by this one…

MD: What’s your name?

o(m): Ted.

MD: What color is the sky?

(I look out the window at the wintery sky…)

o(m): Gray.

MD: No, you have to say, “Blue.”

o(m): But it looks gray to me.

MD: But we usually say that the sky is blue.

o(m): Ok.  Blue.

(MD points up in the air…)

MD: What direction am I pointing?

o(m): Up.

MD: You just said, “Ted blew up!”

(MD laughs.)

It’s going to be a long eight years.

Five for Friday… pie

I really do have some more thoughtful stuff to post on my blog, but doing so would require… well… thought.  And I don’t particularly feel like thinking right now.  I feel like pie.  Or talking about it, at least.

My taste in pie is strongly influenced by three sources:

• Yoder’s Country Market (Grantsville, MD) – Otherwise known as ‘The Locker’, the market began as a butcher shop and expanded to become a grocery store (with a really great bakery).  Alas, I believe that they’ve closed now (although the meat operations may still be going – my ordinary parents will know).  Every time I’d visit my grandparents when I was a child, I’d ask grandma to buy me some of their raisin cookies.  They were moist – any time you tried to get one, you automatically got another one sticking to it.  Later on, I began to appreciate their pie, as well.
• My father – we have pretty much the same taste in food, as long as the food isn’t called ‘endive’, ‘kohlrabi’, or ‘dandelion’.  We’ll see how much overlap there is in this pie list.
• My Eastern Pennsylvania heritage – see shoofly.

And now, let the mouth-watering commence!

1) Mincemeat

2) Pecan

3) Shoofly

4) Apricot (with a little bit of tapioca as a thickener!)

5) Rhubarb (ditto on the tapioca)

Good strawberries

This evening for supper, Ordinary Spouse put a bowl of strawberries on the table.  There weren’t many to begin with, and soon Middle Daughter and Oldest Daughter had consumed nearly all of them…

ordinary (mostly): Hey!  There’s only one strawberry left!

(Middle Daughter grabs the last one and takes a bite.)

o(m): Well – now there are none.

MD: Daddy, did you eat any strawberries yet?

(Now I’m thinking, “Wow – she’s considerate.”)

o(m): No.

MD: Well, these are really good!

(And the last bite is consumed.)

Old McNoah?

Today’s cute story comes to us from Ordinary Sister and Extraordinary Niece.  Ordinary Sister says, “I don’t have a blog, but if I did, this recent conversation would make it on.”

(Extraordinary Niece comments while Ordinary Sister reads aloud from a family devotional guide for Advent.  The devotion is about the story of Noah.)

EN: Old MacDonald and Noah same.

OS (clarifying):  Old Mac Donald had a farm?

EN: Yes.  Noah had ark.

Ordinary Sister concludes, “Then there was a lot of singing of Old MacDonald.  I didn’t finish the devotional guide.  It seemed like a good place to stop.”

Blessed!

I’m always learning from my daughters.  This morning, I had to learn how to say, “I’m sorry”, after I raised my voice at Oldest Daughter.

Later, Ordinary Spouse sent me this from the traveling minstrel that we also know as Youngest Daughter:

Blessed! Blessed! Who—-ole world!

Many of you won’t know the source, but her tune roughly approximated the tune for the hymn, “Blessed”, by David Wright and Jim Clemens (from their hymnal, “A Field of Voices“).  It’s a song that we’ve been singing at church recently during a sermon series on the Beatitudes.  I don’t know where she came up with “whole world” (the next line is actually “Loved and blessed!”) but it matches the bumper sticker on my car (“God bless the whole world.  No exceptions.”).  But she can’t read yet.

I’m blessed to be around children.

Black Friday, Amish style

While the rest of the world was trampling over each other at Walmart this morning, my family went to the Amish bulk food store in Shipshewana.

As we neared the store, we saw a buggy cruising through an intersection a bit late, giving us this quote of the day: “Did that buggy just trot the red light?”

Once we got to the store it was surprisingly empty.  We stocked up on the usual items: flour, cocoa, spices, quinoa.

Some big guy with a NASCAR jacket took a big handful of cheese samples.  Just reached into the cup and grabbed them.  No toothpicks involved.  Youngest Daughter: “Can I have cheese?”  Me: “No.”

As we were leaving, we observed a lineup of around twenty buggies along the side of the building.  Gives new meaning to Black Friday.

Over the river and through the woods…

Well, here we are at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  We traveled early this morning, instead of trying to fight Thanksgiving Eve traffic last night.  And just what does a three hour trip from the Chicago ‘burbs to north-central Indiana look like?  Here’s my view from the driver’s seat…

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“Who wants to see my proboscis?”  (Oldest Daughter, just out of the driveway)

“I’m sure glad we’re travelling this morning instead of last night.”  (Me to Ordinary Spouse, as we made two effortless left turns  where I’d normally encounter great volumes of traffic during my morning commute)

Six minutes into the trip, we get on the “fast road” (the general nickname for limited access road, which in this case is I-55).  This is the signal for the girls to request a DVD.  In goes Fraggle Rock.

About fifteen minutes later, we’re onto I-355 and crossing the “blue light bridge” over the Des Plaines River.  McMansions overlook the valley on the south side.  I spout opinions… “If I had half a million dollars to buy a house, I’d get something with more character than these boxes.”

Shortly thereafter, I remember my blog… “If I could live blog this trip, I would.” Instead, I ask ordinary spouse if she has paper and pencil.  She anticipates my next request and writes, “My ordinary assistant will hand write the whole thing.”  I comment that “ordinary assistant” will probably get replaced by “smart-alecky assistant” when the notes make it into print.

“Could you give me blana?”  (Youngest Daughter woke up five minutes before we left and didn’t have breakfast.  Now she wants a banana.)

All along, I’m sipping coffee.  I’ve got a great thermos.  Too great.  The coffee is scalding hot nearly all the way.

Ordinary Spouse is cleaning out her purse.  She finds a diaper.

From I-355 to I-80.  The opening bars of U2’s “Zoo Station” (from the album, “Achtung Baby”) are playing as we’re exiting from one to the other.  Makes for a nice transition.

We see a white flag with a red border and a blue star.  Ordinary Spouse speculates that it’s a Czech flag.  Turns out that it’s a flag displayed by the family of a member of the armed services serving in a dangerous location.  We learned something new.

Shortly after getting on I-80, an alert Ordinary Spouse kept me from rear-ending another car.  The road was nearly empty and there was no one in my lane, so I reached for my coffee.  At the same moment, a car in the left lane braked and pulled into my lane.  Then they proceeded to the right lane and accelerated again.  Not sure what that was about.

We cruise through the IPASS lane when I-294 merges with I-80.  It occurs to us that we have no idea how much toll we’re actually paying.

The billboards along the interstate near the Illinois-Indiana border are really classy.  (“Gamble 30 minutes and get a free buffet” or “All of the liquor; none of the clothes”.)  Ordinary Spouse comments on the first one. “Sounds like  a gamble to me.”

We’ve removed Fraggle Rock, which didn’t seem to be a big hit.  It’s been replaced by the Laurie Birkner Band. “This is like a rock star for kids,” says Middle Daughter.

Rain, rain, rain.

Onto the Indiana Turnpike (I-80/I-90).  We immediately stop at a rest area.  Coffee’s coming through.

We debate the spelling of “niece”.  I comment on the weird spelling of “weird”.

We see a flock sheep walking in formation.  Then we see a sheep dog calmly standing and calling to them.  No running involved.  Impressive.

We reached the end of “Achtung Baby”.  I spout more opinions: what makes an album more than the sum of the parts, and why “Achtung Baby” is one of those albums.

We pass the pond with the big musical instruments.  Time to exit the Turnpike.  On to the bypass around South Bend.  Ordinary Spouse phones her parents and tries to make them believe we still have two hours to go.  Actually, we only have about 45 minutes – we’ll be just in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

Michael Card’s “Starkindler”  is now playing.

Ordinary Spouse and I discuss Richard Rohr and right brain/left brain duality.

Off of the bypass and on to US-33 toward Goshen.

In Goshen, we spot a couple running from their house to their car, carrying a turkey.  They didn’t cover the bird.  It’s raining.

And then, 150 miles and two and a half hours later, we’ve made it.

Thanks to God for every blessing in our lives.  May the thanks we give today continue throughout the year.

Happy Thanksgiving!