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?

Five for Friday… Instruments at an elementary school concert

Last night, my family went to Oldest Daughter’s school holiday concert. The program consisted of vocal and instrumental pieces by students in first through fifth grades.

There are so many things to enjoy at these concerts…

• It is just a lovely sense of controlled chaos.
• The children really put their full effort into everything they do.  (I’m remembering you, Mr. Bell-Ringer.)
• Except when they completely space out.  (Never mind that we’re doing a concert for 600 friends and family members.  I’m fascinated by the ceiling.)
• “In unison” is a term that we interpret in the most generous manner possible.
• Fifth grade boys show off their muscles to the applause after the songs are finished.
• The accompaniment CD needs to play through thirteen tracks – one for each of the twelve days of Christmas plus one for the big finale.   Pandemonium reigns when the sound system will only do one at a time.  (But the tech guy saves the day with some last second prestidigitation!)

And courtesy of OD’s concert, today’s “Five for Friday” are my favorite instruments from the show.

1) Boomwhackers - We hit things.   We make music.  We do both at the same time!  Someone is a genius.

2) Kazoos - Tchaikovsky is rolling over in his grave right now.

3) Chimes/Bells - So we can play “Cccccarrolll off thhe bbbellsss”.  (See my comment about “in unison” above.)

4) Random percussion instruments - If it clanks, we’ll use it (tambourines, small drums, cow bells, cymbals).

5) Recorders - Once they get to fifth grade, they actually let them play multiple notes.  And so they do.  In a band.  All at once.

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)

Five for Friday… hobbies I’d like to try

Sometime in the last year, I realized that I had squeezed about all I could out of the time in my life.  You know how it is – we’re all a little inefficient sometimes, and if we get rid of those inefficiencies, then we could take on something else.   (Hopefully something that we enjoy!)  Well, I finally decided that I was about as efficient as I was going to be^*, and that if I wanted to do something new, I was going to have to give up something old.

* Let me be clear here – I am not saying that I am fully efficient.  Not by a long shot.  I’m quite inefficient, really.  I’m just saying that my efficiency isn’t going to improve any time soon.  To restate what I said above, I’m as efficient as I’m going to be.  Don’t hold your breath, if you’re hoping for more.

Anyway, you know how, from time to time, you might say, “I’d like to try (fill in the blank) sometime?”  Well – here are the things that I’d enjoy doing, if I had more time.

1) Genealogy – Actually, I already have a good start on this one.  If I ever find some more spare time, this is the first thing that I’ll pick up again.

2) Music – If I had more time, I’d learn a new instrument or practice the ones I already have.  If I were learning something new, I would probably start with violin, but I’d consider bass guitar, dobro, or mountain dulcimer, as well.

3) Woodworking – This would require time, space, and money.  I’d like to have a little shop of my own where I could make furniture or cabinets or maybe turn things on a lathe.  In reality, I don’t expect this to happen any time soon, but I keep the idea tucked away in the back of my mind.  When the girls are older…

4) Photography – I already am able to do a little of this from time to time.  I would upgrade my equipment and focus on nature photography.

5) A mish-mash of things around the house – This is how I jam more than five things into Five for Friday.  There are lots of things that Ordinary Spouse does that I also enjoy, but that I’ve mostly given over to her, since she’s at home.  These include gardening (I’d really enjoy doing the flower beds), sewing,  and cooking.  I’d also do more reading, since my book queue is always about ten books deep.

Five (more) for Friday… Discontinued comics

To go with today’s earlier post, here are my favorite comics that are no longer in production.  If they were, I would have had some troubles narrowing down my favorites to a single “Five for Friday” list.

1) Calvin And Hobbes

2) The Far Side

3) Boondocks

4) FoxTrot (Technically, FoxTrot is still published on Sundays (yay!), but it is no longer a daily strip.)

5) Bloom County/Opus

Five for Friday… Comics

Today I give you my favorite comic strips, without too much explanation.  It seems to me that a person’s sense of humor is either understood or not.  If understood, explanation isn’t needed; and if not, no amount of explanation is going to help.

I’m afraid my sense of humor will be in the latter…

1) Frazz – Frazz is like a grown up Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes.  He’s a wise custodian who could be in a higher paying job.  But why move on, when you’re doing what you love?

2) Dilbert – I work in cubicle.  I’ve been known to photoshop Dilbert cartoons in order to put in my own name.  And sometimes, they’re just a little too realistic.

3) Arlo & Janis – I am Arlo.  Except that I have no desire to own a sailboat.  A canoe, on the other hand…

4) Doonesbury – I like my political commentary to lean slightly left (while still making fun of everyone).

5) Baby Blues – House with three kids.  Need I say more?

Five for Friday… Instruments

Piano – When I was young, my parents had me take piano lessons.  Actually, there was probably a time when I wanted to take piano lessons.  But I didn’t do a very good job of practicing.  I’m surprised that the collective ‘we’ stayed with the lessons for as long as we did – and actually I don’t recall any more how long that actually was, but I think it may have been about five years.  These days, I can plunk out a melody line or some chords, but I’m mostly thankful for the piano lessons because I taught myself to play…

Guitar – Now granted, I’m not real good at guitar – basically, all I play are chords – but it’s the instrument that I play regularly.  It’s good for leading worship, entertaining daughters, and quieting myself when I get into a mood.  I’d love to be more skilled in a folk singer/songwriter kind of way, but time is a  limiting factor here.

Hammered dulcimer – Rich Mullins, one of my favorite musical artists, inspired me to take dulcimer lessons when I was in grad school.  I really enjoyed them, although I had trouble practicing, just as I did with the piano.  I even own my own dulcimer.  Alas – when the daughters arrived, the dulcimer was too susceptible to damage, and it was too annoying to set up and take down all the time.  So now I’ve got a dulcimer under my bed, waiting patiently for a few more years until it isn’t threatened anymore.

Violin – If I were going to learn a new instrument, this would be it.  I love its versatility to carry a melody line or add accompaniment, its suitability to a variety of musical styles, and its portability.  (That last one is the primary reason that the violin gets the nod over the cello.)  However, I can’t justify learning violin until the dulcimer comes out from under the bed.

Piano accordion – This is the instrument that I seriously considered  buying this week.  The newspaper at work had a used one for sale in the classified section, and I thought that I could probably pick up some passable skills on my own (sort of like I did with the guitar).  In the end, the cost was just a tad high, and storage was an issue.  And I didn’t want my daughters to have to go through therapy when they reach adulthood.

Five for Friday… favorite colors

Restarting “Five for Friday” after a few weeks off…  This week, I give you my favorite colors, complete with hexidecimal rgb code!  (Of course, there is some tolerance for similar colors…)

Five for Friday… favorite plants

Today’s “Five for Friday” is brought to you by Oldest Daughter, who suggested that I choose my favorite plants.  This was a hard one, not because I don’t have favorites, but because I was having trouble remembering them.  So someone might remind me of plants that I’ve forgotten.  Without further ado and in no particular order…

• Shagbark Hickory – This tree reminds me of my childhood.  I love the flavor of the nuts, and the grandkids used to make boats out of the husks and race them in my grandparents creek.  And the bark is just crazy.
• Cilantro – This may be my very favorite herb.  I just love the smell and flavor.  According to wikipedia, the dislike that some people have for cilantro may be genetic.  Guess I didn’t get that gene.
• Rosemary – Or, this may be my favorite herb.  Hard to tell.  This one reminds me of Ann Arbor, and especially of Seva, which is consistently chosen as the best vegetarian restaurant in town.  I now have a small rosemary bonsai – a gift from my family.
• Rock Cress – This one made the list for sentimental reasons.  When I was young, I asked my parents to buy a plant for me once when they were shopping at a green house, and I was surprised when they did.  (In retrospect, I’m sure it took no convincing at all to get my parents to buy a plant.)  That plant lived for many years at the house where I grew up, and even made the move when my parents moved.  I’m not sure if they still have it, but my family has one growing in our flower bed now, as well.
• Cherry Birch -  I’ll close out the list with another tree from my childhood.  I was introduced to the cherry birch during a nature walk at Laurelville one year while I was at summer camp.  My favorite part was picking a small twig and sucking on the bark.  Sweet!

Five for Friday… Smells

I won’t claim that these are my all time favorite smells, but they are somewhat unique and help define me.  In no particular order:

• Acetic acid - Yes, I like the smell of vinegar.
• Prairie dropseed - About this time of year, this grass takes on a very heavy and earthy smell that also reminds me of Italian seasoning.
• Fresh bread - This, of course, is not always conducive to maintaining proper weight.
• Benzaldehyde - Go take a whiff of the almond extract in your kitchen cupboard.
• Freshly ground coffee - I don’t really care for the taste of black coffee at all.  (Mocha is a different story.)  However, the smell is wonderful.

 And some honorable mentions:

• The damp, woodsy smell in the mountains of western Pennsylvania - You just don’t want that smell in your basement.
• The mixture of mower exhaust and freshly cut grass - This smell is also polluting the air, but I still like it.  I don’t get that smell with my mower.
• Isoamyl acetate - Think ripe bananas.