Count Down

Most of the time when we think of a 'count down' it is something positive.  I remember when the girls were little that we would make paper chains to count down a number of things like how long till Christmas or vacation or whatever.  (Sometimes we had chains to count up, like the number of books we have read this summer.)  Each day of course one link would be removed and then the remaining chain indicated the number of days until the desired event. 



"Desired Event" here is the key term.  In four days Lisa goes to Minnesota to be visit her Mom and Dad.  Her Mom is now in a "care facility' where she is able to receive 24 hour care.  She is set up with her computer which allows her to maintain connection with her family and outside world.  Though she doesn't get to be in her home of many years she does have a place that by all reports is good with a private room.  I suspect that Mom is looking forward to Lisa's visit.  Possibly the highlight of the trip is that Lisa is planning to take her mother to the facility where her Dad is currently recuperating.  This will be the first time since the fall (her dad's fall in November, not the fall of Adam and Eve) that they will have seen each other. 

Lisa will be visiting her Dad of course while there as well.  By all reports he has progressed greatly over the last few months.  He is no longer in a coma.  He is much more alert and attentive and is making efforts to communicate although he still is not able to do so verbally.  With gestures and resonding to 'yes' or 'no' questions as well as mouthing words he is trying to be understood.  He apparently has responded with excitement that his oldest daughter is coming to visit. 

Lisa will also get to spend some time with our oldest daughter and her husband Mike.  Mike is our first son-in-law and by the way we look at things has joined the family and become a son.  (We anticipate he will have a brother in the family soon). 

Lisa will be visiting with her sisters and family as well.  It will be a good vacation for Lisa.

I know Jaime and Mike and Lisa are looking forward to going to Donatelli's for a meal which is a family tradition when we are in Minnesota.  That is our favorite restaurant.  I suspect they will eat some Italian Fries among other yummy things.  Of course they will tell me all about it, which should wet my appetite for...bread and water which is what I'll be eating here!  Okay maybe bread and milk!  Ha!

So needless to say with Lisa gone and Haleigh and I here it will be different.  Not entirely enjoyable without Lisa but I'm glad she can have a good visit with her family.  Haleigh has a variety of things to do over her Spring break and I have the normal stuff of going to work and so forth, including speaking in a branch in the Stake, so I'll stay busy but will miss my wife. 

Christmas Tradition part 10+: Christmas Day

Christmas morning after everyone is up we line up all those here for Christmas from shortest to tallest.  Haleigh now has been at both ends of the line and she has made it known in recent years that the front of the line is better than the back!

Each of our stockings are laid out stuffed with fun and yummy things and we spend time opening our stockings at the same time and enjoying them and then seeing what everyone else received.  Over the years stuffing a stocking has become a fun specialty.  In some ways more fun because of the limited space in the stocking.  This year we pulled a trick on Jeremy which I forewarned him we would have a little fun at his expense Christmas morning.  While everyone had a large stocking overflowing with gifts and goodies he had a 2X4 stocking with two little less fun things in it.  Chap stick and hand sanitizer!  He was a good sport and we quickly brought out his real stocking but that started things off with a tease setting a fun tone to the proceedings. 

I always enjoy watching everyone open up their stocking and seeing how much they are enjoying them and have to catch up with my own opening at the end.

Then we move to the presents under the tree.  Now our girls are grown but when they were younger we made it a point to attribute stocking presents to Santa Claus and those under the tree came from whoever the giver might be.  It seemed reasonable that the kids should know who the presents were from so they could feel and hopefully express appreciation directly to those grandparents, aunts and uncles and so forth.

We developed a way that suited us better to open the presents under the tree by starting with the youngest and giving them an opportunity to give one present to a person and then we all enjoy watching them open the present and enjoy discussing things, teasing, joking and having more fun while watching their reactions to the gift.  This resulted from our desire to increase the emphases to giving and decreasing emphasis from getting.  It had been great with the side-effect of taking longer to open presents.

We take a break at some point and go and eat breakfast.  Lisa has usually put together a tasty breakfast casserole together which we enjoy and then return to presents.  Eventually we are done and nowadays as the girls have grown it is filled with memories from the past and lots of bonding as a family.

Later in the day we typically go to a movie on Christmas.  This year we went to the latest Narnia movie: Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  Then we have dinner at some point that doesn't take a lot of preparation so that we can still enjoy the peacefulness of the day.  In the past Lisa found herself stressed as she prepared a large Thanksgiving type meal.  We got away from that realizing it was decreasing her enjoyment of the day.  This year Lisa had a spiral sliced ham warming in one crock pot with Grandma's potatoes warming in another one.  Much easier and smoother and all nice and warm when we were ready to eat it. 

For us Christmas is a real loving and family bonding time that we enjoy immensely.  Feeling close together and being able to enjoy each other with remembering our foibles and good times from the past.  Families are forever...starting now! 

This year we had three daughters plus Jeremy and Gloria to share Christmas with us.  We had lots of fun sharing our traditions with Jeremy and Gloria and I think they found several things different than their normal celebration of the day. It was a big day of celebration and appreciation and remembrance.

Christmas Tradition part 9: down real late and up early

Christmas has always been an exciting time for me.  Sleeping when I was a child was difficult but eventually I would be overcome and fall asleep but would wake early Christmas morning wondering what Santa Claus, then my parents might give me for Christmas.  Later I enjoyed being Santa Claus to our children and even though they all know that my wife and I have been Santa for a long time I still find it lots of fun to plan and then put out presents and stockings on Christmas Eve. 

This is always very late at night because I want to be sure that they are asleep and that when I put out the stockings that they will be seen for the first time when they wake up and come into the family room.  Well as the kids have gotten older that has gotten harder because they are constantly staying up nowadays and doing their own Christmas surprises and that means I get to bed pretty late and the consequences are that I am tired Christmas Evening.  You'll probably hear more about that in another blog. 

So here I am Christmas Eve.  Lisa has long gone to bed because she knows I'll be up late and she prefers to be rested the next day (imagine that).  Megan has built a barricade fort like structure in the living room to wrap and finish her Christmas surprises behind.  So on the other side of her barricade I am putting together the only present that needs assembling this year.

When the kids were young I sometimes had to assemble some Christmas presents after they went to bed and that would keep me up a little late.  And this time it wasn't anything that was real complicated or had a lot of parts but was something that just took time.  I was putting together the new piano bench that I was giving to Lisa for Christmas.  It is extra long and padded and has adjustable height.  I had noticed in recent months that the current or as I write this the 'old piano bench' was getting pretty rickety and it seemed likely at some point it might collapse entirely.  So a new upgraded bench seemed like a good gift idea.  So there I was attaching the legs to it.  It had come in the mail in a largish box and to my chagrin had printed in five inch letters on each side of the box "piano bench".  I lucked out though because it had arrived while we were in Washington DC and was sitting on the front porch when we got back with the porch light off at night.  So I was able to get it in the house and covered by my coat before anyone else saw what it was.  Success!  Surprise is still possible although after years of trying to do surprises I knew it was not assured. 

So there we are in our living room with Megan on one side wrapping presents and me on the other side of this barricade of furniture putting together the bench.  We are carrying on a good conversation and I am finding it enjoyable having this conversation while doing this assembly work rather than by myself as usual. 

I decide this year that I'll put Lisa's stocking on the new bench so she can get her big present right from the start rather than save it to the end.  My decision to do this is influenced largely by a Christmas a couple years ago when my brother Jim was visiting.  In my effort for the big surprise that year I had come across what I figured would be the perfect gift for my wife and one that surely she could not anticipate that I would give her.  It was large and when I brought it out from it's hiding place at the end of the gift opening with everyone sworn to keep their eyes closed as I am triumphantly bringing it in the room my brother (who was visiting that year) blurts out "that looks like a..." and of course names the gift.  At the time I found it less than pleasurable but nowadays it has become such a great joke and fun memory for us all I am sure that it will live on in family lore much longer than if my surprise had been successful.   

So after completing the bench and getting everything set up with help from a couple of elves all is ready for tomorrow and I can go to sleep. So all is set for Christmas morning! 

I know I won't get much sleep because a certain daughter who has a tradition of her own--that of being the first to get up and come in to our bed room suggesting it is time to get up and go down stairs to open presents.  That daughter used to beg, whine and cajole us in that early Christmas hour to get up and let them go open the presents.  In those days the kids were little and so we would tell them it was too early but they could pile in our bed and sleep until it was time to get up.  Her goal and tradition was to always be the first one in our room.  It is a point of pride for her now to continue that.  There have been a couple of attempts by other daughters to wake up first but as all attempts have fallen short and they now sleep until the appointed time sometimes needing to be awakened by us!  Things do change.     

Christmas Tradition Part 8: Birthday Party

I was born on Christmas morning early.  My Mom tells the story that I was over due and what she had hoped was that I would be born on her birthday in mid December but it turned out that I was born a couple weeks later on Christmas morning.  Naturally she says I was her best Christmas present ever.  She said they wrapped me in a blanket and put a ribbon around me when they brought me to her for the first time. 

Lots of times throughout my life I get condolences that my birthday is on Christmas as many folks think that my birthday is shuffled into the background and ignored or forgotten.  My family however has always managed not to do that and has usually kept it separate.  I have noticed over the years that friends do often forget my birthday.  The exceptions have been when the Rivera family would come by Christmas morning to tell me happy birthday and give me a fresh pineapple which was very much appreciated.  This year I received a text from my friend John who remembered my birthday which made me feel good.  But I have never received many birthday cards.  It hasn't bothered me much.  I remember my birthday and that is good enough for me. 

In recent years we have started celebrating my birthday late on Christmas Eve at my Mom's house after the Christmas Eve party.  The down side is that no one is hungry for birthday cake after eating such a great variety at the party.  The thinking has been that this was a good time to celebrate it since no one wanted to go to bed anyway and that we typically have such a lot to do on Christmas Day that it is hard to find the time and it feels like I am squeezing it in.   

So after the party is over and most of the folks have left we have a little birthday party which includes singing and opening present and then having birthday cake which is often just me having a piece. 

This year things went great.  The presents I received were great and enjoyable and it served the purpose of a bridge from the party to Christmas morning.  As usually Lisa tries to surprise me with a present that I didn't expect.  She did so this year with purchasing a present for me that indeed I didn't expect.  It was a Kindle book reader!  I had not even considered that possibility.  So I am excited to see what I can do with it.  I'll put scriptures and other things on there and see if they are all cracked up to be as good as they say. 

By the way, when people speculate that having a Christmas birthday must be bad I always point out to them that it is great to have the day off every year in my line of work.  At my current agency where I work they give you a day off for your birthday and with my situation I am able to use it another day in December which always gives me plenty of time off around the holidays and with family and friends that are visiting. 

I like my birthday when it is.  I remember once when I was young and I guess my Dad wondered if I felt like I got jipped with my birthday on Christmas.  He offered to let me celebrate it any day I wanted even in the middle of the summer if I wanted.  Christmas Eve or Christmas Day is my preference.  Thanks Dad for giving me the option. 

Christmas Tradition Part 7: Christmas Eve Party

Christmas traditions are coming fast and furious and it is hard to keep up by blogging about them. 

This year as usual we had our Christmas Eve party over at my Mom's house.  She has always enjoyed having parties and now that she is 81 she is finding it harder to get things ready for the party.  This year we had a good friend visiting for the holidays who is staying at her house and he has been helping her around the house to get things ready for the party and Christmas. 

We invited some folks over to the party this year.  One new person we invited was a man I call Ed from Mali Africa.  He is a very friendly and personable guy and as he was recently divorced from his wife and his family isn't available to him for Christmas.  We decided he needed to at least have a good time on Christmas Eve.  He came and he did have a good time. 

We started out the party with a buffet of good foods and snacks.  This year the smorgasbord included everything from my Mom's corn chowder to our special citrus punch that we like to make, little smokies and meat balls in barbecue sauce, greens provided by a friend who knows how to make southern greens with the best of them, enchilada dip for tortilla chips, bagel bites, chex mix, monster cookies and spinach dip for chips.  There were others but these stick out in my mind.  Needless to say more than enough good eats. 

After everyone has had a good chance to eat we typically have a program that includes my Mom reading her 'Willie and Annie" story that she has enjoyed and read many times over the years.  And typically ends with my reading Luke 2.  This year I read it from my Mom's large old Bible that is starting to get decrepit but is the closest thing we have to the family Bible.  Megan told a Christmas story from her mission and Ed told a story from his life experience.  Elder Jones a missionary currently serving in our area spoke about some traditions his family does for Christmas.  He enjoyed the punch we had because he said it is the same punch that his family has which was a surprise to me since I don't recall anyone saying they have that same punch in their home.  Ed thought highly of the punch as well and he asked for the recipe.   

This year it felt especially enjoyable as we celebrated the evening before the day our Savior was born.  Telling stories of family and happiness and caring topped of by the story of the Savior's birth once again served to bring peace and calm with a spirit of love into my Mom's home and our lives individually.  Just what I would hope our family traditions would always do. 

Christmas Tradition part 6: Dube's Christmas Eve Breakfast

This morning we went to Christmas Eve Breakfast at the Dube's home.  They have been doing this for a few years and inviting a house full of folks for breakfast and wii games as long as they want to stay.  We've been one of the lucky ones invited year after year.  Today I got to bless the food as the "oldest man present" -- oh boy!  We have enjoyed going and despite the chaos of lots of kids it is really a highlight of the season.

They always have about the same menu with the main dish being pancakes with ice cream and warm fruit sauces on top.  As usual they had lots of people there, maybe 25 folks or so.  The sausages, potato casserole, bacon and eggs lead to a nice warm filling breakfast that lasts until the Christmas Eve party starts in the evening.

One of the fun things was watching one of the little children helping themselves to spoonfuls of the grape jam.  When I mentioned it to the mother later with a hearty laugh she wondered why I didn't tell them to stop.  I guess because it was so darn cute to watch them getting away with it.  That led to a discussion of parenting and grand parenting topics that were very enjoyable laced with lots of stories of the past from the adults present. 

Getting people together for the holidays is a good way to celebrate the season.  Lots of stories and fun times ensue while children do the craziest things.  Good times. 

Christmas Tradition part 5: Caroling

Tonight we carried on with another of our Christmas Traditions, that of going caroling.  We made a few minor changes to our tradition tonight.  For one we cut down on the number of homes we went caroling to.  We had noticed over the years that it begins to get a little stressful when you are running across town to 15 or 20 homes to sing to people and give them some goodies.  We weren't doing this for stress so thought that reducing the number would help.  It did. 

Secondly with the added time it allowed us to be a little more flexible.  That is when it crossed our mind to sing to someone else nearby one of the families we had planned to sing to we had the time and were able to do so. 

We also invited more folks to sing with us and we enjoyed having the added numbers and got to do something fun with our friends as well.  We sang to a number of folks that we hadn't seen in a while and they seemed to appreciate the singing.  We have enjoyed singing over the years to friends and letting them know that we still remember them and care despite the fact that our busy lives might have made it so we don't see them as often as we once did. 

Tonight one family had told us in advance that they wanted to have us in for some warm apple cider and some goodies so we went to their home last and they had some great cookies, cider and crackers and dip.  There were eleven of us and we even sounded pretty good.  One of our company enjoyed the time away from her family with one of her children since over the last few months with her husband deployed she has spent her days with her four young children and enjoyed being with adults that didn't require her to change their diapers. 

Our family has always loved singing together thanks to my wife's great music skills and we have had this tradition for many years where we would share our modest abilities with other's to help them feel the meaning of Christmas and the fun of the music.  Now we are including more of our friends to sing with us which makes it even more fun all around for more of us. 

Christmas Tradition Part 4: Temple Lights

One of our big traditions that typically takes about a day is going to Washington DC to see the lights on the Washington DC temple.  This year they said there were a half a million lights.  It is always beautiful and something that helps to bring the true meaning of Christmas (remembering the birth of our Savior) into our thoughts as we view the temple with all the various colored Christmas lights.  They said that the lights start getting wrapped around the trees in August in preparation for Christmas and takes hundreds of volunteers.  Wow!




Most years we go up as a family and spend the evening and day in DC with seeing the temple lights as the focal point.  This year however we went up the day before and spent the night at a hotel and added a few other things and then went to the Temple lights in the evening on Tuesday.  The ward was having a "temple lights" day too, so we got to see several folks from the ward that were there as well. 

Seeing so many Christmas lights has always been fun and it seems reasonable that there would be such great beauty and excitement over the birth of Christ at the temple where the whole point is about Christ.

At the temple visitors center they always have a number of exhibits which includes creche sets from around the world.  We always enjoy looking at those as well.  This year they had one from Thailand!  This is the first nativity made in Thailand that I had ever seen.  Being a Buddhist country I wondered if there was someone who made them there.  This set had some great cultural indicators that really made it enjoyable and distinctly Thai..   

They also have Christmas concerts in the visitors center and we listened to Sandra Turley sing a few Christmas songs.   



She sang a great song in a broadway tradition called Christmas Lullaby from Songs for a New World which was a song about women being like Mary which was very enjoyable.  Here are the lyrics of the song:

I'll never have the power to control the land
Or conquer half the world
Or claim the sun
I'll never be the kind who simply waves her hand
And has a million people do
The things I wish I'd done

But in the eyes of Heaven
My place is assured
I carry with me heaven's grand design
Gloria, glory, I will sing the name of the Lord
And He will make me shine

And I will be like Mother Mary
With a blessing in my soul
And I will give the world my eyes
So they can see
And I will be like Mother Mary
With a blessing in my soul
And the future of the world inside of me

In the eyes of Heaven
My place is assured
I carry with me heaven's grand design
Gloria, glory I will sing the name of the Lord
And He will make me shine

And I will be like Mother Mary
With a blessing in my soul
And I will give the world my eyes
So they can see
And I will be like Mother Mary
With a blessing in my soul
And the future of the world inside of me

And I will be like Mother Mary
With the power in my veins
To believe in all the things
I've yet to be
And I will be like Mother Mary
And I'll suffer any pains
For the future of the world
For the future of the world
Inside of me...

If you are like me and have never heard of this before and would like to listen to a version of it on youtube go here: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywFNUYJ5-g

It was a great night and we had an enjoyable time.  Naturally we missed having our oldest daughter Jaime and Mike with us but we did have Megan, Hilary, Haleigh, Jeremy and Matt with Lisa and I (a full van I might add).  It was fun to share this tradition with our friends this time as well. 

I love our traditions that have helped us build a family with many great memories. 

Christmas tradition part 3: Coming Home from School

I realized that we had another Christmas tradition that doesn't fit the typical pattern.  And it happened last night.  It is something that gets planned months in advance and the cost is relatively high.  It is the day when the college students in the family come home from school to celebrate the Christmas season with us.

Yesterday early evening Haleigh and I were driving up the freeway to the airport to pick up Hilary.  She had come through Chicago which has had its share of bad memories for her in recent trips but today it seems that things went fairly well despite a delay.  It wasn't easy to figure out when she was arriving based on info on the computer because the arrival board at the airport simply said "delayed" which was a bit disconcerting so we went by what the airline site said and she arrived a few minutes early from that and got her bag and met us on the curb which was nice and smooth and easy.

I guess we had given her cause for concern as she was unable to reach us via my cell phone.  That is because Haleigh and I were listening to loud Mannheim Steamroller Christmas music and couldn't hear the cell phone.  But we made it and gave her big hugs and we are glad she is home!

Hilary is a great lover of Christmas as is most of the family but she has some unique-isms that add a lot.  For instance very soon, probably today she will have to check out every package under the tree and she will have some statistics in her head about how many presents for each person and so forth.  If you can't find a present you wanted to give Christmas morning ask her and she can probably tell you where it is under the tree.

You may wonder where was everyone else, why not pull out the whole brigade to meet her at the airport?  Well Megan was sick and at home resting and Lisa was making one of Hilary's favorite dishes to be ready when she arrived home for her immediate consumption.  Home made chicken pot pie which was appreciated by all quickly after we arrived home.

This year we had another student coming as well who arrived three hours later.  Jeremy flew in and again my limousine service was there to pick him up on the curb as it appears my timing skills work well with curb side service and not so well with greetings in the concourse.  Jeremy arrived being sick and tired from three flights on the day and having ear pain due to a probably sinus infection.  When Jeremy made his reservations with two layovers he thought he was being cheap, but with his sinus infection he turned out to be a cheap sadist.  So he was fed some fresh pot pie and pumpkin cookies (Pumpkin, I might add--oh did I say pumpkin?) upon his arrival and quickly taken to Mom's house where he will be sleeping during his stay.  He was glad to get an early night at least by college standards after several nights of studying late and taking exams.

So now the college students have arrived and the fun begins!