Day 19. Party Review

After the party, because why would we think to take a picture BEFORE the party?

It seems odd to post the party review as the blog entry for the 19^th day when the party was on the 20^th  but you need to over look that if I am going to get caught up in a timely manner.  How was the party?  Amazing stupendous fantastic seems like an apt description.

So many people showed up!  We didn’t have a guest book this year but our best count is about 82 people.  We ran out of plates and Tony Lawrence-Harjo had to run to get some, and Ashley Glover had to bring more with her when she came.  I am in their debt! 

Best thing that someone brought to eat?  Right now I think it was the gingerbread cookie bars that Summer Witt brought. ALL THE WAY FROM COLORADO!  She drove up for the party and surprised Kat and I both.  We miss our Colorado peoples and this was a nice treat.  Other out of state guests were Elizabeth & Doug Worley who drove up from Abilene Texas, and Kortney & Andrew McQuade who actually just moved back to Oklahoma this week just in time for the party.

Korney, don't tell Najah!

I did forget to take pictures of the table scape and decorations this year.  I regret that because I really likes the gingerbread house theme. The best party decoration though was the photo booth back drop.  Matthew suggested it (thanks pinterest). I wasn't sure when we were setting it up, but when I see the pictures people took I am really pleased.  

If you missed the party I am sorry that you did, because I missed seeing you there and hope to see you at some other occasion soon. Any rumors that I may have started about people who didn't show up... well lets just agree your lives are more interesting the way I tell them.

Is it too soon to start planning for next year?

Day 9. A Christmas Hymn

Warning! Do Not Read if you go to church with me and are easily offended!  I am serious!

I mean it, I’ll wait, log in to pinterest or something, go on.

I am warning you, snarkiness ensues if you keep reading.

Ok, just those of you hoping for something scandalous are left?  Typical.

It isn’t so much a scandal as it just gave me the church giggles so bad.  We have a very poised and professional husband and wife music team leading the musical worship at my church.  Every Sunday we sing new and improved versions of the traditional hymns.  Lucky us.

On November 30^th, the first Sunday of advent our church had a big Christmas music program that evening.  Not only does this kick off the advent season in style it has the wholly unintended benefit of freeing up the schedule of the music staff so that they can attend to things much more important during the holiday season.  (A very funny sentence was here, hilarious really, but Kat edited it out.  I ironically used the word y’all and Texas in the same sentence, but Kat says the rest of it was too mean and I listened to her) 

ANYWAY, before I get sidetracked, now that the big music program is over they are not having choir practice again until January.  This basically says to me that they are winging it on Sunday mornings.  This Sunday morning after the choir opened the service with a Christmas hymn it was time to light the advent candles.  The professional pianist played the march of the sugarplum fairies as a church family ascended the stairs and lit the candles and then returned to their seats.  Someone sitting next to me leaned over and asked, “is that the oompa-loompa song?” Then the only thing I could see as this family lit the candle of peace was oompa-loompas climbing up stairs.  SO Wrong!

Then it was time for the congregation to sing.  This was a very special arrangement of a very familiar Christmas hymn.  This arrangement had excerpts from the nutcracker between each verse. (No! Do NOT engage me in a discussion of why the nutcracker music was included in a church service. Nooooooo!)  It could have been borne except the music leader brought the congregation back in to sing the second verse before the pianist, (who was using a keyboard to make it sound like a harpsichord) was finished with the special interlude.  The organist tried to come back in with the melody but the pianist kept going and we got halfway into the verse before the music leader had to stop everyone.

She started us over, from the beginning.  Really it was the only thing to do, except that it gave me the church giggles. Well, not really giggles, more like loud chuckles that I could not suppress.  Then my Paul got up from his seat in the balcony and walked over to me to whisper, ‘that was the BEST part of this morning’s church!’  Then I really couldn’t stop laughing.

I just managed to get composed when someone sitting in the balcony with us asked loudly, “Why can’t we just sing it the regular way?” That was it, I was done.

There really is a reason I sit in the balcony, and it just might be that I am not allowed to sit with the grownups yet.

Do me a favor? Sing a Christmas hymn for me!

Day 8. From My Paul

My Paul shared this sweet, sweet story with me tonight.

In the last few weeks since the play was over I have been walking myself home and stopping at the McDonalds to get a coke zero on the way home.  Since I have been in there a few times I have been noticing some of the same people are there too.

There is this one old man and old lady that come in together when I am there.  They are very old, and very sweet to each other.  I noticed that he always gets the food, one of everything and brings it back to the table where she waits, sitting next to the big Christmas tree they have there.  Then after they say a small prayer he sits with her while she eats.  He doesn’t even eat a french fry until she is done. Then he eats.

The last time I held the door for them as they were leaving and I told him I thought it was very nice how he always treated her so kindly.  I asked him why he always waited for her to finish eating before he eats.  He just laughed at me and said “I wait because they are her teeth we are using!”

Do me a favor? Floss really well tonight!

Day 7. Have yourself an Odd little Christmas...

Today I am featuring another guest blogger.  Today’s entry comes courtesy of Tony Terry.  I have known Tony for a while.  I met him at OBU when I was young and idealistic and naive, and Tony was a former HS wrestler from South Dakota.  Then he went to China, lost his hair and married someone who is probably too good for him and now they have a bunch of kids.  I thought they were still in China but as it turns out they have been back living in Oklahoma for a while.  What qualifies Tony to write a blog entry? He was one of those English major writerly types of people back in college, he was an avid reader of the OBU fashion question, even though he didn’t follow the rules (wrestling shoes worn as regular shoes and a weird leather hat).  Plus. Apparently he likes odd things, which might explain our friendship.

Guest Blogger with questionable music tastes

I have a liking for the odd.  Christmas kind of lends itself to that.  Angels sing to shepherds.  God gets born - in a barn.  There is just loads of odd stuff.

I started thinking about this when I was a senior in high school and chatting with a very pretty girl at the Dairy Queen.  She was on her way home from junior college and couldn’t miss Christmas Eve.  This was her favorite part of the Christmas season.  Her family would put the last touches of decoration on the tree and the house while making lasagna together.  Lasagna was a doubly-odd choice because she was Swedish!  Go figure.

People in Caracas roller-skate to Christmas Eve mass.  If I did that, I would need a priest for a whole other reason.  KFC did a bang-up job inserting a different bearded fellow into the Christmas tradition in Japan in the `70s.  Even now Tokyo crowds the colonel’s place on Christmas Eve.

I find it odd that people serve ham on Christmas.  That seems like a really strange way to celebrate the birth of a Jew.  I eat the ham.  I just think it’s odd.  I am also happy that I am not celebrating in Greenland as they will be eating fermented birds.  If you have to have a bird, go with the Japanese. 

Hope and love are out there in the odd.  Maybe we will start some weird tradition this year.  It would help us fit in better.

***Just a thought, Tony could bring his family to the Christmas party on the 20^th. I promise to come up with some odd food choices for him.~J

Day 4. Christmas Letters

I really enjoy getting Christmas letters.  I know it is sort of a dying tradition since it is so easy to stay in touch in the virtual world.  I just have an appreciation for the fact that someone took the time to write out a letter about their year, where they are, what the highlights were and what they are going through.

I doubt that it serves as a better way of keeping in touch than a quick email or facebook post, but I like it nonetheless.  So far this year I have received 2; one from someone I have known since HS and the other from someone I have known since college.  It is a great way to keep in touch.

Kat and I used to send out our own version before we had kids.  One year someone confided that they only ever read the first page of those holiday news letter.  Armed with that information I liked to save up the really juicy stuff for the second page, or at least bury it near the end of the letter as a test to see if anyone was still paying attention. I ran over an elf today on the way home from work.  That way my really dedicated friends were rewarded for their diligence.

I have thought about a news letter for this year, it certainly has been a big year full of big news.  I just haven’t fully committed to doing it yet. I had a heart attack in January.  With all the big news it’s almost impossible to decide where to start. We moved back to Oklahoma.  Not to mention the pressure to be funny and clever and sound positive in the newsletter. The cardiologist asked if Kathleen was my mother.  Plus you have to decide whether to include pictures or not, and then the important question of what size print font do you want?  I will say that the letters I received this year are very optimistic about how good my eyesight is. 

So if you haven’t written a holiday letter to send to me, there is still time!  I look forward to hearing from you!

Lick a stamp for me!