2017.6 Jolabokaflod

Apparently in Iceland there is a Christmas tradition of gifting loved ones with books on Christmas eve, then everyone goes to bed and reads and snacks on chocolate. I freaking love this!  Just imagine snuggling in and getting to read until you fall asleep, instead of late night gift wrapping and stocking stuffing and getting ready for tommorrowing?

So from what I have read the tradition goes back to post WW2 when paper was cheap so publishers would flood the market with books right before Christmas. Now, I am certain that giving books is not unique to Iceland, the part where you get to spend the rest of the evening reading them is priceless.  No wonder 1 in 10 Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime. 

Now, I have never been to Iceland, and this certainly isn’t my tradition, although you never know… It does remind me of the first year Kat and I were married.  I was still in college, and Kat had just graduated.  I don’t remember everything she bought for me, but I do recall that she purchased me several books, and I gave her several in return.  One night, over Christmas break, we had gone to bed early, mostly because it was cold and we had an electric blanket and no central heating.  Around midnight I rolled over and discovered Kat was awake too.  I don’t know whose suggestion it was, but I do know we spent the next couple of hours reading our books and snacking on leftover lemon cake that Elizabeth Norman had made.  That may not be how it is supposed to work, but I certainly remember that evening and that experience and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

So if you are a reading type, and you should be, and I guess even if you are not a reading type, but you are looking for a good gift, I am going to put it out there that books are amazing gifts.  I was going to put a plug here for Fawkes Press books, aka my side hustle, but just figured out the website is undergoing some technical difficulties. So Yeah! Books!  Boo Hiss Technology

Epiphany

Today marks the day that tradition says the 3 kings finally showed up with gifts for baby Jesus.  I realize that not everyone celebrates this and for many families Christmas is long over, all the decorations packed away, all the presents unwrapped and the detritus of the holiday swept away.  I like epiphany, I like leaving our decorations up until now, savoring the season just a few extra days. 

Not that I decorated our apartment.  I meant to, but I discovered that much of our Christmas stuff is still in storage in Colorado.  I did set up a silver tree at our party and I brought it home, and set it up in the living room, or at least I tried too, apparently Elvis kitty thought it was a gift for him, and attacked it, every time I stood it up, he would knock it back down.    At least I tried.

So  as I am wrapping up the holiday, I am looking back at this year’s blog.  I didn’t do a great job did I? 16 days? That’s less than last year.  I apologize for the poor showing, this year, like last year, after the party I was exhausted.  Too exhausted to blog apparently.   I guess I need to sandbag more entries for next year.

But since it is epiphany I thought I would end the Christmas season with a few extra posts.  I may not get to 25 posts this year, but let’s see if I can do better than last year, or at least come close.

Merry Christmas, and happy Epiphany.

Christmas Party Recap

Saturday Night was our Christmas Party.  It was a good turnout but not at all what we had expected.  Early on Paul had asked if he could invite some friends from school.  I told him that was fine and gave him 5 invitations to use with his friends.  

Well, he gave those out and came back and asked for more.  I gave him 5 more and suggested that he should try and limit the invitations to 10.  He agreed.  I also strongly suggested that he not invite anyone after Wednesday because you don’t want to give the impression that your guests were a last minute thought , or that you thought that your friends wouldn’t have plans of their own.  

I could swear Paul agreed with me when we discussed it.  However, Friday when he came home from school he let me know he was in the neighborhood of 10 people.  When I pressed him for details he confessed that he had 14 of his friends coming.  Then he told me not to worry, he had told them all that it was ok if they brought a friend. Wait, What?!?!?

Sure enough Saturday night around 6:30pm His friends started to arrive.  Pretty soon we had a house full of teen age boys and girls.  I wish everyone could have seen what a good host my Paul was.  He offered all his friends drinks of punch or eggnog, explained that there was no alcohol in either.  Then he explained what all the appetizers and sweets were. He paid special attention to explain his crazy cookie recipe.   He even fixed plates for his female guests.   

All in all it is probably for the best we didn’t have 100 guests, because I am certain that we wouldn’t have had enough food.  As it was we barely had enough for all those teenagers!

The most wonderful day of the year!

Christmas day + 1

Ok so I didn’t post yesterday. I meant to, but. . . honestly it was a very busy day. We got up around 7am and rushed round and got ready for church. It was nice to be back with our FBC OKC family. Per the usual tradition they served breakfast instead of Sunday school followed by a nice service.

My personal preference for church would have been for the family to sit together but Kat wanted to sit with her parents and the boys really wanted to sit in the balcony with their friends, so I went with the boys. Paul’s buddy Aaron wasn’t there so I sat with him. It was maybe the best part of Christmas morning for me. I love to hear my Paul sing, and he loves to sing Christmas songs. The first song was “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” which he sang enthusiastically. The last song which we sang as the benediction was “Go Tell It on the Mountain” which is Paul’s all time favorite Christmas song. When Bruce started playing the music, Paul let me know that it was the same arrangement from when Paul’s Children’s choir sang it years ago. Paul said Bruce probably got that from Mr. Hicks, who played it for them when he was small.

Yes there was a hearty lunch and delicious dinner at home, and presents for the boys. But sometimes the best part of Christmas are the parts that might never come again.

Merry Christmas to all of you! I hope you had a happy holiday and were entertained this year!

An Eighteen to remember. . .

Christmas Party Memory

Last night was our annual Christmas party. It was good. It was smaller than the last few years, with a slightly simpler menu but good nevertheless. I wish you could have been there.

Every year when we do our menu there are certain items that get left off the list from previous years. Sometimes it is a matter of time, sometimes no one ate it last year so why bother, and sometimes it is one of those ‘how much is too much situations?’

Last year I ran out of minutes to make the cookie press cookies. Kat assured me that no one would notice amidst all the other abundance of other cookies. Then Christmas eve Kristi Swinney said, “you know the other night at the party I was looking for those cute Scottie dog cookies and I couldn’t find them.” I hate to let people down.

One of the more recent additions to the menu is those tiny bonbell cheeses. I call them baby cheeses and serve them from a pretty silver bowl and then I say things like, ‘it is Christmas, you need baby cheeses’ or ‘let's not forget baby cheeses is the reason for the season.’ I know, it is horribly inappropriate. In my defense I stole the idea from my fake sis Jen-O. When Jen brought her sainted mother to last year’s party, Miss Shirley laughed so I figure it isn’t off the charts bad, right?

As we were setting up yesterday I was thinking to myself, at least this year with so many new guests, no one will ask about something I left off the list. Only then Elijah, who is 11 says “hey where are those little cheeses in the wax? Those are my favorites. What do you mean off the menu? Are you kidding me? MAN! What kind of party is this?!?!?”

I just can’t win sometimes.

"Once in Royal David's City. . ."

Welcome back! It is December 1st and once again I plan on sharing a funny, cheesy, moving or something memory a day for the next 25 days. Why? Because it entertains me, and for no other reason. But isn’t that reason enough?

So for day one let’s look back to Christmas Eve 1991. Kat and I had been married only a few months and could not afford to go home to either one of our parents homes for Christmas. We planned to spend Christmas with Kat’s sister Stephanie and her husband Clyde and his family in Wister. I had never been to Wister, and Kat had only been once.

This was in the dark ages before gps, so Stephanie called Kat and gave her directions, which Kat wrote down on a piece of paper, with a pen. Oh man, how did we ever survive?!?! Stephanie told Kathleen to take I-40 to Sallisaw, then take 59 south till you get to Poteau, where it becomes 271, once you get to Poteau, you keep going to Wister, but do NOT cross over lake Wister, go past the road to lake Wister.

It was cold and dark and the car had a heater that barely worked. We didn’t have any trouble getting to Poteau, other than the cold. We left Poteau, saw the sign that said Lake Wister this way, and we turned to avoid it, crossed over the lake and could not find the house. So back across the lake and all the way to Poteau. We regrouped at the Tote a Poke (go ahead and laugh, but I am not making that up). After reviewing the instructions, we tried again, once again avoiding the road that said LAKE WISTER and once again crossing all the way over the lake. Once again we could not find the house.

Getting a little frustrated we returned to the Tote a Poke and called Stephanie. She was relieved to hear from us and gave us the instructions again. Third time is the charm right? Wrong. Still back and forth across the lake and could not find the house. So back to Tote a Poke. This time we ran into Chad Brooks. Chad and I had run track at OBU together and running into him well after midnight on Christmas Eve in a Tote a Poke in Poteau, where he was wearing overalls and no shirt and buying beer was just a small part of the increasingly surreal evening.

This time when called, Stephanie had us wait and she came and got us. We got to Clyde’s parents house well after 2am, and eagerly went to bed. Around 530 am we were awakened a loud banging sound. Clyde’s mother Dorothy was running through the house banging a pot with a big spoon shouting for us to wake up wake up because Santa was here. Really? Did I mention that the only child in the house was Elisa Gail and she was less than 3 months old? But how do resist Dorothy Forrest? So Kat, Stephanie, Clyde, Marqueta, Jay and I dragged our very sleepy selves into the living room and opened presents. I don’t remember what I got, but I do remember a nap before breakfast!

Christmas without Santa. . .

It is Christmas Eve! I hope that everyone is where they need to be, or at least safely on the way. I really hope that no one gets snowed in at work tonight!

I saw something online yesterday that I had planned to write about today, but then at the boy’s bedtime something came up that was more blog worthy than the Catalan caganer. Although I suggest you Google that because it falls into the What the WHAT?! Category. But I digress. . .

Yesterday we finished out Christmas gift shopping. I took Matthew to Barnes & Noble, AND Half price books. Kat took Paul to Half Price Books. Then after dinner Kat took Matthew back to Barnes & Noble, while I took Paul to the gift store at Baptist hospital, (don’t ask). Busy night.

When the shopping was over we gathered at home and were going to have a quiet family interlude and watch the Charlie Brown Christmas DVD. Kat and Matthew had glasses of cranberry punch, and Paul and I had eggnog. Except for the part where the boys could not stop arguing long enough to start the movie, it would have been one of those hallmark moments.

The arguing continued till bedtime and as I tucked them in, they were still going at it. Matthew was yelling at Paul for having “bad thoughts” and not focusing on the positive. Paul countered with an accusation that Matthew was “slow to learn”. Matthew yelled that he knew what that meant, and it was his phrase that Paul was stealing. In desperation I said to the boys that when I was a child on the night before Christmas Eve I would not have risked this behavior as I was sure the elves watching me would have reported bad behavior back to Santa Clause and then I would have gotten no gifts from Santa.

My point was to cause my children to consider their behavior. Of course if you know us, or have read some of the other entries, you know we do not do Santa Claus with the boys, and so the threat was meaningless to them. Their reaction is the stuff of legend.

“Papa, did you REALLY believe in Santa?”
”Well, yes. When I was a child”
“Oh Papa that is messed up”
“Auntie Jen, Uncle Ben and Aunt Julie all believed too”
“No, Papa, you are making that up, it is not true”
”It is true, Grandpa Jerry used to do Santa with us when we were kids”
“Grandpa Jerry believes in Santa Clause?”
“Well I am sure when he was a kid. . .”
“And he is a THERAPIST now? That is soooo wrong”
“HEY! My mom did Santa too; her parents probably did Santa with her as well”
”Oh wow, how could anyone let her work with kids?”
”Talk about slow to learn. . .”
”I sure hope no one finds out that so many of our family believed”
”I know, right? How EMBARRASING!”

I am not sure where I went wrong. Sure, my kids know that Jesus is the reason for the season, and have not been confused with the whole Santa Clause business, but last night I was thinking perhaps I neglected to teach them to be compassionate.
Kat assures me they are very compassionate and loving, to other people, but that this sarcasm and derision is reserved for me alone. How can I be so lucky?

22 down, 3 to Go!

Day 22, closing in!

I confess I am not feeling it today. Work has me down, but I am going to try and take off (sort of) tomorrow. At least I am not planning on coming in to work. Maybe that will help. I am putting Matthew’s rule “we do what has to be done” into effect, followed by a healthy dose of focus on the positive. . . Anyway, here we go!

In 2003 Kathleen’s parents moved to Oklahoma City. The first Christmas they were here they had just moved into their house, and were still getting things fixed up. The following year we had Christmas day with them. Over Thanksgiving we had ‘broken in’ the new table in their formal dining room. At that meal Nolen had made a proclamation that THIS table was the family table, and it is where we would eat important family meals, holidays, special occasions, celebrations for our family. It is a lovely table, big, ornate, and can expand and seat up to 20 or something extreme like that.

At Christmas that year, as we sat down to eat our Christmas meal the table looked great, Elisa had purchased new table linens that fit this new table and they were gorgeous. Her china on the new table linens was a place setting worthy of a magazine photo shoot. The table looked great, and food smelled heavenly.

After we held hands and blessed the food, Elisa asked 3 year old Matthew to please remember NOT to wipe his nose on his shirtsleeve. He assured her that he would not. Matthew sits across from me at this table, and his Grandmother sits between us at one end of the table. All through the meal I watched Matthew carefully and he was good to his word, not once did he wipe his nose on his sleeve.

After the meal I remarked to Kathleen that we should turn that Christmas dinner in to the “Priceless” commercial people.

New dining room table? $1600

Brand new table linens? $65

Seeing your son wipe his nose on the new table linens unbeknownst to his Gramma?

PRICELESS

Rosemead Christmas

As I am sitting in the Denver Airport waiting to board my flight home to Oklahoma City I am reminded of the very first time I ever flew on a plane when I was in the third grade. We were living in Tucson Arizona with my mom. For Christmas Jenni and I flew to LAX, all by ourselves, to spend Christmas with my Dad, Rebecca and her whole family. I am sure that we must have spent time with the Kinkade family in CA, but I don’t remember that. What I remember, what stands out most about that year, was the Casares Christmas in the house on Guess Street in Rosemead.

I think that may have been one of Grampa Roy’s last Christmases, or maybe everyone always showed up for Christmas? All the cousins were there, Amber, Anna, Diana, little Mike, Laura and even Uncle Rick’s girlfriend (ex-wife?) was there with baby Jeremy. I think Uncle Roy was working for a radio station at that time, because all the kids got ball caps with the radio call sign on them. Rebecca had waited until we were there to do the Christmas shopping for the cousins, (what was she thinking?), so we went with her to the mall. Jenni and I paid careful attention as Dad and Rebecca made their purchases.

As soon as we got back to the Rosemead house the very first thing we did was blurt out what everyone was getting for Christmas. DOH! I can’t imagine that anyone was too pleased. When we opened presents Christmas day I was surprised as everyone else that ‘Santa’ had given what I thought was little Mike’s gift to Diana, Amber’s gift to Anna, Laura’s gift to little Mike, etc. Someone got a set of jacks, and Rebecca and Aunt Nancy showed us kids how it was done. I had never seen adults play jacks before, but they had some serious skills.

After presents there was an amazing Christmas meal. Gramma Lucy had made a ham and all the fixing, plus red chile, rice and beans. A first for me. I’d like to say I loved the red chile, but I did not have the taste for spicy foods as a child that my boys do now. Other things I remember, endless games of tag (man could Diana run FAST), and hide & seek (NOT IN THE HOUSE), and in general the kind of family fun Christmas you would want for a child to experience.

Day Eightteen

In 1999 we traveled for the holidays. Paul was 20 months old and we drove to Missouri for Thanksgiving with my grandparents and Dad and Aunt Joy and Uncle Dale and various cousins. Then for Christmas we traveled to Santa Fe for Christmas Eve, and then Christmas morning we drove to Parker Colorado. That is a LOT of driving for one family, and a lot of car seat time for Paul. Luckily, Paul is a pretty laid back traveler even then.

We got to Santa Fe around 2pm on Christmas Eve. We hung out at my Dad’s house with my brother Ben, (Dad was already in Colorado with his sister Pat and my sister Jenni). That evening Kat, Paul, Ben and I went to Christmas Eve service at First Baptist Church Santa Fe, which had been my church home when I was in HS, and the church Ben grew up in.

The service was nice and very familiar. Paul thought it was a little long, and so at least twice he climbed down from the pew and out into the aisle and ran for the door. Ben was fast on his feet and went after him both times and scooped him up and brought him back and did his best to keep him entertained during the service. When church was over we shook some hands and then we were headed for the door when Earlene Groseclose stopped me at the door and said how sweet to see us again, and what a beautiful family and all those nice things people usually say. Then she said that she really enjoyed seeing Ben run after Paul because it didn’t seem like that long ago that I had been chasing after Ben as he made a break for it. That made me feels good.

Then we went to Pojoaque to Ben’s Mom’s for a traditional New Mexican Christmas Eve dinner of red and green chile enchiladas. I told Rebecca what Earlene had said and that I thought it was sweet. She agreed it was sweet that what was remembered about me and Ben, and what brought those memories rushing back, was basically bad behavior and parents who couldn’t keep their kids sitting still in church.

Don’t judge. Sarcasm and bad behavior in church is just how us Kinkade’s roll.

Day Eleven

On the eleventh day of Christmas. . .

Alright, I admit it I actually started writing these the last week of November and I had the first 8 days or so already completed before the 1st so that if I couldn't think of anything I would be ok. Except then I got busy and didn't really stay as far ahead as I planned and I think I only have one or two more days. So we will see how well I do from this point on.

Christmas Eve dinner enchiladas have been a tradition for my family as long as I can remember. When I moved to Arizona with my Mom and Jenni we were already doing it. My Mom’s favorites were her infamous spinach enchiladas. While those were tasty, I know Jenni was not a huge fan. Her complaint was that they tasted like raw spinach and tortillas with cheese and enchilada sauce. This is not an absolutely untrue statement. I am a big fan of Kathleen’s version of Christmas Eve enchiladas. She makes both red and green, and fills them with cheese, onions and chicken, even though her Mom insists that enchiladas do not have meat.

When Jenni and I were still kids living in Tucson, one of our traditions, in addition to the enchiladas and multiple Christmas eve church services was ‘re-hanging’ the tinsel on the tree when my Mom was not around. It was so much more fun to stand back and throw the shiny tinsel at the tree than it was to carefully drape it over the branches, one silver strand at a time. Once the tree was decorated, when Mom wasn’t around we would take the tinsel off the tree and do it our way.

One Christmas Eve Jenni and I were ‘re-hanging’ tinsel in the living room while Mom was in her room wrapping presents. We were supposed to be finishing our enchiladas, but we had brought our plates in from the kitchen and had set them on the couch while we were busy with the tree. We had Mom’s old Firestone Christmas albums playing on the record player, (sort of like an old school cd player that involved needles, for those born after 1980).

We were dressed for church and were probably minutes away from leaving for a candlelight service. That year Jenni had a red velvet skirt that my Dad’s mom had made for her. Jenni loved it because Grandmother made it, and also because when she spun around the skirt twirled out really big. So there we were listening to Christmas tunes, throwing tinsel, and Jenni was spinning around in the living room, making it merry and bright.

Eventually the noise level got a little too loud and Mom came back into the living room. Jenni was mid spin when Mom walked in so she immediately went from spinning to flopping down on the couch. I am sure her intent was to declare her innocence in the whole affair and pin the blame on me. It might have had better results had she not sat down on her plate of enchiladas.

Guess what does not come easily out of red velvet? Red enchilada sauce, that is what.

When Mom stopped laughing she helped Jenni clean up the mess and after Jenni had changed into jeans Mom asked what had we learned from this experience.
I went with the safe bet of ‘not to eat dinner in the living room’, after discarding ‘not to throw tinsel at the tree’ and ‘no turning the record player up past 5’. Jenni said ‘don’t put your butt in your dinner plate if that is the last serving of enchiladas’

Let that be a lesson to all of us this year.

Day Six

Look at me I am like the Christmas blog version of the energizer bunny.

When Kat and I were newlyweds we had a little dog named Angel. Angel started life as Ann and Stephen Hankins dog, and then they gave her to Kat and Steph. For years Kat and Steph traded Angel back and forth depending on who had a house and could keep her. Then after we were married she came to live with us full time. She was a Chihuahua-dachshund mix. I understand now that they call this particular mix of dog breed a chi-weenie dog.

Angel was a pretty good little dog. I used to say that she had a guilty conscious though, because all you had to do was ask “did you do that?” and she would give you the most pathetic hangdog look I had ever seen a dog make.

“Wait a minute,” you are thinking, “what does this have to do with Christmas?” This is background information you need for the end of the story. And now by my telling you this I have probably ruined the surprise. See what you get for jumping ahead? You probably are one of those that read the last page of the book before you start right?

So ANYWAY, back to the story at hand. When Kat and I were newlyweds, and I was still a student at OBU we used to have people over to the house after the annual Hanging Of The Green. This ‘after hanging’ soiree was a precursor to our party I am sure. The idea was that once this big gala event was over people could stop by the house and have some cookies and maybe a drink or some fudge. One such year we left the house in order and all ready to receive guests when we left to attend the event. One of the types of cookies that Kat had made that year was coconut macaroons, and she had generously filled a large decorative basket with them and placed a festive holiday napkin on top.

I am not sure how long Angel waited before helping herself to the cookies. What I do know is that when we opened the front door when we returned and our friends walked in, the very first thing they laid eyes on was the dog standing on the dining room table with a coconut macaroon in her mouth and the holiday napkin on her head.
So you see? Sometimes the fact that we have to put the food out after the guests arrive is not a bad thing.

I always say ‘poison your guests once and they never come back’ but a corollary might be, ‘try and serve cookies with dog germs on them and no one will ever eat those cookies again.”

I was going to end this with the statement that since no one ate them at the party I had to mail them to my siblings for Christmas. But then I thought, what if they read that? And surely Kat would never let me do that. Surely not ;-)

Five GOLDEN Rings Ba Da Bum Bum

Ok, it looks like I haven’t run out of steam yet.

I have a confession to make. My boys do not believe in Santa Clause. I know, it sounds bad. I grew up with the myth of Santa, Kathleen did not. When Kathleen’s sister Stephanie had a daughter she made the decision that she was not going to do Santa with Elisa. So, Steph told Elisa the truth when she was pretty young. She explained that there was no Santa and that all the gifts come from family and friends. Elisa’s granny (Clyde’s Mom) told Elisa otherwise and then showered her in gifts from Santa as proof. I can remember a 4 year old Elisa telling me I was all wrong about Santa, because her granny knew him.

So, when Kat and I had Paul, we agreed that we could forgo the Santa tradition, (since Kat already compromises on the tree). I had no idea what a challenge it would be. Of course marketing and advertising are against us, but that is almost beside the point because the boys know what they see on TV is not real. The problem is that when my boys tell people that they do not believe, they are always corrected and usually by adults. When Paul was little it was somewhat amusing when people asked him what Santa was bringing him, because he always answered ‘nothing’ and smiled. When he was 4 they had someone come to his day care dressed as Santa and it was reported to me that Paul did not want to sit on his lap and talk to him, that they had to bribe him with chocolate AND a candy cane, that they had to give the treats to him BEFORE he would sit on Santa’s lap and that then he would not tell Santa what he wanted. They asked him if Santa could bring a present for his brother and he LOUDLY let them know that he, PAUL, was getting a present for his brother, and no one else was ALLOWED to.

But all of that is secondary to what my Matthew has gone through. Please understand, we tell the boys every year that it is ok for other kids to talk about Santa and to believe in Santa, and that it is absolutely not their job to tell everyone. In fact, I encourage them to keep their mouths shut about the whole thing. Matthew, however, has a very strong sense of truth and not truth. And in his world, not truth is a LIE, and there are big consequences for telling A LIE. So he cannot help but share what he knows about Santa, and it always gets him in trouble.

Before he started kindergarten an extended session worker in the church nursery told me that Matthew was telling all the other little children there was no Santa and that he was ruining Christmas for them, and that if I did not put a stop to it he could not come back to the nursery. I gave her my blank stare and said, “thank goodness we believe that Christmas is about Jesus then.”

Only in my head it was more like “listen you hateful hag, you are not in charge here, and you are not the parent of my kid, I know people that will shank you, you crazy witch.” Only I didn’t think witch, which led to another internal dialog about how she made me cuss in my head in church and how that was not very Christ-like of her, and that I hoped God would get her for that. And I think I showed remarkable restraint for that.

So the moral of this story is my kids do not believe in Santa and don’t make me shank you.