stardate 12.19.2020

Today’s blog entry is from my Aunt Pat Myles.  She is the oldest of my Dad’s siblings.  She is the matriarch of a wonderful family of four children and so many grandchildren and great grandchildren.  She is a kind and lovely person.  I am very thankful she took the time to share this with me.  

A Christmas Memory 

During World War II , my Granddad Kinkade worked at the Malden (MO) Air Base.

There was a shortage of many things, including sugar, chocolate, and some other things which were rationed. Each family received a book of ration stamps that were used to allow purchases of those items.  Sometimes items were not available even though a family might have ration stamps for them.

Since my Granddad worked at the Air Base he had commissary privileges. Things were not rationed at the commissary.

I must have been 7 or 8 years old and it was Christmas Day.  At least three of the Kinkade brothers and their families had gathered at our Grandparents’ home.  I remember my Granddad getting everyone to come into the living room and he had a bag of gifts.  I think he must have felt like Santa that year.

I don’t know how much he was paid at the Air Base, I think he worked as a janitor and a repairman.  He must have spent most of at least two pay checks to buy Christmas gifts for everyone in the family.

The gifts were not wrapped but he started with the children and gave each of us a Hershey bar.  We were so excited!

Then he gave Grandmother and each of the daughters in law a pair of silk stockings.  Silk stockings were not available at all in clothing stores; but he could buy them at the commissary.

Then he had cigars for each of his sons.

I think I am probably the last one in the Kinkade family who remembers that Christmas.  I am 84 years old and I think all of the grandchildren who would have been old enough to remember that special Christmas will be celebrating in heaven this year.

Because of this special Christmas gift HERSHEY BARS are still the best chocolate ever.  Maybe because in my mind it represents 

stardate 12.18.2020

Today's entry comes courtesy of my Dad.   Of all the things 2020 has brought us, who would have predicted that my Dad would join facebook, let alone write for the blog? And yet, here we are.

Disclaimer Alert! I've  never written a blog before. I know Judson expected a Christmas blog featuring him as my no.1 son, which he is numerically. LOL However this blog also features his siblings; Jennifer, Juliet, and Ben.

I like blogs with themes like favorite Christmases, memorable Christmases,etc. The theme of this blog might be Jerry and kids Christmases.

The commonality of Christmases for my adult life has largely been enjoying Christmas with kids. Initially there was Judson and Jennifer to focus on at Christmas then Juliet and Ben came along. Later after Judson and Jennifer had moved, Juliet and Ben were my Christmas companions for a few more years. Now that they have moved on with their lives, I alternate between spending Christmas with one or more of them. Christmas means kids to me!

I have memories of stuffing stocking, wrapping gifts, trimming trees in different homes, in different states, in the city, on the ranch; sometimes with lots of gifts sometimes  not so much, but always filled with excitement, fun, food and loving family and friends. 

I grew up in a family that celebrated  Christmas with immediate  and extended family at  times, friends, food, fun, and gifts. It was always exciting no matter our circumstances; partially because we celebrated Christ's  birth and partially because our parents loved to celebrate  Christmas  as a family. I've  tried celebrating Christmas  in other ways over the years but nothing was as personally fulfilling. So, my model of Christmas is celebrating  with kids.

It hasn't  always been easy to celebrate with my kids at Christmas.  There were many years I would be swamped with work at the hospital during the holidays. I was on-call the week before 

Christmas  many years and sometimes  got home just before the kids woke up on Christmas  morning. There were years I was a single parent and coordinated Christmas with the kids moms. I remember one year coming home from being on call at 3:00 am determined to finish wrapping last minute presents and falling asleep under the tree.

I have a fond memory  of cutting a tree with an axe and pulling it over the snow horseback on our ranch, my all-time  favorite tree, kept it up a month. 

Most of all I remember happy kid's faces, Santa's little helpers wrapping and hiding presents from one another until Christmas  morning, kids helping make Christmas cookies and my favorite,  Christmas breakfast.

Like my dad, I've  always been a big believer  in Santa Claus; leaving cookies and milk, hearing reindeer on the roof, telling the kids Santa came while they were sleeping( which created sleeping problems  for Ben especially), etc.

Going to Christmas eve church services, singing carols, listening to Elvis have all been traditions we practiced.

I remember gift giving. I don't remember gifts. What I do remember and cherish is the love we shared, the love each one communicated in their unique ways, the love we felt and affirmed for each other, the love we now share as adult's 

Now that I'm  retired I look forward to spending Christmas  with my kids and grandkids. Each of the kids have developed  their own unique styles of celebrating  Christmas. Judson and Kathleen celebrate with an annual social event with half of OKC, Jennifer decorates her home and bakery with beautiful seasonal decorations, Juliet and Becca create a memorable  feast each year while Ben loves sharing Christmas  with Zaylan. 

So, for me this is what it's all about, whether we share it in person or by zoom this year, we will celebrate it. Merry Christmas everybody! 

stardate 12.17.2020

Today’s entry comes from my Aunt Joy Roberts.  For those of you not related to me, she is my Dad’s second oldest sister.  What can I say about my Aunt Joy? She was well named.  She smiles easily and often and has a lovely singing voice.  She has done many things in her life but most prominently she has led the music in hundreds of churches in her lifetime.  Perhaps most worth mentioning for my New Mexico friends is that for a season when I was a child her husband Dale Roberts was pastor of the tiny Glorieta Baptist church just outside the conference center there and Joy led the music.  I have so many memories of my Aunt Joy, but today we are focusing on the memory she shared.

 

The year we couldn't afford a Christmas tree.  

 

In 1962, Dale was In the Army stationed in Christmas tree town USA (Shelton, Washington). Shelton is the present day home of a 32’ Santa that was originally built for the 1962 world fair.  They are known for their rich timber heritage, and hosting annual christmas festivities.  

 

One morning one of the  Army wives and I went into Shelton to the laundromat.  There were 11 families living in the same Army housing community.  Dale had the highest rank so we made more money than the other families, but not much more. In this county if you were caught with a tree that was not tagged by the forest dept. you could be  fined or even jailed.  On our way to town at 6 am  we were blocked on the highway by a bundle of tagged, 11 Christmas trees.   Every family had a tree [free] for Christmas.

 

She and I struggled to lift those trees and tie them on the trunk lid of my MGA sports car, but we managed. It was fabulous. God provided.

Not my Aunt's actual car, but a 1960 MGA sports car. Can you imagine 11 trees tied to the hood?

stardate 12.16.2020

Who has seen the movie, Christmas with the Kranks? It’s a funny movie with Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis play a married couple who decide to skip Christmas and go on a cruise.  Their plans go awry and hilarity ensues.  At a crucial point when their traditional christmas eve party that they had canceled gets called back on at the last minute, Jamie Lee Curtis’s character shouts, “Where is my vest?  Where is my holiday vest? I need my vest!”  

Today as I was preparing to go out and deliver the party cookie boxes people had ordered, in lieu of an actual party, I grabbed a scarf to wear and I thought, hey where is my holiday scarf?  I have 2 that are festive enough that I’ll wear them around the holidays. One I appropriated from Kathleen, it is a dark red, black and cream striped scarf.  The other festive scarf is christmas red.  I couldn’t find either one today.

As an alternative I thought I could wear my grey plaid wool scarf I got in 1984.  I saw it just a few days ago I think.  I looked but I couldn't find out.  How does one keep a scarf for 36 years and then misplace it?  Does anyone else even own anything they wore 36 years ago?  Does anyone else even remember what they wore 36 years ago?  Because I know that on the day I flew from Albuquerque back to Tucson for Christmas break, (Saturday December 15) I wore navy corduroy pants, a light blue oxford cloth shirt with pink pinstripes and a grey knit sweater.  I also wore the grey plaid scarf and a charcoal jacket.  Why is any of this important?  It really isn’t.  The point that I somehow managed to completely lose is that I didn’t wear my festive scarf this year and I still managed to deliver boxes of christmas cheer hither and yon.   

*** I wrote this the other day and intended to post it on Saturday, the day of the party.  I didn’t love it, but I know I'm running behind, so I thought it was okay.  Then saturday rolled around, and 

I knew that I had missed the mark and I knew why.  The grey plaid scarf that was a christmas gift in 1984 was from my friend Laura Hendrikson. Laura was one of my best friends in high school.  Even through college we stayed close.  And it isn’t that we aren’t close now, but rather that we just don’t communicate as often.  

Friday I saw on facebook that Laura’s dad Taylor Hendrickson had gone into the hospital with covid.  Saturday morning I saw that he had passed away. So maybe my post wasn't really meant to be about a scarf, but instead about my friend and the lasting impression her parents have made on my life.  Like I said Laura and I were close in high school, doing church youth group activities together, watching movies, and other typical stupid teen age things.  Laura’s dad Taylor was the typical high school dad, showing up to pick us up, or drop us off.  Wandering into the family room at midnight to remind us that we all had church in the morning and maybe nightmare on elm street part 6 could wait until another day?  He was a deacon at church, a Sunday school teacher, and I am certain he had many other roles at church I am not aware of.

In summer 1991 before Kathleen and I got married, Kat joined me in Santa Fe and I introduced her to my church family.  One of the things I remember very vividly was that when we went to meet Laura at her parent’s house, both Taylor and his wife Paulann took Kathleen and me into their formal living room, a room I had never been in before, and sat us down and talked to us about marriage.  Paulann shared that their whole married lives Taylor never spoke a cross word to her and always treated her as if she were a fairy princess, and made her feel as though she were the most special woman in the world.  Taylor reminded me that the bible says husbands are to love their wives the way Jesus loves the church.  Taylor asked me to be a good husband, and told me he was sure  I could be.  Then he prayed for us.  

 

All told it was maybe 20 minutes of my life.  But I remember it. I remember it, because of course they did that, that is who they were. Kathleen and I have been married almost 30 years.  I can tell you that I have said some cross words to her, but mostly in private, and I do make every effort to make her feel like a fairy princess.  That is an example I have set for my boys as well.  

I don;t know what memorial plans the Hendrickson's have for Taylor, and I am sure in the coming days there will be meaningful and wonderful things said about him and his lasting impact on his daughters, their husbands and so many grandkids.  I am not trying to supersede that or detract in any way.  I just wanted to say that if the only thing that anyone could remember about Taylor was that he was a good father and husband, and that he encouraged me to be the same, that is enough.

stardate 12.15.2020

This is it! The year I have finally run out of things to say.  I didn’t even make it halfway through…

I am not much of a baker, but I do, on occasion, like to bake cookies.  I like to make cute or pretty looking cookies.  I had plans this year, I really did.  Then my famous cookies 3 ways were slightly underdone  If by underdone it can be understood they tasted like raw flour? 

Then I tried a new recipe, a gluten free cookie that was promised to be delicious.  I can attest that they were indeed delicious, but when I doubled the amount of butter called for, the uncontrolled spread of the cookies resulted in a giant chocolate puddle.

In the midst of my bitter disappointment I told Kathleen that those cookies were a metaphor for my life, when it looks good, I am raw on the inside, and when it’s good, I look like a total disaster.  She suggested I try and not be so dramatic.  She is probably right. 

I was starting to feel slightly better about my baking mishaps, and then Kathleen did this.  Do you see these amazingly perfect coconut macaroons?  See the ease with which she pipes the chocolate.  She is doing it to spite me, I just know it.

Then, to further add insult to injury, when I got home I received these pictures texted to me from my sister’s bakery.  Look what Matthew created.  They are calling it a Tucson holiday chocolate swirl.  It is a southwest version of a buche de noel, a classic chocolate and coffee flavored cake roll, decorated with tiny cactus bulbs.  I love how it looks.  But really? Really?  Is everyone in my family better at this than I am?

PS. These are the cookies Paul made.

Good Grief!

stardate 12.14.2020

Today we are going to hear from Sue Fox Akins.  Sue & Becky were my mom's best friends for years.  This is a special story about the beginning of that special friendship. 

How Sue and Becky met the Jan Kinkades and spent their first Christmas in Tucson

      July 1989:  Sue and Becky come to Tucson on a scouting trip to see if we'd like the heat and move from Washington DC.  It was HOT!!  We had heard of Jan through our friend Kansas who was living in Tucson.  We checked in at the hotel they had chosen and the clerk said "just a minute, I have something for you".  He bent down and came up with a sign that said "Welcome Home" and a jar full of little desert flowers.  Later, we drove by the 1st Street house just as Jan was coming over from school.  Complete with purple hair and chili earrings, she invited us in for a cocktail which consisted of Emergen-C and juice.  She said that if we were gonna live here we needed to learn about Emergen-C.  Then she said she knew where there was a party with a band playing out in the desert at somebody's house ... and the rest is history.       

      OK, so it's September 1989 (yes,we bought a  house on that July scouting trip) and we're finally here to stay.  December rolls around and we are looking forward to our first Christmas in the warm climate of the Tucson desert, but we have the flu!  You all know it, that achey all over just want to sleep kinda flu.  We have missed the Christmas eve after church spinach enchilada and empanada fest at Jan's.  Christmas day we got up briefly and in our PJ's go out in the desert behind our house where we spread a tarp on the ground and open presents with the cactus patiently watching.  We smiled and went back to bed.  Sometimes the things that at the time seem uneventful make the greatest memories.

(Later that winter, we awoke to 4" of snow on the ground!  We freaked out!  We had moved here to escape snow.  It wasn't until we got to work and coworkers told us how unusual it was.  They were right.  30 years later and I've never seen that much snow here again.)

stardate 12.13.2020

Ho ho something something.

How is everyone today? Living? Breathing? I hope so. I really do.  

I have been noting on the social medias that people are talking about the busy holiday season.  Initially I accept that at face value, the holidays are always a busy time, presents to purchase, cookies to eat, church activities, holiday parties, in addition to your normal work and family life.  Except… this is 2020, so at least for many of us, there are only online church activities, many gift purchases are done online to avoid being around people, and holiday parties are a big no.  So I am left wondering what are we busy doing?

I know this week is the week before our usual party date.  Any other year we would be busy baking, and decorating and cleaning the house, but not this year.  Instead our to-do list involves making 5 more batches of fudge, making cookies, sending and delivering packages, tidying the house, and decorating at least the part of the house people will see on the zoom party… So, yeah, um, I get the busy part, but at least there are cookies!

I was thinking today about holiday parties, We aren’t having a Sunday school party, or work parties, or any of the other events where you gather with people and play white elephant and exchange gifts that you might not really want.  I have to admit, I do miss it.  I don’t miss it enough to actually go to one, or host one, but I do miss it.  

My thought process ended up with me wondering about being isolated at the holidays.  Kathleen and I have been parents for 20 plus years, and even before that we were part of big extended families, so we aren’t accustomed to not being with people at the holidays.  The first year Kathleen and I lived in Oklahoma City, so 1994 maybe? Kathleen’s office was having a big holiday party at her supervisors house.  We were looking forward to it, but then the day of, our car wouldn’t start.  I don’t remember what the actual issue was, but we weren’t going anywhere.  It was disappointing, because it had been something that we were looking forward to.  Instead of staying home, we decided to walk across the parking lot to have dinner at Pioneer Pies, which was right there by the apartments.  

I don’t remember who was supposed to be at the party, but I do remember eating dinner with Kathleen.  It was quiet and just the two of us at our table and it was pleasant.  I enjoy being with Kathleen.  She is funny and smart and she puts up with me, so essentially the perfect company.  I love being a father, and I love my boys, and at the same time, I am thankful to be reminded that I am so lucky to have Kathleen to keep me company.

So maybe if you aren’t going to have a houseful of loved ones this year, that is ok.  It might not be what you want, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad thing.  Please give yourself the freedom to enjoy what you do have this year.