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Dec. 31st, 2005 12:00 pmChristmas!
Christmas Eve was wonderful. Moira, my parents, my brothers, my brother's girlfriend, her parents, her brothers, and myself all went out for our now-traditional Christmas Eve dinner at the Super China Buffet. Lara's (my brother's girlfriend) father, having seen my performance as Chief Bromden a number of years ago in the Lakeside Player's production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, greeted me with his typical "Hi Chief!", which I find oddly embarrassing but, at the same time, sort of flattering. A good time was had indeed. I didn't get to talk to Lara's family much, but I had lots of fun being with my brothers and parents and eating copious amounts of mediocre, americanized, Chinese cuisine. I love our traditional dinner and have been looking forward to it for some time.
That night, having already wrapped all of her gifts, Andrea went to bed shortly after returning home. As she slept, I applied green and blue polka-dotted paper to the various books and movies I'd picked up for her. (I found three Gregory Maguire books for her--Son of a Witch, Mirror, Mirror, and Lost--and I also bought her the first season of The Muppet Show and a collection of twelve particularly B-grade horror movies, which includes such gems as The Bloody Pit of Terror and The Vampire's Niece.) As I worked, I turned on the stereo and tuned the receiver to 91.5Mhz, the Chicago NPR station. As I listened up through about three in the morning, the superlatively wonderful Blues Before Sunrise program which, appropriate to the night, was playing a series of Christmas songs, a good number of which I'd never heard before, by blues artists of the '20s through '50s. I get so tired of the same songs repeated to the point of nausea that it was a palpable relief to hear all these new songs from a new genre. I really want to start listening to the blues on the 78s that my grandparents gave me to hold on to. But more on that later.
Finally, I went upstairs, peaceful and happy, to lie down next to my beloved raccoon.
The next morning, we woke up early to drive over to my parents' house. There, met by my brothers and Lara, we partook of a huge traditional breakfast that my dad cooked. In fact, the Christmas breakfast and everything that comes after is just as much of a tradition, if perhaps a bit more classically traditional, to me as the Christmas Eve Chinese dinner, so I'd been waiting in anticipation of that as well. We had eggs, bacon, biscuits, hashbrowns, sausage, grape juice, and egg-nog, which I've never been a fan of, but that's OK.
After stuffing ourselves, we all gathered about the bottom of the tree to open our presents. (I'd missed my family's trip to the cut-your-own tree farm this year. I've always enjoyed that and would like to have been there; hopefully next year.) I soon realized that I'd forgotten to bring the camera, so I hurried home to get it while people settled in to couches and chairs. Upon my hasty return, we began the unwrapping.
It was great fun to see how happy the gifts we all found for each other made people. There wasn't anything lavish or over-the-top: just fun little well-chosen things that made people smile. We got my dad a few hard cover Doc Savage pulps that have a fun story. They'd been sitting in Andrea's car for months, ever since she and my dad, on a thrift store expedition for costumery for the play he was directing, spotted them. He lamented not having money for them at the time, so that evening, Andrea and I drove back out to pick them up for Christmas.
We found my youngest brother a laser pointer that seems to be a big hit, despite their cats having no more than a passing interest in the thing. For Jim, my other brother (the middle one of the three of us), we found a plastic fortune cat figurine that, with the help of a battery, waves one extended paw back and forth. For my mother, Andrea found a really nice tote bag at an import store in Racine. Everyone seemed to love their new possessions.
For my part, Andrea found a bunch of cute and wonderful things for me. There's a folding paper lantern shaped like a star for me to hang over our bed. She found a box of De La Rosa candies for me, which there's another interesting story behind. When I was much younger, six or seven perhaps (though I could be wrong since I'm bad with ages), my family was living in Mundelein, Illinois, in a house that, oddly enough, is about ten minutes from where I now work. I remember frequently walking with my dad down to a Mexican grocery store called El Barrio where, while buying whatever he was there for, he would always give me a De La Rosa peanut confection. Having not had them for probably a good ten years, I was pleasantly amazed when Andrea and I found them at the local flea market. I bought one and, eating it, was overwhelmed by the memories that the taste and smell brought back. Knowing how much I like them, Andre bought a whole box of them for me! She is so wonderful to remember such silly things about her mate.
Also finding their way into my possession were such varied things as two very pretty new sarongs, a toe ring with a triskelion device repeated around its circumference, a book called Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Punctuation (co-authored by Richard Lederer who I very much like), the Jones Soda Holiday Pack which we still haven't had the nerve to try, and a can of Spam®. But this is no ordinary can of Spam®. This is Crazy Tasty Spam®! Not only is there a recipe for a Spamburger and a ruler for determining how thick to cut your Spam® (from ½" for an infant to 2" for a linebacker), but there's also a note on the bottom about the power contained within. "So. Now you know another of the many secrets of SPAM®. This knowledge carries much responsibility. It gives you the power to feed yourself and others. You wield a delicious skill that has far-reaching consequences. Please do not use it for evil." Who knew Spam® was such a significant comestible? One has to love a family that would give a can of Spam® as a Christmas gift; they're just as weird as I am!
After the gift opening here in Kenosha, the lot of us drove down to my aunt and uncle's house for Christmas dinner with the extended family. Visiting them is always fun; my uncle collects arcade machines. Full-size stand-up things. He's got a good ten or fifteen of those, three or four pinball tables, and a fifteen foot long bowling machine that has a shuffleboard like surface that you have to slide a puck down to run over some electro-mechanical contacts that tell the machine which pins to pull up and away for the next throw. That one and the Captain Fantastic machine that I spend hour and hours on growing up (This exact model for those interested) are my favorites. I have every single noise that that pinball machine makes ingrained in permanent memory. There's something incredible about looking at the electro-mechanical labyrinth that exists inside a classic pinball machine that really reaches out to me, but that's a topic for another time I suppose. Beyond that, he's got Donkey Kong, Joust, Rampage, and a bunch of other wonderful time suckers. He does a lot of the work of repairing them himself as well, which fascinates me. If I lived closer, I'd see if he'd let me help.
Anyway, stayed there quite late with my many family members and, combined with the ones I took in the morning, ended up with about four hundred pictures that I still haven't taken off my camera because I replaced the printer with the memory card reader with one that lacks that particular feature and I've had a stupidly difficult time making my computer read the camera correctly. Soon though.
Andrea seemed to have a really good time being around family members; that, together with spending time with them myself, was what made me the happiest of all. The thing I most want to give her for Christmas is an understanding that she has a family who like her, love her, and accept her for who and what she is.
And I can't think of a better place to stop. I hope all of my readers had their own blessed holiday spent with loved friends and family.
'Till next!
Christmas Eve was wonderful. Moira, my parents, my brothers, my brother's girlfriend, her parents, her brothers, and myself all went out for our now-traditional Christmas Eve dinner at the Super China Buffet. Lara's (my brother's girlfriend) father, having seen my performance as Chief Bromden a number of years ago in the Lakeside Player's production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, greeted me with his typical "Hi Chief!", which I find oddly embarrassing but, at the same time, sort of flattering. A good time was had indeed. I didn't get to talk to Lara's family much, but I had lots of fun being with my brothers and parents and eating copious amounts of mediocre, americanized, Chinese cuisine. I love our traditional dinner and have been looking forward to it for some time.
That night, having already wrapped all of her gifts, Andrea went to bed shortly after returning home. As she slept, I applied green and blue polka-dotted paper to the various books and movies I'd picked up for her. (I found three Gregory Maguire books for her--Son of a Witch, Mirror, Mirror, and Lost--and I also bought her the first season of The Muppet Show and a collection of twelve particularly B-grade horror movies, which includes such gems as The Bloody Pit of Terror and The Vampire's Niece.) As I worked, I turned on the stereo and tuned the receiver to 91.5Mhz, the Chicago NPR station. As I listened up through about three in the morning, the superlatively wonderful Blues Before Sunrise program which, appropriate to the night, was playing a series of Christmas songs, a good number of which I'd never heard before, by blues artists of the '20s through '50s. I get so tired of the same songs repeated to the point of nausea that it was a palpable relief to hear all these new songs from a new genre. I really want to start listening to the blues on the 78s that my grandparents gave me to hold on to. But more on that later.
Finally, I went upstairs, peaceful and happy, to lie down next to my beloved raccoon.
The next morning, we woke up early to drive over to my parents' house. There, met by my brothers and Lara, we partook of a huge traditional breakfast that my dad cooked. In fact, the Christmas breakfast and everything that comes after is just as much of a tradition, if perhaps a bit more classically traditional, to me as the Christmas Eve Chinese dinner, so I'd been waiting in anticipation of that as well. We had eggs, bacon, biscuits, hashbrowns, sausage, grape juice, and egg-nog, which I've never been a fan of, but that's OK.
After stuffing ourselves, we all gathered about the bottom of the tree to open our presents. (I'd missed my family's trip to the cut-your-own tree farm this year. I've always enjoyed that and would like to have been there; hopefully next year.) I soon realized that I'd forgotten to bring the camera, so I hurried home to get it while people settled in to couches and chairs. Upon my hasty return, we began the unwrapping.
It was great fun to see how happy the gifts we all found for each other made people. There wasn't anything lavish or over-the-top: just fun little well-chosen things that made people smile. We got my dad a few hard cover Doc Savage pulps that have a fun story. They'd been sitting in Andrea's car for months, ever since she and my dad, on a thrift store expedition for costumery for the play he was directing, spotted them. He lamented not having money for them at the time, so that evening, Andrea and I drove back out to pick them up for Christmas.
We found my youngest brother a laser pointer that seems to be a big hit, despite their cats having no more than a passing interest in the thing. For Jim, my other brother (the middle one of the three of us), we found a plastic fortune cat figurine that, with the help of a battery, waves one extended paw back and forth. For my mother, Andrea found a really nice tote bag at an import store in Racine. Everyone seemed to love their new possessions.
For my part, Andrea found a bunch of cute and wonderful things for me. There's a folding paper lantern shaped like a star for me to hang over our bed. She found a box of De La Rosa candies for me, which there's another interesting story behind. When I was much younger, six or seven perhaps (though I could be wrong since I'm bad with ages), my family was living in Mundelein, Illinois, in a house that, oddly enough, is about ten minutes from where I now work. I remember frequently walking with my dad down to a Mexican grocery store called El Barrio where, while buying whatever he was there for, he would always give me a De La Rosa peanut confection. Having not had them for probably a good ten years, I was pleasantly amazed when Andrea and I found them at the local flea market. I bought one and, eating it, was overwhelmed by the memories that the taste and smell brought back. Knowing how much I like them, Andre bought a whole box of them for me! She is so wonderful to remember such silly things about her mate.
Also finding their way into my possession were such varied things as two very pretty new sarongs, a toe ring with a triskelion device repeated around its circumference, a book called Comma Sense: A Fun-damental Guide to Punctuation (co-authored by Richard Lederer who I very much like), the Jones Soda Holiday Pack which we still haven't had the nerve to try, and a can of Spam®. But this is no ordinary can of Spam®. This is Crazy Tasty Spam®! Not only is there a recipe for a Spamburger and a ruler for determining how thick to cut your Spam® (from ½" for an infant to 2" for a linebacker), but there's also a note on the bottom about the power contained within. "So. Now you know another of the many secrets of SPAM®. This knowledge carries much responsibility. It gives you the power to feed yourself and others. You wield a delicious skill that has far-reaching consequences. Please do not use it for evil." Who knew Spam® was such a significant comestible? One has to love a family that would give a can of Spam® as a Christmas gift; they're just as weird as I am!
After the gift opening here in Kenosha, the lot of us drove down to my aunt and uncle's house for Christmas dinner with the extended family. Visiting them is always fun; my uncle collects arcade machines. Full-size stand-up things. He's got a good ten or fifteen of those, three or four pinball tables, and a fifteen foot long bowling machine that has a shuffleboard like surface that you have to slide a puck down to run over some electro-mechanical contacts that tell the machine which pins to pull up and away for the next throw. That one and the Captain Fantastic machine that I spend hour and hours on growing up (This exact model for those interested) are my favorites. I have every single noise that that pinball machine makes ingrained in permanent memory. There's something incredible about looking at the electro-mechanical labyrinth that exists inside a classic pinball machine that really reaches out to me, but that's a topic for another time I suppose. Beyond that, he's got Donkey Kong, Joust, Rampage, and a bunch of other wonderful time suckers. He does a lot of the work of repairing them himself as well, which fascinates me. If I lived closer, I'd see if he'd let me help.
Anyway, stayed there quite late with my many family members and, combined with the ones I took in the morning, ended up with about four hundred pictures that I still haven't taken off my camera because I replaced the printer with the memory card reader with one that lacks that particular feature and I've had a stupidly difficult time making my computer read the camera correctly. Soon though.
Andrea seemed to have a really good time being around family members; that, together with spending time with them myself, was what made me the happiest of all. The thing I most want to give her for Christmas is an understanding that she has a family who like her, love her, and accept her for who and what she is.
And I can't think of a better place to stop. I hope all of my readers had their own blessed holiday spent with loved friends and family.
'Till next!
