Suneson Christmas 2015

Not a whole lot happening as we approached the coming Yuletide.  Sue was scheduled to work on Christmas Eve during the early service at Garland Presbyterian, but other than that, not much going on as far as we could see - but who knows the future?

Sue had agreed to be available for dog sitting, for 3 small dogs that belonged to a friend who was going up to New York for a visit, leaving Christmas Day.  The text came in on Christmas Eve, "Could we drop the dogs off a bit earlier than planned, so we don't miss our flight?"  Of course the answer was "Sure".

I saw three dogs come sailing in, come sailing in, come sailing in
I saw three dogs come sailing in, 
On Christmas Day in the Morning..
(or so goes our version of the ole Christmas carol)

We were up to receive our canine charges at 7:50 AM on Christmas Day.  This is as early as we've ever been up on Christmas Day, even including when our kids were little. 
In comes Cooper, a black and white, small sheep dog kind of guy with hair hanging down in his eyes.
In comes Bella, a mystifying mix of schnauzer-dachshund or something that created a sawed-off fuzzy meatloaf kind of body that snorts an awful lot.
In comes Pebbles, a chihuahua with translucent skin and near constant shivering. 

The dogs have all been here before, and so with minimal anxiety, they settle into circulating around our feet or testing the boundaries and trying to get up on the people furniture.  A few dog accessories are then brought in, and then the owner, her teenage daughter and her Chinese exchange student in tow, they disappear like St. Nick to catch a flight at DFW Airport.

We grab some breakfast and look to the base of our Christmas tree to move on to see what gifts have arrived over the past days, all the while munching on candy from within the recess of our stocking hanging from the mantle place.

Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree
How Sweet are Your Branches

Christmas Morning
Santa Has Come and Gone

Christmas Breakfast
Some "Red Wolf" Pancakes
Smelling of Cinnamon, Ginger and Nutmeg

Santa has stuffed some treats in our stockings

After breakfast, the dogs invite themselves to be a part of the festivities and help us unwrap our gifts found under the boughs of the Christmas tree.

Dog-Sitting Pebbles & Friends
Over Christmas DAy and Beyond

I asked for slippers
I got Armadillo slippers!
How Sweet

Say "cheese!"
The perennial Christmas theme for Sue: Cheese Making 

This year Sue gets the makings and equipment for
Goat Cheese

Christmas Lights For Dummies

Doesn't everyone always believe that Christmas in the past used to be so much better?

Nostalgia is at epic epidemic levels at Christmas time.

Below is a photo of our house lit for Christmas 2012.  As you can see, we even had snow, a beautiful "White Christmas", proving that those old C-9 bulbs strung out across the eves and a pleasing amount of snow for proper Christmas atmosphere was the right look.  
This is how Christmas is supposed to look.  Right?

I once believed that the right Christmas look meant that the house had lights hung along the eves of the roof.  
But there is another way; but should I give up on lighting along the eves (which is a more heavenly and elevated effect) and celebrate the Christ child by illuminating the earthbound, rooted and prosaic bushes and trees?
Or maybe, this is way too philosophical for some old Christmas lights?
What would Jesus do with my Christmas lights?

Christmas Lights 2012 - Done Right

The TRADITIONAL Christmas; Strung on the eves of our home

Well times do change.

Those Christmas lights that I laboriously hung from the eves every December were lights that my dad used to have on our house during the 1970's.  Those big old C-9 bulbs and all of that wiring has begun to breakdown over the last 40 years, and so I had to resort to getting some more modern sets of Christmas lights from a friend who was cleaning up his things after a divorce.

My old exterior decorating scheme was a bit like the once fashionable mullet haircut style; which was said to be "business up front - party in the back".  My set of inherited lights were for years arranged in a mullet-style lighting scheme; "serene on top - party down in the shrubbery".  The alternating serene blue and green lights that were strung soaringly heavenward along the eves, while I draped the multicolored and vibrant warm "party" lights in the bushes below the eves.  I thought it worked on so many levels.

But every year, as I have pulled the Christmas lights out of storage and tested them, I would find one or two strings that were not working.  My mullet-style scheme was no longer practical, as I did not have enough working serene blue and green C-9 bulbs to go up on the eves.  It finally reached a point that so many of the 40 year old lights were not working, that this year I decided I would break with the traditional display of lights on the eves.  I still much admire those holiday homes that are lighted along the roof line, but I was going to stoop to Christmas lights for dummies this year.  Rather than highlighting the roof line, I would wrap the remaining working strings around the tree trunks and add a few more light strings to the bushes in front of the windows.  I enjoyed not having to do all of the ladder work.  This bit of sloth turned into a guilty pleasure.

But I think Jesus is OK with me having my Christmas lights wrapped on trees and bushes rather than on the eves.  I even think Jesus has stopped wearing his hair in a mullet style too.  Me and Jesus are just OK not doing the traditional Christmas lighting.  Me and Jesus can handle the change.

Happy Birthday Jesus! (even if December 25th isn't your real birthday anyway)

I hope you like the new style of Christmas Lights.

This Christmas: Tree Makes Three

Christmas in 2015 was to be our first "Empty-Nester" holiday.  
-- Or so we believed.

Grant, working as Digital Content Producer at Newsy in Columbia, Missouri was, per company policy, to get 1 of 3 end-of-year holidays; either Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years.  He chose to come back to Texas for a few days over Thanksgiving, and as noted in an earlier blog post here, we three enjoyed being hosted by the Gaul Family at their home in The Woodlands, north of Houston for a fine Thanksgiving feast. 

Grant, ever a considerate human being, figured that many of his co-workers at Newsy had young families, and it would be more important and meaningful for these parents to be able to have Christmas with their families, leaving Grant the bachelor, to voluntarily take work over Christmas while others spent time at home.  Making holiday pay-scale and earning bonus vacation days as he worked on the 24th & 25th watching the events the world and keeping the figurative "presses" running. He said it was not too bad working on Christmas.

Inga, was planning on flying back to Dallas for about a week of Christmas, but she started as Tobacco Education Specialist with the Marion County (Oregon) Health Department on December 7, and her boss stipulated that she had not yet earned any vacation days, so no go.  If she had to miss a Christmas at home, this was about as good of a reason as any we could come up with.

Even Strider, our dog of 14 years who was rumored to speak at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, he too was not to be with us this Christmas.

It looks like just the two of us babe, you, me and the tree makes three.

What to do for Christmas here in Garland?  When faced with change, we decided to hold fast to tradition.  And the tradition says - go out to Hunt County and cut down a Christmas Tree, stop for Texas barbecue on the way home, put up Christmas lights and hang our stocking on the mantle.  This is the basic Christmas tradition around here.

We have selected and cut our Christmas Trees at Kadee Farms for 23 years.  We have cut trees in snow and we have cut trees in 80 degree heat.  December weather in Texas, it can be said, is like a box of Christmas chocolates - you just never know what your going to get.  In 2015 we had a gray sky with mid-50's temperatures and some mud and standing water from heavy rains a couple of days before.  The two of us roamed the farm, and finally settled on our 6 foot tree and made the cut.  Back at the Cider House and processing station, it was discovered that we had a bird nest built in our tree.  The hands at Kadee Farms all assured us this was a sign of exceptional good luck to bring this tree into our house.  We'll take it, and they didn't even charge extra for the luck that came stuck in our boughs.

First Stop: The Petting Zoo
The Goat was happy to see us and was rewarded for her enthusiasm with a handful of hay
The pony, on the otherhand, was said to be a "Biter" - no hay for the pony

A Possible Candidate in the Swamp
However, we kept paroling and found another tree
to take home

A strong woman makes
A Merry Christmas

Kadee Farms Processing Center
Shake the dead needles out

A Cup of Hot Cider at the Cider House
A Bird nest from our Tree - It is Good Luck
AND
Looks like we will NOT have an
"Empty-Nest Christmas" after all

Momma Bird got a late start this year
She must have gone south before the chicks could hatch

We thought that Christmas 2015 was going to be our first "Empty-Nest" Christmas - but after we cut the Christmas Tree of our choice, it turned out that we did not have an empty nest after all.

It is a Christmas Miracle - or at least a holiday oddity.

I Can't Believe It! A Christmas Pageant

 Advent Season was upon us.  And with less than three months on the job as Director of Christian Education at First Presbyterian, Garland; Sue was asked to come up with the Christmas Program for the congregation.  The ever-popular and heavily attended church event was TRADITION and was the kick-off for the Christmas Season.  The Christmas pageant was on the calendar for December 6. Could she pull it off?  Would she need a "Christmas Miracle?   Oh, and besides - the music person was occupied by her husband's serious health issues, and then a bit of guidance from the pastor; "It'd be real nice if we had the basic Christmas Story from the Gospels this year" [last year they had a huge production of an 'Indiana Jones' riff of searching for the meaning of Christmas.  Lots of lines for the kids, not a strong message - just so you know].

Ever resourceful, Sue assured the pastor and staff she could handle it.  But did they truly believe?  Drawing on her experience and deep well of CE resources, she set to on the Christmas Story read by two narrators, the only lines that Mary, Joseph, the angels, shepherds and magi had to say was: "I can't believe it!", or in response, "Believe it!".  The costuming for the characters for this, the first Christmas were charming and endearing bathrobes and assorted sashes and capes of exotic looking fabric scraps.  Simple in staging, simple in rehearsal and simply powerful.

Much of the cast came from the large contingent of Cameroonian kids in the congregation, some shy, some hams.  The cast was appreciative of the simple rehearsal and lack of lines needed to memorize during a busy season.  The volunteer staff helping with the production thought it was a simply brilliant plan.  They too were appreciative of the savings in time.

Maybe there were some who doubted it would come together in time.
Maybe there were some who doubted it would work at all.

But at the potluck dinner following performance, I think if you asked did that work as a kick-off for the Christmas Season?  
I think the answer would be:

BELIEVE IT!

Angels color in the pews
before they are called upon for the
Angelic Choir of Hosts

Mary
Loved to be on stage with her traditional blue cape

The birth of the Christ Child
"and he was wrapped in swaddling clothes laid in a manger"

The angelic Heavenly host were coloring by night
waiting to greet the shepherds with news of great joy

And a star led the magi westward,
stopping over the city of Bethlehem
guiding the magi to the one who was born the King if Israel

The shepherds went to Bethlehem to see the baby Messiah born in a common stable
I can't believe it!
Believe it!

A choir of angels ceased their coloring
and sang to the shepherds in the fields
News of Great Joy

The magi inquired of King Herod
where they might find the one who is born
King of the Jews

The magi found Jesus and his mother and worship Him
But being warned by angel, they did not return to tell King Herod

For Advent Season
The Church Potluck Dinner
Held after the Christmas Story has been told by the Children
Mary & Joseph asked the blessing before the meal

Giving Thanks: We Came as Strangers, We left as Family Friends

The year is more than half gone.
I know the "holidays" are rushing upon us once again.  This seems to happen to me every year now.  Inside our empty nest, we open the subject between the two of us; "What do you want to do about... 

   A. Halloween
   B. My Birthday
   C. Thanksgiving
   D. Hanukkah
   E. Christmas
   F. New years

Answers to: 
   A) nothing [so sad, I love this event], 
   B) Texas Road Trip to San Antonio & Fredericksburg - did that, got this T-Shirt 
   C) Oh, I don't know, whata you wanna do?
   D, E & F) Way too soon to decide

Actually, when we were not all that close to Thanksgiving (at least by our casual standards), Sue got an invitation via Facebook to spend Thanksgiving at the table of the Gaul Family.  Of course the Gaul Family includes their daughter Kaileen, who is Grant's girlfriend.  Kaileen is finishing her senior year at the University of Missouri, while Grant remains in town in Columbia as a real honest-to-Cronkite working journalist. 

The Gauls live in The Woodlands, a beautiful, planned community on the north side of Houston, about a 3 1/2 hour drive down I-45 from Dallas.  I'd say we were surprised initially, actually kind of flattered once I had a moment to think about it, and then I had to mull the the gravity of the situation, as this is an invitation to have THE Thanksgiving meal with the parents of our son's girlfriend (plus all of the rest of the Gaul kin).  Just for Grant's sake, I guess I'd better not mess this up.  Well. OK.  We can do this - but check with Grant before we commit, just to make sure we three Sunesons are all have the same play in mind.

As expected, we are all in agreement.  We are officially delighted to be having Thanksgiving with the Gaul Family.  Besides Kaileen's parents, Greg and Glenda and her younger brother Connor, Nana & Grandpa Wylie (who live a few blocks away) will be there as well as Greg's mother in from Florida.  Greg's brother and his wife, plus there two sons, one of which has a wife and new baby.  I think this all adds up to 15.  Sue offers to bake and bring along pumpkin and pecan pies.

Glenda then suggests that we are welcome to spend the night at their home before returning to Garland.  We consider this gracious offer, but I feel that we are essentially arriving as strangers, and having us under foot could be a bit much.  I think it best if we ease into this relationship slowly and gracefully.  I recommended that we defer on spending the night and return to Garland that evening.  I delegated the communication of this decision to my wife (after all, she's one who last touched it - that is, the Facebook invitation).  My wife then delegates the communication of our plans to our son Grant (who knows the members of the Gaul Family much better than do we).  So that is all settled, this should be good.

On Wednesday, the night before, as we are awaiting the arrival of Grant from MO, I am just now informed that Grant had relayed to Sue that we will be spending the night at the Gaul's home.  I inquired what about our "settled plan"; I got a shrug.  OK, I can roll with that, but I am left wondering, "what happened to our 'settled plan?'"  Once Grant arrived home Wednesday evening, at some point I asked him about how it came to be that we were to spend the night at the Gauls?  He said he spoke with Glenda, and then finished his explanation by giving me a shrug - as if to explain.  Apparently Glenda can be keenly persuasive.  We now have a new plan.

Thursday morning, by the end of the Macy's Parade, the pies are loaded, Grant settles into the back seat for a 3 1/2 hour nap, and I plug the coordinates into my phone's navigation app.  We are off to The Woodlands.

Sue, Grant, Kaileen, Connor & Greg
Gather between rooms in the Gaul home for some conversation

Sue, Grant & Kaileen

Glenda (in black sweater) and Greg
Set feast preparation in motion

We arrive around 1, the feast for 15 to be served at 2.  We are introduced around to all the gathered relatives, and we engage in conversation and a few glasses of wine.  Greg has fashioned a single complete table top surface to seat all the guest at one table in the dining room, thus negating the need to delegate anyone to the "kid's table".  A blessing is said and we sit and continue to enjoy all the good people gathered as well as the ham and turkey and all the fixin's suitable and proper for an American Thanksgiving.  Glenda did a wonderful job in putting the event together, and we were made to feel quite welcomed into the household.

Connor and Greg file in to sit at
the far end of the Thanksgiving Table
prepared by Gkenda

We watch some football, ate some dessert, noshed and nibbled as we circulated in and out of the house.  There were ping pong games going on in the garage, social sipping by the back pool in overcast 73 degree Houston winter weather.  It is a good time and we are notably thankful for all of this.

A relaxing time around the pool after the meal

At bedtime, we are are shown our bedroom upstairs and we settle in.  I know this was not my original plan, but I'd say this has all worked out quite well.  I go to sleep thankful for that as well.

We had come as virtual strangers, we left as friends of the family.

In the morning we are treated to the legendary fritatas prepared by Kaileen's uncle.  Eventually we pack up and go back north toward Dallas, where we run headlong into the approaching cold front that will bring over 5" of rain and flash flooding to our area. 

We made it home safe and we begin to think about dinner.  I suggest that we cross off one of by "bucket list" items; that is we have dinner at Campisi's Egyptian Lounge on Mockingbird Lane in Dallas.  Campisi's is run by the family that opened the first Italian restaurant in Texas, and is now infamous for being the last place that Jack Ruby dined before he went downtown to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald as he was being transferred out of the county jail to face charges of assassinating President Kennedy.  As it turned out, the "Jack Ruby Booth" was available, and our hostess seated us in that very spot where Ruby last sat as a free man. 

Quite a Thanksgiving run.

Llano Lunch - Divine Bovine & Hog Heaven

We left Fredericksburg by way of the back roads, a country highway and headed north that made travelling back home all the more pleasant.  We pulled into the small town of Llano, arriving at about the same time as the first cold front of the season, where we turned up Young Street looking for the nondescript Cooper's Barbecue.  The building is nothing of note, but the many pick-ups and cars in the parking lot give the location away.  I maneuvered the 4Runner into the last space left in the primary parking lot (more spaces behind the building next door if the need arises).

Sue getting in the barbecue line
Cooper's Pit BBQ, Llano, Texas

My friend, Mr. Mark Rice, who throws the acclaimed and occasional 'smoke out', still takes umbrage in the false memory that I am alleged to have said that "Cooper's is my favorite barbecue" - I protest that I never said that; yet he continues in the belief that I have called into question his perfection of the righteous and manly art of smoking brisket and ribs to perfection.  I tell him that after I have savored his smoked meats, that I do not wash my mustache for 3 days, so as to savor the lasting flavor of his smoke out.  Alas, to no avail.  All of this is not to say, that I do not enjoy a meal-and-a-half at Coopers.  For I truly do.

We joined the line in front of Cooper's building, filing slowly toward the grill where the array of smoked meats are displayed.  Offered is, sausage links - jalapeno infused and regular, half chicken, beef & pork ribs, brisket and prime rib.  One points to their particular choice for lunch and then tells the knife wielding attendant how much of each you want him to load onto your tray.  For me it was beef ribs, brisket (fatty & moist & charred) with a link of sausage.  Sue, showing great selection disciple, chose a serving of pork ribs.

At the front of the line, it is time to make your selection of meat(s)
Just in from the smoker, the grill is outside under a cover patio keeps the
finished meats warm before serving

With our trays locked and loaded, we pass through the door into the line where they weigh the contents of your tray and charge accordingly.  It is here that we each added a serving of blueberry cobbler, just in case we might still be hungry and need dessert.

My choice of ribs, brisket & sausage is weighed in the balance,
and I am found "wanting" as the aroma of smoked meat permeates the air

Blueberry Cobbler
The end of a great meal
and the end of a very fine Texas Road Trip

I had eaten enough stuff, but not too much to send me over the comatose-line for the drive back to Garland.  However, I did have to get a doggy bag for a few remaining pieces of brisket plus 1 rib.

As we drove the few hours back north, we could detect more and more autumn color on the foliage as we made our way home over the next several hours.  It was fitting end to a nice little Texas jaunt.  Man, do I know how to travel in style!

Among Admiral Nimitz & Friends in Fredericksburg, Texas

Leaving the Spanish Missions of San Antonio, we charted our coordinates for German country - Fredericksburg and points west of the "Alamo City".  We had an invitation to stay with my Dave Ewing and his wife Teri, Dave was one of my housemates from our time at the University of Texas in Austin.  Good Times.

Dave and Teri built a house on ranch land that belonged to her Great Grandfather, Herr Kusenberger, who settled the area with many other Germans in the 1840's.  In the dark November night we pasted through Boerne (famous old dance hall) and Luckenbach (of Willie Nelson fame) and were looking for the Levi Kusneberger Ranch Road.  I had looked it up on Google maps on my android phone, so I knew basically where it was, but I asked Sue to navigate with her iPhone.  Not all GPS software is equal, so with the iPhone we overshot our turn off onto the Jung County Road and needed several passes and a recalibrated GPS effort to find the "signature agave plant" demarcating the gate to their house a quarter mile up the Kusenberger Ranch Road.  We were expected at around 6, but we were warmly welcomed by Dave and Teri when we arrived at 7:30.  Dave threw some bounteous steaks on the grill and after some refreshments from the bottle, we sat down to talk and eat.

Cedar gate to the Ewing Home
Ksenberger Ranch
Outside of Fredericksburg, Texas

Our hosts are semi-retired teachers in Fredericksburg, but both had work things to attend to on Friday, so we opted to meet them after 4 PM for wine in town and then go on to dinner at the Auslander German restaurant.

Teri spoke of spoke of President Lyndon Johnson, who retired to his Texas Ranch, just 5 miles up the road from where she grew up.  LBJ would have some of the local ranch families come to his place and he'd show movies in the barn and serve popcorn, then later lamented that "I invite folks to my place, but I'll never get an invitation to visit there place."  One day LBJ called Teri's father who served as County Commissioner, to ask a favor; leading off with, "I don't know you, but my foreman says you're an OK guy, so I figure since you're both pissin' in the same pot..."  After the phone conversation with the former President, he told his wife, "That was President Johnson, and he thinks that Roy Klein and I are pissin' in the same pot.  I'll be."

Sue, Teri & Dave (Foreground, L to R)
Joined by some of the Ewing's Friends for a glass before dinner

While Dave and Teri were in town at work, we had planned to go tour the Admiral Nimitz (Commanded American Naval Forces in the Pacific during WWII) museum and the adjoining Museum of the Pacific War.  Adm. Nimitz grew up in Fredericksburg, and Teri says every old-timer has a "Nimitz story". A very well done and thorough set of exhibits covering the "island hopping" strategy and bloody fighting to drive the Japanese back to their own island.  

This destination was of special import to me as my Grandfather, Warren D. Wilkin, commanded a submarine wolf pack known as "Wilkin's Wildcats" aboard the USS Tilefish, under Nimitz during the war. 

A Salute to Admiral Nimitz
My Grandfather served on Nimitz staff after the war.

Entrance to the Museum of the Pacific War

Inside the Museum, Sue and I were separated, and she sat down to view the video portion of one of the exhibits, and another woman sat down beside her and launch a battleship broadside of her opinions to Sue.  It went something like this: Testosterone! Testosterone!! TESTOSTERONE!!! Nothing in this damn museum but men killing men, killing men!  Sue acknowledged her opinion, as she went on in this vein sounding somewhat like the vocabulary from  one of the sailors featured in the exhibits.  The woman's husband then rounded the corner, and she began again with her rant.  Sue subtly slipped away, as she heard the husband say, "I'll not be having any of that! Oh, just off with ya."  This story was related to the group later in the evening enjoying some wine, and many of the ladies there agreed, there are plenty of cutesy shops along Main Street, she would have been better served to wander there among the antiques, rather than the torpedoes, armaments, mini-subs and reconstructed bombers.

Before leaving town, I made sure we stopped back in to look at the gift shop, where I flipped through there selection of books on submarine warfare against the Japanese.  I found one thick, paperback book, Silent Victory, that made mention of my grandfather on page 679.  So of course I purchased the book - as a birthday present for me.

After beers all-around, sour kraut and some schnitzel, we returned to the ranch house.  On Saturday morning, Teri prepared delicious Nutella-banana crepes as we shared current happenings and old stories around the table, until late in the morning, and then it was time to pack up and return home.

Teri serving crepes for breakfast

Our Hosts, Dave and Teri

American Gothic
Kusenberger Ranch