Suneson Family Christmas 2010

Sue was on duty at 3 PM orchestrating/preparing/running the 5 o'clock Children's Christmas Eve Service at Preston Hollow Presbyterian on Christmas Eve.  The service features the reading of the Christmas Story from the Gospels, a few selected Christmas carols verses and a host of angels, sheppards and wise men.  Each child that wishes to participate in the service gets to choose one of the above characters and is then supplied with a simple costume.  Each child awaits for the part of the story when angels, sheppards or wise men are mentioned - and then they are invited to come to the chancel to sit with the holy family (a couple from the congregation with a newborn baby is invited to consider playing the part of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus).  Angels are the most popular costume of the three choices, though I overheard one girl explain that she is dressed as a fairy, but most of the kids are veterans and know that the angels appear first, hence the suspected popularity of wearing halos and white robes and getting more time "on stage".  The service was done in 27 minutes this year - long enough for all the families with young kids jazzed about the coming events on Christmas Eve once they return back home.

Back at home, I finished with our Christmas Eve roast and side dishes, ready for feasting upon Sue's return around 7 o'clock.  Inga and Grant had choir performance at First Presbyterian for the 11 o'clock Christmas Eve service, which by tradition is a reunion for Youth Choir alumni returning home from College.

For Christmas Day I mixed a batch of the spicy "red wolf" pancakes and then began to get hungry, so I and the dog went upstairs and shook the kids out of bed at 11:30 in order to get Christmas Day done before the sun set.

A few photos from Christmas 2010:

Inga enjoys fireside reading on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve - Sue relaxes after finishing directing Children's 5 o'clock Service at Preston Hollow Presbyterian

Grant digs into gifts Christmas Day

Inga reads the Traditional Suneson Rhyming Gift Clue that accompanies each family present

Dad doesn't get out to movies much, so one of interest comes to him

Santa stuffs Inga's stocking with January Issue of Texas Monthly Magazine and the humorous "Bum Steer Awards"

Sue quickly figures out her Lat/Long GPS Position, Current Room Temperature (degrees Kelvin), Age in Dog Years and the date and time with Brookstone Alarm Clock

Grant gets another University of Oregon Ducks Shirt from his sister (A Very Proud Duck)  in Preparation for National Championship Game next month

Grant reconnects with childhood fascination when Santa brings a Dinosaur Sticker Book!  Show me you Screaming Pteradactyl Face!

Inga offers thanks for the blessing of sharp knives for her apartment kitchen

Grant and Inga find more to unwrap

Sue now learns the secret of the Magi's visit to Bethlehem from an ancient document translated from Syriac

Grant tries to decipher the poetic clue that hints at the gift's contents

Sue rapidly unfurls fashion accessory from her daughter

Turkish Delight - Candied Fruit from Washington State
A Traditional "Family" Gift for a Suneson Christmas

Christmas Season Begins: Returning from the Hunt

No matter what you think or how you feel about holidays there is no doubt that deeply submerged in the human being is a sense and a need and consequently a joy in seeing, hearing and doing a familiar pattern of events that soon come to hold a steadfast and comforting place in the lives of individuals that bond them with family, tribe and community.  Such is the Suneson Family Tradition of cutting a Christmas Tree at Kadee Farms outside of Greenville, Texas.  And such marks the beginning of the Christmas Season as the oft repeated songs, sounds, sights, stories and scents that tie family tradition to faith community to the real and steadfast core joy of Christmas.

We have been to Kadee Farms soon after Thanksgiving, we have been to Kadee Farms at 5:41 PM on the last day they were open for the season, we have been to Kadee Farms when snow covered the pine boughs of all prospective specimens and more often than not I have been to Kadee Farms attired in a Hawaiian shirt (and at times, short pants) to select a Christmas Tree.

In earlier seasons I have carried my children on my back as we walked among the Virginia pines looking for a tree about 7 feet tall, a relatively straight trunk with no forks, a fair shade of green with a good strong pointed top.  This season I follow as my children nimbly weave among the stands to call out to come and consider a likely candidate for our living room.  Consensus is either reached, or bad vibes are revealed by a member of the selection committee, or a flaw is pointed out; in which case the search resumes across the back 40.

Ready to search for this year's Perfect Christmas Tree

The fresh pine scent adds to the remembrance of seasons past at the same place, searching once again for the best Christmas Tree to cut and bring home atop the car.  A sure sign that Christmas Celebration has come amongst us again.  This year was excellent tree selection weather with calm air and a sky shinning with high luminous clouds in the setting sun and a pleasantly cool thermometer reading in the low 50's.  The free hot apple cider supplied back at Kadee Farm's processing station goes down so much better while wearing flannel rather than shorts, while anticipating getting back into the car with good A/C - has has been the case in years past.

The Selection Committee Ponders a Nominated Pine

Returning From The Hunt
A Consensus has been reached and a Christmas Tree has been Cut
Grant & Inga Wait for the Hay Ride Wagon to Transport the Tree to Kadee Farms Processing Center

Sue, Inga & Grant Return with the Prize Pine

Upon return to the entrance to Kadee Farms, the family visits with the bunnies, goats and ponies that are available for petting while the farm hands stick the cut tree trunk into a rattle-trap shaker that dislodges most of the dead pine needles and other detritus from the branches.  The tree is then netted and tied to the top of the car.

Grant & Inga Ready for a taste of Apple Cider
And a visit to the bunnies, goats and ponies at the Kid's Corral



The second half of the Tree Cutting Tradition is to stop on the 50 mile return trip for some barbecue.  When we first started this tradition, it was a stop at the Double Deuce, an extremely rustic back-country kind of place on the side of 2-lane Highway 78 with a jolly proprietor who looked for our patronage each December.  Highway 78 is now a divided 4-lane thoroughfare and much of the rustic scene is now "improved" with homes and shopping outlets stretching for miles beyond what we first knew as the edge of urban civilization back in 1990.  The Double Deuce is gone, it was either cleared for a more upscale look befitting a suburb of Dallas, or else it finally succumbed to gravity and slid off into the brushy creek behind the dining room wall (which was always an incipient danger noticed by patrons as they sat around tables on a visibly cracked and slanted floor).  This year we were pleased to find (by way of Google), Big Baby's Barbecue in Greenville.  The St. Louis style ribs had the meat fallin' off the bone and the sliced brisket was moist and flavorful.  As dictated by that religious sense and desire for tradition which pulls at the core of each human being - and also, not to be underestimated is the joy from a good meal of Texas smoked meats; we pledge to carry on the Suneson tradition - we will be back.

It's On My List Again This Year

One has been on my Christmas List for several years running now.  What I really want is an Arboreal Spotted-Tongued Squirrel Snake.  If they're on sale, maybe a breeding pair.  My Wish List is short and I acknowledge that my tastes tend toward the unorthodox; which either means that my desires are not stocked by the usual holiday suppliers and thus hard to get - or maybe it means that since very few other supplicants are hoping to find an Arboreal Spotted-Tongued Squirrel Snake coiled in the bottom of their stocking on Christmas Day, my request has a better chance of being filled.



Arboreal Spotted-Tongued Squirrel Snake
(Looks very similar to an Amazon Tree Boa)



Squirrel in my pecan tree when it notices my
Christmas Arboreal Spotted-Tongued
Squirrel Snake
(Photo Credit: Mark Pinder)

Most boys and girls are hoping for the fuzzy, the warm, the affectionate puppy, kitten or an somewhat exotic Furry Woodland Creature.  Those FWC's get all the attention and all the love.  But for me, I respect the cool, patient, silent and stealthy Squirrel Snake.  I am partial to Team Slytherin.  And useful?  Oh yes, one of them Arboreal Spotted-Tongued Squirrel Snakes could be quite handy in repelling the bucktoothed onslaught as the squirrels gnaw holes under the eves and then enter my attic to loudly fight and frisk about.  Yes, the Squirrel Snake would be a welcomed resident around here.  And if I get that breeding pair, I would put one in the magnolia tree and one in the pecan tree for sure.  Them varmints have been eating up all of our holiday nuts, before they are even ready for harvest.  No fresh pecan pie makes me a cold blooded man for the holidays.  What joy it would be to go out on a brisk November morn to harvest pecans and look up into the autumnal colored foliage and find a contented Arboreal Spotted-Tongued Squirrel Snake draped over a branch, flicking its tongue in greeting with a large lump in the midsection of its handsome cylindrical body.

Now some would advise, get a cat.  But then again some would advise, sell your soul to Satan.  If I am going to get a squirrel-eater, my minimum demand is a symbiotic relationship.  I will not be used and manipulated by a cat who is supposed to be working for my benefit.  I can patch the holes that squirrels gnaw in my house, but I am not sure I can patch the holes and claw damage a cat will put into a man's sense of self respect.

Now some would say, get a Iberian Squirrel Terrier or a Carpathian Squirrel Hound.  But I already got a dog.  I got a spotted-tongued Labrador retriever-Chow mix mutt.  He was born 9/11/2001 and is all black except a 5-pointed white star blaze on his chest.  He answers to the mythic Tolkiensian name of Strider.  With such a heritage you'd think he was the ideal incarnation to defend the homeland against squirrels seeking to do harm to the Suneson Way of Life, but he is feckless.  Strider is oblivious to the chatter and scampering of large rodents in his yard and in the trees above.  When I throw open the back door and give the command, "Strider, Go Get 'Em! Go Get Some Squirrel!"  He races onto the back patio, stops and attentively waits for me to lead the chase.  Feckless dog.  Does Nature not teach basic instincts anymore?

Strider the Feckless Squirrel Hunter

Maybe it is the magic of the holiday season, the kind of magic that animated Frosty The Snowman to dance around.  On Thursday, Inga noticed a squirrel in the backyard, opened the door and commanded Strider to go get the squirrel - and he did!  He pawed it, lunged at it, grasped it in his jaws and tossed it into the air.  Inga was so shocked at Strider's display of instinctual blood lust for this FWC that she called him off and offered a Milk Bone treat as a reward.  Then she called the city Animal Control Department, which dispatched a trained squirrel handler to pick up the FWC who was not feeling too well at this point.  I am sure the nice squirrel officer gave the FWC a couple of aspirin and dropped him off at a nice little farm in the country where he could start feeling better.

And like Frosty The Snowman who eventually turned into a puddle on the ground, Strider has returned to a lounging dog shedding puddles of black fur across the floor.  I want an Arboreal Spotted-Tongued Squirrel Snake for Christmas.  They are cool and effective.

Return of the Sophomore

Inga descended out of the golden orange back-lit sky on Southwest Airlines last Saturday evening and alighted at Love Field in Big D for a 3 week Christmas break.  Despite her protests that she was rumpled and wrung out and just wanted to go home rather than catch dinner out - she exuded high energy as she filled us all in on life amongst the Oregon Ducks.  With her signature emphatic arm motions and hands flying about as she detailed each and every story while we waited for her belongings to appear upon the back of the silver serpentine luggage delivery belt.  Now that the dinner table is once again set for four, Inga's conversational zeal has noticeably amped up the talk during family meals.

With a year and a half of higher education and added perspective, these are the things that she has noted since her arrival back in Texas from the misty and gray northern latitudes of Eugene:

• Wow!  I can see the sun all day!  Even until 6 PM.  I was so surprised to look out the window of my Boeing 737 and see a sunset and daylight when I landed in Dallas - I had forgotten.
• Just look at all the milk in the refrigerator!  I don't have to carry a single gallon for blocks as I walk home from the store to my fridge.
• Free laundry!
• Why do the dishes now? - Look there are still clean ones in the cupboard [Dad: The rule in my house is do the dishes now anyway]
• This is incredible how well supplied this kitchen is!
• The dog looks old and has gained weight. I think I'll give him a treat.

As the rest of her High School friends finish their exams, her local social season is gearing up.  Friday is broomball (sort of ice hockey with sneakers and brooms instead of skates & hockey sticks) at the ice rink in The Plaza of the America's Tower in downtown Dallas.  An annual tradition among the Sachse High Theater Department and many of the returning thespian alums.  Saturday night is an informal reunion at the Lakewood neighborhood Karaoke Club with others from the Class of 09.  Sunday has been declared as the 2nd annual Carnivore Tour, a long day trip to feast on genuine Texas barbecue.  She and Grant will be doing the trip to Cooper's on Main Street in Llano, Texas, just the two of them; parents are distinctly not invited.  Inga craves hearty, smoke infused meats after months around the tofu and vegetarian dominated tablescape of Oregon's largest college town.

Grant wrapped up mostly 4 days of Christmas parties at school today (Thur. Dec. 16th) along with some exams I am told.  Not that he has said anything aloud, but he obviously enjoys having his sister back home.

The road goes on forever and the party never ends.

When life gives you eggplant...

Thanksgiving night brought with it not only turkey sandwiches and the broth for tomorrow's turkey soup, but also the first major cold front of the season.  The cold air reached down into the upper 20's (F) and this was the end of Sue's summer vegetable garden.

Garland is not blessed with the easy loam and fertile earth that yields the cornucopia of summer flavors.  A bountiful harvest takes more than a mere application of the watering can and a judicious eye on the lookout for pernicious pest and wanton weeds that would spoil a gardener's delight - No, this here is hardscrabble gardening.  The so called soil is blackland prairie, a black paste that cleaves to the spade when wet, and an impervious hard-pan deck which wreaks havoc and harm on most gardening trinkets sold in stores as gardening tools.  There is no middle ground for gardening in this ground.  Either the expansive clays are sun-baked and cracked or thick and sticky gumbo. God love her, every year she wants a garden and since the expulsion from Eden's garden, God curse her;
       "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of 
      your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.  By
     the sweat of your brow you will eat your food."  Genesis 3:17-19 

If you are going to commit seed to the earth, you want to see germination, you want results!  Damn the flooding rains, the withering heat and all infestations of opportunistic weeds, caterpillars and evil weevils! Produce flower and fruit - I will you!  Now experience has taught that there is a correlation between variety of seed planted and the amount of gardener's heartbreak come summer.  For good results, the tried and true will produce: Japanese eggplant, okra, Asian cucumber, tomatoes and bell peppers (red & green).

After toiling among the thistles and pouring her sweat into the small garden patch, Sue extracts her harvest and brings it to the supper table.  And like the offering of Cain, Inga and Grant sneer and reject the eggplant, the okra, the cucumber and even the peppers from their mother's garden.

Sue says, If life gives you eggplant...(and okra, tomatoes & bell peppers) - make ratatouille.

[Ratatouille pairs well with turkey sandwiches and soup]

The Tort Brothers - Sibling Reptile Rivalry

In Miss Raymond's Second Grade Class we each received our Weekly Reader with stories and features we could enjoy while practicing our reading-out-loud skills.  One particular week the Weekly Reader published a poem.  I read it but once, yet by some quirk of unabated memory for fun and not-so-useful (until now) gems, I can recall that silly poem easily to this day:

   One Dark Day in the Middle of the Night
   Two Dead Boys got up to Fight
   Back-to-back They Faced one another
   Drew Their Swords and Shot each Other
   Now a Deaf Policeman Heard the Noise
   And Came and Shot the Two Dead Boys
   If You do not Believe this Lie is True
   Ask the Blind Man - He Saw it too.

Susan K. who sat next to me in Room 4 raised her hand and told Miss Raymond that she did not understand this rhyme.  Geez! Some people always take life way too literally.

The Tort Brothers Reunited
I always envisioned the two dead boys in the poem as brothers - a silly battle of brothers.
Isaac, the Desert Tortoise had traveled with us in a large cardboard box for two days across four states, and while he was not pleased by his downgraded status to ride in "box turtle class" seating for this trip, he also acknowledged that it was not all that different from his isolation pen environment in California.  Where as a hatchling he was placed in a pen under protective custody to keep the jay birds from eating him alive, as well as adventuring out and under the fence where he faced many a danger in his suburban environment, hazards unknown to his species in previous decades.  As he grew under the care of Wendy and Barth, he required a pen to keep him separate from the 12 other males in the yard.

We had taken up the offer from Wendy to adopt a second tortoise while visiting them in Fresno.  Sue was not so certain having two males would be a wise choice.  Inga and Grant were in favor of getting one of Chomper's brothers to come live with us in Texas; they reasoned 1 tortoise a piece when Sue and I die, avoids a nasty custody battle over Chomper who has resided with us since 2006.  Sue always defers to me when it comes to family reptile decisions, so the deal was done.

Arriving at his new home, Isaac cruised about in the backyard investigating the iris patch under the peach tree, a few cozy corners under the wooden deck benches and the back 40 under the pecan and pear trees.  As night fell, we put Isaac back in the box in the kitchen until we could monitor the reception he would receive from his brother, Chomper, the established alpha male tort of Corley Drive.  In hindsight, perhaps the more appropriate names would be Jacob and Esau, the rival sons of Biblical Isaac.

The next morning we released Isaac once again into the yard, and he blissfully sunned and moved about the new landscape in freedom.  When Isaac moseied (he is now in Texas) up on the deck, he was soon noticed by Chomper.  Chomper immediately roused himself from his sun-spot, and with stiffend legs and a strident march assertively moved posthaste to deal with the new tortoise.  It is amazing to me that Chomper not only recognized by sight another of his own species (which he has not seen in 4 years) but was also certain that he was facing another male Desert Tortise - how one tortoise can differentiate a male from a female at 5 yards distance is one of nature's wonderments.

Recognizing a male intruder into his territory, Chomper stared into the eyes of the stranger and immediately signaled a combat challenge by bobbing his head vigorously.  Isaac, at first oblivious to Chomper's presence and challenge, eventually did acknowledge a rival by returning a bobbing head.  With the head-bob formality now dispenced with, it was combat time.  Chomper, the established male in his territory pulled his head back behind the gular horn which juts from the base of the shell out under the chin, propped himself up high on his front legs and which great force dropped his front legs and thrust with his rear legs hurling his gular horn into Isaac's front and then driving with his back legs attempting to overturn his rival.  Isaac countered with the same moves and being larger, a bit more force.  After a few skirmishes, Isaac got his gular horn under Chomper and flipped Chomper (a position that could be fatal if not corrected and left exposed).  We soon separated the two warring brothers.  Only to have Chomper seek out Isaac and renew the challenge and continue the fight.  I counted the flips gained: Chomper 1, Isaac 6.

We employed various strategies to keep the tort boys separated; alternating 1 inside the house for half a day, then swapped with the outside resident.  I purchased an 18-inch high wire fence sold to line a garden plot and stretched it across the backyard, bisecting the territory fence to fence.  But those crafty torts found ways to either get around the obstruction or just plain over-run the barrier.  Again, nearly all victories going to Isaac the larger.  I continued to modify and improve the barrier, but as the weather began to bring us cooler nights, I think the weather also cooled their ardor for being King Tort.

Now with shortened daylight and lengthened shadows, with the heat removed from the atmosphere and reptile passion, the two brothers, Chomper and Isaac have both snuggled together side-by-side under the secretary in the breakfast nook.  There they will remain in happy hibernation until Spring.  Then it will time for an improved Maginot Line to keep the adversaries apart, constantly battling for dominance on the off chance a girl tortoise should wander on by.

Rest well Chomper and Isaac, may your long winter's nap bring dreams of voluptously shelled lady torts.  We'll see the both of you in the coming days of warmth. 

Vision or Dream? Young or Old?

It has been a little more than a week since I marked another birthday.  This year it was a quite one, a small contrast to last year's Number 52.  The Birthday, once it was My Day, an occasion for special request cake and unwrapping gifts in front of neighborhood and school chums; now, more of a time to score another notch on the mortal coil and look over the shoulder and a time to consider what is ahead.  Perhaps I am now half-done with my allotted years, or it could all end tomorrow.  Or, could we be living in "The Last Days"?

I like to believe that Time has imparted a modicum of perspective to me in the last several decades, but maybe not.  As for The Last Days scenario:  in any eschatological referendum, put me down as a skeptic that we are in "End Times". But then again I've had a year to think about it and maybe I am really not so sure after all. 

The Book of Joel -
    In the last days God says I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
       Your sons and daughters will prophecy.
       Your young men will see visions,
       Your old men will dream dreams...

Last year's birthday was a celebration of good friends, good food paired with good wine, all under my category of good times.  I invited a small crowd of friends over on a Sunday (scheduling the party 1 day ahead of Monday's real birthday date) and served them a shrimp boil dinner, grilled sweet Italian sausage, homemade bread, and since it was a celebration, nobody was stingy with bringing along a bottle of fine wine.  A late November afternoon of cooking, hosting friends, telling jokes and stories and sharing a toast or two should have made for a sound slumber and a pleasant launch for my 52nd year.

Unexpectedly, my post-party sleep was disturbed early Monday by an edgy dream of rough men breaking into my recently rented Sunstone Exploration office space.  The dream awakening me sufficiently to note and remembered the dream experience - somewhat unusual in itself.  I returned to sleep, only to continue with visions of my office being ransacked.  I awoke again and was perhaps more alarmed by stolen sleep in those small, dark hours than of any import to the dream itself.  The dream came back to me yet another time before the day began.

With Grant stirring upstairs and getting dressed for school and the Sun about to rise on My Day, I rolled out of bed and stepped into a hot shower.  My wife gathered her robe and left the bedroom for the kitchen to make breakfast, there I joined her and told her of my disturbing 3-episode continuing dream and the sharp feelings still left by this dream sequence.  The memory was unusually raw, leaving me feeling angry and violated - on my birthday.  Whereas most of my dreams are forgotten before I get out of bed and if they linger, they evaporate along with the hot shower steam and are gone by the time I select the day's clean underwear.  But this dream lingered.  My wife hums the happy birthday tune into my ear and I finish pouring out the OJ into my favorite mug.  We both finish the morning routine, a quick read of the newspaper, she finishes dressing while I brush my teeth.  We are about to part our separate ways for the work-a-day world, when she lays out a couple of wrapped gifts on the table for the evening family party and then wishes me a happy birthday again and voices a hope that my dream has no basis in reality.

As I open my office door on this Monday morning, I immediately see that my desk drawers are left half-open and then notice that the ceiling tiles have been punched out at the far end of the office.  Somebody entered the empty office next door, scaled the wall and moved out the ceiling tiles and jumped into my space.  They searched my office, took nothing and then scaled the wall at the other end of my office and scavenged the business next door as well.  I called the police to file a report.  I did not tell the officer that I saw this happening from my darkened bedroom 3 miles away and through closed eyes.  I like to avoid complications when dealing with the police.  Since I could report nothing stolen, they just filed an incident report but would not make any kind of investigation.

Like I said, it has now been over a year and no further acute dreams or visions have occurred.  But of course many question have occurred to me.  The one driving question is: On my 52nd birthday, did I have a vision or a dream?  Referencing the Prophet Joel, if it was a vision that implies that I am a "young man", but if I dreamed a dream, then I am classified as an old man. 

Vision or Dream? Young Man or Old Man?
End Times or Bedtime?

Good Night and Sweet Visions to all my contemporaries.