It's Christmas! Another Day Another Feast

Christmas Day Dinner is served!

It was to be a casual and easy-going Christmas Day with a feast planned for mid-afternoon.  It would be just the three of us, Balthasar, Melchior and Gaspar - wise guys all, and one who actually came from the East.  Christmas Day promised another menu featuring more of my favorites (since I had a hand in planning the menu - nice how it works out that way as an adult); there would be a rib roast (rare), asparagus, sweet potatoes and a crusty baguette to sop up the oil and vinegar on small plates poured over freshly grated garlic cloves served with a Pinot Noir from Oregon (in honor of our Oregonian daughter who was unable to join the feast here in Texas).

For dessert, we of course could have more than our fair share of Christmas stocking-stuffer candies, but the 'Big To-Do' was to break out the fondue pot and top off the feast with strawberries, pineapple and morsels of angel food cake dipped in the pot of melted dark chocolate and liqueur.

Once the tablecloth is removed - I wouldn't trust myself with messy chocolate either
We dip our tongs of fruit and cake into the molten chocolate
Could be the start of a new tradition

Merry Christmas and to all a good respite!

  

  

Christmas Morning - barely

Grant, home for the holiday, but tagged to put in some hours through Christmas Eve as he worked remotely on his laptop computer and electronically filed his work at Wall Street 24/7 in order to keep the news presses rolling.  Once work was complete, it was Christmas time and time for bed after the Christmas Eve feast.

Following his typical schedule since we was just a small fellow, Grant would be in no rush to trundle downstairs on Christmas Morning to paw through the piles of Santa's largess doled out to every good boy and girl.  The gift of sleeping-in is a now a precious gift and one easily given around here.

Christmas morning would start once all had assembled according to their own schedule, so Christmas Morning was well nigh unto Christmas Afternoon.

It was cool outside on Christmas Day, but not what most Texans would even consider cold, but a request was made for a 'Christmas fire' to blaze away in the living room hearth, and so it was.  Now, the mood is set, let the festivities and the joy begin!

His mother sewed his name over a
Christmas Stocking belonging to his Father.
Traveling light from NYC, Grant did not have a
repository for Santa's gifts on Christmas Morning

Sue gets a couple of bottles of oil and vinegar to
be poured onto a rugose plate of grated garlic cloves.
These will come in handy for the
Christmas Day feast in a few hours.

A good surprise by the guess on Sue's face

Grant gets a single large gift as he is
'carry-on limited'
for his return to New York on the 27th

A dress over coat
Good for his walk from NYC subway to Lexington Ave.

  

Hook 'Em Horns!
Lookin' good for Bevo
Texas will upset and defeat #5 Georgia in Sugar Bowl in a few days.
Must be the new lucky hat

Our Christmas Tree
The boughs are bright and merry
The gifts beneath the boughs have been unwrapped.
It was a good Christmas

As has been my tradition for the past 3 years, I have given some small gifts at Christmas time to my two young Turkish friends, Tahir and Fatih who live next door.  And these gifts have been reciprocated by their mother, Kubra, who bakes us a treat from her kitchen to be delivered by her boys.

This year, Fatih rang our door bell and when I answered, Fatih asked me, "Mark, are you open?"  I told him with a big smile, "Yes, we are open today!"  He stood there on the stoop and looked inside for a while and I tried to make small talk and he looked for a way to gracefully exit and report back to his mother that we were open.  He then decided the time was right, and announced, "I will come to your house with something", and the bolted across the lawn and fallen leaves to his house.  In a few moments, Tahir appeared with a hand made pizza for us and we all thanked him and his brother Fatih who was now hiding behind our front hedge.  We exchanged a wishes for a Merry Christmas and the small Muslim contingent bounded back home.

We will get to that pizza after we have our Christmas Day feast.

Kubra's Christmas Pizza sits on our counter top
as Sue makes homemade eggnog.

The Feast on Christmas Eve

My memories of dinner on Christmas Eve are of meals appropriate for the Holy Family as they slept in mean estate in a stable of animals in the little town of Bethlehem, for there was no room in the inn for Joseph and Mary, who was with child, to stay.  My mother served us hot dogs or pizza on Christmas Eve, for we were perennially in a rush to get to the children's service at church, light our candles with real open flame and move out into the San Joaquin Valley's thick Tule Fog while singing Silent Night.  Hot dogs and/or pizza was quick to prepare and serve and besides who wanted food?  It was Christmas Eve! and that is when the Sunesons (claiming Swedish tradition) opened the gifts under the tree.  Santa would bring more gifts that night to be discovered on Christmas Day. My mother, who spent two years in Puerto Rico as a missionary, would remind us that in Puerto Rico gifts were exchanged on January 6th, El Dia de Los Reyes, the Day of the Three Kings.  Even though I could see the connection to gifts and the visit of the magi (wisemen or kings); I thought, those poor Puerto Ricans, they have to wait until next year to get their Christmas presents; sure glad I'm an American.

Anyway, we've ended up doing thing different around here, one step forward, one step back.  Somehow, long ago our kids seemed to think it was cheating on Jesus to open the gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve, so we have for years waited until Christmas Day.  But, we no longer boil a package of hot dogs on Christmas Eve for dinner; no, now we eat in a manner more fitting of King Herod.

Grant had made plans to fly in from his home in New York City to see the old folks for Christmas.  Being somewhat junior on the Wallstreet 24/7 staff when he asked for the 23rd through the 27th off, his easy going boss said, sure, have a Merry Christmas.  However, his easy going boss did not check the vacation schedule, so Grant later learned from his boss that he could keep and use his airline tickets to come to Texas - just he'd have to work remote on the 24th and 26th (i.e. no real Christmas Vacation).

Grant landed a quarter-hour before midnight on the 23rd, and with no carry on luggage, we whisked out of Terminal E at DFW an on to the neighborhood What-A-Burger, now a tradition for his arrival back on Texas soil.

Sue had a low-key role for the Christmas Eve children's service that night of the 24th.  She left around 3:30 in the afternoon to get ready for her role in the sanctuary.  Meanwhile, the two of us had splurged on gourmet feast ingredients at Central Market earlier the previous day.

A visit to the upscale grocery store
and we return with oysters and a new oyster shucking knife.
I got to be a quicker shucker as I worked through the pile of oysters.

It was supposed to be a joyous occasion, Grant was returning home, it is a holiday, it is Jesus' birthday and let us have a merry Christmas starting about now!  It was to be seafood feast, we picked up 3 Alaskan Snow Crab clusters, 9 Gulf Coast oysters, 10 large scallops and 1.4 lbs of steamer clams (one more clever than I could imagine fitting this shopping list into the 12 Days of Christmas song).  We had artichokes and garlic butter and a crusty sourdough bread with a nice Loire Valley white French wine on our menu.

Grant and Sue assemble the silver centerpiece
While Mark is preparing the
four course seafood feast

I asked Grant to put together the silver candelabra for our feast table, but he realized the disassembled centerpiece was missing a critical part.  So that project was put on hold, awaiting Sue's return to see where the missing part might be located, since she had removed all of the pieces from their cloth bag so the bag could be used as a treasure-bag prop in the children's Christmas Play the week before.  Once she returned from the Holy Land, we produced the missing part and the two set about to assemble an elegant centerpiece for the feast.

Oysters Markafeller
ready for the oven

Mmmm. Baked Oyster for
Christmas Eve Feast

While Sue went to work to distribute gifts and the Gospel at church, I stayed behind to prepare for the Christmas Eve feast.  Most of the entree items were easy-prep items: boil the crab legs for several minutes, remove; put clams in steamer rack above pot of boiling water, remove.; put 3 artichokes in steamer for 60 minutes, remove.  The oysters were to be a new one for me, Oyster Rockefeller required ingredients such as spinach and 2 pounds of salt on which to bake the mollusks.  I modified the dish into Oysters "Markafeller", a sauce of minced garlic, butter and melted Romano cheese with some cilantro spooned over the oysters in half-shell and baked for 6 minutes (without the underlying slat bed).  Scallops, my favorite food of all, were in need of full attention as I browned them lightly in a skillet of butter and seasoned with a few sprigs of fresh thyme from our own garden.  I though it all turned out pretty well, even the extra garlic and cilantro I thought was an improvement over the traditional Oysters Rockefeller. 

The table is set for feasting

The Four Advent Candles are lit at the center of the table
and the Christ Candle is lit this Christmas Eve

Mark and the oysters and crab arrive at the feast

Oysters with garlic and cilantro and scallops with thyme
grace the Christmas Eve table

The feast has been prepared!
Come and rejoice!

Three out four aint bad
Christmas Eve without hot dogs

 We welcomed the Christ Child, The Light Who Came Into the World; we gave thanks for all that we have and asked God's blessing upon all who are dear to us but not at our table.  A toast to a very Merry Christmas!

'Twas The Night Before Christmas...

'Twas the night before Christmas

and all through the house,

not a creature was stirring -

not even a mouse. 

(or in our particular case, a tortoise) 

The non-stirring state of the household pets has been going on around here since mid-October when we opened the back patio door and our two Desert Tortoises came marching in on a fine, sunny and warm fall late afternoon as if they had business inside.  Apparently they did have business indoors as they had the demeanor of determined domestic pets looking for a spot to settle in and hibernate until March.

We let Isaac and Chomper in to have a look around and I suspected that they would tire of the search and want to go back outside shortly, fully expecting, based on past experience, that it would take this pair a few starts over the coming week before they were ready to hunker down and drop into deep hibernation sleep.  We both watched in puzzled amusement as both tortoises by-passed the kitchen corners where I had placed their custom hibernation boxes (which they used last year) and headed down the hall toward the master bathroom.  Chomper and Isaac piled in behind the toilet and quickly dropped into motionless hibernation states.  That was quick.  They both have their favorite parts of the house, Isaac prefers the kitchen and Chomper nearly always makes his way to the dinning room. But never before have they shown any interest in the master bath.  At least not until this October.

After a few days, I removed Isaac to his custom spiced maple hibernation quarters where he comfortably sighed and eased into his mid-winter's nap.  I could have placed Chomper in his own box as well, but he looked so awkwardly sound asleep with his head tucked into the toilet cleaning brush receptacle that I was reluctant to disturb his amusingly chosen spot for the next 5 months.  Besides, I find it quirky and charming to have a hibernating reptile sharing our water closet.

We acquired a couple of other tortoise siblings from my sister and brother-in-law about that same time in October, and the new additions, Morpheus (a restless, slow to settle type) and Vortexia.  Vortexia has taken the vacant spot in Chomper's box while Morpheus remains in the cardboard moving box in which he arrived.

For now, all through the house not a creature is stirring -- but we will have some interesting tortoise dynamics to deal with come March and through out the Summer of 2019.

Double Whammie Christmas Crud

Maybe it was too much elf dancing.
Maybe it was that the old magic has worn off.
Maybe it was too little eggnog too late.
Or, maybe it was just the way it was going to be - no matter what the reason.

The tree was up, the house smelled pleasantly of pine, the lights twinkled and I was pleased.  Then I awoke in the wee hours and felt something in the back of my throat.  I thought, "just go back to sleep, this is something that you can fight off with your own mental powers." No big.

I can home from work early on Monday.  I was not well.

I dragged myself upstairs and voluntarily quarantined myself in the guest bedroom.  I would await my death in dark silence, or I would emerge triumphant. No one checked on me, I lay alone and slept with fevered dreams, regretting my moral failings for allowing myself to be overcome with fever and lung congestion.

I got up and tried to do a little work back at the office on Tuesday.  I thought, what is the point of all of this unproductivity? You'd be better off in bed.  I agreed with myself (as usual) and returned to my sequestered existence in the upstairs guest bedroom.

Late past twilight, when it was already dark, I woke to pee.  There were no lights on in the house.  Who needs lights?  It is a short trip down the hallway to the toilet and then back to the guest bed.

I slumped through the door of my space of convalescence, ready to get back to bed, I threw myself back onto the pillow - eventually. What I had not counted on in my fevered half-conscience state in a somewhat unfamiliar space was that in the short trajectory between where my feet were planted beside the bed and the fall-line trajectory which I'd casually calculated to place my head back on my sick pillow; there happened to be a bureau placed next to the bed.  It was dark, I think my eyes were closed, and when I dropped to where the pillow was, I was intercepted by that bureau, which has a sharp right-angle corner between where my head was and where my head was headed.  In an instance I was reminded of the furniture placement inside the dark guest room.

Ouch. I wished I had not done that.

I lay on my back for a moment feeling the smarts of hard furniture on my right eye socket.  Then I felt my eye socket fill will warm fluid.  What a bother, now I'm bleeding.  This usually means I am a good candidate to pass out into deeper darkness once I see my own blood.  However, since it was dark and I had no mirror, I was in luck - I had no way of seeing my own blood flowing onto my skin. I moved quick since I was lying on a newly acquired pure white duvet on the guest bed - imagine the bloodshed if I had the audacity to bleed on our new white duvet. I was able to throw myself back out of bed (avoiding the bureau this time) and stride into the bathroom and wad a fistful of toilet paper over my right eye.  A good and prudent first step.

I poured myself downstairs in the dark, stumbled to the laundry closet where I fished with one-hand for a rag and then shuffled to the freezer to grab an ice cube.  I put the ice inside the old rag sock and went and sat in the dark corned at the dining room table.  

My wife came in from after work shopping. Noticed me and asked "What are you doing there in the dark?"

"Trying to stop the bleeding," I mentioned in a casual tone.

Not one to panic, she told me stay right there - "I have to pee."

I did not move.  

She did what she needed to do. 

She put the groceries away and turned on the light, found some band aides. I wanted dinosaur band aides - but we were out. I was told, "You'll have to get used to disappointment. She stuck them to my eyelid telling me that I had a big gash in a very hard place for her to manage first aid. 

I was not all that sorry for being so inconsiderate and bleeding, I thought she'd have to get used to disappointment - but I thought the better of saying it aloud.  I asked her to check the white duvet.  It was thankfully blood free, I only had a few drops of blood fall on the bathroom linoleum.  I had not fainted on my travel downstairs and I was feeling proud of my stamina.

Still suffering with fever, I went to the doctor the next morning and told him I was not feeling well.  He looked at my right eye and the fresh scab and asked, "Have you been lipping off to the wife?" 

I admitted it was all my own doing, me tangling with the guest room bureau.  He gave me some antibiotics - even though we both knew I probably had a virus.  But it was just in case there might be another cause for my illness. He cheerfully diagnosed my suffering as, "You've got the Christmas Crud." I paid my $40 co-pay as I left his office with a script and a diagnosis.

I was never pretty.  With my new owie, my looks were not improved.

It was a Double Whammy: Christmas Crud and a cut eye beating by a piece of furniture.

Man eyes bureau in the dark-
Not a pretty sight

This double whammy set my Christmas shopping and decorating way back.  But like in the Ballad of  Rocky Raccoon (The Beatles, 'White Album'); Doc it's only a scratch and I'll be better, I'll be better as soon as I am able.

Tree Hunt

It was a dark and stormy night...

So goes the opening line for many a great adventure; and so began our annual Tree Hunt adventure, a trip to Kadee Farms to choose and cut our Christmas Tree for 2018.  It was a dark and stormy night on Thursday, December 13, as the local meteorologist showed us his weather radar filled with orange, red and green swirling over Dallas dropping an inch of rain and then moving east-northeast into Hunt County, the location of Kadee Farms, a place where we have cut our Christmas Tree for three decades.  We had purposed to go get our tree on Friday, thus clearing the calendar for busy weekend of Christmas Programming that Sue had immediately ahead of her as Director of Christian Education at First Presbyterian Church.  The formerly mentioned meteorologist has told us that the rain would have moved off to Louisiana by daybreak on Friday and we thought that was enough of a window to drive 50 miles east for a fresh tree.  It was a dark and stormy night... that lingered on into Friday as the weather system stalled and moved out slowly to the east, leaving us to gear-up with mud-boots, thick jackets for the 45 degrees with a brisk, north wind that made the dampness penetrate our skin all the more sharply.

For fortification, and for the sake of a long family tradition, we stopped for a barbecue lunch at Big Daddy's out on Highway 78 before we continued on to Kadee Farms.  Since it was a week day, Mr. Kadee would not open until 2:30, so we reversed our tradition and got the ribs before the tree; whereas we normally would get the tree on a Saturday afternoon and then get the ribs and brisket for an early dinner on the way home.

Sue is bundled and armed for the Tree Hunt
Our 3rd Decade at Kadee Farms

We had the wind-swept, puddled and muddy tree farm to ourselves as we studiously marched through muck to eyeball each tree within our 5 to 7 foot height range preference. My wife thought that the whipping and biting wind and gray sky was a marvelous set of conditions to be looking for a Christmas Tree, she yelled out, "I love this!  This is the way it should be!" We had narrowed our search to three candidates across the acreage, and circled around to each candidate analyzing the color, the shape, the symmetry, the straightness, the tapering of the topmost star-holding area and the height.  A Selection was made by the two of us well-insulated tree hunters and then my partner took a look at the muddy grass surrounding our tree and handed me the saw and said, "I'll let you do the cutting this year babe. Start right about there." As she pointed to a place on the trunk a few inches above the ponded water and weeds.

Dead needles and shaken from the branches
of our newly selected Christmas Tree

Wild Woman of the East Texas Christmas Forest

It was an especially good choice of tree this year.






















We set her in her fancy-pants tree stand and turned the 4 set screws to hold her into place, balanced and with symmetrical perspective.  Add water and wait for the elves to decorate it.  

In from the cold.  The Kadee Farms warming shack.
Hot cider is offered while the tree is cleaned and processed.

The elf came on Sunday when Sue was at work, to string up the tiny multi-colored lights.  The elf, being old and wise, plugged in each of the light strings to test their worthiness before wrapping them around the evergreen boughs. Once the elf had tested and thrown out one bad string of lights, the rest were place on the tree.  When the wise old elf threw the switch, the top and the bottom string remained unlit, while the center of the tree twinkled and glowed appropriately.  The old elf did his magic bringer-of-light dance around the green needles, throwing his hands in the mid-winter air wildly and chanting in elfish words that I can not transcribe here (as they are secret and sacred - or I am told).  He danced well enough to get the top string to twinkle soon enough. But his magic - or more likely, his dancing, was not quite up to snuff and the lower string remained dark and cold.  The wise old elf then skipped off to Walmart and found a whole aisle of brand new lights in need of no magic dances and bought a handful of them home for a mere $2.74 each.  It is a small Christmas Miracle.

Our Christmas Tree
Resplendent in Old Elf Magic and Lit by Magic Dancing

While the old and wise Interior Design Elf was suitably pleased with his magic, his dancing and his trip to Walmart, he skipped right on out the door and proceeded to wrap up the shrubbery and ash tree outside the house with his lights.  Some of the old C-9 bulbs that are almost as ancient as the elf (going back to the 1970's) had lost their magic and they were given to the trolls for who-knows-what- purpose.  But a few of the $2.74 box of lights were joyously wound around the trunk of the tree amongst the old C-9 bulbs that still had some magic inside.  It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here chanted the old elf as he danced until his red suspenders could hold up his pants no longer - and then he stopped and went home.  And it was another Christmas Miracle.

Elf lights in the front yard