Christmas 2006

Christmas 2006

How should I remember it?

Unfortunately, I didn't write about the holiday soon after it happened, so I've forgotten many specifics, like what I did on the 23rd or 27th. But I can give an overview now of what sticks in my mind before even general details dissolve in the tears of passing years (poetic, but dumb :-P).

Firstly, and most vastly importantly, everybody was here!. After a shredded yet not entirely unpleasant Christmas last year, Grandma Kari, Grandpa Ken, Uncle Keith, and Ken descended upon Mom, Dad, Daniel, Daisy and me. After thinking we had probably had the last normal Christmas ever, we had another :-) It really didn't matter much what else we did, just waking up in the morning and knowing everybody was around was enough.

I came into the holiday rocking and rolling from the categorically most intense academic period of my life. Two pillar classes on the line and a grade to rescue and excellence to demonstrate in process control. Half of my evenings were surrendered to the computer lab, as well as most of my days, and Sunday the 10th Charlie and I pulled an all-nighter, going from 3pm to 9am. After clawing through the process control final and finishing up the design report, I turned my thoughts to NOVA, which I had deserted for the past three weeks. I went to Akron Thursday for the Christmas dance show, and spent Tuesday through Thursday at NOVA. Monday I went with Mike, Justin, Hezz and Shannon (and Matt?) to pick up Daniel at Grove City. It was well worth $120 of pay to hang with them all and pick up Danmybro. We toodled around the campus, got lunch at Taco Bell (Except Hezz, who hit up the mysterious Subway [i.e. Sheetz] for her xenophobic meal), hit the thrift store (Can you say "turquose jacket with black-trimmed lapels?") and rocked tunes there and back.

On Tuesday I spent all day preparing my resume and coverletter for submission in regards to a full-time position in NOVA's technology department. There was a posting for an EPS Polymer Scientist/Engineer which my boss Tom had alerted me to. It's looking for a MS or PhD, but not much experience, so I have a shot. It would be a scarily-challenging yet amazing job - responsible for developing new EPS products and improving existing ones. Then I spent Wednesday and Thursday finishing up my various projects, particularly writing the work instruction for doing Painesville and Belpre's SARA 312 Tier II monthly and annual inventory reports. I left Thursday with one last day on the docket, January 2nd, before my nearly three-year tenure with NOVA (temporarily?) ended. I'm still waiting to hear if approval has been given for me to return part-time to do computer guru work with C++, Access and other lovely things (how ironic, eh?).

I got things a bit mixed up in my mind earlier, and before this week everybody had arrived on Friday. Ken got in from somewhere in New England after his trip to Spain (such an awesome-sounding trip!), Grandma and Grandpa (and Dally) drove in from Lansing, and Uncle Keith rolled in in his new motor home. Yes, our crazy Uncle has now bought himself a 30-foot Class A RV :-) He parked it in the dead-end street, and once he finished putting an antenna adapter in we watched some TV out there and Daniel and I spent the night in it's spacious luxury. SO cool! So yeah - those three days I was working, everybody was at home and the Christmas holiday was rolling along. Although my time spent at NOVA was not unpleasant, it was kind of a downer the couple times I let myself realize that I was missing everything at home. But so it goes. With a future career in the works, it was worth the sacrifice. And hah, how self-focused is this blog post! Oy. Other people in my family may read this and marvel at how callously I pass over things they did (if I mention them at all), which were central points of their time. But my ignorance limits what I can honestly write about, so I talk about myself and stay in this narrow perspective. Hopefully in 10 years I'll be much better at opening myself up to others' worlds (marraige will probably help that :-P).

The counter had Grandma's chocolate cookies, truffles, Hershey's Kisses, Fannie May candies, Mom's oatmeal cookes, pistachios, and other unremembered goodies occupying it's toaster-oven/napkin holder flank. The other end was, as always, full of in-use stuff. Less Daniel's and my pocket stuff, which was dutifully tucked away in our sanctioned Glad container in the pantry. I realized over the holiday that my copious affection for pop was not developed in a vaccuum--we drank through twelve-packs of Dr.Pepper and Diet Pepsi like pros, as well as Black Cherry Vanilla Coke (The taste of the shed, as Daniel called it) and IBC root beer and cream soda. While we're on snacks.. one point that came up in my mind a lot was my decreased appetite for such goodies. Pop was often a laboriously sweet blah, most cookies were unattractive... in short, I didn't eat nearly as much of these delights as I wished or would have in the past. I'm not sure if that came from dulling thoughtless overindulgence, or if it indicates a taming of the youthful passion of the past. In any case, it was mildly disconcerting, and I lost 3 pounds over the holidays.

I was home for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Every year Mom gets Christmas Eve as HER time, in the midst of all the football and swirling activity. This year she planned a Norwegian Christmas (actually planned for last year, but... yeah, that didn't work out). We gathered for her program, which involved some Norwegian Christmas songs, some readings, some group gifts, annnnnd, Ken - the Yule Nissa! Heheh. Ken was appointed to be the Norwegian version of Santa Claus, and carried it out with his usual dissenting aplomb. He made it fun. The glug wasn't so good, but the ginger almond cookies kept on tasting better than I expected over break. Mom did a fine job bringing us another forced yet fun and memorable evening. Ahh, our family:-)

Lessee.. Daniel and I slept down in the basement since I had been banished from the family room couch after graduating. One year a good while ago we slept down there on cots and it sucked. Cold, bad sleep, and we had colds as well. This year, probably because we're hearty and sturdy young men by now, it was fine, even right on the floor with a cot pad and some blankets. I never moved in officially, so my clothes were a disaster, but whatev, right? (gag)

We spent most of Christmas day opening presents. Daniel and I slept in till 10:30 I think, and Ken, as the Yule Nissa, dispensed the gifts. We open then one-by-one, enjoying each one with its opener. We broke for lunch sometime after noon and then reconvened to finish with the sub-tree population. Uncle Keith got tons of stuff for the new RV, which Grandma named Samson (Sam is the name of the old pop-up UK has). Daniel got a "Pandora's Box," a compact bass/guitar effects unit. Ken got dough, I think. All the adults exchanged many gifts, which I think is cool, being as it is a sign of how intertwined their lives are, and what genuinely good friends they are. I got a pair of Shure ES300 earphones--as valuable as my iPod. They're so precise they sound lousy at first (no exaggerated bass), but I'm appreciating them more and more each time I listen to them. It's analogous to the clarity and rich detail you get with a thousand-dollar lens vs. the Canon snapshot digital cams we all use. Perfect clarity. AAHHHHHH :-) Oh sound - how wonderful you are!

The day after Christmas was primarily spent, for all of us but Grandma, Grandpa and the dogs, driving to a Laurel Highlands resort for UK's present of an off-road driving experience in a Hummer. Yes, UK's main gift was the experience of driving an H2 over some real off-road terrain. We drove out there in the van and everybody but Mom (oh Lord how she would have hated it!) rode along in the wide heavy Hummer. He went through a little training course under the direction of our guide, and then we drove over to an extensive set of trails running through the PA woods within the resort. UK drove for more than an hour through the mud, logs, rocks, puddles and hills, grinding through under the direction of our guide. It was interesting for me.. most of what we did didn't seem that extreme, but any normal car would have bottomed out or spun out in a second. It showed me dramatically how cushy all of our cars are. We are crazily dependent on our nice paved roads, folks. Even back in the extra seat far in the back, I could feel the commanding weight of the massive Hummer. It planted itself on the ground like somebody was holding it down, and ground over rocks and up hills like a giant was pushing us from behind. Pretty cool. I kept wishing we could ditch the guide guy and head off into the woods, no holds barred. Definitely what I would think :-P

Lessee... now I suffer the loss from not writing this out earlier. The rest of the days between Christmas and New Years are kind of a blur. I didn't have work, so I was around. We watched football and other sports games as the default activity, which unifies us in the family room/kitchen area, under the glow of the Christmas lighs and surrounded with copious laptops. Daniel and I worked away on 24 season two every night, getting wired and stressed-out right before bed :-P The good snacks eventually got eaten, and more 12-packs of Dr.Pepper had to be purchased. UK worked on the motor home a lot, I think Dad had a project or two (he usually does, being the great man that he is), Mom worked away in the home (what an insanely gracious and giving lady!), Daisy sought food like an automaton, and Dally got in the way of everybody better than a congressional committee. I had a couple nice long talks with Grandpa about chemical engineering and got to hear about what he did in his career, which was quite interesting.

Daniel and I had the new challenge of balancing family time with friend time, since we had a whole group of folks who were back for Christmas break and not normally around. I think that balancing act went well--I feel like we had a complete time with home folks, and I also feel well caught-up with "the senior crowd" as I call them, though they're actually freshman now. Funny how most of my friends are four years younger than me, discounting about 7 church friends. I guess I associate with those who are roughly as young as I feel and act :-)

For New Year's Eve I declined the several invitations I had and chilled with the fam, eating a nice dinner, watching football (of course) and playing Scatergories (oh, what a battle :-P). When it got close to the turn of the year I proposed the idea that we ring in the new year without a TV on (*gasp!*). Struck by a burst of creativity reminiscent of childhood, I grabbed Daniel and headed downstairs with about 15 minutes to put together our celebration. So we rang in 2007 with an atomic clock countdown from UK's laptop, a toilet paper roll dropping down a yardstick (the ball dropping. Get it?), shredded colored paper confetti, a crashing Zildjan 8-inch spash cymbal, and seltzer water, which refused to spray about like I wanted. Daniel and I chugged the seltzer water, the dogs barked and Daisy chased her tail, everbody laughed, and I was pretty happy. Over the course of the holiday I was affected by the reality of God's grace to me personally, demonstrated by these wonderful people around me who treat me far better than I remotely deserve. I struggle with believing God's existence sometimes without an undeniable personal experience of His reality, but I realized clearly and poignantly that these people around me ARE real, and there's no way in heaven or hell they could ever be as tirelessly kind and caring to me as they are without God's grace being what the Bible says it is. I may not have it all working right now, but they do, and they're right in front of me, as real as my calloused fingertips and lousy knees. So, that was nice. It was nice to have Grandma and Grandpa there, and words could never describe the enveloping warmth and happyness of having having all those special people around, here to stay for a good long time, hanging around and making every little thing funny and special.

OK, before I wrap it up with more touching sentimental, spiritual and intellectual invtroversion... the weather was FREAKY! Fifties and pleasant on average, with only a few days of clouds and rain. It was like Florida or something. Pleasant and appreciated, but occasionally recognized as the freak show that it was. In fact, I think it was New Year's day that Daniel and I went to TJ Highschool for a frisbee game with TJ and church folks--it was about 70 degrees, sunny, and just stop-drop-and-roll gorgeous. We PChOPers killed the TJ folks in ultimate frisbee, and then we lolled around and took pictures (I bet we looked wierd :-P) while the TJers and Nick played football (bleah!). It was lovely running about in shorts and T-shirts, and made for a pleasant and slightly odd Christmastime. I'm dreamin' of a bright Christmas? :-)

That's about it, I think. I left early Tuesday morning, the 2nd, for work, and that day Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Keith left. Ken hung around for a couple more weeks till he headed to Bolivia last Saturday, and of course Mom and Dad remained, forming the backbone of this amazing, sturdy life-backbone I call home. God knows where I'll be for next Christmas, who will still be alive, and who might be new to the family (a girl or two? Hmmmm :-) ). I'll probably have a full-time job locking me down, and goodness knows where Ken will be and how Grandma and Grandpa will be doing.

Looking back, I'm just grateful that God gave us this Christmas all together, like old times. Having tasting the possibility of loss, I (and we all, I think) savored every hour together, in the glow of peace, health and home. The world could fall apart, and I would feel complete with our family. Another year of wondrous prosperity and kindness, another time of walking around a bustling house lit by Christmas lights and alive with humor, another piece of ineffable peace and golden happiness. What unmerited goodness, that I should be included in this family, in this country, in this time, with this freedom, security and luxury. I tremble to think that it's true, in the global historic perspective, but I'm so grateful it has been so, and I'll carry the memories for the rest of my life. Hah - I sound pretty Christmas-sappy, but it's the way it is, call it what you like.

That's it folks! Yay, I've written this! Now to write about the Texas trip, in which I am currently living :-) Later gator.

--Clear Ambassador