Christmas 2005
Category: Kitchen Sink...
Posted Monday, December 26, 2005 at 07:56 PM [GMT-6]

Another Christmas has come and gone, leaving me more convinced than ever that I am blessed beyond measure. I hope you and your family had a wonderful weekend, one that generated memories to last a long time. I've got a few, to wit:

• We arrived in Fort Stockton on Friday afternoon and went to Mi Casita for dinner. We were the second party to be seated, but within twenty minutes, every table in the small café was occupied. Almost everyone was local, so much visiting took place across the aisles. In fact, as we were leaving a man was standing outside looking through the glass door and remarking in a thick German accent that there must be a birthday party or something going on in there. It was explained to him that it was just that everyone knew everyone else; he said he'd never seen anything like it before.


• The cleverly-named Fort Worth Bowl was on TV that night, and we had mixed allegiances. On the University of Kansas side was a second cousin playing tight end, and on the University of Houston side was the son of our church's minister of music playing middle linebacker. We spent most of the game trying to catch the jerseys of both players. KU eventually ran away with the contest, proving, I suppose, that even as weak as the Big 12 was supposed to be this year, there are some conferences that still don't necessarily match up.


• We have a tradition at my parents' home on Christmas Eve that involves enough Mexican food to feed a small border village. If you don't believe me, check out the following photo (click on it to see the identity of the items):
  
  "But, wait..." you ask, "didn't you just have Mexican food the night before?" Well, yes, and your point would be what, exactly?


• Here's a hint for those with teens or soon-to-be-teens or, really, anyone who has a pathological need to rattle and shake and investigate with CSI-like precision the gifts under the tree labeled with their names: switch the labels until the gifts are handed out. It's amazing how annoyed it makes a niece, for example, to discover that she's invested so much psychic and intellectual energy in trying to ascertain the identity of the 12-gauge shotgun that ended up going to a nephew. The looks on both of their faces was priceless; for a minute, we thought the niece was going to refuse to let the package go ("It's got my name on it!"). I think she was mollified by the iPod nano in her own much-smaller package. It's never too early for girls to learn that good things often come in small packages. However, not everyone was mesmerized by the gift opening proceedings:
  
  That dog-like creature is Yoda, although she could have just as easily been named Jabba, IYKWIM.


• Speaking of iPod nanos, it fell to me to install iTunes on my father-in-law's eMac so that The Niece could start using the gift certificate that came with her nano. Installation went off without a hitch and we successfully navigate to the ITMS where she quickly found some music (and I use the term loosely, old fogey that I am) to purchase. We click the "Buy" button and immediately got a strange ITMS error message that I'd never seen. We tried again; same message. Finally, it dawned on me what was happening. I figure that about 20 million people got ITMS gift cards and/or iPods for Christmas, and every blessed one of them was trying to buy music at the same time. I'm amazed that we ever got through, but she ended up purchasing the oddest mixture of country and hip hop and Lindsay Lohan-esque pop that you'll ever encounter.


• Christmas Day started with a light breakfast, followed by church services (we filled up an entire pew -- the back row, if you must know). The 10:00 a.m. service was an hour earlier than usual, and when we arrived, there were only about 50 people present, but the crowd eventually doubled in size...and got a bit bigger as we drew near to 11:00 and those who forgot about the change in meeting time showed up. Anyway, after church we all headed back to my parents' house for the traditional Christmas barbecue and all the traditional Christmas barbecue trimmings. Here's the whole crew awaiting the "come and git it" signal:
  
  
  
  I guess you've probably noticed by now that much of our family time involves food. Oh, right...like yours doesn't?


• And speaking of shotguns, after lunch we headed out west of town to do a little skeet shooting...or was it trap? I have no idea what the distinction might be. We fired a bunch of shotgun pellets at little clay discs flung into the blue west Texas skies. Occasionally, some of them were even struck. Almost everyone got into the act. Here's MLB firing a 12-gauge (Remington Model 870 Express Super Magnum, 28" barrel, modified choke...but what do I know?) for the very first time in her life. There are two remarkable things to note about this photo. First, she started out with ramrod straight posture; what you see below is the result of the shotgun recoil on someone who isn't quite used to it. Second, she hit the clay disk! Maybe Texas girls really are born knowing how to shoot.
  
  


• My Christmas fantasy each year is that we'll return to Midland carrying less than we took to Fort Stockton. This year, for example, we actually needed two vehicles to tote everything down. I was sure that this would be the year that my fantasy would be realized. It was not to be, however, thanks to my brother who gave me a big honkin' air compressor the size of a bathtub. We ended up returning home looking like an only slightly upscale version of travelers out of The Grapes of Wrath.

Well, I apologize if this turned out to be the blogging equivalent of "What I Did On My Summer Vacation," but I know that for each of the anecdotes shared above, there's at least one person in the audience who will be filled with fascination. To the rest of you, please accept my best wishes for a wonderful Week Before New Year's Day.

Regular blogging will resume whenever we can establish just exactly what "regular blogging" means.