Merry Christmas
In response to Happy Anniversary, my wife responded, “Are you really?” Well I suppose I am at least feeling merry. I wish a good holiday to all and happy new year. While there are many people who don’t celebrate Xmas, i didn’t realize that much of the world doesn’t have the same new year. And there are those unique holidays like Thanksgiving and Halloween. I also know that it is near impossible to stage a family photo. The old folks hate how they look in pictures. The kids never sit still. The fact that you have anything at all on film is just pure luck. So, don’t sweat it. And leave out the old people. I don’t even care if you blink. Happy and safe holidays to all.
Ornaments
Early on my wife collected ornaments. So we don’t have a tree with one or the same ornaments. It’s a motley collection full of memories. She has dated the years and many have stories of our travels and places visited. So far it has not become an issue as to how to split the group up. Each year we unwrap and then hang them. The joke is to put the ugly ones to the back. And for a long time the delicate ones had to be higher than the kids and the dog.
Christmas Cookies
Another annual tradition was to bake cookies. The kids really enjoyed doing food art. These were real homemade sugar cookies and the decorating would be fairly impressive. At least I thought it looked pretty good. There were no leftovers. And when Santa had to eat the cookies the kids left, I got more than my share.
John
Lest I forget, it’s John’s birthday today. It’s tough at this time of the year. You have nothing to look forward to when you celebrate Xmas and a birthday so close together. He never complained. I have this theory on how my mother named her three sons. She told me she used a baby name book. She got down to the V’s and I think she panicked. What happens if you don’t find anything and now you have X,Y Z to pick from. So I got named Victor. And when the youngest was born, mom picked Eric. See my logical thinking works. She wasn’t going back down to the end of the alphabet again. For the record mom didn’t pick out a middle name for me either. She stuck in the letter “T’ on my birth certificate and later told me she thought of my middle name. Oh, and it wasn’t till much later than that when I found out she lied about her age on my birth certificate. This story came to me from my mother’s younger sister, Fu Ching. Emily, the oldest of the three sisters, told my mother she was old when I was born. So she advised my mother to change her age. It’s too late now to find out the truth in all of this. So, to John, I didn’t forget.
Yule Log
This is a jelly roll cake layered in whip cream covered in chocolate frosting and a semi-tradition at our house. Well it was until my wife refused to make it any longer and I’m too unskilled to want to try. I did try to build a gingerbread house after she stopped and that was a disaster. We’ve had a lot of fun with this dessert over the years. The icing is now store bought Pillsbury or some such. We threw out about 3-4 batches of icing one Xmas when the chocolate seized up during the cooking. The cream is bad for you. So it’s a dessert that the kids were never encouraged or inclined to consume. Me, I miss it but am doing fine without it. Of everyone who should be on a diet, it’s my wife who has struggled the most. So it’s better to remember the picture.
David Ben Julia Alexandra Nellie
We have close friends with whom we have had gatherings at Christmas. Once when the kids were small I got a great shot of the four kids sitting patiently waiting until they were permitted to tear at the colorful packages. Since then we line them up and they pose in roughly the same way for me. Looking at this reminds me how fast they grow up. Everyone’s (the kids) got a job now.
Gingerbread
Early on my wife made the gingerbread houses at Xmas. They looked very good. When the kids were old enough she made the gingerbread and assembled the walls and roof. Then the kids had a go at decorating. I would have to say that a lot of candy never made it onto the house. The glue was sugar and when it hardened the house was hard to disassemble. But bit by bit over time, most of the house was torn down and eaten. The idea was to put a lot of candy all over. There was more to eat later. The nuts were something that I did – roasted cashews. Somehow homemade is a lot more personal than a gift card.
Christmas Tree
12/25/11
Soho, New York. In a pouring snow-storm I took this slide. It was a wet heavy snow. There was a Korean green grocer on the corner. You can’t tell but they like to stack their produce in a nice neat geometric pattern. I just like the drama, the fog from the steam pipe construction, and the snow covered trees waiting for Christmas.
