Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’
Holiday Socializing
Cyndie and I did the old back-and-forth routine again this Christmas, starting with the hour-long drive to the Cities on Christmas Eve to gather with family from Cyndie’s mom’s side, then returned late to sleep at home. On Christmas morning, we fed the horses (Asher is away at a trainer’s kennel for a week) and then drove back to her mom’s for the classic Friswold breakfast and an opening of gifts exchanged.
From there, we drove home again for a brief rest in the afternoon, which allowed us a chance to feed the horses before driving back to the Cities for food and fun at her brother’s house.
Up past our bedtime for the second night in a row, stuffed beyond sensible with scrumptious foods, and buzzing from the precious energy of socializing with people we love so dearly, we hopped in the car one last time to drive home and crashed into our bed to sleep deeply.
I am ever so grateful that this was the only crashing we experienced because we witnessed some crazy speeding and risky maneuvering occurring on the highways yesterday. No one wishes for a traffic ticket on Christmas, but that doesn’t mean the Highway Patrol should take the day off.
It didn’t appear there was any enforcement in place during our cautious commuting, and some reckless speed demons were taking full advantage. Thankfully, road surfaces weren’t excessively slippery, and no bumpers were bumped throughout our many trips to and fro.
Every last trip was worth it for the treasure of special holiday time with our peeps. For those who love solitude, it provides a healthy reference for how nice it is to return to the calm and quiet of our own homes after periods of intense socializing.
Down in the paddocks, there was some unique social interaction going on between one particular pigeon and the horses and me.
I first noticed it walking around me as I rolled out the wheelbarrow to do some housekeeping under the overhang. It showed up on a fence board as I was sweeping off the placemats under a feed station.
When I arrived to tie a hay bag, the pigeon didn’t move away from its puffed-up position where I wanted to be. So, I took its picture.
Friendly little guy. When I stepped out of the barn with buckets of grain, it was sitting on Swings’ back. After it stayed perched there while Swings walked over to eat, I pulled out my phone to take another photo of the friendly bird.
I was too slow. It had hopped down to see if Swings was sharing any holiday cheer on the placemat below.
The rest of the pigeon flock is much more flighty about the presence of humans, but this one seemed to have no fear. Much as they tend to annoy us for the racket and mess they create, not to mention the temptations they are for Asher, I chose not to shoo this one off.
It was Christmas, after all. That wouldn’t have been in the holiday socializing spirit.
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Holiday Outing
Christmas 2023 is now a memory. Let’s get on with celebrating the new year and start preparing for Valentine’s Day. But before we go, how about one more glance at our festive holiday outing at CHS Field in St. Paul?
We went to the GLOW Holiday Festival on Christmas eve eve with Barry and Carlos and our friends, Paul and Beth.
The rain held off long enough for us to walk among the lights, features, and several thousand other people without getting wet.
The event added much-needed holiday spirit in the absence of snow this year. There were so many photo-worthy spectacles and selfie-hungry couples and families, that much of the time was spent dodging becoming an incidental photo bomber or waiting for a turn to get photo-bombed.
We unexpectedly ran into our friends, the Williams family among the throngs of strangers while strolling the concourse. That increased the festive energy of our evening in a most wonderful way.
There was barely a line when we came upon Santa Claus, so posing with him became a must-do.
Confusion broke out when two overly excited youngsters spotted him and moved in as if pulled by an invisible force. Our group quickly encouraged the kids to go ahead of us while the parents, unaware, were trying to remind the kids about the good manners of waiting their turn.
As Cyndie and I stepped up for our chance to tell Santa what we wanted for Christmas, I leaned in and whispered in his ear, “They aren’t paying you enough for this.” It triggered the most wonderful knowing laugh from him that I felt as if my work was done for the night.
24 hours later, Cyndie and I were gathered with our kids, the Friswold family, and their relations at a party room of Friendship Village for the annual Friswold/Brolin Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas morning brought the Friswolds all together in Cyndie’s mom’s suite for breakfast and gift opening. In the evening, we met again, this time at Ben’s house for games and dinner.
I’m looking forward to a day after the holiday that should bring a return to our usual routine and an end to the over-saturation of Christmas music for a while. Maybe things will get so normal that we even receive some snow that covers the ground for more than a few days.
A guy can dream.
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Holiday Afterglow
A particularly precious aspect of family gatherings over a holiday is the physical assembling in collective display of love and affection 
for each other and the sharing of our immediate concerns and joys. I am greatly blessed to be a member of Cyndie’s family and together we are humbled to be parents of two incredible individuals in our daughter, Elysa, and son, Julian.
The previous two days were filled with hours of family time, regardless of the growing threat of the highly contagious coronavirus spiking once again around the world. We will serve as examples of the full vaccination/booster combinations to constrain any possible infections from severe illness or forced hospitalization if sickness arises in the days ahead. We hold no confidence that the latest omicron variant was completely absent the whole time, despite the lack of any symptoms or known contacts in those present.
Out of an abundance of caution, not all family members chose to participate in-person, in order to protect those with greater vulnerabilities to the threats of infection.
This morning, Cyndie and I are warmed by the residual energized emotions of heartfelt sharing with so many relations we dearly love.
My body feels hyper-nourished and a little over-sweetened by the feasts we gleefully enjoyed. Man, this family cooks and serves regal holiday meals.
The time shared at the home of Cyndie’s mom in Edina was a bit more emotional than usual due to activity underway to prepare the house for sale and the thought process and physical work of transitioning Marie to new living space at Friendship Village in Bloomington.
The next few days will involve intense effort by many hands to replace Christmas decorations with a much more austere simplicity in preparation for the realty company to film the full walk-through for online “open house” reviewals.
I will do my part by holding down the ranch so that Cyndie can offer her full-time attention to helping her brothers carry out the herculean task of processing in just a few days, lifetimes of accumulated family possessions.
In a perfectly timed gift after my final day of commuting to a day-job, Elysa gifted me the perfect shirt reflecting one of the responsibilities that will become an enhanced focus of my increased hours available to manage the ranch.
The EFRU has gained a new full-time member and I couldn’t be more proud.
I feel great pleasure every time I push our wheelbarrow out of the barn door and under the overhang with a calm greeting of, “Housekeeping!” for our horses to know what comes next. It doesn’t hurt that they smartly recognize what usually follows the tidying up of their accommodations. That is when their feed pans are served up.
Today is my half-birthday. December 26th is always a day I feel rather celebratory in the afterglow of Christmas magic.
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Single Week
Less than a week, actually. The holiday season is long but the actual day of Christmas is just a single day and it is now six days away. I am also down to a single week left commuting to the day-job. Three days, actually. It feels like a lot is happening that will hopefully lead up to a period when not much needs to happen, for the rest of my life.
For the last six months, I have only been commuting to the far side of the Twin Cities three days a week. I am already aware of the complexity of noticing what day it is when Saturdays and Sundays become blurred with Fridays and Mondays. When seven days a week all require the same attention from me, I will join the throngs of others who are in the phase of life when every day is simply “today” and not so distinguishable from all the others.
Yesterday was Cyndie’s Christmas Cookie baking day. I failed to provide much warning but the post I created in 2017 is still very applicable. Check out: Advance Warning.
Cyndie invited helpers to contribute to the extravaganza. They captured and shared some images of the frivolity…
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Cookies galore are being shared far and wide. For reference, if you ever have a chance to help Cyndie in the kitchen, you will be stocked with plenty of goodies upon your departure.
Despite this being the second Christmas season under the pandemic, glad tidings and good cheer still shine through.
Merry Christmas, everyone! Enjoy this last week.
I know that I will.
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Isolated Festively
Over a holiday weekend that historically would have us venturing sixty-some miles to the west three times in two days to mingle and nosh with Cyndie’s relations, the Christmas of 2020 in all its pandemic isolation reduced our travels to one time to exchange gifts at her mom’s house. Distanced, masked, and without risking a shared meal, our children met us at Marie’s house in Edina on Christmas eve day for the briefest of gift exchanges.
Little did we realize before setting out in the moments after our township road had finally been plowed around 11:00 a.m., we were in for some of the riskiest driving we’d experienced in recent memory. From local roads to the interstate highways, the surface was frozen and slippery. Almost every mile, sometimes more frequently, we spotted vehicles buried in the ditch.
Approaching a speed that would require the use of brakes in order to slow down was taking chances that threatened an unwelcome hell of post-storm autobody appointments, not to mention bumps and bruises, or worse.
Every overhead message board flashed warnings of crash delays ahead. As we waited in one backup, a full-size fire engine forced its way ahead and crossed all lanes to block the two left-most. We crawled ahead to where the sight of a big rig was perched on the cement barrier dividing east and westbound traffic, front tires high off the ground.
Later, another backup wrapped around a helpless pickup in a center lane, lacking enough traction to make any progress up the slight incline.
Cyndie’s expertly cautious driving got us there and back without incident.
Back home with presents in hand, we settled in for three days of isolation that Cyndie masterfully enhanced with wonderfully festive meals and activities, while simultaneously continuing to practice post-surgery regiments for her knee.
We ate like royalty and dined on some of her family holiday classics. Beef tenderloin with horseradish sauce, marinated carrots, out-of-this-world skin-on mashed red potatoes, and dessert of unparalleled greatness, cranberry cake with butter-caramel sauce.
We sat around the fireplace and worked on a new jigsaw puzzle from Marie that depicted chickens that looked just like ours. Cyndie poured herself into new books and I spent renewed time in my world-wide online community, catching up on reading and writing there.
A text-chain of family members helped us to stay connected, but there was no getting around the fact we were home alone together at one of the most family-gathering times of the year.
Somehow, maybe due to an urge to make it feel anything but just another day at home, Cyndie took interest in assembling the jigsaw puzzle with me, something in which she usually finds no pleasure. I chose to match her change in routine by deciding to skip building the outer border first, a step that moved me entirely out of my otherwise rigid norm.
We had a blast with the task, each finding great pleasure in the shared experience.
Quite simply, it helped to make the entire weekend feel downright festive, isolation be damned.
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Like Christmas
One week away and it’s occasionally feeling like Christmas is drawing near, except it’s as if it is on the other side of a blurry sneeze guard.
Cyndie and I tolerated a COVID Thanksgiving all by ourselves as well as can be expected. Doing so again for Christmas just a month later is proving to be a little more distressing. Plans are being considered to choreograph separate socially distanced and masked visits but every option is a frustrating variation of the same fiasco.
Why is it so hard to take a year off from normal activities?
I find taking a long view makes it easier for me to accept, but it comes at the cost of glossing over more immediate events. It’s a defensive mechanism, I suppose. I don’t feel as much stress over the loss of normalcy this Christmas when I’m framing the isolation as a step toward having life back to usual next year.
I am prepared to do absolutely nothing with no one for as long as it takes to reach the point where pandemic is no longer a thing.
The day that the use of face masks is declared a thing of the past will feel like Christmas, no matter what month it is at the time.
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Relative Something 