Christmas 2011

Thursday 12/22:

My Christmas vacation weekend unofficially began at about 12:30 p.m., when I went to lunch at the Provo Towne Center with two co-workers and then went to see the new Mission Impossible movie with my boss and co-workers (I really enjoyed the movie).

Friday 12/23:

Since I had the day off of work I planned way too many things to do. In the morning I went grocery shopping with my wife, then I drove to Orem to get take-out Thai food for my daughters (we usually go to Springville but no one answered there when I called so I assume they were closed for the holiday). While I was on the way to Orem I stopped at the RC Willey clearance center to pick up my youngest daughter's Christmas gift: a new bed. Then I went to the acupuncturist with my wife, and afterward the weather seemed so nice that I decided to go running. I ran about 6.5 miles and felt so great. I've been running on the treadmill at the gym lately because it's been pretty cold, but it was really nice to be able to run outside. After my run I took a bath and went to my piano lesson, then started putting my daughters new bed together. I was a little torn while I was doing it, because she has been sleeping on the bunk beds I used when I was growing up, and my dad used them when he was a kid, too--so they've been in the family for three generations. When the kids were little my wife painted Dr. Seuss characters on them, which the main reason my daughter wanted a new bed--apparently she's outgrown Dr. Seuss :) I thought I'd take a few pictures of the bunk beds while I disassembled them:







While I was taking the beds apart I found a poster my wife made several years ago for a class "spotlight" of some kind, so I decided to snap a picture of it:


And here she is, two and a half hours of disassembly and reassembly later:


Saturday 12/24 (Christmas Eve):

I spent the morning doing ... well, nothing really :) I read a little and used the computer a little, then around 10:30 a.m. I went over to a neighbor's house to help him learn how to use iTunes. I helped him import his Elvis CD's and put them on his new iPod. Then I had a can of clam chowder for lunch and did some scanning (I'm digitizing my guitar music to make it easier to teach lessons). Then I went to the store to get a few things for Christmas Eve dinner. I was a little worried it would be crowded and I'd have to wait in a long line, but it wasn't too bad. Then I came home and did some more scanning and finally took down our trampoline for the winter (the weather was nice again so it was a good time to do it). We also had a little incident with our washer and dryer. Apparently the washer didn't drain for some reason, so when I switched the towels from the washer to the dryer it wouldn't start (because the towels were too heavy) and there was a burning smell. So I took the towels out and spread them around the house to air dry, but they were so wet that they left puddles on the floor, so (ironically) I had to spread towels out to absorb the extra water. I was worried I'd have to call a repairman to look at our dryer, but fortunately it started working again.

Around 5pm we went to my wife's sister's house for Christmas Eve dinner and had a great time. We had ham and mashed potatoes and salad and rolls and stuffing, and cheesecake and pistachio pie for dessert (yum). We also did a little "talent show" for Christmas eve. My son read a story, my oldest daughter brought her art portfolio and my youngest daughter brought a stuffed animal she had hand-sewn herself. My nieces and nephews all played Christmas songs on different instruments: piano, guitar and baritone. Then I played a song I had written for the occasion called "This Christmas Eve" and my wife, at my suggestion, read my favorite Christmas story:

"Christmas Every Day"
by William Dean Howells

Once there was a little girl who liked Christmas so much that she wanted it to be Christmas every day in the year, and as soon as Thanksgiving was over she began to send postcards to the old Christmas Fairy to ask if she mightn't have it. But the old Fairy never answered, and after a while the little girl found out that the Fairy wouldn't notice anything but real letters sealed outside with a monogram–or your initial, anyway. So, then, she began to send letters, and just the day before Christmas, she got a letter from the Fairy, saying she might have it Christmas every day for a year, and then they would see about having it longer.

The little girl was excited already, preparing for the old-fashioned, once-a-year Christmas that was coming the next day. So she resolved to keep the Fairy's promise to herself and surprise everybody with it as it kept coming true, but then it slipped out of her mind altogether.

She had a splendid Christmas. She went to bed early, so as to let Santa Claus fill the stockings, and in the morning she was up the first of anybody and found hers all lumpy with packages of candy, and oranges and grapes, and rubber balls, and all kinds of small presents. Then she waited until the rest of the family was up, and she burst into the library to look at the large presents laid out on the library table–books, and boxes of stationery, and dolls, and little stoves, and dozens of handkerchiefs, and inkstands, and skates, and photograph frames, and boxes of watercolors, and dolls' houses–and the big Christmas tree, lighted and standing in the middle.

She had a splendid Christmas all day. She ate so much candy that she did not want any breakfast, and the whole forenoon the presents kept pouring in that had not been delivered the night before, and she went round giving the presents she had got for other people, and came home and ate turkey and cranberry for dinner, and plum pudding and nuts and raisins and oranges, and then went out and coasted, and came in with a stomachache crying, and her papa said he would see if his house was turned into that sort of fool's paradise another year, and they had a light supper, and pretty early everybody went to bed cross.

The little girl slept very heavily and very late, but she was wakened at last by the other children dancing around her bed with their stockings full of presents in their hands. “Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!” they all shouted.

“Nonsense! It was Christmas yesterday,” said the little girl, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

Her brothers and sisters just laughed. “We don't know about that. It's Christmas today, anyway. You come into the library and see.”

Then all at once it flashed on the little girl that the Fairy was keeping her promise, and her year of Christmases was beginning. She was dreadfully sleepy, but she sprang up and darted into the library. There it was again! Books, and boxes of stationery, and dolls, and so on.

There was the Christmas tree blazing away, and the family picking out their presents, and her father looking perfectly puzzled, and her mother ready to cry. “I'm sure I don't see how I'm to dispose of all these things,” said her mother, and her father said it seemed to him they had had something just like it the day before, but he supposed he must have dreamed it. This struck the little girl as the best kind of a joke, and so she ate so much candy she didn't want any breakfast, and went round carrying presents, and had turkey and cranberry for dinner, and then went out and coasted, and came in with a stomachache, crying.

Now, the next day, it was the same thing over again, but everybody getting crosser, and at the end of a week's time so many people had lost their tempers that you could pick up lost tempers anywhere, they perfectly strewed the ground. Even when people tried to recover their tempers they usually got somebody else's, and it made the most dreadful mix.

The little girl began to get frightened, keeping the secret all to herself, she wanted to tell her mother, but she didn't dare to, and she was ashamed to ask the Fairy to take back her gift, it seemed ungrateful and ill-bred. So it went on and on, and it was Christmas on St. Valentine's Day and Washington's Birthday, just the same as any day, and it didn't skip even the First of April, though everything was counterfeit that day, and that was some little relief.

After a while turkeys got to be awfully scarce, selling for about a thousand dollars apiece. They got to passing off almost anything for turkeys–even half-grown hummingbirds. And cranberries–well they asked a diamond apiece for cranberries. All the woods and orchards were cut down for Christmas trees. After a while they had to make Christmas trees out of rags. But there were plenty of rags, because people got so poor, buying presents for one another, that they couldn't get any new clothes, and they just wore their old ones to tatters. They got so poor that everybody had to go to the poorhouse, except the confectioners, and the storekeepers, and the book-sellers, and they all got so rich and proud that they would hardly wait upon a person when he came to buy. It was perfectly shameful!

After it had gone on about three or four months, the little girl, whenever she came into the room in the morning and saw those great ugly, lumpy stockings dangling at the fireplace, and the disgusting presents around everywhere, used to sit down and burst out crying. In six months she was perfectly exhausted, she couldn't even cry anymore.

And how it was on the Fourth of July! On the Fourth of July, the first boy in the United States woke up and found out that his firecrackers and toy pistol and two-dollar collection of fireworks were nothing but sugar and candy painted up to look like fireworks. Before ten o'clock every boy in the United States discovered that his July Fourth things had turned into Christmas things and was so mad. The Fourth of July orations all turned into Christmas carols, and when anybody tried to read the Declaration of Independence, instead of saying, “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary,” he was sure to sing, “God rest you merry gentlemen.” It was perfectly awful.

About the beginning of October the little girl took to sitting down on dolls wherever she found them–she hated the sight of them so, and by Thanksgiving she just slammed her presents across the room. By that time people didn't carry presents around nicely anymore. They flung them over the fence or through the window, and, instead of taking great pains to write “For dear Papa,” or “Mama ” or “Brother,” or “Sister,” they used to write, “Take it, you horrid old thing!” and then go and bang it against the front door.

Nearly everybody had built barns to hold their presents, but pretty soon the barns overflowed, and then they used to let them lie out in the rain, or anywhere. Sometimes the police used to come and tell them to shovel their presents off the sidewalk or they would arrest them.

Before Thanksgiving came it had leaked out who had caused all these Christmases. The little girl had suffered so much that she had talked about it in her sleep, and after that hardly anybody would play with her, because if it had not been for her greediness it wouldn't have happened. And now, when it came Thanksgiving, and she wanted them to go to church, and have turkey, and show their gratitude, they said that all the turkeys had been eaten for her old Christmas dinners and if she would stop the Christmases, they would see about the gratitude. And the very next day the little girl began sending letters to the Christmas Fairy, and then telegrams, to stop it. But it didn't do any good, and then she got to calling at the Fairy's house, but the girl that came to the door always said, “Not at home,” or “Engaged,” or something like that, and so it went on till it came to the old once-a-year Christmas Eve. The little girl fell asleep, and when she woke up in the morning–it wasn't Christmas at last.

Well, with no Christmas ever again, there was the greatest rejoicing all over the country. People met together everywhere and kissed and cried for joy. Carts went around and gathered up all the candy and raisins and nuts, and dumped them into the river, and it made the fish perfectly sick. And the whole United States, as far out as Alaska, was one blaze of bonfires, where the children were burning up their presents of all kinds. They had the greatest time!

The little girl went to thank the old Fairy because she had stopped its being Christmas, and she said she hoped the Fairy would keep her promise and see that Christmas never, never came again. Then the Fairy frowned, and said that now the little girl was behaving just as greedily as ever, and she'd better look out. This made the little girl think it all over carefully again, and she said she would be willing to have it Christmas about once in a thousand years, and then she said a hundred, and then she said ten, and at last she got down to one. Then the Fairy said that was the good old way that had pleased people ever since Christmas began, and she was agreed.

Then we came home and let our kids open their Christmas Eve presents (we always buy them new pajamas on Christmas Eve). Then we watched MacGyver and, after the kids went to bed, laid out stockings and assembled our humorous gift to my oldest daughter: the stalker pineapple:



A few months ago my oldest daughter's friends made a humorous advertisement for a fake product called "pineapple-b-gone," a spray that can be used to repel pineapples that are stalking you. The video is hilarious (at one point my daughter's friend's dad is shopping at the store and removes a cereal box to reveal a sunglass-clad pineapple), so my wife and I decided to surprise my daughter by putting this under the tree for her (and maybe later we'll carve it up and have fresh "stalker pineapple" :) )


12/25 (Christmas Day):

My son woke up around 8:10 (which surprised me; I thought he'd wake up earlier because he was so excited). I walked downstairs a few minutes later and took this picture. It made me laugh when I looked at it later, because the flash reflecting off the cat's eyes makes it look like he has laser vision, but he doesn't (at least as far as I know :) ):


My parents joined us for opening presents and later my mom made breakfast (muffins and omelets). They've been doing that ever since I was married, and it would be strange to have Christmas without them. My sister and her family normally join us too, but this year she is in Washington state with the in-laws:

My wife:


My son:


My youngest daughter:


Me with a few of my gifts (a Christmas piano book, a movie theme piano book, and a hot-sauce variety pack):


After breakfast I sat down to write this blog entry, and now I'm going to make some lunch and get ready for church. I'll be singing three numbers with our ward choir and am excited about it. After church we'll be driving to Bountiful to celebrate the holiday with my extended family. It's been a fantastic Christmas, and I am feeling quite blessed. Life can sometimes be difficult, but right now I'm filled with peace and Harmony.

12/26 addendum:

When we got home from Bountiful last night my youngest daughter gave me this picture she drew for me as a Christmas gift:


Oh, and we also discovered that our hot water heater has been leaking water for 3 days and will need to be replaced pretty quickly (and our carpet will need to be pulled up and dried). It's a bit of an inconvenience, but I'm determined to remain filled with peace and Harmony!! :)

Nostalgia

For the past several weeks I've been taking photos of some places in Utah County that make me feel nostalgic. It always amazes me how fast things change! Being able to look at pictures of "the way things were" helps to keep my memory fresh and can indeed be worth a thousand words (or more).

Paul Cardall Christmas Concert

Last Friday my oldest daughter, my parents and I went to Paul Cardall's Christmas concert. We got there early enough to get pretty good seats (there were probably 30 or 40 rows in the venue and we were on the 3rd row). The concert was everything I'd hoped it would be and more (I've never been to a Paul Cardall concert I didn't like). They even had free cookies and hot chocolate. I didn't have any, because I don't eat chocolate, but I thought it was a nice touch.

When we first arrived they were playing clips from "It's a Wonderful Life" (which is one of my favorite shows). Then Paul got up and introduced his opening act, a 16-year-old girl named Ellie Duke. She is an amazing singer/songwriter, and she played guitar and performed some of her original tunes. Apparently Paul is helping her produce an album that will be released in January.

After she finished her songs, Paul took the stage and played "Joy to the World"


Then he played a song I didn't recognize, and when I asked him what it was after the concert he couldn't remember what he had played :) I really liked the background pictures he projected during the concert (this was one of my favorites):


As the concert progressed Paul really seemed to warm up to the audience and was extremely personable. I made jokes, interacted with the audience, challenged each of us to make a difference for someone else this season, and told about a trip his parents and siblings took one Christmas to Mexico to give gifts and supplies to orphanages. He also talked about his heart transplant and mentioned that his donor was a man from Mexico.


Paul played a song he wrote called "Dave's Farewell," then showed a cute video of his young daughter and a friend discussing Christmas, then he played Away in a Manger (for some reason whenever I write the name of that song it comes out "Away in a Manager" and I always have to correct it :) ) Then he played a song called "Diamonds for Stones," followed by, "Life and Death." After that he played "Still, Still, Still" and then played "Letting Go" while projecting video scenes from a cartoon version of the story "The Little Match Girl." I have never read this story, but the scenes and music were quite affecting and at some point I will look it up.

Then Paul invited a kid from the audience whose name was Luke to join him on stage. Luke played "Deck the Halls" and everyone applauded quite loudly (I was pretty impressed that he was willing to play in front of so many people). Paul then asked him to select 3 random notes from which he would improvise a song. Luke chose C, D and E. When I heard that I started laughing and honestly wondered how a good song could be created out of such simple notes, but then I sat back amazed while Paul turned it into an amazing piece of music:


Paul then played a hilarious series of scenes from some of his favorite Christmas movies: Elf, Rudolph, A Christmas Story, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Then he played a medley consisting of the songs "The First Noel," "Redeemer," "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," and "Heavenly Father Loves Me." He then played "Gracie's Theme" (I love that song), and then played another medley to scenes from the movie "The Nativity Story" (which is one of my favorite movies). The songs in this medley were: "What Child is This," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," and "I Believe in Christ." Then Ellie joined him on vocals and guitar while he played "Silent Night," and he played two encores: "Sacred Nature" and "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief." He asked the audience what songs they wanted to hear, and a girl in front of my requested that he play, "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief." She was learning the song herself and had brought her sheet music with her. She was able to follow along at first, but then Paul started playing it differently than the recorded version and she shut her book when she realized it wasn't the same arrangement.

After the concert my daughter and I talked briefly with Paul and I took this picture:


It was a fantastic night and I'm so glad I was able to attend this concert! There's something about live music that inspires me to live better, to be better, and to continue improving my music skills and share my talents with others.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Decorating the tree is one of my favorite Christmas traditions. This year it was doubly exciting because we got a real tree. Last year we had a fake tree, because our real tree the year before caused some allergy problems for my wife. But we cleaned our heat vents earlier in the year and her allergies have been much better, so she said we could have a real tree this year.

The first challenge we had to overcome related to our Christmas tree stand. I have a lazy streak that occasionally causes problems for me, and unfortunately I never really took care of the Christmas tree we had two years ago (it's been sitting in our garage since then and is quite brown). The type of stand we use just has a metal tube over which the tree can be placed (the guys at the Christmas tree lot drill a hole in the bottom of the trunk). It's nice because the tree is always straight, but apparently if you leave a tree on one of those stands for two years it gets stuck. I had tried three or four times to pull the old tree off its stand, and even a crowbar couldn't get the job done. I really didn't want to have to buy a new stand, so when my wife suggested that I try cutting the tree with an ax I decided to give it a shot. I imagined I would have to cut the tree off at the trunk and then split the remaining wood, but it only took two hits to break the dry trunk off the stand. Perhaps this year I'll remove the tree from the stand right after we take it down. Perhaps ...

We usually buy our tree from the Macey's parking lot, where they sell mostly "mountain trees" which are a little more rustic looking and uneven than trees that are grown at farms. Several years ago the woman who works there told me that people can be really mean around Christmas time. I was a little shocked, because Christmas is supposed to be a time of joy and happiness and good will towards men. So ever since she told me that, I have gone out of my way to be nice to her. This year as we walked out of the lot with our tree she said, "Thanks for being one of the nice ones!" It made me feel good :)

When we got the tree home we put it on its stand and realized that it was much wider than we had initially thought (it takes up half our living room):


Here is a picture of me after stringing the lights (I LOVE the new LED lights, they are so much easier to deal with than the old ones):

While we decorated we listened to Trans-siberian orchestra music (thus the title of this blog entry). My oldest daughter is playing "Wizards in Winter" with her school orchestra (she and I are going to the Trans-siberian orchestra concert on December 28th) and my son has adopted it as his new favorite song. I can't put on music anymore without him asking me to play it:


My youngest daughter:


My wife:

Me and my son:


My oldest daughter:


The finished product:


I have never really had one of those "fancy" trees where the ornaments match and are evenly spaced, but I kind of like the "randomly throw on all the ornaments you can find" approach that gets everyone involved.

We couldn't find the plug for our Christmas star this year, so the top is bare for now. I would like to put an angel on top, but everyone else wants a star. I guess both are symbols of the Christmas season, so either one will be fine ... if I ever get around to it (remember, I have that lazy streak :) )

Running

This week I thought I'd write a little about running, since it has become one of my favorite activities in the past few years. I ran when I was younger, but only when I had to for a P.E. class or while playing sports; never for its own sake. I was on the track team in 9th grade and remember getting to the point where I could run long distances without hurting too much, but I didn't like it well enough to stick with it.

The first time I really felt the joy of running was in the summer of 2009, when I was hiking in the mountains above Spanish fork with a group of boy scouts. Some of the boys had gone ahead of the rest of the group, and it was starting to get dark. I was worried they would miss the fork near the end of the trail and get lost, so I started running downhill, in the dark, over rough terrain (it's a miracle I didn't sprain an ankle). I ran over a mile and felt so great afterward that I decided to start running for exercise and recreation. That first season was difficult, but I persevered and it became more enjoyable once I had built up some endurance.

In July 2010 I ran a 5k race in 31 minutes. It wasn't a great time, but I ran continuously without stopping (which was my goal). Then in August I started running longer distances. I ran a 10k race in September in Midway (in 61 minutes) and ran close to 12 miles at one point before injuring my hip in November. I took a break for a while, started seeing a chiropractor and talked to a physical therapist about stretches I could do to avoid future injuries. This past summer I ran a 5k race on July 4th (I can't remember my time) and I'm planning to start training for a half marathon in May 2012.

One of my favorite aspects of running is getting to be outdoors. I often run in the evening or at night, and I love looking up at the stars or seeing a beautiful sunset like this one that I took a picture of on June 23, 2011:

On September 26, 2011 I went for an evening run from my house to the Spanish Fork reservoir. This is a difficult route (I've only done it twice) because it involves some extremely steep hills. Here is a picture of me at the bottom of the hill, wearing the world's ugliest shirt. (A little background on this shirt: I won it at a conference in San Francisco in February, 2011. It was a SharePoint conference, so this shirt is supposed to be a joke. It has a picture of the singer Cher and a finger pointing, thus "CherPoint" or "SharePoint." My wife hates this shirt and my kids laugh and scream whenever I wear it. After this particular run, my wife washed this shirt and hid it in the back of one of the dresser drawers I rarely use. I think she's hoping I won't find it, but I know where it is and will pull it out when she least expects it. Maybe on Christmas morning! Bwahahahaha.)


This is a picture from the top of the hill (it looks much steeper in real life):


And this is the beautiful sunset I saw when I got to the bottom:


On October 15, 2011 I went for a run and was so amazed by all the fall leaves that I kept stopping to take pictures. These mountains are to the south of us (I can see them out the back windows of my house):


This is a picture of the golf course and windmills:

These are the mountains to the south again, but this time you can see a snow-capped peak on the right:

I like the color contrast on the mountains in this photo (this mountain is northeast of my house):

I love running in the shade, especially on hot days. I wish every sidewalk looked like this one:


I liked the vibrant colors on this tree near a church in Spanish Fork (we went to this church when we first moved to our current house, but now we go to a closer one):

This is a picture of me at the Spanish Fork cemetery, where I ran on Thanksgiving morning (November 25, 2011). I find cemeteries quite peaceful, and sometimes I go to this particular spot to think and reflect and escape the fast-paced intensity of everyday life:


This is one of my favorite places to run, along a trail near the Spanish Fork river. I took this picture when I went running the day after Thanksgiving (November 26, 2011):


In the winter I usually run on a treadmill at the gym. It isn't nearly as enjoyable as running outside, but it keeps me in shape so I'm ready for running outside again when the weather warms up. At this point I believe running will be a lifelong passion for me, and I'll keep doing it as long as my body lets me :)