Joy to the World

We're up in Cape Cod this Christmas and, although there is no snow around, everyone has been having a good time. Around here, presents are opened on Christmas Eve, so we had fun opening last night -- all except for Xan, who waited until this morning after Santa had delivered. (We've then been opening throughout the day, as he just got overwhelmed with items. He still has two more to open, I think.)

Christmas Eve, however, is usually punctuated by Angela and me -- and now Xan -- accompanying her grandparents to church. A word here: I am now a Unitarian-Universalist, although I have admittedly been lax at getting to services every Sunday; Angela has generally inherited her father's (dis-)taste for anything church-related. In general, however, this is something that Nana in particular loves and we feel it's the best for everyone to go to church, even if it means delaying the Christmas Eve Meal for some time.

I should also say that I happen to love Christmas Eve services. This is, after all, the happiest day in the Christian calendar with no strings attached. If I am ever wistful for Christmas, I think of the services from back home in Lima which, for me, were always a great sign of Christmas, even though it was usualy hot and outside in the summer evening air (which I never got used to for the holidays). My church in Lima does a candlelight service with lots of Christmas carols (and for many years I was forced into the choir as a guy who could sing), so for me Christmas always solidifies with a singing on "Silent Night" as the lights go out and the candles turn on -- but in my world, it features three verses in English and one each in the original German and in Spanish. For me, that's magic.

Two years ago when we were last on the Cape for the holidays, we went to what was billed as a "Birthday Party for Jesus." This turned out to be amazingly wonderful, even for the sub-one-year-old that we had at the time: lots of Christmas carols, a direct rendering of the Christmas story and afterwards a quick round of "Happy Birthday to You" with balloons and cake in the parish hall. Brief, to the point and entirely on a kid's level. It was, to use a word, heavenly. I was actually looking forward to the service this year, gleefully expecting cake.

In the interim, however, the former pastor (who actually married us) has been moved elsewhere and a new pastor -- who we refer to as "Reverend Doctor" since the "Dr." was prominently on display when we attended a memorial service only a month or so ago -- has been installed. We had not been to a regular church service at this church for quite some time.

Certainly, I would not have expected that our venture would be worth recoutning. And yet, here I am

For starters, we walk into the main hall of the church to the musicians practicing, since we're a little early. There is a boy playing trumpet and a woman playing piano. They appear to be playing similar tunes, but are at an interval that is dissonant. "Is the trumpet in a different key?" I turn to ask Angela. "Maybe," she says, "since I don't think piano and trumpet are in the same key. Surely the pianist has figured this out." Indeed, we see the two chatting and they wander off as everyone else is wandering in. Xan picks a row for us to sit in and Nana and we two are happily esconced. There is even a little boy who comes to try to make friends with Xan.

At some point before the service begins, we notice a rather large change to the church: there are now two rather large screens hanging around the cross. Oddly, this seems incongruous to me in this otherwise fiarly normally adorned church and I realize that they have gone high-tech in a way, that the lyrics will be projected. I look down at my program and see the lyrics have also been printed in full here. Why, I think, do we have both? Isn't this a waste of paper?

The service begins and the first thing we realize is that the pianist and the trumpeter clearly have not been talking about how to fix their problem because it's still there. They are still dissonant. This grates on a number of my nerves. Xan, however, is thrilled to pieces and fascinated by the music. It appears that he knows something of "Jingle Bells" and tries in a few places to sing it while he is in my arms.

We quickly fall into "Angels We Have Heard On High." This features the chorus that goes "Glooooooooria, in excelsis deo." Xan perks up with a big smile: "Fire engine!" Indeed, each time the church sings the "Glooooooooria," it sounds like a siren and he starts happily singing along, "Fiiire engiiiine! Wooooo!"

As is to be expected. the lyrics come up on the aforementioned screens. As is to be expected, said lyrics are correctly rendered, sometimes.

There is a skit in the middle of the service, impassionately performed by several of the congregation's kids, where each letter in "Christmas" is noted, with some notation as to how a word beginning with that letter pertains to Christmas (such as "T is for tequila, which you undoubtedly could use right about now"). Before this begins, however, the screen features a lone "C" while the pastor explains what is about to occur. A long animated bell continues to ring on the corner of the screen. Xan lights up, happily yells: "Jingle bells!" The pastor, who has not said anything about what anybody else's kid has done, calls attention to this. Xan then proceeds to repeat each letter as a kid comes forward with a large letter. (As is perhaps to be expected, at one point the word in front of us reads "CHRI2TMAS.")

The Biblical passage that the pastor reads comes from a completely different translation than what appears on screen.

The trumpet and piano still are not together as the carols continue.

The kids are brought up for a small children's sermon, which involves him going on about war. The one cool thing that happens at this service is when he gives the kids bells made from spent cartidges made from the metalic detritus of war in Indochina. Xan has gone up with the rest ofthe kids but, upon seeing a mother with a smaller child in her arms, comes back to drag Angela up with him, thus inducting her into the Dadak tradition of being forced against their will to the front of the church (which apparently happened to her father all the time as he would arrive late to Christmas pageants when only the front row was left).

At some point during this, Nana turns to me and points out a 60-something-year-old man sitting with the kids. "That's Joseph," she says to me. I later find out from Angela's mother that indeed this man played Joseph in aliving nativity scene in front of the church; Mary was played by a 14-year-old. Yeesh.

The kids come back with the bells and I realize that my kid finally got his jingle bell -- and that he won't be the only one making noise for the rest of the service.

This being a kids-oriented service, the pastor then offers a regular sermon where I believe he discusses homeless people in three different cities. At this point, however, Xan gets antsy and forces each of his parents out into the vestibule for a while. (In my time away, we got to look at both the traffic and the parking lot.) I realize by this point that, this being the happiest day of the year, the pastor hasn't smiled once.

For the last hymn, the pastor introduces a new song with a calypso beat. (Remember, we're in Massachusetts, where spicy often means black pepper.) The piano and trumpet are still nopt coordinated, no one else appears to know the tune, the lyrics provided on the screen are half grammtically correct and and half rendered in grammatically-incorrect-yet-possibly-Caribbean-patois-maybe? style, Xan is still happily singing about fire engines on one side and Nana, who is lovely but completely tone-deaf, is singing on the other.

The service ends. We do not stay for cake.

I know Christmas Eve services. Later, I will tell Angela that this was by far one of the worst I have been to, on many levels. Before then, however, we turn to Nana in the car: "How did you like the service?"

"Wasn't it lovely?" Nana said genuinely. "I just love seeing all the kids around. And you."

And that, kids, is what the holidays are all about. Merry Christmas.

I think I've seen this someplace before...

Anyone who has taken one of my classes knows that I am somewhat obsessed with fonts. Somehow, I missed this particular font-oriented tidbit, brilliantly put together by Goodie Bag. Now all I need to to see the new documentary Helvetica and my life melding my font and movie obsessions shall be complete.



(Cross-posted at the new Critical Approach to the Cinema blog, for the AU Cinema Studies student community!)

In lieu of day laborers

Cookie season is under way. Luckily, we now can employ some indentured servitude to get through the many baked goods that need to be made during this time of the year.

Rates per hour will go up when he's able to reach the sink in order to wash the dishes.

Why I still get carded

Overheard this evening, on the bus coming home with Mama:

X: Mercedes is a kid.
A: Yes, she is.
X: And Xan is a kid.
A: Yes, you're right.
X: And Dada is a kid.
A: No, he's a grown-up.
X (in resolve voice, a la Willow Rosenberg): No, he is not a grown-up. Dada's a kid.
A: He may act like a kid sometimes, but he's really a grown-up.
X: No, he's not. Dada's a kid.
(slight pause)
X: Mama's a grown-up.

Well, there you have it.

Ahead and Behind

The grading piles left over from Thanksgiving are finally completed. I am as mystified as everyone else that it has taken this long. But I'm back and, while I have to now make it through the next week of final exams, I may be back to blogging at least a little more regularly.

To celebrate, Angela and I have thought about posting this Way-Too-Much-Information posting for some time now. So, here goes:

The Last Ten Places Xan Has Asked One of His Parents to Kiss Because He Has Hurt It (And Which We Have Subsequently Kissed, Despite Any Aversions)

1. Head
2. Finger
3. Head
4. Elbow
5. Head (hmm, trend?)
6. Head
   
7. Tongue ("Dada, I'th bith my thongue. Can you kith it?")
8. Back
9. Head
10. Butt (For the first time, but undoubtedly not the last: "Dada, kiss my butt!")

I would continue this posting, but I think I hear him crawling up to take a flying leap off the ottoman onto the sofa. Again.

Last night

(Paper count:
"Jeff, how many are left?"
"About 20."
"In that stack or overall?"
"Just in that stack. Should have it done tonight or tomorrow. Then one more stack to go before all the finals come in.")

Visions of Holiday to Come (by AMD)

Last night, the three of us were sitting in Xan's room during the handoff between post-bath/pyjamas (Jeff) and pre-story/music (Angela).

"Goodnight, Dada. I love you." Kiss.

"Did you say goodnight to the Christmas tree?"

Xan hops off the bed and excitedly scampers into the living room. "Goodnight Christmas tree." Parents smile. "I love you." Parents giggle. "I give you a hug." Parents panic.

No se lo digas a nadie

I'm raising my head up from the morass (four piles down, two to go) with news that is not news -- or, rather, that I got news that I don't want to publicly advertise yet because it's not definite yet. (No, nobody's pregnant.) Nonetheless, it points to some very good news. I'll just leave it at that

With one week before the semester ends, it's back to the grind.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

Hope you all have successfully devoured the Thanksgiving leftovers! Blogger and my Dad's computer didn't like each other, so I couldn't post this earlier. So pretend it is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and read on.......

Happy Thanksgiving with lots of cranberries (by AMD)

(Jeff's paper count: 2.5 stacks down, 1.5 to go, 3 more coming in by Wednesday night)

One of the joys of being a parent is sharing things you love with your kid. Orchestra pictures will be coming later, but to honor the holiday, let's look at CRANBERRIES!

I grew up with a cranberry bog practically in our backyard. We walked - or in my short running phase, jogged - around it (1.3 miles), learned about its history (used to be a pond), helped harvest, ice-skated on it, etc. We have about a million stories about "our" bog. So naturally we share this experience with Xan.

We had a special treat this year: on the road between the airport and my parents' home we stopped off at a different cranberry bog where my dad was helping a friend with the harvest.



Grumpy (yes, that is really what his grandfather wants to be called- it's great!) walking with Xan on the road between two sections of cranberry bog. Notice the bog on the right in its dry spring-fall dry state and on the left in its winter dress - covered with water (according to my 8th grade research on the topic, this is because cranberries don't like lots of temperature changes, so keeping them under water keeps them at a mostly steady temperature; from personal experience I can say it also makes for a great skating rink in January).



One way to harvest cranberries is "wet:" flood the bog; then use a machine to hit the berries off the vines. The berries rise to the surface, perfect for corralling together (see above). Then they send them an escalator-type contraption to a truck (below).


Berries that are wet harvested are processed into juice and sauce, mostly. (The whole berries you can buy in the store are dry harvested.)

Have a very Happy Thanksgiving! Eat lots of cranberries!

Lion, not bear!

(Jeff's paper count: 1 stack down, 3 to go; 4 more stacks still coming in by Thanksgiving)

Xan's Halloween Report (respectfully submitted by AMD):

8:ooam: "Halloween, Mama! We will get chocolate, and candy, and lollipops!"The latter is the treat of choice this season, oddly inspired weeks ago by two random students on the AU shuttlebus (who left the wrappers on the seats).

3:30pm - protest putting on costume. Agree only when parents plead that it is just for two friends in the department.

3:30pm - trick or treating in the department, starting with the graduate students in the lounge who teach him the classic "trick or treat, smell my feet......"

3:45pm move on to professors in their offices. Handling the "trick or treat" and "thank you" routine with ease. Starts to go further "trick or treat... um... give me good to eat!"


(this photo looks remarkably similar to last year!)

5:00pm Left campus and joined four colleagues and friends in a trick-or-treat friendly part of our town. Angela was very lame and took no photos; Jeff was working at a film screening on campus, so there is no visual evidence of the event.

But if you will, imagine this little lion happily traipsing after a slightly bigger fairy princess on a neighborhood sidewalk in the Halloween dusk. It was magical.

There is no substitute........

While there is no substitute for the true author of this blog, there is also no end in sight to his backlog of papers to grade. So in the interests of not allowing a similar backlog of topics to stymie him when he returns to posting, Jeff is allowing me to procrastinate on my lesson prepping write an entry or two. Basically, I'll be keeping the chronicles of Xan's life up to date and avoiding any movie commentary. For those of you who don't know - I am "Wifeling," Mother-of-Xan, and She-Whom-the-Cat-May-Upon-Occasion-Actually-Obey.

Before putting up Xan posts, I'll start with a quick "life with Jeff" vignette. Specifically, a list of ways to tell that Dr. Middents is in grading mode:

1. The amount of hair product is drastically reduced and instead he controls the poof of his hair with a baseball cap.

2. When I wake up in the wee hours of the morning, he is asleep on the couch / dining room table / floor with a pile of papers on his chest.

3. His futile dialogues with the cat feature lines such as "Vega, would you give this a B or a B+?"

4. He reaches for his 25-pound dictionary, muttering "Oooooh, I absolutely do NOT think that word means what you think it means."

5. He cannot tell you how many papers he has left; he lists how many stacks of papers he has left (4 stacks now - 4 more to come by Thanksgiving)

6. He drinks coffee. Sometimes starting at 10pm. The man almost never drinks coffee.

7. His generally amicable TA says "You're STILL not done?"

8. He begins to sport a grading callous on his right pointer finger.

9. He tries to get his 2-1/2-year-old son to help grade, again.

10. He doesn't blog.

Yet this amazing man will still take Xan around campus to trick-or-treat and bring him to family orchestra concerts (posts and photos coming) - and even do dishes!

Anyone have any advice for Jeff as he grades?