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Family Tales

Christmas traditions, from oysters to chainsaws

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When I was thirteen, we stopped having traditional Christmases. Twenty-plus years of shopping, decorating, and cooking for six children had worn my mother out. Mom and Dad and I fled the Midwest for Florida that year. I still feel guilty, leaving my older siblings with a crummy artificial tree while I frolicked among sable palms. On the other hand, they were delighted to have the house to themselves, unsupervised.

Years later, when I met Barry and his family, I was astounded to find all the Christmas traditions, alive and well. Here was a family that actually decorated the house and played carols on the piano. They wrapped every single present, including the ones that go in the stockings, embellishing them with ribbons and bows. Barry was famous for his creativity at disguising presents, as well as for doing his wrapping between midnight and 5 a.m.

The house was full of holiday goodies, buckeyes to bourbon balls, artichoke dip with King’s Hawaiian bread, spinach balls, Chex mix, and homemade ice cream. One year, there was a crown pork roast, with paper frills that we put on our fingers as puppets. Grandma always sent a massive box of homemade cookies, each icebox cookie or cherry chew wrapped individually,

As if this wasn’t enough, the Stellrechts did not merely buy a Christmas tree. They always cut their tree. In Ohio, for many years, this entailed a drive to Timbuk Tree Farm. There was a lot of walking around in the mud — “How about this one? This one?” and finally, “This one!” Then each family member would take a turn on their knees, sawing at the base with a bow saw until the tree fell down. An ancient school bus came around to pick up chilled people and their trees and return them to the farm hall, with a crackling wood fire, hot chocolate, and carols blasted over Army-style PA speakers.

Arriving home with the tree, there was still work to do. The bottom had to be re-sawn, providing Barry’s sister Julie with a slice of wood to make into an ornament. The tree was set up and festooned with lights and silver garland, which they call “rope” to distinguish it from the tinsel.

There were boxes and boxes of ornaments, made of glass, wood, paper, metal, fabric — even a plaster Santa that weighs a ton (and always goes on a fat, sturdy branch!). They represented school projects, gifts from old friends, memories. The ornament with the smoke alarm received new batteries, while an ancient angel perched on the top branch. We spent more time discussing the “ormanents” than actually hanging them!

Meanwhile, a pot of oyster stew bubbled on the stove, a tradition from Dave’s family. On the farm in Wisconsin, with plenty of home-grown meat and produce, I bet those Christmas Eve canned oysters were a treat! It reminded me of Christmas Eve with my family in South Carolina — we’d dig fresh oysters from the mud, clean ‘em, roast ‘em, and slurp ‘em out of the shell. No Christmas trees, but we Schultes did have some traditions.

Julie and her family have continued the tree tradition in Ohio, visiting Timbuk Tree Farm every year with their two kids. Barry’s parents retired and moved to Camano Island in 1997, choosing a home with a view of Port Susan…across their neighbor’s tiny Christmas tree farm. A mixed blessing, as the darn trees grow higher every year.

In December, Dave and Sharon march across the street with their bow saw, select the biggest view-blocker they can find, and carry it home. One year, they cut down a hemlock –free, but lousy for decorating. All the old traditions continue: Christmas music on the record player, the familiar ornaments, oyster stew. Even the precious leaded tinsel, removed from the tree each year and saved for the next, because you can’t buy it.

This year, the day was cloudy and cool. I’d gone into the bedroom to put on an extra sweater and find my hat. I hesitated, then grabbed the camera. I knew we had digital photos of the tree-cutting from 1999; surely we didn’t need more of the same? Outside the front door, I stopped in my tracks.

What’s this I see? The garden cart — are we going to roll the tree back, instead of carrying it? When my eye fell on the chainsaw, I started laughing. This was family tradition, with a twist!

Dave and Sharon had already selected their tree, a monstrous 20-foot Douglas Fir. Dave disappeared from sight when he crawled into the lower branches to hack some off with a hatchet. Then, with a loud roar, he fired up the chainsaw and began trimming branches up to 6 feet from the ground. Sharon and I loaded them into the cart, and Barry gamely hauled three heavy loads to the chipping pile. One branch held a tiny hidden bird’s nest, to bring us good luck.

Carefully removing the nest The nest, retrieved

Then Dave sawed most of the way through the bottom. Sharon and Barry, on their knees, did the last bit with the bow saw, the traditional way. I took photos and hollered “timberrrrrrrrr” when it finally toppled.

Six-and-a-half feet of the trunk went to the woodpile, and four feet of silly, straggly stuff was lopped off the top. We threw the rest atop the cart and dragged it, ignominiously, back to the house.

The tree on the garden cart

What do you do with a tree that’s nine and a half feet tall and ten feet across? Prune it carefully! As Sharon said, trimming away with her favorite pruners, “It won’t grow back if I mess up.” Even trimmed to eight feet across, there’s only one place for it: Smack dab in the middle of the living room. It dominates the room; when you sit in a chair on one side of the living room, all you see is TREE. You can’t see anyone on the other side of the room.

Sharon pruning the tree
The decorated tree

Remember that silly, straggly branch that got lopped off the top? It didn’t go to the chipping pile. It’s right here, in our living room, decorated with our collection of ornaments. It may be the funniest Charlie Brown tree ever, but it has two advantages: You can walk all the way around it, and yes, you can still see the person on the other side!
Our funny little tree stub

Family Tales, Friends Along the Way

I’m Gettin’ Nuttin’ but Christmas Spirit

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Some years, I have a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit. I hear Christmas music in the grocery store and think, “What is that weird music?” Christmas lights seem lost, tiny white bulbs against the glaring loom of the big city. People going into stores to shop seem unrelated to me, as though I’m adrift in an alien culture.

This afternoon, another day working on our house, was filled with plumbing and mini-blinds, difficult discussions, deferred decisions. I put on some Christmas music, James Brown singing “Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto” and the Roche Sisters’ wonderfully nasal rendition of “Fraaawsty, the Snowman.” Still no spirit.

Around 6 pm, we knocked off work and drove to Greenlake, where some friends of ours were planning to gather. On this one evening, the entire lake is lined with white luminaria, and thousands of people stroll around it, enjoying the lights. The e-mail from Tina mentioned caroling, and a friend of hers planned to bring a wheeled antique wood stove (I didn’t know there was such a thing!).

From where we parked, we had to walk quite a ways around the candlelit lake on our way to meet our friends. People were strolling in both directions, ambling along in small groups accompanied by children and dogs. Barry and I, being in a hurry, zoomed around them, weaving in and out like two-legged sports cars.

The problem with events like these is that it’s cold. And dark. So everybody is bundled up in hats and scarves, looking like shadowy Polar Fleece blobs. I was afraid I wouldn’t recognize Tina, who we’d only known in the summertime, in bathing suit weather.

When we arrived at the Bathhouse, there was a group standing under the streetlight, caroling. Yikes! I hoped that wasn’t our group — these folks were actually performing with a conductor! A bit further on, we found the wood stove.

The portable antique woodstove stood on the path on a wheeled cart with a pot of cider steaming on its top. A tall fellow in a fuzzy Santa hat was tending it. “Hello, are you our party?” we asked. Howard was a friend of Tina’s, and he invited us to pour some cider into the cups we’d conveniently brought along. A small group circled round the 2-burner stove, and Howard passed out songbooks.

What a blast! We belted out all the old standards, like “Deck the Halls” and “Let it Snow.” “Here We Come A Wassailing” was a big hit, and by the time we made it through all the stanzas of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” there was a small crowd, applauding. They left in a hurry when we did “I’m Gettin’ Nuttin’ for Christmas,” either because they were afraid of gettin’ nuttin’ by association, or because we sounded so bad.

Children kept coming by and making requests — always “Rudolph” or “Frosty.” One woman wanted to put money in my cup. When she realized we were just singing for fun (there was cider in my cup!), she gave me a hug (a total stranger) and thanked me profusely. Heck, all I was doing was standing around, drinking cider and singing off-key!

It was one of those heart-warming experiences, where you go out just to have a good time, and what happens? You end up making a lot of people happy. Somewhere along the line, I picked up that Christmas spirit I was missing. Maybe somebody slipped it into my cup when I wasn’t looking, but I definitely brought it home with me.

Living in the Pacific Northwest

Confession of a Guilty Wal-Mart Shopper

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I know I’m not supposed to shop at Wal-Mart. I know I’m not supposed to support a store that uses strong-arm tactics on their suppliers. I know I’m not supposed to give money to a company that discriminates against women and minorities. I know I’m not supposed to take business away from small local retailers that actually take care of their employees.

But sometimes, I can’t help it.

Like today, when I thought I’d drive 15 miles down the freeway to save money on cat food. It’s not my fault the damn cat turns her nose up at anything but premium canned Iams. Talk about fussy! Ocean Fish flavor. One can per day. At 58 cents a can, Wal-Mart’s price is pretty appealing, compared to the inverse, 85 cents, at QFC.

When I arrived at the store today, all the parking lot entrances were blocked off by police cars, their red and blue lights flashing. Puzzled, I made my way to the Home Depot next door and parked. It was drizzling.

As I got out of the car, I could see a huge procession, a bedraggled parade, of blue smocks making their way from the Home Depot to the Wal-Mart. I followed them, about a half block behind. When we arrived at the store, the ragged group of employees went in, but customers were stopped. “Sorry, ma’am, but we’re not ready. It will be about a half hour.” Someone asked what the problem was. “We had a bit of an emergency,” was all the woman would say.

One customer, a tall blonde lady, rolled her eyes and turned back to her car. I asked her what was going on. “Bomb scare. They swept the place with nine dogs…I’m sure it’s fine now, don’t know why they won’t let us inside.”

I wandered back to the car and sat listening to a Keb Mo’ CD for a while. I moved the car near the store entrance, where customers stood, waiting, resigned. I gave it twenty minutes before trying again. A stocky fellow in the doorway was still turning people away. “We had an emergency,” he repeated over and over. I shared a chuckle with another customer, an older lady waiting to go inside and pick up her husband’s pills. “What’s the matter, are they afraid of the ‘b’ word?”

A half hour had passed, and the word was still that it would be “a half hour.” I gave up. Nearby, a tall young fellow wore a bright yellow nametag that read “management trainee.” He looked like he enjoyed bossing people around.

“Excuse me, but is there a grocery store nearby?” I asked him. He frowned, offended, then gave me directions to the Fred Meyers across the highway. As I turned away, he added, smugly, “But their prices are really high.”

I burst out laughing. “Yeah, but I bet they’re open!”

So what really is the story about the bomb? Was it a scare, an honest mistake? Or a threat, from someone who feels more anger than guilt about Wal-Mart? I don’t know whether I’ll find out, but one thing is sure: I wasn’t meant to shop at Wal-Mart today. Maybe the gods don’t want me to shop there, ever.

Geek-Friendly

The Wacky World of Wi-Fi

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Last fall, Barry and I stopped in to see his best friend from high school, who lives in Columbus, Ohio. Mowgli has the most wonderful collection of toys, from old computers to new computers, music, videos, and books. He’s an expert on just about everything related to networking, so Barry asked him for a recommendation on which wi-fi card to buy. Rummaging around, Mowgli produced a little hunk of plastic and metal and handed it to Barry. In his usual low-key way, he told us it hadn’t worked right for him, so we could just have it.

I’d never seen one of these gizmos before. Every time I use it, it feels like a miracle.

In New Orleans, Brian took us to an internet cafe with wi-fi, where we could try it out. We sat at a table with tea and coffee, our laptops’ power cords plugged into the wall. The internet signal didn’t come from a wire, but through the air, from a spot near the ceiling. If I sat between the laptop and the transmitter on the ceiling, I was sure I could feel a little Google tickle, just below my right shoulder blade.

A few months later, we were anchored in the middle of the harbor at Wrightsville Beach. I don’t know what possessed Barry to put the card in the computer, but suddenly he announced that we had signal! He quickly took advantage of it, checking e-mail, updating our website. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished. We studied the houses on shore with binoculars, but there was no way of telling which house it came from.

When we took off in the Squid Wagon, Barry introduced me to a concept known as “war driving.” You fire up the laptop, put the wi-fi card in, and drive around, watching to see if there’s any signal. The only problem is that the place you find signal and the place you find parking aren’t usually the same place. The other problem is that the signal isn’t always right in your lap, where you want the laptop. Sometimes, you have to kind of stand on your head to find it, a process that involves holding the laptop over your head or propping the computer sideways with a lot of pillows. Reminds me of those cell phone commercials: Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

At cozy Moose River Campground in Vermont. Mary had a little wi-fi transmitter in her living room window, mainly so she could take the laptop outside and work. That meant that from some of the campsites, you could access the internet without leaving your RV. Or, in our case, your picnic table. We got a lot of work done on the website there.

The weirdest place we got wi-fi signal was on the freeway, in Halifax. Barry was driving, and I was navigating through construction. I forgot the card was in. Suddenly, I heard that distinctive little chime, and I quickly downloaded our e-mail out of thin air. The traffic cleared up, we started going 60 kilometers per hour, and the signal disappeared.

By the time we’d been on the road for a month, it became commonplace for us to find wi-fi hotspots, park the van, and just sit inside. We’d take turns reading and writing to friends, and we’d post limericks and essays. Barry would always check his online comic strip, Sluggy Freelance. We’d read Google News to find out what was happening in the world.

Ottawa was one of these places. We parked on a quiet side street and spent hours updating the website, surfing, and taking Prussia for walks. Spokane wasn’t quite as pleasant. Despite the fact that there was free signal everywhere, provided by the city itself, our parking space was on a terribly noisy highway at rush hour. The light behind us would change and dozens of cars would zoom past, shaking the van. Grand Forks, North Dakota, was also strange — we found signal near the university, but then I became uncomfortable when I realized that we were being watched. I was certain those big burly college guys were going to come down and beat us up for stealing their Internet.

In St. John’s, Newfoundland, we were sitting in the parking lot of a small shopping mall, surfing the net for a few hours. A rented panel truck pulled into the lot near us, misjudged, and as we watched, creamed a small sedan parked there. That was enough surfing for me, time to get out of that parking lot!

So where am I right now, as I write this? Not parked on 10th Avenue across from the Ben and Jerry’s truck, that was yesterday. Not drinking apple-ginger juice at Victrola, the wi-fi-enabled cafe on 15th Avenue. That was a couple of weeks ago.

I’m sitting in the dining room of my own house, the one we own in Seattle. There are a few contortions necessary — last night, Barry was standing at the dining room window, holding the laptop on his shoulder and mousing with one hand. Today, I was able to rig a tall chair and two phone books to catch it. I doubt it’s the elderly hermit next door, or the lady on the corner who drives a black VW bug. But whoever you are, all I can say is, thanks!

2004 Half a North American Circumnavigation (and 3/4 of a Newfoundland One)

Giving thanks for Canada

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Thanksgiving: The re-enactment of the harvest feast celebrated by the Pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower. Does that make the holiday exclusive to America?

Not precisely. The Pilgrims weren’t exactly citizens of the U.S.A.. And Thanksgiving, with turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie, is a concept we share with the Canadians, who are quick to remind us they are not part of the U.S.A. either.

Of course, today, while we were cooking and eating and catching up with family, the Canadians were working, business as usual. That’s because they had their big family feast last month.

Canadian Thanksgiving is a three-day weekend, the second Monday in October. One woman told us her family always has their big dinner on Sunday, after the Thanksgiving church service. Her husband’s family — atheists — does the meal on Monday, making it possible for the couple to enjoy both.

I searched the Internet for menus, certain that an authentic Canadian Thanksgiving dinner would feature a different menu. But what I found was more familiar to me than last year’s Thanksgiving in New Orleans, where I discovered merliton stuffing.

The Canadian Thanksgiving feast we shared with our friend Kris in Lunenburg was a little smaller than the one we made today. We cooked outdoors, so I guess you could say the kitchen was actually bigger than Barry’s Mom’s (which is the largest kitchen I’ve ever cooked in!). But we only had a two-burner propane stove and a cooler. No fridge, freezer, food-processor, or bread machine. Instead of a 22-pound turkey, we stuffed a huge Hubbard squash. Instead of four desserts, we had just one. I still managed to include sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and gravy.

The view of the bay was just as lovely as it is here, and we had good weather that day. With plenty of Screech — Newfoundland rum — on hand, it was a very festive holiday, despite our rustic surroundings.

Next year, I think I just might celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving again, even if I’m not in Canada. Not because I feel like enjoying two days of gluttony instead of one. I’d just like to spend some time giving thanks for our kindly, quirky neighbors, the Canadians.

Family Tales, Friends Along the Way, Living in the Pacific Northwest

Ghost Dancers

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I’m sitting in a cozy warm house on Camano Island, a cup of tea beside me. To my right, the view is blue, looking across the shallow misty waters of Port Susan to the distant Cascade Mountains. To my left, the view is green, a broad expanse of lawn leading to woods, framed by towering evergreens.

This scenery is the best of the Puget Sound area, and one reason why we returned home.

In a little while, we’ll be meeting a very good friend for lunch. The whole year we were traveling, I missed our friends, people we met sailing or dancing or working. Last night, at a meeting of the Puget Sound Cruising Club, I collected hugs from many friends who welcomed us back to the area.

That’s another key reason why we returned.

I’m looking forward to Tuesday, when Barry’s parents, who own this delightful Eden where we are housesitting, return from Hawaii. Their home, where we have stored most of our worldly goods, is full of photos of Barry’s nephews, family artwork, cozy furniture, and support for this crazy lifestyle we’ve chosen. We love hanging out with Sharon and Dave, talking and taking walks in the woods.

Living near them is another reason to come back.

When we arrived a couple of weeks ago, we were bone-weary, exhausted from the long drive across the northern part of the country. We had been moving too fast, trying to see too much, having a hard time staying ahead of the cold weather. We also wanted to make it back in time to celebrate Barry’s Dad’s birthday.

A couple of days after our return, Dave called us all out on the front deck. It was late, and very dark. But the sky was lit with the most amazing thing I’d ever seen: Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights. Since the four of us had moved to the Northwest, we’d never seen it; I’d never seen it in my life. Barry wisely suggested that we watch it from the hot tub.

We laid our heads back and watched the beautiful moving light show. Soft white streaks, sometimes with a hint of color, appearing and disappearing, with a strange ghostly rhythm. I was reminded of the name the native people gave the phenomenon: Ghost Dancers. It was silent, and then a shiver went down my spine as an owl hooted in the woods.

This was our reward. A true welcome home, from the Ghost Dancers.