Ho Ho Ho!
white Christmas
This may be a post that’s interesting only to family, but here it is.
In the spirit of Christmas, we wanted to post about our most memorable Christmases (not including this year). Here goes, in chronological order:
Cathy (oddly enough, I don’t have that many that stand out more than other fond memories):
1) Only one involves a present as the big memory. Tusky the walrus. And I don’t remember actually getting her, but I remember seeing her high up on a shelf and falling in love with her the week before Christmas. I was three (almost four). I still have Tusky, and now the boys play with her. In fact, Tretan’s the one who decided Tusky was female.
2) When my Dad worked for a year in Utah I had my first white Christmas (I may have had one in DC when I was three, but I don’t really remember). We woke up and Dad took us for a drive. We did donuts in a parking lot (and by accident in an intersection). I was fourteen or fifteen, and it was awesome.
3) My parents came to visit me my first year of grad school in Florida. We all love to cook, and we spent the morning making a seafood feast.
4) 2005. We celebrated a week early, and Tretan was born two days later.
Ernie:
1) When I was probably about six, Mom and Dad got me a (completely out-of-character) toy gun that shot suction cup darts. I promptly (completely in-character) started shooting my dear sister in the face.
2) Two involving my sister Catherine and awesome presents that made me feel older — in Junior High she once gave me a prism that she had made in a college physics class, and she explained to me how it worked. It was just a box with a mirror (or two?) and a glass rod, but it was SO COOL! Then in high school she gave me a scientific calculator, and I spent days sitting with the calculator and its instruction manual learning about things like factorials (for some reason my favorite feature). I can’t think now of any real practical application for factorials, but I guess I’ve always been a romantic — I love the idea that factorials exist, and I imagine them patrolling the universe looking for something useful to do. Someday, factorials, your day will come!
3) 1993. On board the submarine USS Bergall, on port call in Portsmouth, England. I had the day off and couldn’t bear to sit on that stupid, reeking boat after having spent at least a month at sea already, so several of us spent a truly sad day wandering around the city trying to find something to do. It was cold and rainy, and the only things open were some pubs. Pitiful, but memorable.
4) 2008. Tretan was three, Gabriel was one, and it was just a fun, fun day. We played games on Christmas Eve. In biology, when a new species is described, a specific individual — the type specimen — is the basis for the species description. Well last Christmas just felt like our type specimen for a family Christmas. Low key, relaxed, smiles and laughs, games, local food. I really felt like a Dad.