Passing on my Childhood

One of the things my family always does around Christmas is to decorate gingerbread cookies. Last year, since I knew I wasn't going to be home in time to do it with my family, I did it on my own with friends from Church. This year I made them again, and decorated them with two different groups.

The first I did with the Palladinos. At four and six years old respectively, Diego and Sierra were old enough to enjoy it, but it was quite an adventure. I think that they ate more candy than they put on the cookies -- and it would be a mistake to say that any of their cookies were low on candy. Their results weren't fancy, but they seemed very proud of their creations.

The second group was with the Kennedys. At fourth grade and sixth grade, Amanda and Tarin were capable of doing a bit more sophisticated patterns on the cookies. A substantially percentage of their candy ended up on the cookies. I think this was largely due to the fact that they felt they needed excuses to eat the candy. For instance, if two chocolate chips were stuck together, or if a cinnamon candy was the wrong shape or size for their purpose, or making sure that a thick layer of frosting didn't harden on the knife.

Early on, Amanda and Tarin got into a competitive spirit about how many cookies each had decorated. I had made three giant angel cookies (over twice the size of the next largest cookie shape). Amanda was the first to decorate one, and informed Tarin that it counted as three cookies, thus putting her well in the lead. Tarin was quick to counter with a point that Amanda agreed to: "No, it needs to count as one cookie so that when Mom tells us we can only have one..."

Gift Exchange

Last night my home group had a Christmas dinner. As part of it we did a white elephant gift exchange. The first gift opened was the holiday edition of Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook. It has some useful advice in it such as "How to get rid of carolers" (answer the door wearing a towel). As things got more and more frantic in the gift exchange, the joke came about that one of the tips in the guide was "How to survive a gift exchange and end up with the gift you want." I ended up with the guide, and I have a feeling this won't be the last gift exchange the book ends up in this Christmas...

And so this is Christmas?

Yesterday I was driving somewhere, enjoying the warm weather with my windows down, while listening to Christmas music. Something about that just didn't seem to fit. I guess that's just part of Southern California.

Thanksgiving Finale

After all of the chaos and stress of having my return flight canceled, I would have thought that the story was over. Now, I could mention the extra opportunities this gave me, like the extra two days with my aunt, uncle, and cousins -- or getting to enjoy a dinner with Liz and Dan. That stuff, however, probably isn't all that interesting to read about, so I'll skip ahead to other things.

After getting a few days of snow in Seattle on Sunday and Monday, it warmed up enough for the snow to start melting, so that it could freeze over again as ice all over the roads. While this may be normal in Minnesota, in Seattle they have more trouble dealing with it. The news Tuesday morning recommended that people stay home if at all possible, or, if that was not possible, to allow as much as four hours for a normal commute, time which we did not have. Fortunately we got lucky and the thirty minute drive only took us an hour.

Once at the airport I checked in, and they informed me that although I had a reservation, there was no seat available for my flight from Seattle to LA. Somehow that didn't surprise me too much. I asked what else they had available, and the women cautiously started to suggest something. The way she was saying it prepared me for the worst. I began to mentally prepare myself for a long day at the airport, if not a few more days in Seattle. What she said surprised me:

"If you don't mind, we could put you on the direct flight to Santa Barbara. It will get you in at around 11am instead of 3:30pm."

It stunned me. I gladly accepted and then began to wonder how she possibly could have thought that I would have preferred two flights with a two hour layover in LA. As much as I love airports, and LAX in particular...

The rest of the trip was comparatively smooth.