Well, A Merry Christmas Eve -- here we have another 37 minutes to midnight. Your East Coasters are now in and our Euro friends will soon be waking up Christmas morning!
It was kind of sunny and a warm 40F before noon I went to buy a tarp and then my son and I went to get thr 22 18' 12" joists off the sidewalk. I had a couple old pallets up there so we set them out, out the tarp on it, laid a few pieces of wood above the tarp to put air underneath the pallets so moisture will dry, and then moved the joists one at a time to their new home on the pallets in the tarp. When done we wrapped the tarp around and fastened the one end with small pieces of rebar and laid rebar on it to keep it from blowing away. It was quite windy as it is getting colder and rained a bit later and should be rain and/or snow the next 5 days, off and on.6
I wanted to put in an hour or two at the house but my son had an appointment with some friends -- one of their HS friends had moved with his family to Missouri -- don't know if it was before or after graduation -- and was back in town for the holidays and so they planned some time yesterday and today to hang out. It was fine with me as I had a few things to do anyway.
This evening we went to my aunt and uncles house for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner and Santa visit. My mom had told me a few days ago it was at 6pm, but called and left a message that it was at 5pm. The problem is my dad had played around with their phone and now it shows as "ubnknown" and I did not realize they had left a voice message. At 4:30pm I noticed it, thinking we had an hour to leave. Then it was "honey, wuick, we need to get going, it is at 5!" Quick shower, get ready, but we were not out the door until 5pm. We got there around 5:30pm. Dinner had barely started. My mom was there, her brother, and her other brother, whose wife had unexpectedly passed this Fall, plus her sister and her husbands, whose house it was at. And my sister and her family, and a few of my aunt and uncles kids and their families, and a son and his family from my unclue whose wife had passed. They were all there. My mom's side stems from Norway so the tradition was built on stuff they did as a kid with their grandmother and grandfather, who had come over from Norway. We eat Lutefisk (and Salmon, as most people are not keen on Lutefisk), potatoes, carrots, melted butter, a norwegian flatbread (crispy very thin non leavened bread), and some other vegetables and stuff. They had shrimp tonight as well. Some stuff is always the same every year, and some stuff changes. The last 10 years we had been going to the uncle's house whose wife suddenly passed this Fall, so his older sister and her husband stepped in to do it. I don't remember but I think they had been doing it with their kids and just expanded. When my son was 4 or 5 this aunt and uncle would do Christmas Eve for everyone but as everyones kids got older and mucho grandkids showed up, the families split off. When I was a kid, when we would drive to SLC, we had it at my great grandmother's house (she is one of those from Norway originally) but as families grew, as I said, it kept breaking off into smaller segments of family. Anyway, in Norway it is traditional for Santa Claus (Julenisse, father Christmas, etc) to visit Christmas Eve and be invited in for a drink etc. and to participate in the family's party of singing, dancing, eating. This became Americanized, as in America, Santa comes while you sleep, so we would "hide" with the lights off and Santa would come in and leave a present for each kid (which the parents had left at the designated drop off outside when they arrived). We do this now so Santa came tonight with one gift for each kid. (When I was a kid he brought ALL the Santa gifts, while mom/dad/family gifts were opened Christmas morning).
We often open up presents Christmas Eve as my wife is a nurse and often had to work on Christmas (which is also her birthday). She switched departments at the hospital this year and the new department (cardiac procedure recovery unit) is mostly just a business hours unit so no more Christmas (or New Years, Thanksgiving, etc shifts). My kids let me know they wanted to wait until Christmas morning to open presents, as it has been a while since they were able to do that on Christmas morning, due to the wife's schedule. So I have to make sure to leave the Santa gifts and stocking stuff tonight...
Sorry for the long drawn out rambling story. UPS and USPS brought me stuff today for my pistol project and I had not had a chance to look the stuff over so am down in my basement office fondling the parts and reading the like 4 pages of new posts since last night.
Merry Christmas all!
, I cannot take to the pike the head puts me off. stuffed cabbage was my father in laws favourite.
. I pulled everything off one at a time and got a power change 2 times (1 off the TT and 1 on the diesel storage tracks). So, I was looking at some wiring and my dad shows up. After telling him the problem he responded "you should rewire everything"
Thanks dad for your input (said to myself). So, Sunday I have 2 places to investigate. HO HO HO.
So, GO AHEAD !
not today.
