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#Post#: 16162--------------------------------------------------
Re: 6 November 2019 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christma
s
By: Jack Date: December 1, 2019, 6:33 am
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[quote author=Zyngaru link=topic=1556.msg16153#msg16153
date=1575149276]
Sounds like you are on top of it. Way further along than me.
[/quote]
We used to not set up for Christmas until about 2 to 3 weeks
before the big day. The problem with that is, if the college
kids wanted to participate, they had to make a special trip home
on a weekend, often when it was getting close to finals for
them.
When Barry (my only biological child, remember), he pretty much
put his foot down on that. I think it had less to do with him
being my biological son as he had grown up with so many close
brothers.
Anyway, for about the last five years now, we've been doing all
the holiday decorating while the college boys were home for
Thanksgiving. It used to seem a little long for me, but it's
worked out just fine for us.
[center]****************************[/center]
As long as I'm here, I might as well mention that everything
went great yesterday. The house looks great. We had the usual
suspects show up to help - the Malones, Marchants, Tidwells,
Worleys, Joyces, Strouses, Cavanaughs, Ames, McCalls and Russos.
And while we've had some old friends, like the Lanes and
Knights, who've moved away, we have new friends like the
Jacksons and Simpsons and McLeods and Vaughns who joined us.
After getting our house done, we broke up into groups to do the
other houses represented, and then we helped out some other
folks - mostly older folk like my mom and people we knew from
Church who would have trouble doing it on their own.
The rest of the evening went as planned. We met back here when
it started getting dark. Ate as many Thanksgiving leftovers as
we'd stuffed down on Thanksgiving, and then played games until
people started heading home.
#Post#: 16166--------------------------------------------------
Re: 6 November 2019 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christma
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By: kalico Date: December 1, 2019, 7:11 am
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Sounds like a very eventful day and a fun way to end the day...
I love how y’all always help out and do others
I bet everything looks amazing...
Hugs kal
#Post#: 16269--------------------------------------------------
Re: 6 November 2019 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christma
s
By: Jack Date: December 7, 2019, 1:22 pm
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Last night was our 'Parade of Lights' and the Tree Lighting for
the city. Some of my kids were involved on the Boy and Cub
Scout floats, so we went.
Tonight is Van's charity concert. I think he's mad at me about
something, since he's making me get onstage to explain what
happens to all the donations. After a lot of discussion, I'm
going to be wearing a fairly normal pair of black slacks and
dress shoes, with a white French cuff shirt, a matching red and
green plaid vest and bowtie, and my black Emerson frock coat for
that 'Victorian' look.
I guess I shouldn't complain too much. He's going to be doing
five costume changes as far as I've heard, and he's making
Kenny co-emcee and do a solo, and Kenny's going to have at least
three costume changes himself.
We've been outside raking the lawn, since one of the oak trees
decided to take up naturalism sometime yesterday afternoon.
As for now, we're going to have an early dinner, and a late
night, so I'm trying to get everyone to rest for a bit.
#Post#: 16270--------------------------------------------------
Re: 6 November 2019 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christma
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By: db105 Date: December 7, 2019, 2:36 pm
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It's great having artistic kids. Enjoy it! :)
#Post#: 16298--------------------------------------------------
Re: 6 November 2019 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christma
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By: Jack Date: December 8, 2019, 2:24 pm
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Despite me having to get on stage last night, everything went
great.
I should repeat here that Van 'made' Kenny do a lot of the emcee
work last night, as well as performing two solos.
I think they kids did a great job. Van did most of the work,
but I know he had Kenny and Carter Vaughn by his side,
'assisting' with most steps (or at least watching to know what
he was doing). They ended up using just the high school bands
this year - the first act was BHS, and the second was BCA. All
six of the middle schools (including BCA) and the various high
school chores, all had a chance to perform. Besides the
Phantoms, a couple of other local, school age bands performed.
Drama clubs from both high schools also did short numbers.
What I really like is that Van works to keep a balance between
traditional and modern, religious and secular, solemn and fun,
and even adult and child (though he doesn't do a lot of the real
kiddy stuff). He takes it seriously, but he has fun with it,
and I think that comes through to the audience (warning: I am
biased).
Kenny did a great job, and I saw the BHS drama coach talking to
him after the show.
Besides asking for donations (food for the food banks and toys
for kids), we also sell a bunch of stuff. Boy Scout volunteers
handle almost all the sales. They sell popcorn, wrapping paper,
and we have some wreaths left, and the proceeds from those go to
the various Boy Scout activities. Everything else (mostly
snacks for the show and red and green glow sticks) goes to the
Huff Foundation for use where shortages might exist.
I could go into a lot of details, like which were my favorite
songs and some of the solo performers, but let's just say it
went really well, so I don't turn into a raving Dad.
Today, on the other hand, is a quiet day. It's warm, but
overcast. The leaves are mostly gone from the trees, and if you
didn't know it was 72F/22C, you'd think it must be cold. On the
other hand, it's supposed to be down near freezing by Tuesday,
so.... yay, Texas?
#Post#: 16406--------------------------------------------------
Re: 6 November 2019 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christma
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By: Jack Date: December 15, 2019, 11:33 am
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Last night was the Scout's Christmas Party.
In order to make things easier, we rent space at the Family
Center. They have people on call who are available to help with
the set up and catering. We have the main room and two other
rooms, which lets us do the formal stuff in the main room, let's
us break the Boys and Cubs into their own group, and then
everyone can mingle in the main room.
These days, I'm only involved peripherally with the Scouts (I'm
the adult for some groups, but they do most of the stuff for
themselves, which makes it a lot easier on me). I helped set up
the menu, run the ceremony, and co-ordinate with the Family
Center. They had a very nice tree in each room, with faux
fireplaces in the two smaller rooms (yule log), and a Menorah
set up at the entrance to share with anyone passing by. We
didn't bother with a DJ, but just went with a fairly bland,
generic holiday playlist (a bit heavier on novelty songs for the
Cubbies).
Everything went really well. We had a year end ceremony and
recognized our new Eagles. For the most part, our Webelos all
advance to Boy Scouts when the school year ends, but we do
recognize those who move up in grade from month to month. It's
really just a typical troop meeting overall. When they break
up, we usually break into dens/patrols and do dirty Santa gift
exchanges, then play some games. Of course, there's always
plenty of food.
It's not really a huge deal, except most of my current boys at
home are involved these days, so we are involved that way. I
think they all had a good time, but it's good to have it behind
us now.
[hr]
I snuck out of the house very early this morning, since I
couldn't sleep, went up to Wal-Mart and just wandered around for
a while, picking up mostly stocking stuffers, but also a few
last minute things that really jumped out at me. That's the
kind of shopping that I really enjoy - no pressure. The boys
woke this morning to me having made a couple of breakfast
casseroles. Now, however, it's almost noon, and I can barely
hold my eyes open.
#Post#: 16426--------------------------------------------------
Re: 6 November 2019 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christma
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By: Leti Date: December 17, 2019, 12:06 am
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It's great to go to the store at that time and shop with out
pressure.
I hope you get to sleep more to night !
Hugs
Leti
#Post#: 16431--------------------------------------------------
Re: 6 November 2019 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christma
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By: Jack Date: December 17, 2019, 4:48 am
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It can be fun to go to the store when it's busy, just to people
watch, but that's a hard time to just browse.
My sleep schedule is pretty off right now, but that's as much
because of the crazy weather and having to spend a lot of my
afternoon's at Mom's house right now. Hopefully it won't take
too long to get back closer to a regular schedule.
#Post#: 16436--------------------------------------------------
Re: 6 November 2019 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christma
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By: Jack Date: December 17, 2019, 2:49 pm
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Really pretty stressed today.
The good news is that Zeke, Jeremy, and Chance (along with
several of my longer-term employees, like Jake and Josh
Rodriguez, Wyatt Jones, and Garrett Riley, are already through
with their finals, so they've been working full time at the
store.
On the other hand, the secondary school kids (7th grade and up
around here) have finals this week. That means the high school
kids are actually on a different schedule. Now, it's not a
vastly different schedule, but they go in a bit later in the
morning, and they get off at least an hour earlier in the
afternoon. That makes getting the little kids back and forth a
bit more of a challenge (and the teachers still work full days,
so I'm going to have to be picking up all the grands as well).
To and from school isn't the main thing, though. School runs
through Friday, people are having to study for finals, and
everyone is just feeling short on time and stressed. Most of my
college kids arrive home Thursday it looks like, which will be
fun, but I don't think it will make finals that much easier.
Honestly, everyone is doing pretty well in their classes, and I
don't think anyone is depending on a final to save a grade, but
that doesn't change the tension.
It's funny - we go through this every year. I'd imagine it's
one of those things where it seems horrible now, but as soon as
it passes, we'll forget about it. Then again, school is
releasing very late this year, and our schedule is full between
now and Christmas, even though a lot of it's going to be fun.
Anyway, we're playing Christmas Carols a bit, but not
constantly. It's still beautiful at night, especially when we
can turn the living room lights off and just enjoy the
decorations.
#Post#: 16480--------------------------------------------------
Re: 6 November 2019 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christma
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By: Jack Date: December 20, 2019, 8:22 am
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The college boys have given me an early Christmas present: they
insisted I take today off.
Besides my three boys who live here, finished their finals last
Wednesday, and have been pretty much working full time since
then, I've had 11 other boys get home in the last few days. On
top of that, there are a lot of boys (like Connor Joyce) who are
returning home, who have worked for me before and are on the
College/re-hire list, so they can pretty much go back to work
without even needing to be retrained (except we do retrain on
register procedures). Noah and Bryce are staying here to run
the house, and Barry is going to be doing all the running around
and getting ready for sales/weekend that Daniel or I would
normally do, so Daniel can handle re-hires and get those people
back to work, and I can split my time between checking in with
Mom (her contractors are supposed to be finishing today) and
actually getting some R&R (and hopefully catching up on It
Happened One Christmas).
They did get the tents set up yesterday. The guys did some
decorating last night, and we'll finish tomorrow. Today, we're
expecting a bunch of kids of all ages as school releases early
for the holidays.
My BISD HS kids are finishing their finals today, but the worst
of the stress seems to be gone. The BCA HS kids are actually
finished. I do have to drop snacks at BCA this morning for
Christmas parties, then they have a big assembly. The public
school kids who aren't in high school have different things
going on, and I also have to deliver snacks to various
elementaries this morning. (Yes, Bransom does still allow
'holiday parties', though I am requested to bring non-allergenic
snacks).
Now the sad news.
Papa Joe and Linda are arriving in town this morning. If you
don't remember or haven't met Papa Joe and Linda, they're my
half-brother, Matt's step-father and mother. They were married
when I first met Matt, back in 1974, when I was 9 and he'd just
turned 7. They're going to be celebrating their 48th
anniversary next year. I believe Linda is a year younger than
my mom, so 70, and Papa Joe is three (?) years older than her.
Papa Joe and Linda live in the Chicago area, which is where he's
originally from. Matt's step-brother, Adam, lives up there now,
so that's where they decided to retire, but they come down here
every year to visit for Christmas. For years now, Papa Joe has
played Santa Claus for our Tribal Party, and occasionally before
that. I have always paid for him and Linda to come down a day
or two early and stay in a nice hotel, where she can get
pampered and he can play golf, and they have a little extra time
to spend together. He's always loved it. The problem is, he is
73 years old, and he's starting to have some health problems,
and he's had to tell me he just can't do it anymore, so this
will be his last year.
I know a couple of people who could fill in, but I haven't
decided if we should. Papa Joe has been doing this for a full
decade now, and it just feels like the end of an era.
For the record, yes, I do call him Papa Joe. He was never
married to my mom, I'm not related to him in any way, but his
son, Adam, is a year older than me, and not only did Adam always
treat me well and accept me as Matt's big brother (and often
treated me like his own little brother, including the occasional
fight), but Papa Joe treated me better than my own step-father
ever did (and yes, there was a time or two he did bust my butt,
though it was pretty much just when I'd gotten in trouble with
Matt and or Adam).
I should say that this is not a serious health threat - nothing
life threatening. He's just getting old, and having some
mobility issues, and he just doesn't think he can get around
well enough to pull the Santa act off anymore.
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