Our Christmas, 2011, part 1.5: we gather, we give and receive gifts, we eat

I took this picture the day before Christmas, as Margie and I were finishing our shopping. On Friday, the 23rd, we had heard from Rex that Cortney would like a kuspik for Christmas. So we stopped at the Alaska Native Medical Center gift shop, but the selection was small and the sizes too big.

After we got home, I called Arlene Warrior to see if she might know someone locally who had either kuspiks or atikluks for sale. Kuspiks and atikluks are pretty much the same thing, but they tend to be kuspiks if made by the Yup'ik peoples of southwest Alaska and atikluks if made by the Iñupiat of northern Alaska.

Arlene told me she had a couple that were nearly finished, that she would be home alone Saturday and would complete them.

I did not wish to put her out on the day before Christmas, but she said this would give her something to do.

So Saturday afternoon we went over to the warrior house, where I saw the BB gun I had as a child hanging on the wall, and she had two atikluks ready to go. Margie liked the darker one and I liked this one - with the blueberry-raspberry print.

Arlene would not let us pay anything, because she says she doesn't know how to charge and so only sews for family and good friends.

I would have tried to find a way to pay, but I had just shot the wedding of her daughter and I don't know how to charge, either.

Now, it is Christmas morning. Santa was still in the house. We were all very surprised at how tiny he was. We wondered what had happened to his white hair and beard.

As we waited to open gifts and eat, Jobe took a stroll in the backyard.

So did Kalib. I still find it hard to believe he is growing so big and handsome.

Four dogs had gathered with us. Here are three of them: Rex and Cortney's new pup Akiak, Cortney's Kingston and Lavina and Jacob's Muzzy, who is well known on this blog.

Lisa and Bryce arrived bearing gifts - even as it is written in holy scripture that wise men, shepherds, noble men and others arrived bearing gifts to a tiny baby born in a manger in Bethleham over 2000 years ago. So we gave gifts on this Christmas Day, because they gave gifts way back then.

Jobe opened one of his many presents with his feet. It was a sled.

Margie used her hands to open this gift from Lavina, which turned out to be a beautiful basket that she had brought on the trip back to Arizona that Margie and I missed when she went into the hospital for emergency surgery and I was in some of the worst stages of my continuing battle against shingles.

Jobe jumped right in.

Rex gave this baseball bat to Lisa and Bryce. Rex had once seriously hoped to go pro, and this is one of the bats he had used to knock the ball around.

Charlie received some beard socks.

I am not sure who received this book, Charlie or Bryce, but something in it had them both amused.

I was curious, so I had them show me... oh, no! What kind of book is this? And why didn't my mother give me some of this medicine?

The raspberry-blueberry atikluk had a cut more to Melanie's fit than Lisa's, so Melanie got it. Lisa wants one now.

Cortney in her new Arlene Warrior atikluk.

Margie offered the blessing.

And then we ate... and ate... and ate...

I was too busy eating to take pictures of the food items, but Jake's squash did not come out of the oven until I thought I had finished and had left the table.

Jake came up with this recipe of squashed stuffed with blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, walnuts, pinons or whatever he feels like putting in it after reading about how the Wampanoag brought squash cooked with berries and nuts to the first Thanksgiving they shared with the Pilgrims.

It is the best squash dish that I have ever eaten, bar none.

There were many more gifts, of course. I will not try to recount them all.

One came courtesy of our niece/cousin/aunty Sujitha. After dinner, I assembled that gift and then it became the center of joyous and excited attention for hours.

That gift, and all that followed in its wake, will be the subject of part 2. I probably won't post it until mid to late Tuesday afternoon.

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As we do our next-to-last minute Christmas shopping, we see Little Alan drive his motorcycle through Dimond Center Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Holidays!!!

The plan had been to head out the door and off towards Anchorage in time to go through the McDonald's drivethrough in time for breakfast. Unfortunately, I woke up at 9:34 AM, Margie at 9:38 and little Kalib - none of us are quite certain when he woke up.

He was still snoozing soundly at 10:00 AM - the time when McDonalds ceases to serve breakfast. At some point between then and 11:00, I stepped into the bedroom and found him sitting up in bed, looking around.

"Good morning, Kalib," I greeted.

"No!" he shouted back. "I'm trying to get some sleep!"

With that, he flung himself back down on the bed and yanked the coveres over his head.

So Margie and I cooked up some fried potatoes and eggs and we headed for town a little before noon.

Yesterday's snow had tapered off to a few random flakes here and there and soon stopped altogether.

The first time that I tried to take a picture, I was very dismayed to discover that I had forgotten to put a compact flash card in my camera.

We started out at 5th Avenue Mall, where we bumped into Caroline Cannon of Point Hope, with the young woman who is about to marry her son.

Whenever I go to town and to a shopping place, I almost always come across friends from the North Slope - and at Christmas time, Always.

From there we went to Sear's and from there to Dimond Center. It was there that we ran into little Alan Beall III  with his mom, Sharene Ahmaogak. Regular readers know them, because when I go to Barrow I almost always stay with Sharene's brother, Roy Ahmaogak, and Sharene lives right next door in the home of her parents, Savik and Myrna, where we take our meals.

I felt real bad that I had forgotten my camera and then I remembered the obvious - my iPhone!

So here is Little Alan of Barrow, Alaska, and his little motorcycle, at Dimond Center, photographed wit my iPhone.

Little Alan drives his motorcycle through Dimond Center.

Next, we went to Pier 1 Imports. And that was it. And this will be my last post until the day after Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Holidays... happy whatever it is that this season, which marks the beginning of the return of light, means to you.

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We do some early Christmas shopping - Kalib gets trapped in a tube

I think it cooled down a bit last night. It got quite cool in our bedroom and I did not have enough blankets on to keep me warm. I could have got up and got another, but I was too lazy. When I first got up this morning and stepped outside, there was still clear sky and the air felt quite crisp.

Yet, in what seemed like no more than 15 or 20 minutes, clouds hid the clear sky, the temperature quickly warmed and it began to snow - fairly heavy, too. Margie and I had decided that we would do our Christmas shopping early this year and this was the day to begin, so I strapped Kalib into the car seat and off we went.

The temperature was 10 degrees (-12 C) but would rise to 20 (-6 C) by the time we would return home.

As we headed into "downtown" big-box strip Wasilla, we passed this man as he walked through the storm.

He held his head up high.

I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure that he is not afraid of the night.

Walk on, man!

On the Parks Highway, we saw Coca Cola, coming down the road. Was this Wasilla Coca Cola, or was it headed to Fairbanks? Or places in between?

Wherever, off it went.

We were all hungry, so we went to McDonald's so Kalib could have some Chicken McNuggets, a tiny portion of french fries, apple slices and get a chipmunk toy. He showed little interest in the chipmunk. He is into Thomas.

Not so long ago, it was a spatula. He really got into that spatula.

Now it is Thomas the Train.

I have no idea what it will be next.

Whatever it is, Kalib always takes it very serious and delves deep.

He wanted to go into the McDonald's playground, climb into the tube and then come down the slide on the other end. Not long after he started, he stopped at a porthole to show off for his grandparents - grandma in particular. Boy, does he love his grandma!

I think its all that time she spends babysitting him.

Then things got tricky. He moved to the end of the tube, where it doubles back to the slide and there he paniced. Kalib froze. He would not move from this spot. "You've got to keep going, to the slide!" his grandma and I told him repeatedly.

"No!" he would shake his head and cry.

It was an exasperating feeling, both from inside the tube and out. Looking in, I even felt a little claustrophic, the way you do when you are not dead but people think you are so they bury and then you wake up in your coffin and no one can hear your shouts, because there is six feet of dirt on top of you.

We, of course, are too big to enter the tube. So I could not go in and coach him out. There were other kids in there, most a little bigger than he. They could see his plight. I kind of hoped one of them might lead him out, but none did.

This went on for many minutes - us trying to coax Kalib to either go forward to the slide or back to the entrance.

"No!" he would shake his head each time, crying all the while.

"Ok, Kalib," I finally told him. "Your grandma and I are going to go now. Goodbye."

Then we walked away - maybe 7 or eight feet, to a place where he could not see us.

Filled with new motivation, he soon popped his head into the entrance/exit, saw us there and smiled. "Hi Grandma," he said.

Boy, does he love his grandma!

As we prepared to leave, I saw two dogs waiting in the very long drive-through line. The lady told me their names, but I have forgotten.

So I will call the one on the left Frank and the one on the right, Henry.

Henry barked at me.

The lady told him to stop it.

Then we headed down to Target. We would have to make a left turn into the parking up there where you see another car waiting to turn left. I wondered if we would ever get a chance.The traffic coming from the direction of Anchorage seemed to be a nonstop river of lights.

But, when we got to the left turn lane, the drivers across both oncoming lanes of traffic stopped to create a gap that we could drive through. Margie waved thanks to them from the passenger seat as I quickly shot through the gap.

I briefly put my iPhone in the cart. "No!" Kalib said. Then he grabbed the phone and threw it onto the floor. Not so long ago, I swore to myself that no matter what he might do, I would never harshly scold Kalib. But I did. Then I put the phone back in the cart and refused to go any further until he picked it up and handed it to me.

He did.

A bit later, I discovered that the "on-off" button was missing.

So I can't turn off my phone now. That's not really a problem, except that sometimes an ap will lock up and the only way to get that ap working again is to restart the iPhone.

It still doesn't matter much, though. Before the end of the year, I plan to get an iPhone 4s - mostly for the camera. The camera in the 4s - really good.

Maybe we bought some gifts at Target, maybe we didn't. Shopping in these stores is almost impossible for me. We go down the aisles and my mind just blanks out. Besides Kalib throwing my phone on the floor, the only thing I clearly remember is the many Thomas the Train toys. 

We could not buy any of those. Kalib was with us.

If the highway is not too hazardous, we will drive to Anchorage tomorrow and try again.

On the way home, we stopped at Metro Cafe - right about the usual time of 4:00 PM. Branson and a new boy named Jacob were there, claiming to be helping out.

When we pulled into the driveway, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw that Kalib had fallen asleep. 

When he felt the car stop, Kalib woke up. Sort of. Waking up wasn't an easy process.

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Breakfast, coffee break; Melanie comes out and we decorate the tree

Now, today:

In the morning, I got up and drove to Abby's Home Cooking. Abby had been at the wedding last night with her family, including daughter Emily who was a member of the bridal party.

So I decided I would go and let her fix breakfast for me.

I passed this cyclist along the way.

As you can see, another horrid mass of warm air has moved in from the Pacific - just like I speculated it would when I was trying to read the signs and predict the weather.

Damnit!

I hate this warm weather in December.

Funny, if any place else in the country, including the coldest states of the northern tier, had experienced the degree of consistent cold that we did in November, the religious among them would have said it was a sign that end was coming soon.

Hmmmm... perhaps all this warm weather in December here in South Central Alaska means... the end is coming soon?

There she is - Abby - cooking away behind the counter. This morning was the busiest I have ever seen it at Abby's. Every table but one was filled and there was action at the counter, too.

Shelly was not there to help her, because Shelly had run the restaurant all by herself all yesterday so that Abby could go to the wedding.

Abby's husband Andy was there, helping her.

Still, Abby was waitressing, cooking and busing.

If business keeps building up like this, she is going to have to hire more help.

As always at Abby's, I enjoyed my breakfast.

I guess I didn't totally work through the afternoon. Margie took the car and went shopping, so, having little rituals that I follow to keep me sane, when the time came, I walked to Metro Cafe for my coffee break. As I walked, this airplane flew by to both inspire and taunt me.

If it had been me up there, I would have had skis on by now.

I surely would have.

I'm not criticising, mind you.

This pilot might have a perfectly good reason to have kept this plane on wheels.

I can't think of a good reason, but the pilot might have thought of one.

Still, I would have rejected such a thought.

One of Carmen's guests had brought his 1974 yearbook to Metro. I would tell you his name, but I am going to let you see if you can figure it out for yourself.

If you can't, then I am sorry to say it, but your own education was a waste.

I don't care if you are a historian now, getting paid millions of dollars by government agencies and $60,000 a speech - if you can't figure this out...

Now, don't anybody post your answers in comments.

If you were wrong, I would hate to have to inform you.

In the evening, Melanie came over. We ate dinner, then we ate Alaska Wildberry chocolates. After that, we decorated the tree - or least Melanie and Margie did, after they went out into the yard while I was working on the wedding and cut it down.

For a long time, Margie had what she called "a Charlie Brown tree" all picked out.

They didn't cut it, though, because Melanie found another, even better, Charlie Brown tree.

Now, I have a very serious question to ask you:

Do you see any chocolate on the left side of Melanie's face?

Do you see any chocolate on the right side of Melanie's face?

Neither do I.

This is important, because a bit after I took these pictures, Melanie saw the image of herself in a mirror. She claims that chocolate was spread all across her face. She says she then washed that chocolate off.

She then began to scold me, telling me not to dare put a picture of her with chocolate on her face in the blog.

You didn't have chocolate on your face, I told her.

Yes I did, she insisted, and don't use any pictures showing chocolate on my face. Delete them. Delete them all.

I never delete a picture, I told her.

It didn't matter. There was no chocolate.

Margie hangs a Christmas tree ornament.

Melanie hangs a birch bark canoe ornament on a high branch. "We should get a star for the top," Margie said.

"Okay," I agreed.

This conversation has taken place now for, oh, I don't know... 25 years now? 30.

We really should, though.

Or an angel.

Or a cat, holding a song book, singing Christmas carols.

It could have a chip in it and really sing.

Last came the tinsel.

When it was done, I noticed they hadn't put the airplane oraments on the tree.

"Why didn't you put the airplanes on the tree?" I asked, reasonably.

"You have to do it," Melanie said.

"No," I said. "You could have done it."

"No. You always scold me. 'Don't put the airplanes on the tree,' you always say, 'only I can do that.'"

"No," I countered, truth on my side but to no avail, "I never say that."

Yet, it was clear that if the airplanes were going to get on the tree, I would have to do it.

So I did.

There were only two of them.

What happened to the rest?

I had enough airplane ornaments to decorate a whole tree all by themselves.

Not that I would ever do that.

But I had enough.

Where did they go?

Probably flew away, I guess.

Finally, the tree was done. The three of us stood before it and altogether we sang, "Oh Christmas Tree."

Or at least I did. All by myself.

Or at least I sang this much of it, in a non-existant key of my own invention:

"Oh, Christmas tree, oh, Christmas tree! How lovely are thy branches!"

"Dad," Melanie challenged, "are those the real lyrics? Or did you make them up?"

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What would you do if you found $50,000 lying in the road in an unmarked suitcase?

As 2010 drew to its close, Gilford Mongoyak, Jr. was driving near Sam & Lee's Restaurant in his hometown of Barrow when he saw a suitcase lying in the road. Gilford does not own a car, but he had rented this one so that he could take care of some year-end business. Before returning it, he thought that he would just take a nice little evening drive about Barrow and that is what he was doing when he came upon the suitcase.

There were other people out and about, on the road, walking, driving, but no one paid any attention to the suitcase. Gilford drove right past it himself, but then decided that he ought to check it out. He backed up, picked up the suitcase and examined the outside of it.

It carried no identification, so he drove home and took the suitcase inside and showed it to his wife. They did not want to open it, but they did want to return it to its rightful owner and so they opened it up to see if there was any ID inside.

There wasn't, but there was something bundled up in white wrapping paper. "I opened that up," Gilford told me over the phone after I called him to find out this event that I had first learned about through Facebook had come to pass. "I found bills. I said to my wife, "it looks like $10,000."

They did not know what to do, so they started to talk.

"My hands kind of started really shaking with that kind of money right there," he says. "We say, really, what should we do? So my wife and I decided the best thing to do was to take it to Public Safety (Police Department)."

I took the above snapshot of Gilford day last August after I happened upon him as I walked through the Iñupiat Heritage Center in Barrow. I thought that it would be good to include Gilford in a project that I am working on and so I took this quick snapshot to remind me to go back and find him at later date when I had the time to do it right.

So Gilford and his wife took the suitcase to the Police Department. They entered to find a receptionist behind an opaque black window. They stated their business and then a police officer came out to see them.

"You won't believe what I found," Gilford remembers telling him, "look, it's $10,000."

The officer opened up the suitcase and studied the contents

"Then he took a look up at me and said, 'you know what? It's not $10,000. It's $50,000.'"

Gilford asked the officer if anyone was looking for $50,000. The officer told him yes, a woman from Osaka Restaurant.

Due to a back injury, Gilford is unable to work in the labor force that once sustained him. He supports himself primarily through the sale of his art. Here, he has set up in the Heritage Center. Some days, he does okay. Somedays, there are no sales.

Shortly after that, some other officers came in, as well as woman from Osaka who Gilford believes was the owner. I called Osaka to see if could find out who she was, talk to her and get more information, but was told that no one could talk to me about the matter. I also called the Police Department, where a spokesman told me that they could not comment at this time.

Gilford describes the woman as being very happy to get the money back and says she was wearing mink. He believes she had planned to leave on the evening flight south.

"She asked for my name and number. She was happy, shaking," he recalls. "I thought she would call me that night."

She never did call, so a couple of days later, Gilford called her. "I asked her if there is any reward. She said, 'I buy you dinner?'"

The offer did not appeal to him.

There were those who told him that instead of an offer for free meal, he could have kept the entire $50,000 and no one would ever have known.

"A lot of my friends told me that. But I was raised in a good Christian home with a good Christian mom and dad. They always taught me to do the right thing. I have friends who are saying that I was a good Samaritan. My daughter is proud of me." 

His sister, Claudia Mongoyak, who first informed me of Gilford's discovery is also proud of her brother. "I am honored to have such an honest and trustworthy brother," she told me on Facebook.

"My brother Gilford is unemployed due to back problems and makes a living out of selling his carvings and jewelry. He once found a wallker with $500 or $600 in it and called that person and that person was so appreciative to get her wallet back." 

As to the offer of a free dinner at Osaka, "I don't know what to say about that. LOL."

If he could have kept the money, one friend asked, what would he have done with it? "I would have bought a brand new washer and dryer. Our windows are no good. They let too much cold air in. I would have totally fixed the house up.

"I was rich for like 15 or 20 minutes," he laughed.

If anyone should care to learn more about Gilford and his art or to make a purchase, he can be contacted at gmongoyakjr@hotmail.com.

And this from Wasilla:

The holiday is over and the boys have returned to Anchorage to go to day care and be with their parents, but, before they did, Kalib grew bored with doorknobs. He decided the best way to get into a pantry is with his spatula.

When his mom arrived to pick him up, he raced to the window and kissed her through the glass.

Jobe was greatly amused by the walking fingers of his grandma.

Jobe and Kalib spend their last moments with this season's Christmas tree. I am very sad to say it, but next time they come out this tree will be gone.

The holiday season is over.

The carols will now fall silent.

That certain feeling that comes only at Christmas is gone and will not be back for nearly a year.

And this one from India:

About 35 or so miles south of the broiling city of Chennai sits the temple at Mamallapuram, cut entirely out of the rock face of a low cliff.

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