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.

View images as slides

Couch warfare; someone gave me a gift certificate to Family, but it went to another; dogs - both nice and mean; Through-the-Window Metro study

The day began with promise. I saw a human being right away - Caleb, deeply engrossed in his video war games. When I looked at the screen, he was blasting away at an enemy (the avatar of an actual person somewhere else) who was scampering down the street in great panic as he tried to avoid Caleb's bullets.

It sure looked to me like Caleb was hitting him, but he dived into an open doorway, apparently unscathed. Immediately after that, Caleb was firing at someone else when another fighter popped out from the side and almost ran into Caleb's fire. Caleb stopped shooting for just one moment, or he might have hit that guy.

"Wow," I said, "that guy almost ran right into your fire."

"That was one of my teammates," Caleb said.

"So if you had hit him it would have been a case of friendly fire."

"No," he said. "Nothing would have happened. This is set up so you can't kill your teammates."

Just then, some kind of rocket came down on Caleb's avatar and killed it.

"I hope I didn't cause that by distracting you," I apologized.

"Oh, no, you didn't cause it," he said. "Those rockets just get you. You can't avoid them. It happens all the time."

And then you just become someone else, or the old you pops back to life and you keep fighting.

Yesterday, after coming in contact with a total of three people all day, all at once, for just as long as it took to buy an Americano, I promised to go to Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant today. I did, and as I parked my car, I saw Sally walking towards her's.

So I shouted out to her. She gave me a hug, and then we talked for just a little bit. She asked me if I had received my certificate to get a free breakfast at Family Restaurant.

I was puzzled by this, as I knew nothing about any certificate.

It turns out that after I included her and a bit of her story about her battle with alcohol and drug abuse in a past post, one of my blog readers purchased gift certificates at Family for both Sally and me.

"Really?" I asked, puzzled.

"Yes," she said. "I got mine and I've used it already. Ask Connie, she knows about it."

So we said goodbye and I went in to get my breakfast, wondering if it had already been paid for. 

I ordered ham and eggs, over easy, plus hash browns and multi-grain toast, which I asked to be delayed until I had eaten everything else.

And here is my waitress, bringing my toast, after I had eaten everything else. But I forgot to speak her name into my iPhone dictation ap, and I have forgotten it.

After I spread strawberry jam upon my toast and ate it, I went to the check-out register and asked about the gift certificate. The lady behind the counter knew nothing about it, so she called out to Connie. Connie got a horrified look on her face and said that she had given the gift certificate to someone else.

This lady, Cindy, was standing in line behind me. "It was my husband that she gave it to," she said. She told me his name was Bill, too. She said there had been an argument at the time as to whether or not the gift certificate was supposed to go to her husband, but in the end he had taken it.

"I've got it in the car," she said. "I'll give it to you."

So I followed her to her car, where she did some rummaging, but she could not find it. She said it must be at home. She said she would find it and bring it tomorrow.

"I've just been wondering who Funny Face is," she said. That could be kind of puzzling for a wife, for her husband to get a mysterious gift certificate from someone she does not know by the name of Funny Face.

"Funny Face is one of my blog readers," I told her. "From Texas."

"Oh," she said.

Thank you, Funny Face.

I did speak Cindy's name into my iPhone, but, just as in every other case where I have done so, I remembered the name even without going back to the iPhone.

What are the odds that Cindy would have been standing in line right behind me when I asked about that gift certificate?

This is just another one of those hugely unlikely coincidences that happen to me all the time.

A bit later, when I took my walk, this dog that I first met Tuesday appeared again and came to greet me. It seemed to come from the same house where a dog named Angel lives. Angel is one of the nastiest dogs that I have ever met. Angel has bitten me. I think Angel is the Devil's angel.

The German Shepherd followed. I was a little leery, but it proved not to be vicious. It's still a bit of a pup, though, so its got time.

Maybe tomorrow, I will dig up my pictures of Angel and include them in my post - if there's room. Then you will see how mean she is. You will think that I had nerves of steel just to take such pictures.

The German Shepherd, in profile, tail down submissively. Maybe the future will be okay with this dog.

She told me the dog's name. I knew I would not forget it, so I did not speak it into my iPhone. I have forgotten it.

At the usual time, I headed to Metro Cafe. Carmen was feeling happy. The day was warm for Wasilla in late January and business had been good.

Through the Metro Window Study, #532.

I take so many pictures through the window of people on the other side of Carmen's counter that I just decided I've got a genuine study going.

I don't really know the number of this particular study, but #532 sounds pretty impressive, so I settled on it.

Carmen's husband, Scott, was taking down Christmas lights. He said these lights had been a disaster. The wind had pounded them against the windows, badly chipping the glass.

"I want it to be Spring," Scott said. "The older I get, the colder I get."

Despite the warmth of the day, right near freezing, the wind was brisk, so that must account for the fact that Scott, who works at Prudhoe Bay, was cold.

The moon was very near full.

Baby-in-waiting update: Still not here yet. Lavina is resting and is more comfortable now. Margie comes home in just over three days. I am a little more hopeful now that baby will wait for her/his grandma than I was last night.