Daily Read #36: ReGifting of the Magi Part 2.

Now, there were two possessions of the Judson McKay Harts in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Judson's brushed steel-bodied laptop that when new had been the envy of his father’s and his grandfather's. The other was Jan’s iPod touch. Had the queen of Rock herself lived in the flat above the airshaft, Jan would have let her share an earbud some day just to depreciate Her Majesty's platinum records hanging on the wall and self-aggrandizing iTunes library. Had Bill Gates been their neighbor, with all his tech treasures piled up in the next basement, Judson would have pulled out his computer every time he passed, just to see him wipe at his eyeglasses in envy.

So now the thin chords of Jan’s earbuds fell about her rippling and spinning like the silver strings of a spider web. They reached below her knee before looping back to her pocket which enclosed the music man as she called it. And then she pulled them out nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and up the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: "Big Macs. Tech Goods of All Kinds Buy and Sell." One flight up Jan ran, and collected herself, panting. Mac, large, too white and puffy, heartily looked the part of the popular sandwich.

"Will you buy my iPod Touch 16G 3^rd generation?" asked Jan.

"I buy ipods," said Mac. "Take its cover off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."

Off was peeled the silicon case.

"One hundred and fifty dollars," said Mac, lifting the mass with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Jan.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Judson’s present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Judson and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a calf hide executive hand-crafted briefcase simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Notepad. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Judson’s. It was like him. Softness and strength--the description applied to both. One hundred and 94 dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 8 cents.

With his laptop in that case Judson might be properly anxious about checking his inbox in any company. Grand as the computer was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old worn backpack that he used in place of a proper case.

When Jan reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her old discman and cracked the cases of discs collecting dust on the top shelf of a bookcase and went to work replacing the sound void made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.

Within fourteen minutes the room was filled with Christmas carols being piped through the speakers attached to that spinning discman like it was Christmas 1998 all over. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Judson doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at that discman, he'll say we look like we belong either in a rest home or on Fullhouse . But what could I do--oh! what could I do with forty four dollars and eight cents?"

Daily Read #35: ReGifting of the Magi Part 1.

Gift of the Magi has long been a favorite holiday tale of many of us I'd imagine. Well written over a hundred years ago, it's been a long time coming that somebody with the help of an inflation calculator modernized the heartwarming story. That somebody might as well be me.

It will come in four installments.

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Forty Four dollars and eight cents. That was all the screen said was left in the e-coffers. Pennies saved one and two at a time by joining every coupon group the world wide web had to offer. Three times Jan refreshed the browser thinking that would change it. Forty Four dollars and eight cents And the next day would be Christmas.

With nothing to do but flop down on the second hand microsuede couch and watch someone win money on Wheel of Fortune. Thus she did. Which instigates the moral reflection that in life at least someone in the world has the promise that all of their spinning will result in big money.

While the madame of the home is gradually subsiding from a state embittered self-pity to a state of more resolved moroseness, take a look at the home. A basement flat at just over $200 per week. It was no hovel but it also had no view better than the farside of a window well.

In the vestibule below was a welcome mat onto which few feet would tread, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. Judson McKay Hart."

The "Mckay" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $700 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $470, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming M. But whenever Mr. Judson McKay Hart came home and reached his flat below he was called "Juddie" and greatly hugged by Mrs. Judson McKay Hart, already introduced to you as Jan. Which is all very good.

Jan finished her pouting and attended to her matted brown locks with a scrunchie. She stood by the window and looked out dully at the gray gravel soaked by gray rain that fell from the sliver of gray sky that could be seen above. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $44.08 with which to buy Judson a present. She had been saving every dime she could for months, with this result.

A direct deposit just shy of $500 a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $44.08 to buy a present for Judson. Her Juddie. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and techy--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Judson.

There was a desktop computer between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen such a desktop in the house of graduate student. Even a squant and clumsy person may, by observing his reflection in the monitor, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Jan, far from being squant or clumsy, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass monitor. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length. Brushing it back behind her ears again she saw something truly of value in the reflection of the monitor.

Daily Read #34: Must be Santa

So both my parents are elementary teachers and they along with every teacher in the world (well at least the Western World) deserves your thoughts and prayers today. Take the excitement of a single child multiply it by 28 to the power of 2 because there is definitely a synergy effect when you get 28 7 year olds counting down to Christmas and put them in a box that is roughly 40 feet by 40 feet for the day as it snows out side and oh by the way you're in charge of teaching them to READ. How many of you would rather spend the day in the Hanoi Hilton?

It's unfortunate that we haven't found a way to convert that excitement into energy, as it is likely enough to power an aircraft carrier--even one that has decked its halls with strands of LED lights and space heaters.

The terrible part for my mom is that she knows what it's like to be on the giving end of the carpool and not just the receiving. She knows that she and her colleagues are the sacrificial offering on the yuletide log. For it is better that one teacher's sanity parish than an entire classroom of parents spend two additional days of the advent threatening to cancel Christmas if you don't stop playing dodge ball with the ornaments from the Christmas tree.

Don't even get me started on the fact that school teachers can literally eat their Christmas 'bonus'. Clearly who ever is making that budget decision doesn't do more than drop their kids off at school; actually scratch that, even the parents that drop off and pick up their kids get a sense of the chaos that is December at an elementary school with the average class size of 27 as they pass the riot police that make the protesters at the G8 summit look like A Sunday afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The kids of these tight wads are probably bussed.

Anyway consider upping the ante a bit on that Christmas gift card for the first grade teacher in your life and make it to here rather than Walmart.

Now that slight soapbox tirade was not the intended direction of this post. I was really going to devote the post to one of the most purely joyful/magical Christmas memories of my childhood. Yes I had both: a childhood and a magical Christmas memory or two. Remember every Scrooge has a Fezziwig.

I probably could have done some fact-finding to better crystallize this memory but it might lose some of its magic. I was no older than 5. We were at a family Christmas party at my Grandparents house in New Castle, UT. Never heard of it? I'm sure you have; you pass it on your way to Beryl or Modena.

Still nothing? Here's a map

So even as a pre-5 year old I knew that very few people in the world knew where New Castle UT was. I grew up 30 minutes west of New Castle and I'd imagine that a good many of my peers had no idea even up through high school. But someone very important knows where New Castle is, give you a few hints.

Think Red.
Think Jolly.
Think Ho,Ho,Ho.

He not only knows where New Castle is but he's been there at least once. The party had been going for quite a while and we had likely been enjoying some of my Grandma's delicious holiday fixings when came a knock at the door. It caught our attention because again this is New Castle and it was snowing. We heard the jingle of the bells on his bag of gifts as he walked in.

Us kids had to pick our jaws up out of the green shag carpet. He was everything Santa should be. This was no creepy mall Santa. This was St. Nicholas incarnate. Every detail was legit. The beard, the belly, the rosy cheeks, black boots, red velvet and fur trimmed coat and pants. He was more Santa than this poser:



We all sat on his lap without having to stand in a line that started in a food court. And I'm pretty sure he brought us presents that we got to open that night. I was a Christmas skeptic from a very young age but this single encounter with Santa Claus was very difficult evidence to discount. I had been thorough in checking to see if any uncle, father, grandfather was missing and they were not.

I would have been no less impressed had he come down the chimney which I think this guy would have had it not been converted to a wood stove.

I don't remember if Santa ever came back like that again, he didn't need to; the magic of that moment has had definite staying power; it's doubtful I could forget it and arguable that I wouldn't want to.

Darn it; I've got to go throw snowballs at carolers before I experience any more thawing of my Christmas heart.

Thanks Santa.

Daily Read #33 - Father Christmas

So I've got an outstanding father. However, if I were to identify one discrete failing of my father it would be that he is an absolute snooze/enigma to shop for. I've heard rumor that this must be some sort of late onset Y-chromosomal related disorder and that I'm not the only one that is at a perennial loss as to what to put under dear old Dad's Christmas tree. To further explain this point let's play a game a la family feud.

Things you buy a fifty year old man;

Survey says:
1-Golf Paraphernalia: I can't imagine my dad on a golf course unless he's watching a cross country race.
2-Power Tools: I'll let my mom answer why this one isn't needed.
3-Grill gear: Don't need to ask where I get it from.
4-Tickets to a game: Dad would like these I think but he lives in Cedar City.
5-A nice watch: he has one that is sufficient for his needs but will not become an heirloom piece.
6-Hobby gear: you know for fishing, hunting, cycling, tennis etc.

Things you buy an eighty-year old man:

Survey says:
1-Mixed nuts
2-Socks
3-A puzzle
4-A book with extra large print
5-A calendar.
6-Sweats
7-Nothing.

This second list is eerily similar to what I've gotten for dad in various combinations for the last 7 Christmases. The lameness of my gift giving was always a source of concern until just this year.

I'm now a father who's recieving gifts from his children. Although my daughter's a little bit young to quite know what gift-giving is all about, she has already given me a gift that I couldn't be happier with: she's potty trained. The fact that increasingly her business is no longer my business is gift enough for the next several Christmases.

And I look back at several other advancements she's made and I consider those gifts too. For example, she feeds herself now (when she chooses to eat). Second she talks even while she's crying. Third she can walk so I don't always have to carry her. Her neck supports her head even. She's given me a lot that makes my life considerably easier that it has been at some point of her existence.

She'll grow out of a car seat eventually (maybe by the time she'll be able to drive herself places) . She'll eventually learn how to make her own money to spend and hopefully govern herself as a fully contributing member to society.

In short I guess I'm trying to say, Dad this isn't just a can of nuts it's a can of nuts from an adult who does most all of the things a good adult should do. Merry Christmas and Thanks for helping me get here.

Daily Read #32 - Twelve Days of Christmas

So I had intended to post this yesterday as it would have been the official start day of the 12 days of Christmas. As it were the Great Disconnect of 2010 has created a little bit of a good reads bottleneck.

Have you heard of the Twelve Days of Christmas? No not the annoying tune with lords a leaping, drummes drumming, maids a-milking and a menagerie of birds in a pear tree. The Twelve days of Christmas is kind of like secret Santa but you choose who you give to and it's not just a single gift you bring them but twelve days of Christmas cheer often à la edible goods or small Christmas trinkets.

One of our family's traditions was to do one and sometimes two 12 days of Christmas targets a year. We would start on the 13th and finish on Christmas eve.

Almost always we stayed anonymous not an easy feat if the target really wants to know who you are. We got pretty good at running though so it got harder to catch us and growing up one of our favorite targets were widows in our church as they were easy for little kids to do the ring and run part of twelve days.

I think twelve days were a fantastic tradition for a couple of reasons.

First, I think that doing something for others is a great way to not think so much about yourself. Kids need that around the holidays (Adults need it all year round).

Our family was not rich and though I don't think that 12 days was ever a huge monetary commitment* it helped teach us that wealth is not defined by how much you have but how much you give. [Also the product of a mom who planned for it well in advance].

Twelve day's targets were very rarely charity cases in the eyes of the world. Most often we chose people who we wanted to know that someone in the world really cared about them. Hunger and poverty are serious problems but so is loneliness. We may feel more interconnected with family and friends than every before thanks to modern technology, however one of the problems with our increasingly tight knit social web is that it's essentially blindfolded us to those outside of it. Twelve days targets raised our level of social awareness; they helped us to see those people who otherwise would have occupied our blindspot.

Probably the greatest challenge with twelve days is that it requires consistency for a good portion month of December. However anytime you can inject some regularity into the holiday chaos it's a good thing. [This is one of the reasons why I am a Bran-maniac until the new years].

So if you need more details on how your family could do the Twelve Days. Comment below. If not I hope that you are finding some traditions that mean to your kids what Twelve days meant to us.

Daily Read #31: Get your bake on

So I know that I've razzed Christmas enough. This post will only be about one of the few things that I honestly and truly love about Christmas: Cookies. Although I'm not really ready to give the holidays too much credit for baked goods, I eat enough of them year round that it's not like I'm staring at the calendar every year starting in January saying, 'Come on Christmas. Need me some cookies'

I remember being in a church class as a young teen where the instructor had us write down characteristics we would look for in a spouse. Now it might surprise many of you to know that perhaps the most popular response among the boys as the number one trait wanted for Future Mrs. Me to possess was that she could bake.

Now given even a few years there would have likely been a shift in what 12 year olds were looking for in a wife from Betty Crocker to Betty Boop as we stopped thinking that we would like to marry our mothers, but for 12 year olds baked bread was a priority. However at the time baking didn't make my list. That's not to say that it wasn't important to me; contrarily, it was too important to me to leave up to the crap shoot of love.

I knew that baked goods needed to be a part of my life, whether or not they were made with love by a wife.

So I bake.

I'm a man and I bake.

Now I know that men cook but it's most always slanted as a natural extension of our inner hunter. Our gender is not supposed to admit to cooking unless by cooking we're talking about what we have recently killed, gutted and butchered before roasting it before us with its blood splattered on our smock (manspeak for apron).

If you ever show up on my doorstep and I've got blood spattered on me---it's likely a nose bleed not a wildebeest. However on any given day, you may show up and find me splotched with flour. Although our society has 'modernized', if you're a guy and someone opens the door and you've got flour dusted on your cheeks, you're going to have some explaining to do.

Sad though it may be sometimes I like to go with the quick answer and tell them I'm sheet-rocking. No follow-up questions with that response. However, if I happen to confess that I'm actually just doing a little holiday baking most everyone with one eye-brow raised, begins to question me like Barbara Walters

Don't even get me started on taking the finished product to friends and neighbors. I cannot tell you the number of times I've had to just nod in affirmation to phrases like, 'Ooh! She didn't need to make us anything." "I need to get the recipe for these from your wife", or my favorite, "My husband wishes his wife could bake like this too!". Under very rare instances do I correct them, but to all you in the blogosphere be forewarned that if you get Cookies from the Harts. 95% of the time, Jan's contribution was cleaning up not baking.

So suffice it to say, I bake and I bake well.

Here let me show you.



Yep I made these. And actually I've uploaded them with a new blog widget called scratch and sniffer. Go ahead and scratch your screen to get a whiff of how delicious they smell.

I won't tell anyone that you actually tried that.

These are family favorites. I think for a couple of reasons. First they are delicious. Second we are chronic multi-taskers; anytime we can consolidate two great things into one, we'll do it. We eat cookies; we eat candy. At some point someone got the genius idea that we should start putting candy in our cookies.

You've heard of Turducken right? Well I at some point I'm going to bake candy in a cookie which I will then bake in a cupcake and then Freeze, wrap in Ice Cream, freeze again, dip in hardshell and serve with hot fudge--I'll call it Molten Icecupcooken.

As far as I know there is no hex on any of these recipes by one of my foremothers that will make anyone eating the end-product prepared by someone out of the bloodline breakout in hives but let someone you wouldn't mind seeing suffer from boils try the first one just to be sure.

Will you be able to make them as well as me? Probably not, but there is only one way to find out, preheat your oven.

A couple of cookie basics.
Two words: parchment paper; don't bake without it. Get yourself some precut sheets from Orson Gygi. Tell them Judson sent you.

Second, other than your sugar and any mix ins like chocolate chips, always always pre-mix your dry ingredients. Put the flour, baking soda, powder, salt, [cocoa] into a gallon size ziplock bag and give it a few shakes before adding it to your wet ingredients.

Lastly it doesn't apply so much to these featured cookies because you have to form the dough but for your basic drop cookie get a cookie dough scoop. It portions out your dough so you get uniform cookies and you don't end up manhandling all of the dough.

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies:
***Warning these contain traces of peanuts***** [and by traces I mean gobs]
Cream:
1/2 c. margarine
1/2 c. peanut butter (smooth)
1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar

Beat in:
1 egg
1 t. vanilla

Add dry ingredients:
1-1/4 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
3 t. soda (not a typo you really need 3 teaspoons. It is what makes the cookies rise up so much that you can press the peanut buttercup down into the cookie"

Roll dough into small balls 1 tsp or so place in miniature muffin tins with paper liners.

Bake 10 minutes at 350. Remove from oven.

While still hot press 1 peanut butter cup into each cookie(Generic peanut butter cups like sam's choice or Palmer's work better than Reese's).

Rollo Cookies:

Cream:
1 cup butter (softened)
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar

Add:
2 eggs

Mix together then add to wet ingredients:
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups flour

Mix wet then dry ingridents with creamed butter and sugar. Wrap about 1 tsp of dough around a rolo. Roll in powdered sugar and then Freeze (Absolutely essential). Bake at 350 for 12 minutes. Maybe a little less (hard to tell because the cookie's already brown) once the rollo has flattened out they are pretty much done.

Cool before eating unless you like scorching your taste buds with molten caramel.

Hidden Mint:

These cookies are delightfully minty fresh. Has the Holiday rush left you no time to brush? Don't worry about it--grab one of these on your way out the door and eat it on your way to the next party--you'll be ready for even the most intrusive personal space violators. They apparently also travel very well which I wouldn't know because they usually don't make it far from the oven. [I guess technically I'm still carrying them around everywhere I go so yes they do travel well].

Cream:
1/4 c. butter
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar

Add:
1 egg
1 T. water
1 t. vanilla

Mix in dry ingredients
1-1/2 c + 2 T. flour
1/2 t. soda
1/4 t. salt

Form dough around mint (I prefer to use the smallest York peppermint patties I can find). Bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
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Also pictured were pumpkin cookies and while combining vegetables with butter and sugar is also a strategy our family cookbook frequently employs. You'll have to wait on that one.

Daily Read #30B: Fruits of your labors.

You're being doubly blessed today. Two daily reads in one day does life get any better?

Make sure you check out Andy's read below. Andy is my first cousin once removed if you're a strict pedigreenie. We've always just been friends who happened to run into each other at family reunions. We're about 2 months and about a foot apart.

Andy is 6'6; needless to say I look up to him. [I remember when we both ended up at BYU freshman year I wondered what the soreness in my neck was that first week and then I realized it was from hanging out with Andy.]

Andy graciously offered to contribute to GoodReads which I think you'll soon realize is awesome. He doesn't dangle his modifiers and is precise in his use of their and they're. Those of you bothered by this* if you are still reading will appreciate this especially. [You know who you are]

Well we've obviously got internet back at home. [You would think we were going without heat or running water with how bad we suffered]. We just were so worried that we were falling behind on our indexing....

I've got three posts started but for now I'll leave you with this also guest authored but by Rachel. If you have been with us since last edition you'll know that our blogs readership was one of the contributors to the Palmer Family's victory in the Hoopes Vision Video contest. If you missed out go back and read some of the older posts.

Ryan had the lasik procedure done last Thursday and naturally it was pretty awesome. If only we were still practicing the whole eye for an eye thing anyone who voted could have gotten free lasik too---too bad.

I have to admit I'm a tad bit jealous. But maybe Ryan will give me his old glasses.
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My camera has been having some struggles lately (since it took a dive on a hard wood floor) So it literally took days to get it to import our pictures from Ryan's surgery. But luckily I got 'em!

It's now been 3 days since he was 'lasered' and it's going really well. His vision out of his right eye is "crystal clear". His left eye is still adjusting and is slightly blurry, but the doctors said that it will stabilize within the next couple weeks.

I tried to take pictures of everything at Hoopes (and probably succeeded in looking like the crazy 'scrapbooking mormon' in the process).


One last 'glasses' picture together before going into Hoopes. (It's really hard to take self portrait pictures with this big heavy camera.)

A dorky picture of Ryan in the elevator on his way to Hoopes.

Prepping for surgery. Right after this picture they took his glasses off him. We won't be needing those anymore!



This is Dr. Hoopes and his assistants working on Ryan. The waiting room was really cool. I could see everything through the glass wall and they put the surgery up on the tv screens.


Ryan's eyeball! They put the blue marks on his eyeball with a special marker that shows them where 'horizontal' is so they can tell if everything is lined up right. It's a bit freaky to watch it happen, but at the same time you can't look away. We have it on DVD, we'll bring it down for Christmas. We can play a game to see who can watch the video and eat grapes at the same time without gagging.



This is Ryan walking out of the operating room with his new eyes. At this point his vision was "cloudy and milky".


This picture was taken the next morning. Ryan can read the bottom sentence with the smallest print (even while holding it at arms length). When he went in for his preliminary evaluation, he couldn't read anything. Even with the blurriness, he's a pretty solid 20/20.


Doctor Barney took this picture of us at the end of Ryan's follow-up appointment. Weston Barney is from Richfield and knows Ryan. In fact, Ryan 'saran wrapped' Weston's brother to the goal post in High School.



Ryan has to tape these 'eye guards' to his face at night time so he doesn't accidentally rub his eyes while he's sleeping. He only has to do this for a couple more nights. It's a good thing because his eyebrows are getting quite thin. Just Kidding.

It was fun to pick up the girls from school and show them Dad's new eyes!
'
This was such a wonderful experience for Ryan and for our family and we were truly blessed to have it done for free!

Good Read #30: Ring out Wild...Unaccompanied Voices?

This is my first post to "Good Reads for Good Deeds"--thanks to Judson for letting me come aboard. I thought I'd devote my first entry to one of my favorite parts of Christmas: music.

When we arrived at our little hospital branch chapel this morning we found that our old, worn carpet had been replaced with a snazzy new gray and brown weave. Unfortunately, in the process of switching out the carpet the organ had somehow been unplugged/broken/killed. We never quite figured out how the music died, but we never got the organ to work.

I've occasionally conducted the music in church (who doesn't want to see a tall guy in a bow tie wave their arms around?) and the branch president asked me if I could pick out some hymns to sing a capella. Yikes. I decided that our lack of accompaniment was the perfect opportunity to test our congregation's Christmas carol confidence.

I'm here to tell you that while we weren't awarded a grammy, "Away in a Manger," "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," and "The First Noel" sounded beautiful. There's something magical and wonderful about people--lay people, untrained people, confused and lost people--joining their voices together to sing a song about "Peace on earth and mercy mild."

I remembered afterwards that the Puritans didn't use music in their services, and they may have done away with hymnals all together. While I think we'd be in trouble come New Year's, singing from memory and from the heart without the crutch of the organ was pretty special.

I'll close with this video that some of you may have seen. It's been making the internet-rounds, but is a good one. I think things like this should happen more often: