Holiday Season 2019 - A Christmas Story & The Shark's Tooth Tiki Bar

Friday, November 29, 2019

Lunch with cousin Leo today. We had a wonderful time visiting with him. After lunch Pete and Steph had to go to work so Mom and I stayed home with the kids. We watched Christmas Story which Abby, Xander, and Emma had never seen before. They seemed to really like it. 

After the movie we had dinner and then opened up the tiki bar Abby set up. Abby and I made up a tiki drink just for the evening. The beverage was made with about a third of an average sized tub of rainbow sherbet, one cup of Hawaiian Punch, and one cup of pineapple juice all stirred together. We divided it into 5 glasses and then topped each glass off with ginger ale. It turned out great and it was enjoyed by all!

By the way, Emma named the drink the Shark Bite and I named the tiki bar the Shark's Tooth Tiki Lounge. 

Xander's Christmas Picture

Xander made this on my iPad (with a moderate amount of support from me) the day after Thanksgiving 2012.

Abby and Xander - Christmas 2010: A Visit from Santa Claus

As I said in my last post, I recently visited my brother Pete and his family in Virginia. I reminded his children, Abby and Xander, that I hadn't seen or talked to them since before Christmas and I asked them if Santa had come to visit them. Abby said that yes, he had come while they were sleeping.

I asked Abby what Santa had brought her and she showed me her Play-Doh Cake Makin' Station.

I asked Xander what Santa had brought him and he showed me his Buzz Lightyear VTech Learn & Go which has a number of interactive learning activities on it.

Mount Vernon 2011

Mom and I just got back from a trip to Virginia where we visited my brother Pete, his wife Stephanie, and their two children, Abby and Xander. We we all had the chance to visit Mount Vernon to tour the mansion and the grounds of the estate. It was beautiful. The gift shop had a 'Christmas corner' where I found the ornaments pictured here. I gave the glass ornament of the Mount Vernon mansion to Stephanie, the gingerbread Martha to Abby, and the gingerbread mansion to Xander. I also picked up the same ornament I gave to Stephanie for myself.

Feast of the Annunciation

It was the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25 when Mom and I were in Washington D.C. visiting Pete, Steph, Abby, and Xander (they actually live in Virginia). This feast is important for a number of reasons, but I find it particularly noteworthy here as it is the name of the Minneapolis parish we grew up in and celebrated a lot of Christmases.

The Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis is a Roman Catholic parish that was attended by my family starting in 1969 when we moved to south Minneapolis. The church is located at 509 West 54th Street near the corner of Diamond Lake Road and Lyndale Avenue.

The following history is from Annunciation's website:

"The parish of Annunciation was created by Archbishop Dowling with the appointment of the Rev. Francis J. Lang, as pastor, on September 8 1922. Most of the pioneer parishioners were young and middle-aged couples, many with children. Before 1922, most of the people in this area worshipped at Incarnation parish to the north and Assumption parish in Richfield to the south. The first parish Mass was offered on October 1, 1922."

"Within a year, this young community occupied the first rooms of a new church-school building, which still serves our community well. On August 5, 1923 the first liturgy was offered in the building and on September 10, 1923, four Dominican Sisters opened Annunciation School, with 72 pupils."

"The Post-War Boom, 1945-1960, brought the challenge of rapid population growth and expansion. On December 16, 1962 the first Mass was offered by the community in its new worship space."

I remember the big summer rummage sales in the school gymnasium in the summer in the 1970's and I remember the parish festival, Septemberfest, which I believe began in the 1980's. Dad contributed a lot of time and effort to the set up and take down of that festival.

Christmas 2010

Dale and I sang together at the 4 p.m. Christmas Eve service at Gethsemane Episcopal Church in downtown Minneapolis. Mom and her friend Lynne attended. Before the service began I had a small glass of champagne. After the service we went to Mom's where we started dinner with cheese fondue.

Following the fondue we had spinach salads with Mandarin oranges and walnuts. Dale and I brought the dressings, namely Annie's brand raspberry vinaigrette and Annie's papaya poppy seed. Both went very well with the Mandarin oranges. Mom broiled steaks after we finished the cheese fondue. Dessert was Baba Dessert which I named for my baba, Jean (Driscoll) Wagner, because I could never remember the name of the dessert itself. It was a very lovely dinner and evening and nice to continue with our traditional Christmas Eve foods!

Dale and I had a lovely and quiet Christmas morning. We spent time relaxing and enjoying each other's company and looking at our beautiful Christmas tree. We also spent some time getting ready for having Mom over for Christmas dinner. We made the crock pot beef stroganoff recipe that we've been using for years. I'm pretty sure that this is the first year we've made it for Christmas dinner. It's one of our favorite winter recipes and this is the first time we've made it this season. It's also extremely easy to make.

Mom came over at 3 p.m. and we had drinks and appetizers (crackers and hummus). We watched the ending of Ben-Hur on Turner Classic Movies while Dale got the egg noodles for the stroganoff and the broccoli ready. We were eating by about 4:30. It was all very delicious. Dessert was a Buche de Noel from Kowalski's and coffee.

We then spent some time reminiscing about how Mom celebrated Christmas as a child. I've recently been doing a lot of geneology research into the French Canadian branch of my family tree. My great-grandmother Cora (Alma) Driscoll (Fugere) was from French Canada and I was curious to know if she had passed any French Canadian Christmas traditions down to my grandmother Jean Wagner (Driscoll). Mom said she didn't think so. She told me that my Great-Grandma Cora had never taught any of her children French and that Grandma Jean (hereafter referred to as Baba) resented that. Mom said she didn't think my great-grandma passed down any specific Christmas customs to Baba.

Mom talked a little bit about how her own Christmases played out as a child. She said they never did anything on Christmas Eve but that she and her siblings opened their stockings on Christmas morning. She said she always got an orange in her stocking. They would go to church and then come home and open presents. Each child got only one present because money was very tight when she was younger. She said that one year she got a slip as her Christmas present.

I remember quite clearly my own Christmas traditions while growing up. Christmas Eve day was usually pretty relaxed (for us kids at least). Mom I'm sure was getting ready for Christmas Eve's fondue dinner and doing last minute preparations for Christmas Day. Dad always did his Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve day. I remember going with him to the Southdale shopping mall one year when I was probably 12 or 13. I was surprised how quiet it was as the mall that day. I had supposed more people would be doing last minute shopping but that was not the case. I don't know if that was an anomaly for the time or not. It sure isn't that way today. We'd start the fondue dinner at about 5:00 pm with the cheese fondue. I remember helping to stir the cheese on the stovetop while Mom slowly added more cheese the pot. It would then be added to the fondue pot on the dining room table. We'd then dip chunks of stale French bread into the cheese. It was delectable!! We'd move on to the meat in oil fondue after the bread in cheese. Mom always had beef stew meat for the oil fondue. She'd mix together a special ketchup-like mixture for dipping the fried meat in. In maybe the late seventies or early eighties she added scallops to the oil fondue. She made a special herbed butter to dip the scallops in after they were done in the fondue pot. After the meat fondue she would get the chocolate fondue ready. I remember dipping strawberries and bananas in the chocolate. It was divine! I remember being amazed at how much I could eat when we'd do fondue. It was easy to pack it all in due to taking breaks between the courses to get the next course ready and because we had to eat slowly during each course. That's just the nature of fondue. It takes time to prepare each little morsel!

Christmas morning began with opening stockings once everyone was awake. Stockings were always chock full of good stuff. We'd go to mass at Annunciation Catholic church after opening stockings and eating a light breakfast. After mass we'd open the presents from underneath the Christmas tree. At about 2 p.m. we'd have a Christmas feast. The meal was usually a repeat of Thanksgiving dinner but some years we had ham instead of turkey. Dessert was usually Baba Dessert. After dinner I'd call whoever my best friend was at the time to wish them a Merry Christmas. We'd then talk about everything we got as a Christmas present. The evening of Christmas day was usually spent recovering from the food and excitement by watching Christmas programming on T.V. Once the VCR came along we'd spend the evening watching Christmas movies.

Sam told me that his Christmas in Leavenworth with Becky and the boys was very nice. They did fondue on Christmas Eve and had about 16 friends and neighbors over. According to Sam it was 'high adventure'. They started with cheese fondue and continued with meat. Becky bought a chocolate fountain and they had fruit to dip in that for dessert. Christmas day was "low key." Sam said the boys opened presents, had 'a big haul and were pretty happy'. I asked Calvin over the phone if Santa paid them a visit and he said 'maybe'. He told me he got a robot from Santa. Cashel said that Santa came and left him an Imaginex. I have no idea what that is. Cairic confirmed that Santa had indeed stopped by and wanted to get back to playing with toys.

Pete has been in Washington D.C. for the past year going to school for the Air Force. He, Stephanie, Abby, and Xander spent Christmas there this year. They hosted Stephanie's mom and step-dad and one of Steph's sisters along with her husband and two kids.

Compared to Sam and Pete I feel like I had a pretty low-key Christmas this year.