Wednesday night – boxing day

December 26, 2012 johncohn Leave a comment

In England, the day after Christmas is called Boxing Day. I’ve never really been sure why. I think it was traditionally the day that you went and visited your relatives… Once i heard that it was called boxing day because thats the day you took unwanted gift boxes back to the stores for exchange.. But that doesn’t sound plausible , .. This is what i was thinking about as i broke down all the cardboard boxes left-over from our celebration this week. Could that be it ?!
Nite all, nite sam
-me

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Tuesday night – xmaster

December 26, 2012 johncohn Leave a comment

Wonderful xmas day… I know it was wonderful, because I’m still in my jammies and it’s almost midnight.
Diane and I woke early, but our little darlings didn’t rise and shine until noon.. We spent from noon until about 5 lounging around, eating, opening gifts and hanging out.breakfast was at 2 pm. the last gift was unwrapped about 5.. and we finally stepped out of the house for the first time around 8 PM

max and jac made their own apple pie flavored moonshine…

the boys got me hookers and strippers…

by 2 pm the dogs were tired out..

grandma and granpa scored with a new head for Gabe’s lacross stick

a four way maple toast to celebrate the end of the day.

gabre is really like chemestry.. so he got lots of marginally safe pyrotechnic chemicals..

we then strung stale bagels and doughnuts on hemp cord..

We got outside for the first time at 8PM.. We drove down to the catamount trail and hiked up in the woods to decorate a tree for the animals it’s something we’ve done every year with the kids..

There was an almost full moon out.. we didn’t even need flashlights. A bright Jupiter was right next to the moon.. so beautiful !

the moon was so bright hat we even cast shadows !

one by one we hung the stale baked goods in the tree…

then spread grain and nuts..

they looked pretty cool in the flash !

we put a samstone on the tree as we do every year now

a lovely, slow and lazy day… lots of love..some sadness mixed in .. .

our hearts were full today

we hope yours was too…

nite all, nite sam

-me

Monday night – Sam decorates the tree

December 24, 2012 johncohn Leave a comment

Very nice and slow day as folks ready for xmas.. One thing that’s always important for us is finding ways to bring Sam into our celebration. Today one task we had was to decorate the tree.. we have a tradition of decorating them in interesting themes each of the past 6 years… we’ve had zombie trees, space ships, mexican trees. We were hard up this year thinking of a theme.. Ideas we’d discussed were a ‘chemist-tree’.. with decorations from the periodic table.. nah.. too cerebral.. then we had the idea from Gabes recent (forced) reading of the Scarlet Letter in school. of putting a giant read ‘A’ on it .. and calling it and ‘Adultree’.. .. no.. too much of a downer.. ..

Then we had the idea.. We did a ‘red bull’ tree.. The reason it was uch a great idea is that we have 5 boxes of red bull cans that sam collected up in the attic.. they went from trash to relic as did many of his belongings. Sam loved red bull.. and it remains our toast of choice to his memory. One of the boxes contained a set of cans that sam and I had cut apart into sheets. our plan was to decorate one of the walls his room with them.. but… we never got there…

So.. we had this roll of cut apart redbull cans.. perfect for making garlands.. Gabe has a huge collection of redbull pop tops to go with..

gabe strung up some of the intact cans..

while I cut apart the unrolled sheets… It felt great to handle these again… .. it was one of the last projects sam and I did together..

brit and hannah helped me staple the strips into garlands..

and up on the tree they went

sam had painted one of hte cans gold for soem reason. max took it and made a great red bull angel for the top of the tree..

then the kids made us dinner.. Max made a beautiful beet and gorganzola sald, matt made he,p burgers, ian made scalloped potatoes, Hannah made quinoa salad… and gabe made crepes for desert ..

we lit candles for sam..

and dug in

nothing flavors up xmas like daves insanity

just finishing desert !

now.. gotta tuck the babies in

merry Christmas everyone.. I hope you have as much love around you as we have…

merry Christmas all, merry Christmas sam

-me

Sunday night – mammoth burn

December 24, 2012 johncohn Leave a comment

We woke late and started the drive back to vermont. on the way we visited Dian’es uncle Armond. His wife Miriam died a week ago after a long illness. Armond is 88 and sharp as a whip. He was doing well. It was very good to see him.. 6 hours later we slid back into jonesville.. a long drive down and back to endicott.. still very nice to see everyone..

The plan for this evening was to head to chris’s to see the delayed burn of the giant mammoth . It was to have burnt on the solstice, but the high winds and rain forced a delay.. I’m glad it did.. the weather tonight was great. low 20’s and a light snow..

This is Chris’s most masterful design yet,,the beast was huge and life like. He and friends including Mike, gabe, max, abbot and Luke had worked for weeks to get this guy built ..

A nice crowd had gathered as we layered on the last of the fireworks. I had a few chemical flares.. strontium nitrate/perchlorate for red, zinc and sulfur for green, some magnesium wire for white and a 5 pound cremora fire ball for fun. they worked fine.. but I have o admit the ton of store bought fireworks were prettier and more fun..

We had a bit of a time getting the whole thing lit.. but once it caught it went up beautifully..