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On our way to Louisiana, we stopped to see the Gulf of Mexico at Dauphin Island, Alabama. I was “missing the beach.” I occasionally find myself in a state of longing for sand, waves, shells, and the breeze off the ocean. Years ago, my Hawaiian friend, standing on the coast after a year of being landlocked, described it best to me.  “I can breath again,” she said.

We drove the length of the island admiring the brightly painted houses on sticks. Large piles of blown sand and puddles of ocean water covered the two lane road. Dale maneuvered the van slowly forward until we arrived at the end and the undeveloped beach. The parking lot was under a significant amount of sand, so the coke machine in the distance looked a bit out of place. If a hurricane came through there, I don’t know how any of those houses would withstand it. Such beauty, but so perilously lived.

The beach was fabulous. Undeveloped white sand, lots of shells to find, and calm waves. Gabe and Zeke were soon soaked through. I had them roll up their pants at the start, but they figured when near the water, it’s best to jump in.

We had the red bucket with us, and it was soon so heavy from shell collecting, it had to be left behind while we explored further. There were a few other families and their dogs on the beach and one guy fishing.

When we had finished looking on the other side of the island, Dale and the kids raced back. As usual, Josiah heard “race back” and missed “to the bucket.” Josiah raced directly to the opposite beach. Everyone else raced to the bucket. Dale finally beat Josiah in a race. He is certain he can beat him again. He just needs Josiah to run the wrong way.

I greatly admire all organized Christmas participants. They mail their cards on time, bake their cookies, make their candy, buy their gifts, mail packages early, wrap presents, decorate the house, and light the tree. My sister falls into this category of Christmas success and my father praises her peanut brittle.

I do not fall into this category. I do what must be done immediately before it must be done staying up late to accomplish the task. My mom called me at 9pm last night and discovered me baking cookies for the church Christmas Eve cookie exchange. The exchange was originally planned for Saturday, but was snowed out. I had baked peanut butter hershey kiss cookies originally, but they did not survive until Christmas Eve.

I have a general idea as to what I need to do and will suddenly focus on a task at random and it will become my priority for the moment. I do not give Dale much warning and will announce, “I think we should get the tree today and you can put lights on it tomorrow…then you and Gabe can hang the lights on the house.” Other times, I will get stuck on what gift to give to one of the children and illicit Dale’s help. These are moments Dale tries to avoid, but occasionally he cannot escape the endless search for another option which ends in no right answer.

I cannot do my shopping all at once. I have a friend who does all her Christmas shopping on one day. She shops from 8am to 10pm. I could never shop that long. Abby and my mom could, but not me. I usually purchase gifts in the order of when they have to be given: family gifts to be mailed, friends, children, and finally Dale. (Dale is last place, but don’t tell him)

On Tuesday, I had my final list and headed to the shops. The large amount of snow remaining has made parking lots random spot chaos. At the MCX (military department store), they had cleared the parking lot willy nilly. Some aisles could be entered and exited only one way, some aisles  and spaces were filled with snow, and everyone and their brother was driving about. It was madness.

I had a list and it did not include entering the MCX, (I was supposed to be going to the commissary next to it.) but I had a sudden compulsion to join the large crowd headed to the MCX and was funneled in by them. I wandered about consumed by the Holly Jolly.

Eventually, I escaped the MCX with “great gifts I didn’t know I needed”, bought the food I actually needed, and dropped everything at home. I now had three more stores to go. At the first store, I did well sticking to the list. On my way to the second store, Dale called and said, “Zeke needs water proof mittens.” “OK,” I thought, “I’ll just run into this other store not on my list.” From past experience, I should have realized I was at the brink.

There is always an item that is unattainable. Each year it changes and when I begin to look for it, I cannot stop trying to find it. I waste more time looking for it than it is worth. I will search and search throughout a store, looking everywhere and will slowly enter the “Holly Jolly Haze.” All focused thoughts disappear, nothing on the list can be found, and I wander at random in a slow distracted ineffective manner.

It is near impossible to escape the Holly Jolly Haze.  Shopping becomes painful and if someone asks if they can help me find something, I can no longer give them a cohesive answer. Truly, it is best to go home, sleep, and try again another day, but even this simple decision escapes me.

Eventually, I stumbled home fortified by a hot cocoa topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. It didn’t snap me out of the Holly Jolly Haze, but it sure tasted good.

Josiah had his high school Christmas concert this week: choir, band, orchestra. It was really good. A neighboring school (I use neighboring here very loosely) permitted FCS to use their auditorium. The school is located in the midst of the farm fields and as I was driving in the pouring rain through the darkness, I began to doubt I would find it. It is located on roads that change names and directions periodically just for fun.

I arrived, dropped Josiah off, and waited for Dale and the other kids to find us via GPS. When they arrived, they could not recall their route. It’s just one of those locations you end up at grateful that you are there, without knowing how you got there.

There were several students playing prelude piano pieces, which sadly no one was listening to because I suspect people thought the students were practicing. There was one girl playing what looked to be a very difficult piece that unfortunately no one heard.

The crowd quieted after the welcome and I had great sympathy for the moms who were attempting to keep babies and toddlers quiet. It’s a bit easier with a five year old, although the kid loves to chat. However, I remember quite clearly those days of “Please…just be quiet for five minutes, so I can hear your sister sing.”

I am not an artistic person, so I always greatly enjoy watching the choir director, orchestra leader, and band director when they are full on. Their conducting is filled with such emotion, it is almost like a dance in itself. The band director was in tails and the choir and orchestra director were in formals gowns. I get great enjoyment out of watching them work.

The choir sounded fabulous and I was shocked. I had heard them perform at an earlier event in the gym and they were good, but it is amazing what good acoustics can accomplish. They all sang clear and strong and all the parts could be heard.

Josiah accompanied them on I Need a Silent Night. (Christian radio stations play this song) After listening to Josiah talk about the struggles of pulling this piece together, I was amazed to hear how terrific it came out when they performed it.

Josiah also played the David Lanz version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman for an interlude between the band and choir. It was the first time he had performed on a grand piano. Wow! I have heard him play the song many times. What a difference a grand piano makes. He sounded like a recording.

When the programs were printed, Josiah’s name was accidentally left off. Because of this, after Josiah finished the Lanz piece, the band director introduced him. The crowd applauded and one of Josiah’s friends in the band gave him a thumbs up. In return, Josiah gave his friend a thumbs up. The crowd thought Josiah was giving them a thumbs up for the applause and they laughed.

I liked the band’s Deck the Halls with Chips and Salsa, but my favorite piece of the night was the Orchestra version of  Carol of the Bells. It must be great fun to play that on violin.

The night ended with choir, band, and orchestra combined on the Hallelujah Chorus. They kept it together and sounded quite good. I’ve been thinking, with Josiah on piano, Abby on flute, and Gabe on trumpet, maybe I can find a little violin somewhere and get Zeke started.

Traditions are a haphazard thing with me. Some of my traditions are based on activities the Meloch family did when I was growing up (birthday cake to Jesus, hiding Easter baskets) and some I picked up from various places that I have lived. I picked up one such tradition while I was in Germany.

Last night, Gabe said, “Mom, tomorrow’s December 1st and you forgot to get the chocolate calendars!” Boys after the ages of 7 love to be know-it-alls. They view themselves as so much smarter than their mothers and inform their mothers of this fact throughout the day.

I have developed the following response to this “I’m smarter than you attitude” based on education completed. For me, I say, “The day you start your Master’s Degree at University is the day you are smarter than me. Until that day, I am smarter than you whether you believe it or not.” If you did not go to college, you may adjust this remark to , “The day you start college or trade school is the day you are smarter than me. Until that day, I am smarter than you whether you believe it or not.”

Hopefully, by the time that day comes they’ll be out of the house and no longer driving you nuts. When I told Gabe this, he replied, “The day I start my Masters degree, I’m going to call you on the phone and say, ‘Mom, I’m smarter than you’.” I’m certain he will. The kid will probably get a phD, just to prove how much smarter he is than his mother. If he wasn’t so like his mother in doing whatever it takes to prove someone wrong, it would be easier to stomach.

Not wanting only to prove his mother wrong, last night he decided to prove his aunt wrong as well. Every year my brother-in-law’s mom sends me a wreath she makes from the pines on her land in Northern Minnesota. Whenever I open the box, the smell of home greats me.

Considering this a good task for Gabe, I told him to hang the wreath under the lights by the door. I asked him to check if his daddy had any wire and a wire cutter for the task. He declared, “I’m going to use a pipe cleaner, it has wire in it.” I was on the phone with my sister at the time and she commented that she didn’t think that would hold. After hearing this comment, Gabe was determined to prove her wrong.

He found a 10 pound exercise hand weight and tied it under a chair using the pipe cleaner to test the pipe cleaner’s strength. (The boy spends an excessive amount of time watching myth busters, his new favorite show, and is constantly relaying to me how the two guys have proven or disproved something.) The kid is destined to be a mechanic or engineer or maybe a mad scientist.

The wreath is now hanging by a pipe cleaner safely outside under the light. It looks lovely.

However, even though he had proven my sister wrong, he was behind the power curve with the chocolate calendars. Abby informed him of this fact, “Gabe, Mom buys the calendars in,like, August!” (Eye roll for emphasis)

She was close. Not quite August, but October. At the Commissary (military grocery store) they put out the German Christmas items at the same time as the Halloween candy. I buy them right away every year and store them away for fear of repeating the mistake of waiting too long and finding them sold out.

I first started buying them for Dale and I when we were assigned to Germany in the early 1990s. The calendars are a simple thin rectangle of cardboard with little doors to open from 1 to 24. Under each door is a piece of chocolate pressed into a holiday shape (present, tree, candle, etc.)

You eat a piece of chocolate and count down the days until Christmas. In my opinion, a fabulous tradition.

Dale loves to run. I do not love to run.

Zeke once listed our family by order of speed. “Josiah is fastest. Daddy is second. Zeke is third. Abby is fourth. Gabe is fifth. Mommy is last, ” he informed us all. When his two older siblings objected to being slower than him, he reluctantly rearranged the order. “Josiah is fastest. Daddy is second. Abby is third. Gabe is fourth. Zeke is fifth. Mommy is still last,” he said.

Admittedly, my last place position is warranted. Josiah has taken after his father and loves to run. Abby and Gabe have taken after me and run when they must. Zeke has been a bit of a tossup since he loves to run, but also loves to stop.

After watching Josiah run throughout the Cross Country season, Zeke declared he wanted to enter a race. So, Dale entered himself  and Josiah into the 5k Turkey Trot and Zeke into the 1 mile kid’s Turkey Trot in Fredericksburg on Thanksgiving morning.

Zeke lined up for the race with boys and girls 6 and under alongside his two handlers Dale and Josiah. The pistol fired and he took off at a sprint. It took Dale and Josiah two blocks to catch up with him. I saw Zeke pass the 1 mile mark with a look of pain and agony on his face, he was running hard.

Zeke Running with Josiah

He finished with a time of 10:45, 61 out of 145. All runners who finished received a medal. He was proud of himself.

Zeke's Finishing Sprint

Then “the losing someone in a crowd drama” occurred when Dale, Josiah, and Zeke  walked one way and I walked another. I lost them in the crowd of 2415 5k runners and their families. I was wearing a bright red jacket and hoped that if I stood in the middle of the road intersection ahead of the start, they would see me. They were on the top of the steps of the library in the hopes that I would see them.

I had both my and Dale’s cell phones and with the 5k race fast approaching, I prayed quite a few frantic prayers and asked various people I knew if they had seen them. Losing someone in a crowd is quite unsettling. Thankfully, they saw me and Zeke did not have to run the 5k.

The first runners to finish were two Kenyan runners from Chapel Hill, NC. They finished together at 14:35. It was amazing to watch the sprint to the finish. I saw Josiah just after 20 minutes. The guy next to him said, “Come on little man,” and started to sprint. I think he was a bit surprised when Josiah out sprinted him as well as the guy in front of him to finish at 20:11 (99 out of 2415).

Dale’s training this autumn had been a bit lackluster compared to Josiah’s. He finished at 24:17 (387 out of 2415 runners). This time I stayed where I was and let Dale find me. They all ate their bagels and cookies, drank their water and gatorade and got their turkey t-shirts.

The Happy Finishers

When we got home, Zeke was complaining to Gabe that he hadn’t gotten to do anything fun yet. Gabe replied, “What? You just got to run a race. That’s fun!” Zeke answered, “Running a race isn’t fun.”

So, the child remains an even division between Dale and I. He wants to run the race like Dale, but he sure doesn’t consider it fun. A bit of his mother in him there.