Tonight is Christmas Eve. The floodlights illuminate the creek in front of me; my trees are lit and Christmas carols are playing on my Echo. Shortly I will leave to attend Christmas Eve festivities at the Red Dot, closed this evening to the public and home to the party Alana, the owner, has prepared.
Every year the Dot is decorated to the nines. This year is in honor to Wendy Frost, the artist who helped Alana every year create magic and who passed away during the summer, not long after moving to Florida.
When I was a wee boy, Christmas Eve was Christmas. It was the night we celebrated and opened presents. My Juettner cousins would come and we would all frolic in the basement or play games in the living room until it was time for the Christmas Eve feast and then we would rip into our packages.
When they had gone home, we opened our own family presents, then sleepy I would head off to bed while my older siblings and parents attended Midnight Mass.
As things do, the traditions changed and the Juettners ceased coming and things toned down a bit. My older siblings departed, my brother to medical school, my sister to the convent. The next Christmases were quiet.
After my father’s passing, it seemed Christmases picked up again after a while. My brother returned to Minneapolis, post internship, a year in Honduras giving medical care to children and a couple of years in the Air Force.
In college, it was fun to leave where I was living and return to my old bedroom, sometimes with an out of town roommate in tow.
For me, tonight is Christmas.
Christmas Day always seemed a bit anti-climactic. The big presents had been given and Christmas exhaustion had set in.
Tonight, this Christmas of 2016, I wish all of you who celebrate the holiday, the merriest of Christmases.
It is also the beginning of Hanukkah, which rarely coincides with Christmas but it does this year. So Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah!
I am off to a party, with two quiches and some gag gifts, as Alana requested.
May this day be very merry, safe and happy for all of us.
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Tags: Alana Hauptmann, Christmas Eve, Claverack, Hanukkah, Hudson New York, Joe Tombers, Juettner, Juettners, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Midnight Mass, Minneapolis, Red Dot, The Red Dot, Wendy Frost
This entry was posted on December 25, 2016 at 12:11 am and is filed under Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 12 24 2016 Ho Ho Ho…
Tonight is Christmas Eve. The floodlights illuminate the creek in front of me; my trees are lit and Christmas carols are playing on my Echo. Shortly I will leave to attend Christmas Eve festivities at the Red Dot, closed this evening to the public and home to the party Alana, the owner, has prepared.
Every year the Dot is decorated to the nines. This year is in honor to Wendy Frost, the artist who helped Alana every year create magic and who passed away during the summer, not long after moving to Florida.
When I was a wee boy, Christmas Eve was Christmas. It was the night we celebrated and opened presents. My Juettner cousins would come and we would all frolic in the basement or play games in the living room until it was time for the Christmas Eve feast and then we would rip into our packages.
When they had gone home, we opened our own family presents, then sleepy I would head off to bed while my older siblings and parents attended Midnight Mass.
As things do, the traditions changed and the Juettners ceased coming and things toned down a bit. My older siblings departed, my brother to medical school, my sister to the convent. The next Christmases were quiet.
After my father’s passing, it seemed Christmases picked up again after a while. My brother returned to Minneapolis, post internship, a year in Honduras giving medical care to children and a couple of years in the Air Force.
In college, it was fun to leave where I was living and return to my old bedroom, sometimes with an out of town roommate in tow.
For me, tonight is Christmas.
Christmas Day always seemed a bit anti-climactic. The big presents had been given and Christmas exhaustion had set in.
Tonight, this Christmas of 2016, I wish all of you who celebrate the holiday, the merriest of Christmases.
It is also the beginning of Hanukkah, which rarely coincides with Christmas but it does this year. So Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah!
I am off to a party, with two quiches and some gag gifts, as Alana requested.
May this day be very merry, safe and happy for all of us.
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Tags: Alana Hauptmann, Christmas Eve, Claverack, Hanukkah, Hudson New York, Joe Tombers, Juettner, Juettners, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Midnight Mass, Minneapolis, Red Dot, The Red Dot, Wendy Frost
This entry was posted on December 25, 2016 at 12:11 am and is filed under Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Social Commentary, Television, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.