holidays – Page 5 – Life In A Word

Floral Fire

Billboard ranks “Firework” as Katy Perry’s best-selling single, with millions of downloads since its 2010 release. The self-empowerment tune “skyrocketed” to #1 on Billboard’s Top 100 at the time and ranked in the top five on twenty other charts worldwide. “Firework” also “sparked” an award-winning music video, and Katy has since performed the anthem live at two presidential inaugurations and during the halftime show of the Super Bowl. Searching Wikipedia for “firework”, therefore, it comes as no surprise to be asked, “Do you mean the song or the low-explosive pyrotechnic device?” Today, I choose the latter.

For the first time in countless July 4th celebrations I can’t speak to having seen a single overhead firework display this year. No giant “willows” with their graceful descending trails of sparks; no “peonies” where those same trails radiate in straight lines from the center; and no “horsetails” (my favorite) where each trail bursts a second time, followed by a crackling, glittering shower of fire. Also, no “grand finale” where it looks like the entire sky is splitting open to some fiery furnace beyond.

From the vantage point of our house, we used to count on the fireworks show from the nearby U.S. Air Force Academy. That show has been canceled for the last ten years because of budget cutbacks. We also used to bring blankets to the shore of a nearby lake, where we were treated to a “small-town” fireworks display funded by donations from the public. Today, that display has been swallowed up by a bigger all-day “Festival on the Fourth”, where you pay for parking and walk a mile or two just to secure a spot on the lake several hours ahead of the fireworks. Even so, we thought we’d see bits and bursts from one of the other nine shows scattered around nearby Colorado Springs. Nope, not so much as a snap, crackle, or pop.

Palmer Lake, CO 2022 fireworks display (photo courtesy of local resident Bartley Willson)

Fireworks are nostalgic for me, with two distinct memories from childhood. The first, in the 1970s, brings me back to the beach of the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles. Back then the only commercial displays seemed to be over the ocean. My parents would grab a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken and several blankets, and the whole family would find a place on the beach where for several hours, we’d eat and play as twilight became dark, in anticipation of the late, late fireworks show from the end of the nearby pier.

The second memory, a decade later, also brings me to the Pacific Ocean but to a beach further south near San Diego, where we’d shoot off our own fireworks (from the “Safe and Sane” boxed collections my dad brought home every year), followed by an overhead display from the nearby county fair. Every childhood July 4th was the same: food, fun, and fireworks; lots and lots of fireworks.

In 1976 – America’s bicentennial year – the firework display in New York City included an unforgettable “waterfall” effect off one of the bridges. This year, that same July 4th display (sponsored by Macy’s) ballooned to a two-hour televised extravaganza with over 2,000 blasts and effects per minute. I’d say Macy’s department stores and their profit margins are doing just fine, wouldn’t you?

I shouldn’t be surprised to learn fireworks were invented by the Chinese (well over a thousand years ago) but here’s a less-obvious bit of floral fire trivia: Disney is the largest consumer of fireworks in the world. It used to be – back when their single amusement park was California’s “Disneyland” – you’d only catch a Disney firework show on summer evenings (directly above Cinderella’s castle), and only if you stayed until just before the park closed. Today you’ll find displays at any one of the twelve Disney parks, in any month of the year. For the record, only the U.S. Department of Defense purchases more explosive devices than Disney.

There’s more firework trivia, of course. The very first iterations were empty bamboo shoots, creating a mild popping sound when ignited because of natural air pockets. Seeking more pyrotechnics, the Chinese added explosive chemicals to the shoots to create firecrackers”. Eventually they figured out how to launch and propel their creations, and the overhead fireworks display was born, in an impressive rainbow of chemical colors. But take note; you won’t see a blue firework very often. Blue requires an infusion of copper at just the right temperature, and the “cool” color tends to get lost next to the “hotter” reds and yellows.

I’m still puzzled why I didn’t hear so much as a “BOOM! BOOM! BOOM” aftershock (to quote Katy Perry) of a firework display this year. Maybe most of my fellow Coloradoans kept the bursts and blasts to the ground instead, from what they purchased at the local firework stand. Those of you living in New Jersey, Massachusetts, or Delaware can’t relate because consumer fireworks are illegal in your states. Not so much as a sparkler in your hand. (Which may be a good thing since sparklers can heat up to 2000 ºF) So you probably did what I did this year – simply watch a recap of the Washington D.C. grand finale on your smartphone. It was the only floral fire I could find.

Some content sourced from the BuzzFeed article, “17 Things You Probably Never Knew About Fireworks”, the Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks website, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Raising a Red (White, and Blue) Flag

I knew this was coming. When you blog several hundred times over, you start to wonder, “Have I already covered this topic?” Today’s subject seemed like new territory so I answered with a resounding, “No, I haven’t”… and I was wrong. Way wrong. Turns out, I’ve already discussed a certain mid-June U.S. holiday twice in previous posts. Whoops. Is this what happens when you turn sixty or am I subconsciously determined to elevate a somewhat meaningless festivity? Okay, don’t answer that. Just bear with me while I unfurl my opinion for a third time here. Happy Flag Day, America.

You missed it again, darn you. You’re reading about Flag Day here, at least two days after the fact, and now you’re wondering how you could’ve possibly forgotten to raise your Stars and Stripes on Tuesday. I mean, c’mon, you did raise your flag on Memorial Day, right? And you’re planning to do the same on July 4th? So how could you forget the “holiday” smack dab in between? Think about it. Technically we celebrate the birthday of our flag on June 14th (and this year we put 245 candles on her red, white, and blue cake). Isn’t the birth of our flag more important than honoring our fallen military or celebrating our independence? Of course it is… NOT.

I’m struggling (third time over) to appreciate Flag Day. We celebrate a big birthday at Christmas (er, some of us) and another one on July 4th (again, some of us). Those are major parties. With the former, we have an entire season leading up to the holiday itself – music, food, presents, and decorations galore. With the latter, we have parades, festivals, 5K races, family barbeques, fireworks, and more decorations galore. But June 14th? Just another day at the office, I say. Unless your town throws a parade like Quincy, MA (“Longest-running of its kind!”), Troy, NY (“50,000+ spectators!”), or Three Oaks, MI (“Three-day celebration!”), you didn’t even think about raising your flag. And for the record, the Troy, NY parade called it quits five years ago. Can you say “holi-dying”?

No disrespect to the U.S. flag, mind you. The red, white, and blue has quite the history. The version you see these days is the twenty-seventh since its birth in 1777. She flies permanently (all day, every day) in over twenty locations, including the U.S. Capitol, Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, and the moon (yep, that one). And I’ll bet you didn’t know, the American flag “should be displayed at full staff” on eighteen calendar holidays. Even on Christmas. But especially on Flag Day (sarcasm with a capital “S”).

Trivia break (because we need a break). I’m here to tell you the largest American flag – as deemed by the good people at Guinness – is not in Texas (after all, everything’s bigger in Texas). It’s Superflag and it’s deserving of its nickname. Superflag (“It’s not just a flag, it’s a feeling!”) is 1.5 times the size of a football field. It weighs 3,000 pounds and needs 600 people to hold it up. A single star in Superflag’s field of blue is seventeen feet high. That’s a big banner, citizens; so big, in fact (and unwieldy), its creator birthed “Superflag Jr.” as a more convenient size. You’ll see Junior unfurled before the Super Bowl, covering almost the entire field.

Giant flags may fire me up but here’s a subject that does not: Betsy Ross. Sure, “Elizabeth” was a real person, living in a real house (which you can still tour today in Philadelphia); an upholsterer by trade and a talented seamstress besides. She was even an acquaintance of George Washington. But credit her with creating the very first American flag? Sorry, compatriots, it’s just not true (or at least there’s no evidence to prove it). Makes for a quaint story from our colonial roots, but when any association of Betsy and the first flag includes “purported” or “legend”, you have to wonder who makes this stuff up.

Talking about Superflag and Betsy Ross makes you think I don’t have enough to say about my original topic. You would be correct. But if you simply must know more about Flag Day (and for the record, I don’t think you must), check out my previous posts American Hollow-Day (full of mirth) and Banner Birthday (less tongue-in-cheek). Neither “old-glorifies” June 14th any better than this one… nor did the zero-count of American flags I saw on Tuesday around town. This holiday is on the ropes, people. I’m not here raising a red, white, and blue flag but more like, a red flag. Third blog strike. I’m out.

Some content sourced from the We Are The Mighty article, “This is the world’s largest American flag”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Emerald Greens

In the final lines of our national anthem, Americans sing, “O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave”. Those labels are a little dicey today. Are we really free? Are we really brave? It’s a debate best left to more intellectual bloggers. I’m simply looking for less controversial words to describe the United States. Take Ireland, for example. The little republic is nicknamed “The Emerald Isle”. Of this, there can be no doubt. Before your flight even touches down, the window seat view is nothing but endless rolling green hills. And not just any green.

See what I did there? Inside of a single paragraph I distanced myself from heavy topics like freedom and bravery, and now I’m focused on the color green. Bravo, Dave! Now then, let’s continue.

Emeralds have always been my favorite of the precious gems. In the jewelry shop it’s hard to ignore diamonds (because they’re everywhere), yet somewhere in the glass cases you’ll find the more colorful stones. Blood-red rubies. Royal blue sapphires. Modest little garnets (my birthstone). And green, green emeralds. I’m drawn to emeralds because green is my favorite color. On that note, do you realize your favorite color never changes? Nobody says, “Well, I used to like purple but now my favorite color is orange”. You can move to another country, switch up your career, or overhaul your wardrobe, but your favorite color is a constant.

I digress (sorry). I have emeralds on the brain for good reason. My wife & I just celebrated thirty-five years of marriage (thank you very much), and she hinted emeralds might be a nice gift. So I paid a visit to my jeweler. I told her I was looking for something understated, maybe earrings and a necklace. She showed me a pretty set, where I thought my only decision was the shape of the stones (Round? Square? Pear?). But then she threw me a curve when she said, “Would you prefer natural or lab-created?” Huh? Why would I buy my wife anything other than the real thing?

Here’s the rub of the green. Lab-created gems are the real thing. They’re “chemically, physically, and optically identical to their natural counterparts.” So why choose one over the other? Cost. Lab-created gems can be significantly less expensive, especially as the number of carats grows. In other words, easy choice, right? Wrong. The lab-created gems – at least in my jewelry shop – were small enough to be the same price as the naturals. Instead, my decision came down to color.

Was I tempted by the blue-green clarity of the lab-created? Absolutely. Did I choose them? Absolutely not. I kept coming back to the emeralds in my brain. Call it natural green, kelly green, or Irish green, but I prefer the green on the left. And I think my wife did too.

Liz is wearing $6.5M worth of emeralds and diamonds

I’d like to share some trivia on today’s topic but – warning – it’s a little pedestrian. Emeralds are one of the twelve birthstones (conveniently, the month of May). Emeralds come from the mineral Beryl (as do aquamarines). Their rarity makes them “precious”, alongside diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. They’re delicate, susceptible to chipping. Finally, emeralds are considered, among other things, a symbol of rebirth.

A section of the Florida Panhandle is called the Emerald Coast for the area’s clear, green water. The Wizard of Oz lived in the Emerald City for reasons only Oz fanatics can explain. And little Ireland, deservedly, earns its nickname for those rolling green hills, as well as Irish jewelry, made primarily from green gems (if not all emeralds).

I saved one more fact for last, mostly to make points with my wife. After I bought her the earrings and necklace, I said to my jeweler, “By the way, it’s silver for the 25th anniversary and gold for the 50th, but what about the 35th?” She replied, “Emerald” (even though several Google searches suggest jade). Whoa. I didn’t plan on that coincidence but I’ll certainly take the credit. After all, my wife is one-quarter Irish. My daughter’s name is Kelly. And my favorite color is green. How could it be anything but emeralds?

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Lego Grand Piano – Update #17

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

Today’s build demanded more of an overhead view so you can see the difference between last week and this week. Bag #17 – of 21 bags of pieces – earned me the row of seventeen black caps you see in the second photo (on top of the piano wires), as well as the wide stand for sheet music, just behind the keyboard cover.

The piano is a remarkable instrument. When you press down on a key, you’re actually pushing a “hammer” up against the underside of a piano wire, creating a musical sound (or “note”). When you release the key, a black “damper” (one of the seventeen I just built) drops down on the top of the wire, silencing the sound. Add in the functions of the three pedals at the base and you should consider the piano a musical mechanical marvel.

Running Build Time: 12.5 hours. Musical accompaniment: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee. Leftover pieces: 2

Conductor’s Note: The Bumblebee is a brief orchestral interlude of an opera, composed well over a hundred years ago. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s furious little piece, when played on the violin, really does sound like a buzzing bee. It’s only 84 seconds in length, but you find yourself catching your breath after you’ve heard it. It’s even more remarkable when played on the piano, the fingers almost a blur. Have a listen to the audio file here. I’m sure you’ll recognize the tune from some of today’s movies and cartoons.

Happy Holiday

If you subscribe to Disneyland’s claim of “the happiest place on earth”, you’re really talking about the several happiest places on earth. Besides the original parks in California and Florida you now have more exotic locales like Tokyo, Shanghai, and Paris – a total of twelve Disney theme parks across the globe. Now throw in Hawaii’s Aulani (Disney) Resort & Spa for a baker’s dozen. But do a search on “the happiest place on earth” and nothing remotely close to the lands of Disney comes up. Instead, you get the land of the Finns.

Maybe you haven’t heard of the World Happiness Report? I have. I first blogged about it five years ago in my post, Happy Days Aren’t Here Again. Back then I wasn’t lamenting the fact the UN established a rather desperate-sounding holiday (“International Day of Happiness” – March 20th). Rather, I was un-happy the United States ranked #14 in the holiday’s companion report. Thirteen countries, including #1 Norway, were happier places on earth. To make matters worse, the U.S. had been slipping in the happiness rankings since the first report in 2013. This year? The Americans dropped again, to #16.

An objective report on happiness sounds a little ridiculous but when one country (Finland) ranks “happiest” five years running, you sit up and wonder what you’re missing with Laplander life. Consider the variables in the happiness report calculation:

Healthy life expectancy
GDP (goods and services) per capita
Social support in times of trouble
Low corruption
High social trust
Generosity to the community
Freedom to make key life decisions

Maybe you assume Finland’s proximity to Ukraine (and Russia) puts it in a nonpareil position to earn high marks for say, “social support” and “generosity to the community”. But this year’s rankings were determined before Russia’s invasion. Finland was already socially supportive and generous (and apparently “happy”). So, does Finland come to mind when you consider the list above? It doesn’t for me, but I will say this. The Finns enjoy day-to-day living. On a Baltic Sea cruise a few years ago we spent several hours in the capitol city of Helsinki, where we had the chance to observe the locals. What were they doing? Sunning themselves in the parks on an unusually warm day. Shopping in open-air markets. Children walking home from school unattended. Peace and quiet wherever you looked. Happiness.

Eight of the ten “happiest” are on this map

Let’s visit some of the other happier-than-America countries. There must be something good in Baltic Sea water because Norway, Sweden, and Denmark also make the top ten. Iceland skates in at #3, which almost makes for a clean (and happy) sweep of the Nordic countries. Switzerland (#4) and New Zealand (#10) are also “happiest”, and I can think of several reasons to spend time in both places.

As the song goes, “don’t worry, be happy”, but I confess I’m a little concerned about happiness here in America. We need to step up our feel-good game from more than just Disney theme parks. Maybe post those seven criteria on our refrigerators as regular reminders. Or, spend more time in saunas like the Finns do. Otherwise, it may be time to pick up and move further north. After all, happiness beckons.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “The World’s Happiest Countries for 2022, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Lego Grand Piano – Update #16

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

Every piano keyboard demands a cover to keep it clean. Bag #16 – of 21 bags of pieces – was entirely dedicated to the protection of the keys. As the photos show, the keyboard cover hinges gracefully up and down, blending seamlessly with the rest of the black piano frame.

A word about leftover pieces (another 3 this week). I need to be more thankful they’re “leftover” and not “missing”. I swear I was shorted an important piece this time around (and maybe I really did swear). But as usual, there it was in plain view in my pile of pieces. I’m grateful to the human or the machine making sure every last piece was included in my Lego Grand Piano box.

Running Build Time: 12.0 hours. Musical accompaniment: Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Leftover pieces: 3

Conductor’s Note: Peter (or Pyotr, if you prefer) Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was an interesting choice for this week’s build, because I completed the keyboard cover before 8:30am. If you know the Overture, you know it’s fortíssimo, like an alarm clock firing on all cylinders. It’s a blast better meant for an Independence Day fireworks celebration (and some orchestras add a real cannon for the finale). The Overture is also brisk; a mere sixteen minutes from start to finish. I wasn’t that quick with the keyboard cover build, but I did wrap it up in less than a half-hour.

Not-So-Sweet Jesus

If you take a stroll down your supermarket’s greeting card aisle today, you’ll find Valentine’s Day cards long gone and Easter cards in full force. It’s only the start of Lent, yet the aisle is bursting bright with pink bunnies, yellow chicks, and painted eggs. I won’t be sending Easter cards this year (haven’t done so since my kids were little) but I will give up something for Lent. I’m thinking “foods with added sugar”.

I know what you’re thinking. We live in an age where giving up tempting foods isn’t as difficult as it used to be. Whole foods are so available we have an entire chain of stores called “Whole Foods”. Sugar has so many alternatives I should revise my sacrifice to “foods with added sweeteners“. Even processed foods have matured to where “healthy snacks” are pleasing to the palate. I have options.

Doesn’t matter. Dropping added sugar will still be a challenge. My desk drawer (second one down on the left if you’d like to help yourself) is replete with black and red licorice, and some form of chocolate, be it a bar, a cookie, or those little baking morsels straight out of the bag. Giving up licorice for forty-six days and nights won’t be a stretch, but NO chocolate for all of March and half of April sounds like an eternity. What can I say? Everyone has a weakness and mine is chocolate. It speaks to me from my closed drawer with “come hither” seductiveness.

I’ll bet you’ll find thousands of blog posts about chocolate with a quick search. I’ll bet you’ll find entire blogs about the sweet stuff. I just checked my blog’s history and unearthed a dozen takes on chocolate (including this one from a year ago talking about the things people give up for Lent. Chocolate tops the list). So let’s make it a baker’s dozen because I invented a chocolate challenge. I call it the “85 Percent Ascent”.

Let me explain. There was a time when I liked my coffee sweeter than a Starbucks Sugar Cookie Frappuccino. Together with artificial creamer I’d dump in sugar cubes or pour the white stuff straight from whatever you call those pourable glass containers. That was a long, long time ago. At some point (probably, er definitely my college year abroad in Italy) I realized coffee tasted pretty good all by itself. I started to wonder why you’d “taint” coffee by adding the other stuff. But let’s be real: it’s not like you go from Frappuccino to Americano cold turkey. You’ve got to ease into the one extreme from the other. Slowly I backed down the sugar (like years-slowly). Slowly I backed down the creamer. One day I eliminated the sugar altogether. Today, I still go with a tablespoon of (almond-coconut non-dairy no-sugar) “creamer” but otherwise it’s straight dark-roasted coffee for me. I even fancy an espresso shot every now and then.

It’s a good analogy for my Percent Ascent challenge. 85% cocoa content is seriously dark chocolate (meaning not sweet at all). If your go-to is a Hershey’s Bar or a Milky Way you’re down below 50%. And moving from 50% to 85% is a serious ascent with chocolate. It’s like standing on top of Kilimanjaro and seeing how much further you have to go to summit Everest.

A recent article on chocolate lists nine criteria for the healthiest and best-tasting bars in the world, including:

The first ingredient must be cocoa, cocoa mass, or chocolate liquor (not sugar or milk chocolate). In other words, put down the Nestle’s Crunch; it’s not even close.
Ingredients must include real cocoa butter instead of (cheaper) vegetable oils. 95% of America’s chocolate manufacturers just dropped out of the race.
The cocoa must come from an “Equator country” like Ivory Coast, Ghana, or Peru.
The bar should be labeled “Organic” and/or “Non-GMO”.
Bonus points: should be fairly traded and ethically harvested.

As if the search isn’t already difficult, NOW you have to go with >85% cocoa content. Not so hard to find actually, especially if you go online. I purchased a bar from five different manufacturers meeting every one of the above criteria, including Green & Black’s from the UK, and Theo from Seattle. All five bars fall between 85% and 90% cocoa content (and yes, 100% is an option). All five use scary words like “strong”, “super black”, and “extreme” to describe their product. Not gonna lie; I’m a little nervous to take a bite.

As bitter as these chocolates are sure to be, I still have to give them up for Lent. Every one of them has “added sugar” (albeit way down on the ingredients list). So let’s just agree – I’m not going to break my Lenten covenant on a food that doesn’t even taste sweet. Think I’ll opt for a piece of fruit instead. I just hope it doesn’t come from the Garden of Eden.

Some content sourced from the “Experience Life” / Life Time article, “How to Find the Healthiest Dark Chocolate”.

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Lego Grand Piano – Update #7

(Read about how this project got started in Let’s Make Music!)

I worked outside of the box again this week. Bag #7 – of 21 bags of pieces – assembled a second layer on top of the section I can’t yet attach to the bigger section behind it. From “Last week” to “This week”, you can see I worked almost entirely in black, which suggests I’m creating more of the outside of the piano.

Despite the majestic wash of Debussy’s “La Mer”, Bag #7 was completed in less than thirty minutes, with only one heart-pounding moment where I thought I’d left out pieces in the Bag #6 build. Thank goodness I was wrong. Still on track.

Running Build Time: 6.0 hours. Musical accompaniment: Debussy’s La Mer and Prélude à l’aprés-midi d’un Faune (try and say that ten times fast). Leftover pieces: One (clearly an extra, whew!)

Conductor’s Note: Today’s build wasn’t very exciting, so it helped to have Debussy booming in the background. However, as I turned the page of Mr. Instruction Manual in anticipation of Bag #8, I saw pictures of… long, thin, reed-like pieces. Holy buckets, Maestro, it’s time to make this piano a stringed instrument!

Fantastic Plastic

On Christmas Day, any parent of small children will stifle a yawn, having built bicycles, dollhouses, and train sets the night before. After all, Santa doesn’t deliver unassembled toys. But hang in there a few years, Mom & Dad, because the building shifts from the giver to the receiver. Older kids want to create. In my generation it was Hot Wheels, Erector Sets, and Lincoln Logs. And one other toy surpassed all others for its ease of use and versatility. Lego.

My Christmas gift from my wife this year was a grand piano. Can you top that? Okay, so it wasn’t the kind worth five figures or special movers to get it across the threshold. My piano measures a mere 12″ x 14″ and comes from the Lego “Ideas” collection. When it’s finished it will have been built from 3,662 individual pieces. I can’t wait to get started.

A grand piano made of Legos means the simple interlocking blocks I had as a kid have come a long, long way. Lego Ideas sets are “products inspired by and voted for by Lego fans”. The collection includes a typewriter, a ship in a bottle, the house from the Home Alone movies, and the apartment from the Seinfeld sitcom. Every Ideas product involves thousands of Lego pieces to assemble. Every Ideas product was also completely sold out for Christmas on the Lego website.

Fifty years ago, Lego was blessedly innocent. All you had were small bricks in primary colors and if you were lucky, a paper set of instructions to create a simple house or a vehicle. Otherwise, you just built whatever your imagination could come up with. When my own kids were kids, Lego moved to product-specific sets like a T. Rex from Jurassic World or an X-wing Starfighter from Star Wars. Sure, they looked cool when they were built, but I was always skeptical because the sets removed creativity from the experience. You’d just follow the step-by-steps in the little booklet and voila – a T. Rex. But call me a hypocrite because this sixty-year-old can’t wait to build his step-by-thousand-steps Lego Grand Piano.

Lego has an interesting history – too many chapters to cover here. The numbers tell the story in a nutshell. The Denmark-based company is considered the largest toy company in the world. Their bricks have inspired movies, video games, building competitions, and eight amusement parks. Their factories have been churning out little plastic pieces for almost 75 years. And at last count, that pile of pieces surpassed 600 billion (or 75 Legos for every man, woman, and child on earth).

I didn’t expect to be a Lego fan as an adult but then came the Architecture series in 2008, cool buildings like the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, and Empire State Building. I just had to have one, so last Christmas my wife gifted me the 1,032-piece United States Capitol Building. I didn’t clock how long it took to complete but I must’ve looked awfully confident in the assembly because now I’m staring down the more daunting Grand Piano. Maybe my wife wants me locked down in my home office for the next several months?

To underscore the popularity of Lego these days, the Architecture series alone includes 50 buildings and cityscapes, with more coming out each year (the Taj Mahal was released just last summer). These sets run anywhere from $50 to $250, with the discontinued ones setting you back three times as much. Sure, I’d love a Lego version of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Fallingwater” house, but I’m not going to pay $800 to a collector just to have one.

No discussion of Lego would be complete without a nod to custom creations. Our local Scheels department store has a larger-than-life Denver Broncos football player made of Legos, posing front and center in the toy department. The Church of Christ creation in the photo here didn’t forget seating for an 80-member choir (below the big yellow crosses). And the biggest custom creation of them all? A full-scale Lego replica of the previously-mentioned X-wing Starfighter, first displayed outdoors in New York’s Times Square. Try to picture 5.3 million Lego pieces and 23 tons of “toy” in the shape of a fighter jet. Or just check out the photos here.

Now that I’m done writing it’s time to break open the first bag of pieces to begin my Lego Grand Piano (and time for you to watch the ingenious stop-motion video below). I’ll use the stopwatch on my iPhone to capture the hours I consume to complete it. Er, days? Weeks? I mean, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither is a grand piano. You might want to check in with me next summer to make sure I haven’t gone bats.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia” and the Lego.com website.

Fa-La-La Land Down Under

I have two nieces who, along with their families, call islands their homes. One lives on Hawaii’s Oahu, her house perched on the cliffs above Honolulu with sweeping ocean views to the west. The other lives in Brisbane, on the east coast of Australia. Sure, Australia isn’t really an island, though it is surrounded by water. By definition its landmass makes it a continent instead. But Australia does lay claim to a few islands off its shores. Including one named “Christmas”.

Christmas Island’s picture-perfect “Flying Fish Cove”

Imagine living in a world so small you can walk from one end to the other in less than two hours. Your fellow islanders are so few, your entire social life is like living in a college dorm. Your diet consists of fruits, nuts, and crab. Lots and lots of crab. And the single contribution you and your island-mates make to the outside world is phosphorous from your underground mines. That, in a crab shell, is life on Christmas Island.

The first time someone told me there was a “Christmas Island”, I was young enough to be watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer every December on TV. My favorite part of Rudolph’s story was the “Island of Misfit Toys”. You remember, don’t you? Rudolph was the reindeer-a non grata, mocked by the others because of his shiny nose. Along with a couple other outcasts (Hermie, Santa’s elf who’d rather be a dentist, and Yukon Cornelius, the prospector who can never find silver or gold), Rudolph discovers the Island of Misfit Toys. The island is a repository for unwanted toys. As sad as that sounds, Rudolph’s island brings Christmas to mind much more than the little landmass I’m talking about today.

Palm trees (not pines) on Christmas Island

If you wonder why you’d ever visit Christmas Island, consider almost 65% of the island is a national park of unspoiled rainforest, with walking paths past 25 species of trees and 135 species of plants. The only animals you’ll spy in the forest include the “flying fox” fruit bat, the recently introduced Javan deer, and the golden bosun (the island’s “official” bird). Outside of the forest however, it’s impossible to miss the crabs. Coconut crabs. Red crabs. Thirteen different species of land crabs, let alone those who prefer the ocean. And here’s the best part. Every year, one hundred million of them migrate from solid ground to water (to spawn), a sight mind-blowing enough to be called “one of the wonders of the natural world”.

Watch the following short video on the chaotic Christmas Island crab migration. Makes you wonder how you can walk anywhere without getting “crabs”. If this is something you simply must see in person, find your way to Perth on Australia’s western mainland, and book one of two weekly flights to Christmas Island courtesy of Virgin Airlines. Your 3+ hours in the air will take you over nothing but the vast Indian Ocean.

It’s high time we addressed the most burning question about our little fa-la-la land down under. Why is it named Christmas Island? Here are popular theories. One, “The rainforest is made up of nothing but evergreen (Christmas) trees.” Two (for the geographically challenged), “The island is the closest landmass to the North Pole.” And three “Christmas Island was the origin of the species diospyros virginiana, more commonly known as the sugar plum tree.” The correct answer? None of the above. In the 1600s, European explorer Richard Rowe first set foot on the island, doing so on December 25th. With no more creativity than a glance at the calendar, his discovery was dubbed Christmas Island.

I’ve got a much better “Christmas Island” for you. Flip over to just off the east coast of Australia and you’ll find an even tinier landmass called Norfolk Island. It’s about a quarter the size of Christmas, with the same number of inhabitants. But Norfolk Island’s primary export is much more “Christmas” than phosphorous. It is the evergreen Norfolk Island pine, a popular ornamental tree in Australia. My wife and I found one at Home Depot a few years ago and bought it for her mother. For small spaces, Norfolk Island pines make great Christmas trees.

“Christmas” looks a little like an Aussie Shepherd!

In defense of Christmas Island, there’s more going on within its shores than phosphorous and crabs. Most of the residents live in the northern area of the island surrounding a coastal region known as Flying Fish Cove. They speak one or more of five different languages. There’s a high school and a public library. There’s even a cricket club, which just celebrated sixty years in the game. And most fitting to this time of year, twenty percent of the population call themselves Christians. In other words, despite the uninspiring reason for its name, Christmas really does come to Christmas Island.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Christmas-Colored Glasses

The twenty-minute drive from my house to the gym is fairly nondescript. The streets are two-lane straight with a few turns and traffic lights along the way. Not much to look at on a winter’s morning. But the month of December brings about a miraculous change. With the car stereo belting out songs of the season there’s suddenly a lot to see through the windshield. It’s as if I’m viewing the world through Christmas-colored glasses.

Maybe you’re like me when you’re on the morning drive. You’re half-asleep, a little bit late, and the slightest miscue by another driver puts you in a bad mood. I try to blank out the world around me by toggling my radio presets between news and sports. It’s a wonder my lack of focus gets me to the right destination. But Christmas music changes all that. The happy tunes bring everything back to the crystal and clear. They’re like a gift for the spirit.

Two radio stations in this part of Colorado switch over to Christmas music in December. An adult contemporary station runs an endless loop of about thirty “holiday favorites” from Thanksgiving to New Years Day. I’ll bet they play the Boston Pops’ version of “Sleigh Ride” and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” four or five times a day. It gets old. But they also play the best of Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and Andy Williams so I forgive them. Then we have our Christian contemporary station. Their round-the-clock Christmas playlist keeps it fresh, with more carols than pop songs. They’re a little more in tune with the reason for the season.

Earlier this week I absentmindedly tuned back to one of my regular music stations. Mistake. Their version of celebrating the season had people calling in to say why they deserved to be on “Santa’s naughty list”. One caller said she babysat recently and told the misbehaving child Santa died of COVID. Another said he slept with his ex’s sister and a week later slept with the sister’s best friend. Seriously? This is the spirit of the season?

Spotify plays its part on my drive, especially when radio stations bend to the inevitable commercials. But not playlists. Albums. Spotify Christmas playlists just don’t cut it for me. I have yet to find the perfect mix – you know, not too much of this, not too little of that. I think Christmas albums by individual artists or groups do a better job of a “just right” playlist, which is why I’m peppering this post with three of my favorites.

Now then, let’s get back to those Christmas-colored glasses. Exactly what did I see on my twenty-minute drive? A lot more than I did before I tuned in to the season’s songs…

Children headed to school, laughing and singing as they walked. I think we can agree; Christmas is all about children. Or at least, one child.
Signs in front of churches advertising Christmas Eve services. Most offer a 5pm, 7pm, and 9pm option, meaning lots of people are heading to church on Christmas Eve. As we should be this year.
A lone tree at the end of a driveway decorated with just two ornaments. What to make of it? Maybe a senior citizen lives here, and two ornaments are all he or she can manage. A reminder to gift to our local “Christmas for Seniors” program.
A third-story apartment and its tiny balcony decorated with garlands, wreaths, and lights. Yes, all walks of life celebrate Christmas no matter the look of their “house”.
The sign at the gas station advertising today’s fuel prices. Unleaded is advertised in red numbers, diesel in green. How’s that for impromptu Christmas decor?
Our little town’s myriad Christmas decorations, covering trees, buildings, and lampposts, I may not always agree with the spending of our tax dollars but with this investment, they get it right year after year.

This is my personal mandate for the 2021 holiday season. Take the rest of the month and listen to nothing but carols whenever you’re in the car. You’ll don a pair of Christmas-colored glasses and be amazed at what you’ve been missing around you. Believe it or not, the world looks pretty good right now.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

O’ Come Let Us Adorn

There’s an older fellow in Egypt who wakes up every morning, throws on a flannel shirt and well-worn pants, and goes to his workshop behind the corrugated roll-up door of a small, industrial warehouse. Using ancient tools and techniques, he churns out hundreds of colorful, ornate, square cement tiles. He’s a true artisan, our tilemaker, carrying on his craft from many generations before him. His product endures amid countless mass-produced ceramic and porcelain alternatives. Perhaps our tilemaker would feel more at home in Lauscha, Germany. Lauscha is home to dozens of glassblowers, who still create colorful, ornate, Christmas ornaments by hand.

Every December about this time, my wife & I bring home our Christmas tree (real, not artificial – see Is It Live or Is It Memorex? for that debate). We take our tree through the same steps from start to adorned. First, fresh-cut the trunk, set the tree into the stand, and fill with warm water (and one baby aspirin!). Next, let gravity bring the branches down for a few days. Then, bring out the ladder, top the tree with the angel, and string the lights generously down all sides. Finally, adorn with ornaments. Our collection is larger than the real estate of any Christmas tree we buy, so there’s always debate on which ornaments make the tree and which are re-relegated to the closet for another year of waiting. In the end, we stand back and admire a pleasing mix of homemade, school-made, photo-framed, and collectibles.

You can never have enough ornaments, and the glassblowers in Lauscha would agree. The process they use to create the simplest of glass balls is already beyond my artistic abilities. For one, you must work fast because the molten glass cools in a hurry. For two, you must have steady hands as you add color and detail. Have a look at the following short video and you’ll learn a thing or two you never knew about making Christmas ornaments. My favorite part of the process? “Silvering”. Who knew the mirror-like aspect of a Christmas ball is painted on the inside of the glass?

Germans (and more people than I’d probably guess) refer to Christmas ornaments as baubles, which is ironic because Americans define a bauble as a “showy cheap trinket”. Nothing produced in Lauscha, Germany is a showy cheap trinket. Then again, Americans figured out how to mass-produce Christmas ornaments and the result is a generic, sometimes-plastic alternative to the real thing. “Bauble” indeed.

The very first Christmas ornaments were anything but glass-blown baubles. You had fruit, candy canes, pastries, strings of popcorn, and whatever else you could find around the house. The Lauscha baubles then came along in the mid-1600s. Short of the post-WWII years (when the German government used the glass factories for more important products) they’ve been making them ever since.

Credit Woolworth’s once-popular department stores for the proliferation of Christmas ornaments in America. In the late 1800s, Woolworth’s started carrying the Lauscha baubles. Soon after, they stocked mass-produced American-made versions, taking tree-decorating to a whole new level. By the mid-20th-century, Woolworth’s was banking $25 million on Christmas decoration sales alone.

Hallmark jumped on the bauble bandwagon in the 1970s. Clever folks, those people at Hallmark. Their original ornament collection was made available only for the current year, followed by a new collection the following year, and so on. Today, Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments are so popular you have to join a club (just $49.95!) if you want to own their newest limited-edition ornaments.

As much as I’d like to add a Lauscha bauble or two to my tree, I prefer the more personal ornaments we hang instead. A dozen or more of them were designed around primary-school photos of our kids (“art projects”, they called them). Souvenir ornaments from favorite trips we’ve taken over the years. Several more with imprinted dates, to remind us of special occasions like weddings, births, or passings.

Five years ago, I wrote my one and only work of fiction on this blog, a post about a Christmas ornament. It seems fitting to include a link to The Best Branch on the Tree, assuming you haven’t followed me that long. Because, you know, ornaments – er, baubles – have feelings too.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Going Home

Last Friday, my family and I hosted – at long last – an in-person service of thanksgiving for my mother, who passed away in late 2020 at the age of 92. Travel restrictions denied us the opportunity to gather sooner but this year’s Thanksgiving weekend seemed most appropriate. The service program included hymns, Bible readings, a biographical homily, and reflections from my four brothers and me. But it was another element – a solo of “Going Home” – which brought a flood of tears and took my breath away, all at once.

As if the singing of “How Great Thou Art” or the reading of Psalm 23 wasn’t moving enough, “Going Home” brought my emotions to an entirely new level. Sure, the song’s lyrics speak beautifully – to the peaceful transition from a life well-lived to what lies beyond – but it was the music that made my heart skip a beat. “Going Home”, you see, borrows its instrumentals from the Largo movement of Antonin Dvorák’s “New World Symphony”. And Dvorák’s symphony is one of my very favorite pieces of classical music.

I alluded to classical music when I spoke at my mother’s service. I took piano lessons for several years as a child, and it was my mother who pushed me to practice when I would’ve much rather been playing outdoors. It was my mother who faithfully attended my many recitals and competitions. And it was my mother, as a result, who I credit for my lifelong love of classical music.

The New World Symphony’s (NWS) Largo movement is instantly recognizable to anyone who knows classical music (listen to the first two minutes above if you don’t believe me). It may be the most beautiful solo ever written for the English horn; a short, meandering melody backed by soft strings. I can’t think of a more appropriate instrument for the Largo, even though the English horn is an orchestra oddball with its distinctive wail. Now layer the “Going Home” lyrics on top, as with the crystalline voice of Sissel Kyrkjebo above, and you wonder if music can get any better.

Following the English horn solo, the NWS Largo shifts to a minor chord passage which “evokes a nostalgic and desolate mood”, sometimes perceived as a funeral march. But let’s be clear; my mother’s service was no funeral. Rather, it was a blessed celebration attended by those who loved and admired her. I think Dvorák knew this because the NWS Largo leaves the funeral march behind and concludes with another round of the peaceful English horn solo. For me, this music brings a cleansing sigh, and a feeling of calm and content. Just as my mother would want it to be.

I’ve saved the best for last here. After my brothers and I finished our remembrances, my father spoke. He said – to my utter amazement – my mother had effectively written her own service, picking the hymns, readings, and solos. In other words, “Going Home” was no random choice; it was my mother’s preference. Just as the New World Symphony Largo movement is my own preference. Maybe she was aware of the connection? Maybe not but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is I’ll always remember her, especially when I hear the English horn.

I miss you, Mom.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.