Christmas Eve

Friday found much of the family tied up with this and that. 

Since I had 7 at my place, I just invited whomever could get away to come over and have another ethnic dish that only gets made for special occasions... noodle soup with butter glase (a dumpling made with toasted bread crumbs and seasoned with allspice).

My parents joined us for supper and a Christmas Eve vespers.  Sarah and Ben dropped by for a few minutes on their way home from last minute shopping; Kelly Sue came for leftovers on her way home from celebrating with her boys at their dad's home in Buckeye; George and Trish came over for a quick visit when he got off his 7a-7p shift at the hospital.

Organ Concert

As posted earlier...Kristopher promised us an organ concert for our family Christmas gift.
Well, he delivered!
Thursday evening, December 22.
The ancient organ in our church hadn't had that much pulled from it for a long time.  He worked with a definate handicap...the "choir" manual was not functioning, besides the general elderliness of the instrument.


Pre-concert practice



To quote from the notes on his program, "Two traditional Lutheran Advent Chorals were selected as the musical ideas to tie everything together....Both chorals were very popular in Lutheran Germany and many great musicians wrote works, both large and small, based on the tunes."  He played a selection of these works written by Sweelinck, Kauffmann, JS Bach, Pachelbel, Heiller, Bohm, and Schack. Again quoting, "Bookending the program are two works from the Romantic time period in France.  Both are showpieces, designed for the large and grand symphonic organs in the large cathedrals of Paris."  The opening piece was Gigout's Grand Choeur Dialogue and he closed with Widor's Symphony No. 5, Op.42 - v. Toccata....very cool!

Concert attenders:

Grandparents Schwinn

Granparents Herber

K with Bonnie L,
organ teacher of high school years

Aunt KS and cousins



    


Okay, what's going on?



N & M friends





Photo Credits: Starr

Family Time

It's been a busy 7 days.
A week ago, Kristopher arrived from Chattanooga and the time started flying...
On Tuesday, Karl's parents arrived.  After 3 weeks in Yuma, AZ where Dad Schwinn lead a group of Maranatha Volunteers framing a new church for the Gila Bend congregation, they came to spend a week with us.
Wednesday afternoon aunts and cousins converged on Grandma Herber's house to build and consume bierrock (also known as runzas, krautburgers, German-Russian meal in a bun).  Even Konrad and Starr timed their arrival for the holiday to get them here in time for what is becoming a tradition - creating this ethnic treat as a group project when the cousins are home for a holiday. We had enough left of the 6 dozen made to send a few to George, who had to miss out due to work schedule.

autumn color...in December

This is some of the best color I've ever seen in AZ.  Usually, leaves just turn a "sort of" yellow, but mostly just dry up to an uninspiriring brown and fall off whenever.  There are only a few of these trees showing such brilliance, but they look great.  

 I try to get in a little walk after I reach Tempe each Monday mornings prior to hanging out with my cousin, Vince.  This morning there was a small pile of leaves I got to crunch through in the pathway...the crunch was great, but the leaves were way too dry to send off that wonderful scent you get with the same activity elsewhere.

Setting up "Christmas" at Granny's

December 4
For the last few years, my younger brother and his wife have taken charge of providing the grunt labor for putting up "Christmas" at Mom and Dad's.  They usually chose a time when the sibs can lend a hand, however.  George and Trish wind up doing the lion's share, but we have a good time just hanging out together.

Mom gives directions

Trish spreads out the crochet tree skirt

Mom oversees the unwrapping of her Mexican nativity