As if the month of December 2009 wasn’t negative enough for our family, we spent the last days of the year with the stomach flu – all 6 of us.  It’s just an interesting end to an interesting month, and I have to admit I am glad to see 2009 go.  Hopefully, a year like that only comes along once in a blue moon…  Actually, after reading about blue moons, I’m hoping our family’s bad luck years occur much less frequently than even a New Year’s blue moon, which we will enjoy this evening.

But my point is, have a happy and safe New Year’s celebration!  If you drink, don’t drive, and if you drink and drive, you’re not invited to read my blog anymore.

Happy New Year to you and yours!!!

AH… 2009, where have you gone?  Some really high points and some really low ones.  Lets deal with the low and end on a high (not THAT kind).

• We lost Michael Jackson who was one of my favorite performers growing up and even throughout his wierdness was a genius.
• Aunt Carol is still hanging on however little.  But good thing… the doctors did not give her until Christmas and she is almost to the new year of that we can be thankful.  So, I guess that can be a good thing disguised as a bad.

And now the GREAT which looking back can easily outweigh the bad:

• Back in January, after being passed over for a role in a WCCT show, my brother recommended me to the director of Meet Me in St. Louis and that led to three unforgettable shows at a new favorite venue.  I also met some great friends through the VPs some of whom have also transported to the WCCT.  When one door closes, another is soon to open up.  Good words to live by.
• Last Spring, I got to take another bite out of the Big Apple while once again assuming my role of Manny for the best friends ever.  Buses notwithstanding.
• The return of Star Trek to the big screen… nuff said.
• A Halloween road trip to the Big City with loads of friends.
• THE YANKEES WIN TITLE NUMBER 27.
• The evilness of one Mr. Henry F. Potter.

Of course, we cannot forget the fact that I do have a job in this turbulent economic time and have reasnably good health and a loony bin of a family (wouldn’t have it any other way) and the best group of characters anyone could possibly hope for that I love to call my friends and second family.  Thank you all.  Happy New Year and may 2010 bring you good health, good times, and good fortune.

It is now the 30th of December. 6 years ago my wife of almost 20 years died. Today is a day to remember all the good times. It is also a day to remember the bad times. That was what marriage was all about. There were good times and bad times. They all need to be remembered. Today is one of the days I set aside to remember.

it was an almost perfect Christmas.

The day started with going to a movie with my grandchildren, their parents and my youngest daughter. The movie was not my first choice, but it did impress my grandchildren, and I was happy to be there.

Then came dinner with my wife’s family, with all of my daughters and their respective husbands (if any), my grandchildren. Dinner was very good. Turkey, hot and cold vegetables, bread, stuffing, jello, pie, cookies, cake were all shared. Good talk with wonderful company.

Presents were unwrapped and almost everyone enjoyed themselves. One young man did not want to be part of the Christmas festivities, but that comes with his age. My day was filled with family and good times.

Feelings of loss also were in the house. Parents who lost children, a husband who lost a wife, the loss of a good friend, and the loss of grandchildren. These losses colored the gathering, but did not overwhelm. Colors that enhanced and shadow the picture. The colors give everything depth and meaning.

What is life, if not sharing good times and loss. That makes a very Merry Christmas indeed.

I was thinking about our family’s 2009 holiday season, now come and almost gone already, and I was envisioning words to describe this wonderful season, despite the fact that this year ours was peppered with unpleasant familial dramatics.  But about a week ago, I made what was a conscious decision to pull myself up from the depths of despair I had fallen into after losing a beloved family member just one week before Christmas.  So, in my good humor, I chose 24 of the best words to describe my holiday season, each beginning with a different letter of the alphabet.  Here goes…

Avatar – Saw it and actually liked it, despite my typical sci-fi reluctance.  But I liked Avatar so much that I’m really hoping the timing and budget work out so that I can see it again in 3D at a more technologically savvy theater.

Big Family Christmas – We traveled to Illinois on Christmas Day and got to take part in a huge gathering of my husband’s large extended family.  His 92-year-old grandmother, who speaks with a thick east-coast Connecticut accent (and who smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day from age 16 until age 70!) told many of her infamous stories that had everyone in stitches!  After hearing one of Monie’s stories, I could have used the words Blue Boob for B, but I will spare you those details…  😉

Christ Was Born – We went to a beautiful church service on Christmas Eve to celebrate and reflect upon the entire purpose of the Christmas holiday.

De…  There are two words that come to mind for this letter based upon certain recent events in my life, but I’m not going to go there; this is to be “A Not-So-Cynical Look…” blog post.  So here, D will stand for Dumbledore, since I’m almost halfway through my first Harry Potter book and lovin’ it!

Elf – My favorite holiday movie, and we actually had time to watch it this year!  It, unlike a few other favorite Christmas experiences, did not lose any magic this year.  I still felt that warm and fuzzy “Christmas Magic” feeling after I watched this movie – I’d pull it out more often, but it’s not the same unless it’s Christmas! 
“I love smiling; smiling’s my favorite!!”  – Buddy The Elf

Friends – We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends, and I can’t thank them enough for the things they did and just for being there during this bittersweet time.

Grandparents –  We were able to visit 3 of our grandparents this holiday season!  Even being in our 30’s, we have 3 surviving grandparents among my husband and I –  we were blessed to be able to spend time with all of them this year!

Homemade spaghetti – Best.  Christmas.  Gift.  EVER!!  My mother-in-law sent us home 4 huge frozen batches of her out-of-this-world spaghetti sauce!  AND a large bag of grated Asiago cheese.  AND…  something I’ll save for another letter…

Ice – Drove through plenty of it to reach IL and get back to Ohio on Christmas day.  Luckily, traffic was light and travel for us was smooth and safe.  The kids were good as gold and slept for the majority of both drives.

Jill – Screwed us over again!  This little story begins with Walmart.  Since this is “A Not-So-Cynical Look…”, I won’t go off about Walmart, but I will simply state the facts:  the pump in our windshield wiper cleaner fluid dispenser stopped working after the last time we got an oil change at Walmart.  We didn’t really need it until Christmas night, when we were driving past the city of Chicago, and apparently smog + snow = some sort of disgusting pollution paste.  So visibility is limited, and we still don’t know exactly what happened since we’ve driven this route dozens of times, but basically the express lanes on I-90 seemed to suddenly dissolve into city streets.  So now it’s 10:30 on Christmas night, and we’re wandering around in the city.  We can’t see out the back of the car since there’s tons of Christmas presents, and we can’t see out of the front of the car because of the pollution paste.  This is where Jill comes in – and she directs us straight back to I-90.  Only problem is, our van can’t just jump guardrails; we needed an entrance ramp, and Jill was only directing us to streets that crossed over the expressway and didn’t actually intersect with it.  So we crossed bridge after bridge, and we criss-crossed I-90 until one of those streets had an entrance ramp.  Then Jill freaked out and tried to get us off of the expressway again, but she got her power button pressed – we knew our way from there.

Kalachkies – I have a fun memory of a Christmas years ago when my forgetful Polish grandmother was sitting in her wheelchair, instructing my equally Polish uncle and myself how to make kalachkies, a usually delicious Polish cookie.  The end results were inedible and referred to as “hockey pucks”.  This year at Christmas, my husband’s cousin made homemade kalachkies – real ones, no hockey pucks, and they were delicious!  Thanks Lilly!

Late night drive – One night, we took the kids out in the car in their pajamas with some snacks, and we drove through the snowy countryside to a town  about 30 minutes away for a drive-thru lighted display that’s just wonderful.  Late night drive could also refer to my husband’s and my peaceful drive home (after the unscheduled tour of the city) while the kids were asleep all the way from Illinois to Ohio – nice.

Mashed Potatoes – My mother-in-law is a great cook!  I guess it’s been  awhile since the last time I had her mashed potatoes, because I  didn’t remember how they tasted.  But I told her the truth after Christmas dinner – they were the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had!

Noodles – My mother-in-law’s spaghetti sauce also came with EIGHT pounds of whole wheat gourmet organic pasta!  I love whole wheat pasta – it actually tastes better, and you don’t get the pasta-stomachache / horrible stuffed feeling that can accompany pasta over-indulgence.

Onions – One of my favorite holiday dishes is creamed onions, and it was a nice surprise to see this dish on the Christmas buffet.  Fortunately for me, my husband can replicate the taste of his mother’s creamed onions –  yum!

P.A.S. – Pompous Ass Syndrome – my poor brother-in-law is a victim.  Enough Said.

Quiet – With 4 kids and Christmas celebrations spread out over 2 weeks, there really wasn’t much of this.

Revenge – My brother and sister-in-law gifted our kids 3 little gumball machines.  Cute, but not when you realize how many gumballs needed to be pried out of our candy-obsessed toddler’s little hands, for one thing.  Who would give little kids gumball machine gifts?  Wait, isn’t that what we got her 3 kids last year?!?  I’m all for re-gifting; I really think it’s a smart thing to do.  But maybe next year I’ll choose our Christmas gifts more carefully…

Snow – It’s been snowing on and off for a week and a half here in Ohio.  The Chicago area was unexpectedly blanketed with about a foot of snow on Saturday – thank goodness we left for Ohio on Friday night!

Turkey – We ate it and it was good.

U-Turn – see “J” – Jill the GPS.  Besides the time we were lost in Chicago, Jill caused us to make at least one other U-turn on this trip.

Vile – Odor in Gary Indiana – I don’t care what the Music Man had to say – Gary Indiana STINKS!  Literally!!!

Weather  – I was worried about it all week, but thankfully, it didn’t impede our journey in the slightest.

X-changing gifts –  Ok, that’s too generic?  What else could X stand for, the rating of Monie’s Blue Boob story?  We x-changed gifts many gifts, and that’s all I’m going to say.

Yellow Puppy – When our friends heard about our family’s heartbreak, they gifted us a gigantic (stuffed) dog.  This cute puppy’s headband wouldn’t even fit on my head, and she wears a sweater that could probably fit me – or at least all 4 of my kids in it together…  so cute and so thoughtful, and the kids LOVE her!

Zoo lights – With everything that was going on during this December, I’m so thankful that we were able to make it to  one of our favorite Christmas destinations this year –   the Toledo Zoo for their Lights Before Christmas displays.  Beautiful lights in a peaceful atmosphere, and if you get there early enough, you can see some zoo animals, which is probably my favorite thing to do in the whole world!

Hope you had a Merry Christmas, and best wishes for a great New Year!!!

Since we are in the third day of the twelve, I would like to share with you my favorite song and video of the season.  I think it was around last year, but it really got exposure this year.

Since the good doctor made mention of the two songs here is Josh Groban singing Petit Papa Noel from his glorious Holiday CD, Noel.

and… Vive la Vent

This year, the extended family gathering fell on the day after the big day when everyone could fit it into their schedule with their other festivities.  Get us all together and it is bound to be a fun-filled event.  The hilarity began when my brother dropped his plate of food on the floor on the way to the table.  He insists that he had both hands on the plate.  I told him he should have had both eyes on the plate as well.  Alicia thought that he was sitting on the floor in the hall eating instead of joining us at the table.

Lots of goodies are always set up on Aunt Sandy’s table throughout the day, cheeseballs, cookies, candy (featuring everyone’s favorite buckeyes) plus the home cooked spread featuring pies and a delicious meal and you do not leave the place hungry.

Chad had to song lead at mass at six so a bunch of us went and came back out.  He did fine except that I think he should have practiced those later verses of “The First Noel” a bit more.  I admit that some of those do get tricky especially if you are not used to them.  The melody is familiar enough but when you are unaccustomed to the lyrics of all five verses then you tend to get overwhelmed.

After mass, many returned to the house and engaged in what I hope becomes a tradition: the euchre battle.  Going head to head with my oldest brother is daunting anyway (PARTICULARLY, KNOWING WHAT A SHARK HE IS!).  I am amazed and pleased to say that Christi?! and I beat Jeff and his rotating partners Dan and Carla 2- 1.

I also received a camera under the tree (let’s see how long it takes before I lose THIS ONE 🙂 )

Sydney in front of the horrible Eddie Murphy version of The Nutty Professor.

Carla, Dan, Sydney, and a surprise appearance by someone’s handsome leg.

Shelby (half covered by a mysterious appendage, Joshua, Jeff, and Elizabeth.

Sorry Shelby… must have had the blur reduction off.

Noah opening the Magna Doodle to which he lost the magnet inside the pen before the night ended.

Autumn, Jason, Carla, Lauren, Dan, Alyssa, and Alex with his second set of Army accessories of the season.

So… lots of fun, love, and FOOD over the Christmas holiday.

I LOVE CHRISTMAS.  I still look at the holiday with the wonder of a child.  For the entire month of December, I still do believe in the magic of Jolly Ol’ St. Nick but still marvel at the wonder of the true meaning of the holiday.  I even have my sister wrap my presnts and I do still snoop (ok, I admit it).  After getting off work at 2 on Christmas Evc, the immediate family and their kids opened presents and had the first of three feats throughout the weekend.  What a haul!  The highlight of my haul were two Scene-It games.  I had asked for the rather awesome looking Star Trek edition the moment I heard about it and submitted a question to the makers of the game when it was being developed.  I also received a pleasant surprise.  I had picked up the Simpson’s edition for my nephew just after Thanksgiving.  I unwrapped the one of my own for Christmas.  I have played it with some friends and ADORE IT!

Midnight Mass (well, 11PM mass) was beautiful as usual.  The past few years singing “Silent Night” at Communion have been really difficult.  I am immediately taken back to the four Christmas concerts in high school singing the carol by candlelight.  I can still see Emily behind the piano.  I then went home and caught my sneak-in viewing of A Christmas Story.

Christmas Day was feast number two and a day typically set aside for watching movies people had received.  We were treated to Santa Buddies courtesy of Alex.  I was exhausted and slept through half of it.

More fun and merriment to come with the Swary family Christmas.

On Christmas my four daughters were together for the first time since my 3rd daughter got married. This is the first time my 3 married daughters and their husbands have been together. This is the first time I got to spend some time after Christmas with my youngest grandchildren. The first Christmas I got to spend with my 2nd son-in-law. The 6th Christmas without my beloved wife.

My three oldest daughters have been married for 3 years, 2 years and the last daughter 6 months. My first son-in-law was the only son-in-law to meet my wife. I think that he was very lucky to have this opportunity. He got to meet the a main ingredient of his wife’s personality. The girls all get some of their personalities from this wonderful woman. Some they get from me. My son-in-laws have a very good chance to get to know me. I’m not really shy at who I am.

We will have two more opportunities for all of us to be together. It is family that gives me they greatest pleasure. Playing with my grandkids makes me feel younger. Talking with my daughters allows me to stay a dad. Being with my son-in-laws allows me to ‘hang out’ with the guys. That was something I didn’t get too many chances to do with 4 daughters.

I can’t wait for the next 3 days to start. I get to spend more time with my family. They are wonderful to be with.

Sorry for the lack of posts.  Time, stress, not feeling like posting- you know, the usual.  Still nothing about my life at the moment, but here’s a cute video.  Merry Christmas!

Oh, I’ll start reading some blogs soon too…