Christmas Eve

Each year on Christmas Eve, my sisters and I, and sometimes my mom, will buy a bunch of baking stuff and bake sweets. Some we take with us to the Christmas Eve party at my grandmother's house at night, but most we make plates out of and hand out to our neighbors. Seeing as how we've been in this house for 30 years, we know a lot of them and can remember when there have been changes in residence.

The one that I wish were still around was Mr. January. He was like our farmer neighbor. Grew tomatoes in his backyard. I remember him showing us how the vines grew onto other objects like poles or little fences. He had an awesome old barber's chair, with metal detail and a white cushion. It also had the foot pedal that moved it around, although I'm not sure if it worked. He also had an old school icebox that always had the individual vanilla ice creams in it. We got one every time we went by. My mom said that around the time when I was born was when she started getting to know him. He was an elderly widower whose daughter was never around, and he was lonely. So he and my mom grew the kind of bond that he might have had with his daughter. He liked to carve things, like a wooden reindeer to put on the porch, or a penguin that we still have hanging in the kitchen. You set it up on a counter and it peeks down at you while you work. He also made us a squirrel feeder.

He wood carve and paint these things for us, and he was just one of those wonderful people you meet once in your life. Old school, but intelligent. Hard working. Someone who understood what hard work used to mean.

He started moving to smaller towns around Texas, like Vidor, Baytown, Lampasas. We went to see him a few times, but he passed away at least 3 years ago.

My other neighbors across the street are an older couple who have young men living with them, either sons or nephews. Those guys can cause some trouble, but when it comes down to it, they're the same as us and we've known them for years. They always get a plate. They also helped us out before Hurricane Ike hit us, giving us plywood because we waited too late to get some at the store.

We also gave one to the man who owns a gas station nearby. He's a young Pakistani man named Sam. He's really nice, and definitely hardworking. I have real respect for him because he is a Pakistani in the gas station business, and its got to be hard. He also speaks at least four languages, which anyone CAN do, but I think it shows dedication to your job. He knows Pakistani (i'm not sure what the language is called) and then English and Spanish, and then a different dialect from his town back home. He was definately touched when we gave him that plate. Made us feel great giving it to him.

A new addition to our list is someone named Junior who lives down the street. We don't know him that well, and didn't really talk to him before last year. But he runs a roofing and construction business, and we've had this old shed in the back yard for years. My parents have always had big plans for it, but have moved slowly when it came down to it. He filled in walls and put in windows and a real roof on it, as compared to the doorways without doors and aluminum roof. And when we were hit by Ike in September and a massive pine branch fell through the roof, he repaired it within days for less then 100 dollars. He also gave us plywood before the hurricane to cover our windows, and helped us put it up.

Anyway, so these are my plans for tomorrow. Get up, WAKE up, start cleaning up, wake up my sisters, and get to baking. Then we'll start walking up and down the street, passing out our trays to our neighbors.

Merry Christmas.