For My Music Man: December 2016

Ian,

You have defined our Christmas’ since you were born – three days after Christmas in 1993. That first Christmas was full of anticipation. Our family had grown rapidly in the past two and half years. We became three in 1991 when Mom and I got married – Danny was the immediate bonus! Caylea came in August before our second Christmas together. Indeed, Mom had surprised me with the news by giving me a “Baby’s First Christmas” Precious Memories figurine while we lived in College Station. She was born in Shady Grove Hospital – just like you would be. That Christmas Advent remembered the coming of our Savior, but also the up-coming of you! You did not waste much time and were born early in the morning on the 28^th of December that 1993. Funny – you were number three, but you really focused our traditions around the holidays as we had to address the challenge of having your child’s bday juxtaposed to the biggest holiday of the year. Thus, the tradition of schedule emerged. The tree went up right after Thanksgiving and down the day after Christmas. Celebrate Jesus’ birthday, then focus on yours.

Soon after the Thanksgiving turkey was cleaned up – the Christmas decorations emerged from the closet or attic and our house became transformed into a winter wonderland. I still remember the enthusiasm, well, less than joy, that filled you, Caylea and Danny, to help me pull the decorations down from the attic. In the later years, you were buff and strong. My role was to sort, and “drop” the boxes to you on the ladder and you carried them to the other kids to take in the house. I still hear you saying “Dad, don’t drop the box on me like that!”

As we brought in the decorations, the Christmas music would play, starting with Garth Brooks, then Rebecca St. James, John Michael Talbot and then a whole collection of holiday CD’s. Mom loved Christmas music. We would put up the tree. Remember our first tree – Momma Jean and Poppa Gene’s (MJ&PG) tree with the assemble by colors branches? Yes, I was reminded every year we used it that the colors were rubbed off so many limbs. Limbs were bent from Johnny the cat sleeping in the tree, and each branch had to be fluffed. The last was not our favorite part! We would play “The Grinch Stole Christmas” movie with Jim Carey to keep the spirit light as we struggled with our tree. We tried real trees – found out Mom was allergic! Then we bought a new tree – that was more of the pop-up kind. But still required fluffing. Bummer! I remember the year Taylor joined us in the fun - more limbs to go around and more hands to fluff! yay!! It was a good year in Vacaville.

The tree lights were always – my least favorite part. ALWAYS – something would not work. We would have to work as a team to arrange new light strings up the trees, around branches – to give a balanced and bright look. Mom would also string blue lights on the ficus and other trees (mostly fake) in the house.

You and Caylea would help me put up lights in the yard. We used the “deer” – which always needed new lighting – and used blue lights to create a stream for them to stand near under our big live oak tree out front. The Christmas flamingo was also a common visitor to our porch. The most important outside was the red light cross. We used two coat holders Poppe had given us to form a cross. We then wrapped it with red lights and hung this near the front door. We also use the Merry Christmas sign Mom picked up in CA with the mittens, pants, coat and gloves of Santa hanging. Yes, the house was “lit” up inside and out.

The process of putting up the tree, stringing lights, and ornaments was characterized by our traditional “Men without shirts” celebration. Caylea would wear a sports bra, but Danny, you and I would boldly go shirtless in the winter to put up the lights and dazzle all the women with our sexiness. We collected and still display all the hand-made ornaments you, Caylea and Danny would make at school and church. They remind us of so many happy memories and makes us thankful, very thankful for each of our kids.

A big tradition was to get annual ornaments – each representing a special time in the year. Basketballs, cars, Aggie helmet/Reveille were all examples of ornaments your chose. Each tells a story from your life. I guess I should write a blog detailing each ornament's story - this would tell us so much about you and how you saw your years. Often, they were silly – Santa in a car that played a song, a Tie Fighter, Spiderman – represented your interests and your light-hearted approach to life. We would poise and hang each up with the requisite pictures. Yes, no one loved taking pictures. So glad we did.

Nutcrackers...you had a thing for nutcrackers. It started very early. You found you loved one I got as a gift - always took it out, kept it out of the Christmas decorations to play with it. Then we started getting you nutcrackers. You picked out a SF Forty-Niner Christmas Ornament nutcracker. You found a bass playing nutcracker with long black hair. You displayed them all year long. What once was a year long wait to play with the nutcrackers for a month became something we all embraced and enjoyed sharing with you. We still have a big tin nutcracker in our entrance way. He reminds us of you and the joy nutcrackers brought to our home.

We would finish up with a selection of traditional ornaments – nativity scenes we had been given or purchased were in each room. They were used to teach you the story of our Savior. Then there was the Advent calendar with the 25 story books MJ&PG gave us. Each day, the three of your would grab the correctly dated book corresponding to the day in December and we would read about the story of Jesus together before bed. You were full of questions – asking why the innkeeper could be so cold to not let Mary and Joseph stay, what song did the angels sing, what animals were in the stall near the manger – and others. Setting up the house gave us a rhythm of joy, sounds of praise, togetherness and joint purpose and constant reminders of the coming King.

So many stories to remember about Christmas – lots to tell; will pick just a few. The Christmas after we moved to CA, we shared the holidays with our other family the Mundells for the first time. Time with them – Thanksgiving, swimming, Easters, Summer trips, Christmas – still is a tradition.

I got the brilliant idea one of our first Christmases in CA to build a manger and “drive home the Christmas story” to my kids. Poppa Gene helped me build the manger out of spare lumber. It was crude – I am not an engineer or a builder – and it barely stood up. But, certainly all you kids with Kurt and Kelsi were fascinated about what we were going to do with it. Well, we put it on the front porch and Caylea and you gave your blankets and brought a baby to lay there. We put it together – it looked great! Then baby Jesus went missing? He was not in his manger! Well, you wanted to be with Baby Jesus and picked him up and carried him around loving him. You kept him safe and brought him back to the manger and tucked him in bed. That proved to be a model for your life – you embracing Jesus, Jesus embracing you – protecting you and bringing you Home safely.

We spent many Christmases with family. PopE and Mawmaw, Granny and Papa, Shelley, Kurt and the kids, Khristina, Mandi and kids, Megan and Emma. Times on the farm, times at Shelly and Kurt’s – you were always quick to love your family, take care of your cousins, play with them and get a kick out of their joy as they opened their gifts. The most common place we went for Christmas was MJ&PG’s to spend the holidays with them and the Darlands.

The timing was always difficult as you kids got older. Jobs, especially Starbucks, kept us limited on times to be gone. PG always wanted his family home for Christmas – but that was not always possible. We would all circle up around the living room and one or two of your kids would be Santa. You would deliver the gifts to all of us. Then the unwrapping began – one at a time, around the circle. We had to limit the numbers of gifts because the time would be soooo long. But we would enjoy everyone’s generosity, joke and laugh and tell stories as we opened gifts. You were always entertaining with how you opened the gifts, wore the bows, and made your cousins Will and Kenedy laugh and laugh. One year, we brought the Austin tradition of decorating the trees on Hwy 360 to Wichita Falls and decorated a tree in front of the Sonic on Southwest Parkway. Everyone could not believe we were doing this in Wichita Falls – but we did. Will and Kenedy were shocked, then excited, and we all decorated the tree and laughed and laughed together.

We often would carol – you would sing and participate in school and church Christmas specials - always singing with no worry about how it may sound.

I remember our Bible study took the Japanese teachers around our neighborhood in Austin one year. You came with us – singing with them. The neighbors and the teachers learned about the Christmas story anew as we taught them songs on the spot – before the front door opened.

We also sang carols in CA with Becky and her family – especially her grandmother. Cutting up and joking with her family was awesome. The big caroling event was Christmas Eve services where we would dress up, meet our friends and remember the coming of Jesus. You came to these services in Maryland, California and Texas. The most unique was at the Austin Stone where we sang with Todd Agnew and other worship leaders at the top of our lungs and they recorded songs for the Stone’s Christmas CD. I still remember your eyes shut, voice lifted up, hands extended as we praised our soon returning King.

We loved to take people to 37-1/2 Street in Austin off Guadalupe. The huge foil T-Rex, the stuffed animal petting zoo, the sock monkey nativity scene, the lights thrown here and there and the US monopoly set after Obama was elected – all highlights of 7 years of visits. It was odd, off-beat, yes, weird. We took your friends, Bible Study folks, family. Some would get it. Some were offended. So loved it. We loved walking, laughing at the quirky humor and unique displays. We would ask Mom if we could try to start this on Tributary Ridge. Strangely, we never got the green light.

Gifts – well Christmas ultimately has a lot of “gifts.” With a birthday so near Christmas, the “negotiation” process for combo – Christmas and bday – gifts started in CA. The first was your Haro bike I think.

Then we had to often set limits to define some gifts for Christmas and others for your birthday. We had the tradition of opening up one gift on Christmas Eve – well, sometimes the gifts from the Mundells as well (since we often spent Christmas Eve with them) – and then “Santa” gift on Christmas morning as well as the rest of the gifts from your siblings and parents.

You and your brother and sister often were sooo jazzed you could barely sleep. Caylea was always up early and learned quickly to stay on her side of the house to wait for Mom and I to come out, video tape or take pictures of the big “unveiling!!!” She would always grab you, and you were quick to join. We would hear giggling, talking in hushed voices in the hallway or one of your rooms. Getting Danny up – well that was more challenging. He was a more accomplished sleeper than you were!

But sometimes - you all were so tired waiting for Christmas - you would sleep in!!

But in your PJ’s, wrapped up in bedspreads or blankets, we would gather in front of the fire near the tree to open gifts. Like at MJ&PG’s, one of you would be Santa and distribute the gifts and we would open one at a time, talking, laughing, telling stories, giving snarky comments all the while.

We would do this in person, in Maryland, California or Texas or as we did in 2012 – virtually on Facetime to include family, friends always. We would share Christmas in calls, texts, and Christmas Eve’s gifts as we sought to beat PG to the punch.

Every year almost you would want a Guinness Book of World Records and then would bug us for days with the grossest or oddest stories you could find. You would want books and stories about basketball, sports. You would be so creative and buy such cool gifts for us. I still have my signed "Accidental Evolution of Rock and Roll" book, the guitar tuner, the Junips Fields CD and others. I know Mom, Caylea, Ian and everyone also has a favorite gift from you. Each gift reflected their uniqueness and fitted them so well. You were sensitive, aware, and generous to a fault.

The most memorable Christmas gift we gave you was your Music Man bass. During weekends and also during the Christmas break, we would visit guitar shops and look at instruments. PG would go with us – he would beam as you would play and we would listen. Hear him tell about one of these visits:

“Ian would love to go to guitar stores to see basses and amplifiers. He could spend hours and hours playing one after another. Sometimes with earpieces, others with the amps. He could just spend the day doing this. I tried hard to be patient as he tried out different amplifiers, guitars, etc. He never tried to buy one, but really tried to play them. When he was ready to buy a guitar, or part of a guitar, or really anything – when his mind was set on something – he could not stop focusing on it, asking about it, or trying to go to the store until it is done.”

During one of these trips, we found this dark blue Music Man bass, two humbuckers, with blue pearloid pick guard, on sale. You WANTED IT!!! The negotiation for a combo gift began again. Mom and I agreed to get if for you. We wrapped it in your old Squire bass box – but you were not fooled. You knew it was not a Squire. You were so happy you cried – and then were off to play and play on it the rest of the day.

After Christmas one day – probably on your birthday or the day after – a year or two before, you and Mom went to Heart of Texas Music on South Lamar – yes the place Stevie Ray Vaughn bought the SRV-1 Strat from Ray – and Ray sold you “The Nuke” by Bugera and the 4X10 Trace Elliot cabinet. That set up would blow windows out of a house with a 1,000 Watts of sound. The Christmas after your bass, we got you the 1X15 Trace Elliot cabinet – still plenty loud, but instead of 80-100 lbs – it was just 40 or so.

Got to admit it, loved shopping for music stuff for and with you. It was the highlight of a week, a month or year. I miss it every time I step into a music store now.

No one to share songs with, the joy of discovery with, the giggles with and can hear my son only in my memories popping and slapping like no one else in the store. I miss that joy.

As I shop for this Christmas, every time I see Jack Skellington or the Nightmare Before Christmas, I remember how you loved it, the songs, the stories, the animation. I remember my Skellington mask you used to wear with friends, your cat, watching movies with you as you were curled up on the floor in the Pogue Common Room watching the movie, talking always through it, then growing quiet, then falling asleep in the middle of it. We would often go shopping for PJ’s at this time at Target – for Christmas, or just because it would be cozy. It was during one of these times in 2012 we saw the One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish PJs that were your favorites in College Station. I had to convince you to let me buy them for you – an odd thing! But we got them, you wore them constantly, and we gave them to you again in the end.

We enjoyed taking pictures by the tree - with pets, in costume - and of our feet. Pictures were never the favorite activity. Everyone was always moving soooo quickly. Lots to do - but when the pictures worked - they were memorable!

As I walk through the house, I miss seeing you and Caylea and Danny sleeping together, laying and laughing together, being silly together as three, as it should be. I miss your laugh; I miss your Mom’s joy and smile; I miss the enthusiasm to blow your mind with Christmas gifts; I miss your joyous giving to homeless, addicts, the needy during this and other times; I miss singing with you in church; I miss playing the “12 Days of Christmas” in the style of Reliant K at KIDS at the Stone; I miss shooting baskets with you after opening gifts; I miss you as a baby, as a boy, a young man, as a man. I just flat miss you!!

Christmas…I have struggled to approach the holidays – both as a season, but also in the feelings and struggles. We have a tree - just for you - where we put new ornaments each year: one to remember you - the annual Hallmark ornament, and one that we think that you would choose. This year it is Hulk in the Ragnarok outfit. Your beefy-ness, goofy-ness and athletic-ness makes the Hulk the perfect ornament. Of course, you did not have the outburst of anger, green coloring or shrinkage to a micro-man. You kinda just stayed hulk-ish.

There are lifetimes of stories still to tell, but these are a start; these remind me of you. It is nearly Christmas again, the fifth one without you. Of the most valuable things I have - the bag with the card, To: Dad From: Ian in your handwriting ranks near the top. Just seeing this again makes Christmas less hard and the hope of reunion just that much stronger.