Santa Claus is coming into town December 1. - 25., 2002 ... and brings El Niño along as well our next visitors and a fence box on our back yard

	Some people take Christmas decorations very seriously

Christmas in America comes right after Thanksgiving Day. This year I even witnessed a heated debate at a grocery store. Several ladies got very upset about the fact that many merchants this year skipped Thanksgiving decorations altogether and rolled out Christmas themes right from in mid-November. I understand their issue. While Christmas through the years converted into a shopping frenzy, Thanksgiving Day remained an oasis of truly family holiday.

In our neighborhood, Christmas settled in as it is proper, after Thanksgiving. It began with illuminated, wire frame reindeers here and there, and within a few days, beautifying efforts picked up on speed and force. On my first winter in USA, I could not simply believe the extent of how tasteless such decoration could be; today I don't understand, what I could have found wrong about it. Don't be afraid, we still did not reach a state of mind that would lead to installing giant moving, flood light illuminated Santa Clauses, but I promised myself for the next winter to set out at least a row of Christmas lights across the edge of our roof (Sid, pretty please).

	This kind of fencing grows on its own in our back yard...

Besides Christmas, other affairs found their in our life. First it was something that's called El Niño. If I get it right, it means that once in about five years, we get a somewhat more dramatic winter. It started with a storm in early November. From that point on, instead of mild soft showers, our skies throw fits in form of strong winds and lightning. It howls in our chimney, plastic garbage containers roll around our street, trees fall, power lines snap and the whole California tries to pretend to be Alaska. There's one advantage to it -- our mountains received about six feet of snow by now, and skiing is great.

With December, another visit arrived to our home. Petra used to be my climbing partner back in Bohemia, and since her employer kindly arranged for a conference participation in San Francisco, there was no question where she should stay. We made her bed in our little guest room and waited for her and Patrice, her friend, to pass through airport madness and find their way to our den.

	Petra & Patrice at Point Lobos don't look into a bright future, they gape at huge waves

Of course El Niño emerged right on the day of their arrival. Till then we had sunshine -- except for that one November storm. Hence I am taken for a fool, as I keep on luring people to visit sunny California, where it really rains all the time, right? Nevertheless our guest took the weather easy; Patrice even made Petra carry a swimsuit on their first trip to the Pacific. Love may carry mountains, but it's harder with a whole ocean. As far as I know, Petra refused to enter a 60°F ocean amidst Thanksgiving-like gloomy weather (and I don't blame her).

A weekend brought at least one acceptable day and showed us a sun-flooded Point Lobos, with giant surf waves, and Monterey Aquarium. Then they had to attend their conference, and we began to pound into them all the information about great gross locations, which they absolutely must not miss in California. They were off for on week's trip. And so while it rained heavily here and weather was generally miserable, Petra and Patrice were enjoying a little of everything -- from snow at Mono Lake to a "furnace" at Death Valley.

	A forest at Point Lobos

Given our ugly outdoors, we kept at the house. Our suspicion got roused one Monday, for we found a bunch of long wooden strips in our garage, arranged in a way that prevented me to get out of my car. Since I tend not to interfere with my husband's attempts at maintaining our house, I thought that he had some important intentions with them and only moved them a bit aside. When Sid came from work, I had long forgotten them. The bigger was my surprise when I looked out of our bedroom window in the morning. There was a new fence around our pool machinery in a corner of our back yard!!! Indeed, we had mentioned to our royal handyman Andrzej that we would love to cover up ugly pipelines and pump equipment. He had left us a call on our answering machine on Sunday, which we did not return (I though Sid would, and he thought I'd do it), but a sudden appearance of a fence in our back yard was a real (pleasant) shock. Perhaps because we did not give him any extra directions, Andrzej had thought up and assembled a wonderful box.

	Asilomar is a required attraction when visiting Monterey

Then we got swallowed by Christmas. By means of a thorough study of my employee's handbook I figured out that I could claim a right to two extra paid holidays for personal or religious reasons (and I would see to it that Christmas are a serious religious reason), and I had about four days of "sick leave", which may not be transferred to the next year. This combined time off I managed to span the whole Christmas week and a part of another (all the way to New Year), despite the fact that American are terrible "pagans" (only December 25 is an official state holiday, and then January 1).

	On our way to our Christmas tree, we stopped on Borel Hill

Our holidays had a traditional setting. I baked some cookies, did not trouble much with any big cleanup; on Saturday we cut our own tree at a tree farm, and I decorated it the same day. Having planned to drive out for a big trip on 26th, we wanted to enjoy some time with our decoration. Storms quieted down by Sunday and so we went skiing to Kirkwood on Monday. It's really hard to get there without finding our friend Martin there as well, so we turned Petra into his care, as they are both sport skiers, who kept circling for the whole afternoon on the same steepest slope at maximum speed. Sid and I, we are scenery skiers, and we slipped over to another valley, where you ski among ice-covered pines illuminated by oblique winter sunlight. We got almost six feet of new packed powder and it's been very romantic, with big plumes of snow dragging behind each skier as he turned, and that looked really great against a setting sun. I must mention, though, a fact that this powdery snow would always somehow get in our boots from top, and that was not so great.

	As you can see, Santa has left a lot of stuff around the tree

Our Christmas Eve, which is traditionally the Czech gift-giving moment, we spent again in a classic manner. While I wrestled with potato salad and watched a Czech fairy tale on TV (which led to overcooking my potatoes, so that the final product resembled mashed potatoes with peas and carrots), Sid was doing his "last minute shopping". Besides that, he was to buy us fish for dinner. Late shopping always requires weathering otherwise unseen lengthy check-out lines and digging through stuff already thousand times turned around by earlier shoppers. I avoid it by buying my presents at the beginning of December. I'm deeply convinced, though, that Sid enjoys the hassle compulsively, for then he can whine at home, how much of a hassle the whole Christmas is, and I may comfort him.

	Christmas at Hippo's consists of watching fairy tales and eating cookies

Everything went well, Santa brought us presents, we watched Lotrando and Zubejda (another Czech fairy tale), and went to bed, for we had to get ready for another strong festive experience. It became our tradition to visit Kren's on Christmas Day, where they bake a huge ham, and strong wines are served. It knocked me out by nine p.m., and now it's the day after, I'm writing this journal and am waiting for the remaining two (Sid and Petra) to wake up from their post-Christmas party sleep, so we could drive out into the distance (New Mexico) to pass Petra on to her next stay on her American journey.

Copyright © 2002-2005 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.