The Best Arrangement!

There are two Christmas songs I have loved since the first time I heard them many years ago, The Holly and the Ivy and The Holly Bears a Berry have been among my favorite Christmas carols since I was a little boy. Now I have heard this arrangement, performed by the students at three different Church of England schools and am totally blown away. Wow, what beauty!

Christ is Born!

It was a joy to visit St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in San Jose on the early morning of Christmas eve. I hadn't been there in more than a couple of years, but they were the only parish between my house and San Francisco that was serving Royal Hours. I guess, most parishes were not serving it because it followed so close on the heels of Sunday and most priests take Monday off and they were going to be super busy doing all the services later the night of the 24th. But it was beautiful being with the Greeks that morning. Excpt for the Our Father, and 1/3 of the Lord Have Mercies, every word was in Greek. It was okay. I don't understand why they use so much Greek when everyone in that parish speaks English, but after being Orthodox for 20 years I petty much know most of the services, and recognize enough Greek to know where we are in the services. So while the two priests, the two readers, and four old widows in the congregation were praying in Greek I was praying silently in English. (I love he smell of incense in the morning. It smells like victory!) Then, later that night Kathleen, her kids, and I went to the Vesperal Litrugy of St. Basil at St. Lawrence Orthodox Church in Felton. Wow, what a gorgeous choir! Every parish in America should have such a choir! They sing like they used to be Protestants.

Between services on Christmas Eve, Kathleen and I made a bunch loaves of cranberry orange bread. And After Divine Liturgy today at St. Nicholas in Saratoga we were able to give a loaf to every family in the parish and to the handful visitor who were with us. And of course all the clergy got their fruicakes. And we have one fruit cake and one orange cranberry bread left over!

When we got home Basil was waiting for us. He had been to church at another parish this moring, I think Felton or, maybe, it was St. Stephen in Campbell. I don't remember what he said. And then we opened presnts while I cooked the Christmas sausage and Kathleen cooked eggs and bacon. You know, it's funny, but ever since i was ten or eleven years old and felt ingrattitude one Christmas I have not relished the presents on Christmas. Now it seems every Christmas is haunted by the memory of that sinful thought of 45 years ago; fear that I might do it again. Bit I like watching Kathleen, Basil, Maximo, and Sophia open their presents. And it was fun seeing their happiness when I opened mine from them.

So after breakfast and presents Kathleen and her kids went to visit Kathleen's dad (I might have mentioned on this blog that is was a paratrooper and is a real knight. Seriosly, he is a knight.) while Basil and I watched A Christmas Story Christmas. It was the first Christmas movie I watched this year. At first I thought it was kind of silly, but by the end I was in tears.

I really have to thank the clergy and the faithful at all of the parishes I mentioned in this post. All of them; their love, devotion, faithfulness, and voices made the last two days beautiful.

Christ is born! Glorify him!

An Inheritance, Dinner with Family, and a Recipe.

As I mentioned a few months ago in this blog, my oldest brother died. Yesterday, I got a text message saying to go to his widow's house. When I got there my nephew opened a book and said, "My dad wanted you to have these guns." Then he opened a safe and handed me Remington 700 BDL chambered for .300 WinMag, a Stevens double barrel 12 ga shotgun, and an ancient Montgomery Ward bolt-action 20 guage shotgun with an adjustable choke. I now have more guns than can fit in my safe. I'll send my Axis .30-'06 to my son Anselm Samuel in Maine. Maybe he'll get a moose.

I picked up my son Basil and we played games at Starbucks for a few hours then we met my surviving sibliblings, their spouses, my brother's widow, one nephew, and my wife at a pretty good Mexican restaurant in Sunnyvale. It was a good time. I don't see them often enough.

Today I had work to do so I ent into school but the internet was out so I went shopping for the ingredients for the Christmas sausage, and Mama Samberg's Cranberry Relish. Then tonight Basil came over and we played some more games. I think my favorite was Bread and Beer. He won, but he's been beating me at games for about 5 years now.

Update Saturday Dec 21.
Basil came over and we made the Christmas Sausage today. Oh, what goes in our christmas sausage? pork shoulder, lamb, pork belly, garlic, orange zest, salt, black pepper, oregeno, fennel seeds, and white wine. Use about 3 lbs of pork, 1.5 pounds lamb, one pound of pork belly, 3 tablespoons of salt, 1 cup of wine, everything else to taste. grind it up. stuff it in casings, then trhow it in the freezer until Christmas eve. Take it out of the freezer on the way to church in the morning, then eat it after Divine Liturgy.

The Christmas List

My wife reminded me that I haven't published this years Christmas list. I told her I have everything I want or need but she didn't belive me. So, here it is.




1. Ladies, do your man's shirt collars look sloppy, curling up or down at the points? Then get him some of these nifty collar stays. They say they are magnetic, but I am not sure why anyone needs magetic collar stays.

2. And since we are on the topic of collars maybe your man has a job that causes him to sit at a table and talk with students all day, and he never exercises and his neck has grown an inch in circumference. If that is the case, and he doesn't want to just go out and buy a bunch of new shirts, these button expanders are an excellent thing to geive him.

3. Is your man a duck hunter but hampered by lack of a dog? Then a Started Labrador Retreiver Puppy might just be the thing he needs!

4. Does he have a beautul Smith and Wesson .357 magnum but no holster to put in in? Look no farther! There is a holster for his gun!

5. He understands why you didn't give him the cow horn chair he asked for a few years ago, but how about cow hide?

6. He really needs ball point pens in black and red.

7. You know, he really likes kippers.

8. Yes it's true, he almost never smokes his pipe anymore, but when he does wouldn't it be nice to see him earing one of these smoking hats?

Boxing, a Wreath and More Fruitcakes

Last night after work I went to a boxing tournament one of my students was competing in. I was ringside, and it was a tremendous amount of fun. I hadn't seen live boxing since 1989. I don't know why but his parents weren't there. I wonder if he has parents.

We have a wreath over our front door now, and Kathleen and I made twelve more fruit cakes this morning. It has been a pleasent, quiet day.

I love the holidays.

Thanksgiving I met my son's in-laws. On the way down to Oceanside, where they live, we passed several things I had never seen before and some things I hadn't seen since I was 8 years old. I saw Biola University, my teenage dream school. We passed by Mission San Juan Capistrano, Which I read about when I was in the fourth grade, but remember mostly from watching this cartoon. At one point I saw an exit from the freemay that said Basilone Dr. I was like, No Way! so I googled it to see if I was right. Yes, it was named for John Basilone. Almost as exciting was a few minutes later when I saw Camp Pendleton off to my left; the place where Gomer Pyle lived.

When we got to our destination I immediately loved my son's in-laws. My daughter-in-law's grandmother lives there. She is a widow and has an intese prayer rule. She prays the Caplet of Divine Mercy (Which I learned many years ago from watching Mother Angelica's TV network, 50 rosaries and a bunch of other prayers every day. Her daughter, my son's mother-in-law is Mexican so the food was out of this world: Tamales, birria, chocolate mole served over shredded chicken, plus the ham, turkey, tortilla, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pies (including my cranberry walnut pie and pecan pie), cheese cake, and so much other stuff I didn't even taste it all. They had me pray at so many meals I was starting to feel like a priest!

The funeral of my sister's father-in-law was two days ago. He was a sailor; a tail-gunner who flew off of the U.S.S. Hornet at the Battle of Miday and several other battles. After the war he became a pastor and a Christian school administrator. Even in his 90s he was active in helping organize Christian colleges. He is an amazing man. Sadly, I could not be at the funeral so I could only send flowers, But, maybe, you can jon me in praying for Charles.

I think I might have mentinoed that I have about 20 different Christmas theme ties. I wear a different one every day and kids who aren,t even in my classes come in to see the tie of the day. One of my favorite things is that I play a Christmas Carol at the start of each period. So far they have heard O Tannenbaum (One of my Vietnamese students asked "Mr. Karnes, what do Christmas Trees Mean" Wow! What an opening! In 3 minutes I told them about St. Bonifice, an ancient Icon depicting Mary, Jesus, and a pine tree decorated with litte loaves of bread, and martin luther using a pine tree to represent the tree of life in plays he staged at Christmas.), The Holly and the Ivy (Not the sermon but only the music starting at about 5:30), Today they heard Il est ne, le divin Enfant. A student of mine from Romania asked me to play a Romanian Cristmas song tomorrow, so we'll all hear Open the Door, Christian. Also, I bought a Christmas tree for my classroom today and invited all the students to bring an ornament to hang on it.

Tonight I drove the chocolate coins and a fruit cake to my godchildren in San Francisco; tomorrow is St. Nicholas day. On the way to their hous I saw a woman step into traffic and get run over by a pick up truck. The driver of the pick up truck leaped out of his truck and went to the womans aid. Her leg was bent in the wrong direction and she was screaming. I pulled over and called 911, told them what I saw, and waited for the paramdeics and police. When the police got there I told them what happened, then went on to deliver the chocolate and the fruitcake. The woman was taken away in an ambulance. It has been an eventful day. Good night.