Christmas 2004, Part I
In the bleak midwinter, frost wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago.--Christina G. Rossetti, 1830-1894
Christmas 2004 was not a typical one. For starters, Mom and Dad decided to go to Florida for several days after Christmas, so I didn't spend anytime in Ohio over the holidays. (Mom, Dad, and Scott came to visit me at Thanksgiving, so I didn't go to Ohio then either). So Scott and I decided to drive down to North Carolina together, then spend a few days in Georgia, before returning home.
I attempted to finish my Christmas cards prior to our trip. In 2003, I came up with the idea of calling my holiday letter "TP Guide," putting it in a booklet format to resemble TV Guide. It didn't happen in 2003, but I was determined to finish an edition for 2004. There was much to cover--graduation from seminary, my commissioning as an associate in ministry, and my trip to Greece and sabbatical.
I was still working on assembling the TP Guide the week of Christmas. And to make things more complicated, I decided to also send an electronic version on compact disc to computer literate friends and family members.
On Monday, Dec. 20, I was ill. I spent most of the day at home. I ventured out at noon to have lunch with Noah. I prepared a turkey dinner for my Mutual Ministry Committee meeting that evening, but by then I was feeling really lousy.
Tuesday I went in to work. We were working on finishing up the January 2005 newsletter. I also had a youth event at 1 p.m. Five kids came--we watched "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever," then a video of our own Sunday School Christmas program.
The snow began on Dec. 22. We assembled the newsletter. I helped assemble; we didn't have as many volunteers because of the weather. Charlene and I went to the post office before lunch. Visibility was getting bad. We made it safely back to church and had our staff Christmas lunch. Charlene went home early, and most of staff left as well. Pastor Ron and I stayed at church for the 5:30 p.m. Healing and Wholeness service, then made the treacherous journey home.
On Thursday, Dec. 23, I was unable to get to work. The main roads probably would have been okay, but the parking areas and roads in my apartment complex were not. I spent the day at home, working on the laptop computer. My family was also affected by the storm--my parents had no electricity. For dinner I walked to El Nopal up the street. The food was lousy, but it was nice to get out of the house.
I asked Ron to pick me up and take me to work on Christmas Eve day. I walked out to the tobacco outlet on the main road, so he wouldn't have to navigate the parking lot. I was officially on vacation, but I wanted to wrap up my Christmas cards. My plan was to stay at church until my brother arrived later that day.
Unfortunately, we had to cancel Christmas Eve services. We were unable to get the snow cleared from the parking lot. I think we made the decision at 2 p.m. After making numerous phone calls, Ron went home, and I stayed to man the phones. Scott eventually did arrive--he had difficulty getting to Louisville because of the weather.
We went to Jumbo Buffet for dinner, which was our original plan. Then we went to the Kull's house to visit with Matthew, Mark and John. We spent Christmas Eve at my apartment.
Our plan was to leave for North Carolina on Christmas morning. We had intended to take my car, but I was still unable to get it out of the parking lot. We packed up and got off to an early start.
Once we got to Lexington, the effects of the storm were not as evident. Rather than eating at a Waffle House (a Christmas Day tradition), we ate lunch at a gas station with a Taco Bell. We arrived in Hickory, checked in to our hotel, then went to Grandma and Grandpa's. Mom and Dad were already there. They had left early Christmas Eve morning. After the Raleigh Knauffs arrived, we went to another Chinese buffet. This one was far superior to the Jumbo Buffet. After dinner we returned to the house for gift giving.
Christmas 2004, Part II
By Sunday, the Raleigh Knauffs had left, and Mom and Dad had gone on to Florida. So Scott and I went to church with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandpa preached at a small Lutheran church shared with a UCC congregation. Grandpa used the First Sunday after Christmas lessons (rather than the Feast of Stephen lessons), but it was still an anti-climactic end to the season of Advent. Singing Christmas carols with 25 people in a carpeted worship space is not the same as singing with 200 at my home church. Still, it was nice to hear Grandpa preach, and the members of the church were all very welcoming.
We had lunch with Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Craig after the service. Then Scott and I did some day-after-Christmas shopping while Grandma and Grandpa napped. We came back in time for dinner, then played Trivial Pursuit with Grandpa, using the Genus IV game.
The following day we left for Georgia to visit the Georgia Knauffs. Though I'd been to Georgia several times since moving to Louisville, I don't think I'd visited the Georgia Knauffs since 1987. The photo above was taken at the Big Shanty Museum, which housed the General locomotive engine, which gained fame during the Civil War's "Great Locomotive Chase."
We arrived at the Georgia Knauff's house and met cousin Kelly. The three of us stopped at the drug store where cousin Michelle works, before going to dinner. We ate at a Buffalo Wild Wings, and tried in vain to find a particular Caedmon's Call cd and a certain Starbucks mug. We then went to see a movie. Kelly's friend Nate, Michelle, and others also joined us.
The next day, if memory serves, we went to the Dwarf House (formerly the Dwarf Grill) in Hapeville, Ga., opened by Truett Cathy in 1946. The Dwarf Grill is the predecessor of the modern-day Chic-fil-a restaurant. This was my brother's third attempt at visiting the site, which, like other Chic-fil-a restaurants, is closed on Sunday.
Afterward we traveled to a "park n ride" location where we boarded the MARTA and headed to downtown Atlanta. I became pretty familiar with the MARTA system when I was in Atlanta for the 2003 ELCA Youth Gathering. We walked through Underground Atlanta, then on to some historic Martin Luther King, Jr. sites, including his tomb.
That evening we visited with cousin Lisa and her husband Cary, who live in Rex, Ga. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant.
Christmas 2004, Part III
The following day we went to the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History, formerly the Big Shanty Museum. The Museum was, and is, Home of the General, a locomotive engine that was made famous during the Civil War, and through books and films about "The Great Locomotive Chase."
Nate, Kelly, Scott and I toured the Museum. We were led by a very enthusiastic tour guide. When he asked where we were from, Scott and I pretended to be locals, rather than admit we were born in the same city as Civil War General Willima T. Sherman.
After we finished at the Museum, we went to a KFC in Marietta, which has a giant chicken atop the restaurant. This was the second significant fast food chicken restaurant of our trip. After lunch, we said our good-byes, and headed back home via Knoxville. We ate dinner at the Melting Pot.
Christmas 2004, Part IV
The following morning we dropped our postcards off at a mailbox before heading to World's Fair Park. Scott and I each have a set of postcards--one for each of the 50 states--with matching stamps. If you visit a state, then you get to mail the postcard to yourself. If you have a layover in Las Vegas, and can find a mailbox, that would be a valid postcard; however, sending a postcard along with a friend traveling to Hawaii does not. We probably have about the same number of completed postcards at this point.
World's Fair Park is a beautiful park at the location of the 1982 World's Fair, which we attended as a family. We've stopped there in previous years, hoping that someday we'd be able to go up into the Sunsphere, the Fair's focal building. Unfortunately, Knoxville still hasn't done anything exciting with the monument.
On the way back to Louisville, we stopped in Corbin, Ky., to eat at the Colonel Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum, completing our famous fastfood chicken "trifecta." This stop was actually the most interesting of the three.
Later that night, we attended the 25th Annual Boar's Head and Yule Log Festival at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Louisville's Highlands. This is the third time I've attended, but the first time we went for the dinner (expensive, but very good). This celebration of Christ's birth, through vocal and instrumental music and medieval pageantry, was the experience I'd been waiting for since Christmas Eve, and was a fitting end to our 2004 Christmas adventure.
THE END
Christmas 2004 Post Script: The General Rides Again
At the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History, many items related to the General were on display, including memoribilia from the movies and other adaptations of the Great Locomotive Chase. One of the items was a children's book titled "The General Rides Again."
To my surprise, I found a copy of "The General Rides Again" several days after I returned to Louisville, at the J-town Mall of Vendors, a flea market type of store.
The book tells the story of the General's return to the South after its refurbishment in Louisville. The book was published by Coach and Four Publishers, which was located on Taylorsville Road, between my church and my apartment.
