A Christmas of Firsts

When I was just a boy growing up in the Omaha area of Nebraska, our family tradition, as I remember it, was to visit my grandparents' farm in Western Nebraska (the tiny, unincorporated town of Max in the southwest corner of the state) for either Thanksgiving or Christmas, alternating every other year--one year, Thanksgiving; the next year, Christmas. I always looked forward to these trips, because Max always provided adventures. There was the year my grandfather took all us children hiking in the surrounding prairies and let us each shoot his twenty-two rifle (actually, I don't think I got to shoot it, because I was still too small to hold it steady). We also spent one holiday trip out west helping slaughter chickens--chopping their heads off, dunking them in boiling water, then plucking all their feathers. There were also the years of the giant snowstorms, allowing us to make elaborate tunnels in the enormous snowdrifts caused by the winds that always accompanied the storms.

Strangely enough, of all those holidays spent at my grandparents' farm, it was not the first that I remember the best, it was the last. Less than a year before the last Christmas, my grandmother died. My grandfather even mentioned in his Christmas address that he felt that this celebration would be our last. I think he knew something none of us did. You see, less than a year after that Christmas, after traveling around the world to see all his children (Alaska, Australia, Colorado, and Nebraska), he also passed away. The estate sale after his funeral effectively ended those visits to Max. I suppose I will always remember the last visit to my grandparents more than say the first is because I was much too young to remember my first visit to their home.

However, for someone who loves to consider the effects that past have had on my present, it is with great joy that I present to you scenes from Suli and my first Christmas together. This initial celebration together as man and wife contained quite a few firsts, some of which I have pictured below.
Having grown up in a town whose average annual winter temperature is in the 60s, Suli had never really seen snow. Sure she had seen the old snow left in the Himalayan mountains of northwest Yunnan outside of winter. She had also see the infrequent minute accumulation of snow in Kunming during a freak winter rain, that briefly turned to flakes. She had even walked in the summer snows of Glacier National Park in Montana, the summer we were married (June 2009). However, she had never, until this trip stood in the falling snow and watched it actually accumulate to more than a skiff. While the photo above shows less than an inch of snow, this was the first time Suli had ever shoveled snow. And she felt the occasion deserved the colorfulness of her beautiful pajama pants. I would shovel at least three more times during our Christmas in Milwaukee, but this was our first shoveling experience together.
As our first Christmas together as a married couple, we naturally had to pose for a number of shots in front of the Christmas tree. As always, Suli looks great in all of them, and I, needing to hide, tried to use her to buffer the viewers eyes from seeing me. While my parents have moved to Milwaukee from my childhood home in Elkhorn, Nebraska, the smell and feel of this "new" home remained the same. Much of the furniture is the same; a fireplace (albeit, a gas fireplace) still heats the house; and my mother still has plenty of wrapping paper for presents. While I do not blame my parents for hanging newer ornaments, now that all of us children have left, I still miss the little pipe-cleaner and cotton ball lamb, which my older brother had made when he was a boy, that looked like it was being lynched from the yule tide tree. Morbid, I know, but that was Christmas for me. For Suli, it was her first full-sized Christmas tree, and I took a bunch of pictures of her in front of it.
After spending a little over a week with my parents in Milwaukee, we transferred to Chicago for a day to visit with my older brother and his family. Our trip back to China was scheduled to begin in Chicago on Wednesday, 30 December, so on Monday, 28 December, we traveled down to Cary, just outside of The Windy City, to see what Illinois had to offer. Our first activity was another first for Suli: sledding. This first came with a little pain, because of another previous first. While still in Milwaukee, Suli and I had gone running one morning after the snow, and she had experienced, for the first time, the effects of ice. She slipped and fell right on her tailbone. So when it came to slipping down a snow and ice hill seated on a very thin sled, Suli's earlier first came back to her on every little bump. The style she most enjoyed is when I laid out on the sled and she would lay down on top of me. She said that this was "hen shufu" (very comfortable). I was happy for her, even as heaved out exhales on every bump going down the hill.
No trip to Chicago would be complete without visiting the world's tallest structure (I know, the Taipei Tower in Taiwan is the world's tallest building, but the Willis Tower--formerly the Sears Tower--is still the world's tallest structure, by virtue of its twin antennae), and this was Suli's first trip up this mighty skyscraper. One feature that has been added since the last time I went up to the top of this towering edifice is three glass boxes that extend out from the side of the Skydeck. This allows a person to feel like he is standing in mid-air. Suli could barely make it further than a few inches from the solid floor, and she could not stand up; she had to kneel. While I did walk all the way into the box and leaned against the outer wall of glass, it still felt a bit uncertain about my safety--this coming from someone who has spent a summer washing windows on highrises, and has actually hung by a rope from the side of 30-story buildings. That was a first for both of us, one we may not soon forget.
Suli looks tired here, as the evening lights begin to glow about the city. We had spent the afternoon shopping at Water Tower Place; so she had reason to be a little pooped. The next morning we hopped on our return flight to China, but it was a wonderful Christmas of firsts. It had been my first Christmas back in the States, since leaving for China, and I welcomed that time spent with my wife and some of my family. We have many more Christmases ahead of us, and maybe some day my own grandchildren will write about their holidays spent with grandma and grandpa. I do not know where we will be then, but I look forward to trying to remember all of those family gatherings, from now until then.