December 9, 2003

The history of Santa Claus begins with a child named Nicholas born in Parara, Lycia (now Turkey) in the 4th century.  Nicholas was quite young when his parents died of the plague, leaving him the sole heir of their vast fortune.  As a youth he joined the monastery of Holy Zion near Myra (the capital of Lycia) and rose in the local ecclesiastical ranks by his generous works of charity with an emphasis on impoverished children, eventually becoming the Bishop of Myra.  One story involved a poor nobleman with three unwed daughters in a small coastal town who couldn't attract husbands because he couldn’t afford to provide dowries for them.  Late one night Nicholas dropped a small bag of gold in the maidens' window so that the eldest girl could be married.  Some time later he dropped in a second bag of gold, then a third which landed in a stocking hung up to dry by the window, hence the tradition of leaving gifts in stockings was born.  Nicholas died in Myra on December 6th, 342AD and was inducted as a “Saint” somewhere around 400AD.  That date became known as “St. Nicholas Day” and was celebrated for centuries by Christians with a feast in his honor.  In 12th century Europe St. Nicholas Day became a day of gift giving and charity.  St. Nicholas is traditionally pictured as an austere-looking wise old bishop with white beard, red robes, and crosier (scepter with a gold cross on it).  In crossing the ocean with the Dutch settlers to America, St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas) was transformed into a jolly old elf, was further morphed by Washington Irving into a fat, jolly old Dutchman, and finally in 1860 Harper’s Weekly cartoonist Thomas Nash illustrated him as the fat, jolly, red-nosed gentleman in a snowsuit and red cap.  The sleigh and reindeer myth are attributed to the Germans who had a god named Thor with a long white beard, who wore a red cape and rode through the skies on a chariot drawn by goats named Cracker and Cruncher.  Amazing what you can piece together in an hour on the Internet from a dozen different sources.
 
In January we waited for a mild sunny day (above 25° and not windy) up on the slopes and decided it was time.  We set Shannon up with ski gear and warm clothes, and it was off to Steven’s Pass for her first skiing experience.  After about 15 minutes of Nora and I giving her “pizza feet / french fry feet” ski instruction on a gentle slope at the resort, we quickly realized that all she was interested in was riding on the lift because it reminded her of the gondola ride at Disney Land.  “Pizza feet” is a method of teaching young kids to put their skis in a wedge shape to control speed, with “french fry feet” putting their skis together (in parallel) for speeding up.  Giving up on the teaching aspect, we spent the next several hours riding the lift on the bunny slope and taking turns skiing down with Shannon between our legs to give her a feel for the sport … until both our backs gave out.  This year we signed her up with my old ski school’s “Mighty Mite” program ski classes with the hope that they’ll have better luck.  Once again making changes to Ski King’s website should ease the cost of the sport, bartering web development services for complimentary lift tickets.

On one of my many business trips to southern California this year, Nora and Shannon joined me and we spent a long February weekend doing the Disney Land and California Adventure theme parks on the two parks for the cost of one “local” deal.  Lots of pictures of Shannon (and Nora) with the various Disney Characters, riding rides, and munching on cotton candy to go with our sore feet and legs on our flight home.

New Wave, our cat of 19 years, starting dealing with kidney issues and later pneumonia towards the end of last year which finally took their toll in March.  The final trip to the vet ranked up there on our more difficult things in life to do list. We went petless until July when friends of a neighbor found 3 kittens abandoned in the woods near their house, starving, harboring fleas, worms and ear mites.  It amazing that they survived in an area known to have coyotes that regularly trot off with smaller neighborhood pets.  What’s more amazing to me is how whoever owned them before could abandon them in the woods instead of driving them to the local animal shelter for adoption. The vet estimated that the kittens were about 8-9 weeks old when found.  We took two of them home and four months later they’re all cleaned up, fixed, declawed and fattened up … especially Kovu (the boy) who tips the scales at 11 pounds (2 pounds when found). Kiara (the girl) is a dainty 6½ pounds.  Rambunctious and playful, they spend hours fighting with each other, knocking things off tables, digging in the houseplants, and batting around toy mice occasionally depositing them in our shoes.  “Shoe mouse checks” are now standard routine in the Steffens household and loud reprimands can be heard several times a week as we discover their latest paths of destruction.  Despite the fact that “kitties will be kitties”, they’re both very sweet and lovable lap-seeking little critters.

Spring found us hiring a longtime Ski-to-Die friend with her own perennial business as a plant consultant, helping us choose, arrange and plant over 200 plants, shrubs and trees in our front and backyard.  With her wholesale license we were able to visit many of the local nurseries and get her purchasing advice and discounts, which pretty much paid us back for her services.  With my massive work weeks at Rockwell Collins this summer, our other landscaping endeavors this year were reduced to just getting all our crushed rock paths done in the upper and lower terraced areas and the wooded area of the backyard.

On a sad note, earlier this year my mother lost both of her remaining beloved sisters (our aunts) Ginny and Monie and one of her lifelong friends suddenly within a few months of each other.  That, to me, must be the hardest part of getting older and wiser.  In mid-June we dragged her along with us to Hawaii for 11 days of sun, surf, and getting away from it all. The best part of the trip was watching Shannon and her “Nana” interact … my mother steps back in time in a way Nora and I can’t and magically becomes her best friend.  We spent 8 days on the Big Island and 3 on Maui seeing the sights, shopping, and beaching it up.  Shannon snorkeled with me in Captain Cook’s cove wearing a variety of float devices with fins and riding on a big wake board with a long-sided mask built into it.  The modified wake board was a very cool way for her to share the underwater experience of seeing the colorful tropical fish swimming around in their coral reef environment.

Within a few days after returning from Hawaii, I found out I was getting a promotion managing a second local Rockwell Collins facility with 135 users in addition to my current 35 person facility. Almost four months of 60+ hour work weeks followed that as I struggled with the new workload, having a staff of five under me, and cleaning up a department that was in pretty sad shape. Talk about a harsh way to return back from a relaxing vacation! Nora’s company is down to about 90 employees locally. Now in addition to managing the IT department she has the added responsibilities of managing facilities, finances, and some HR related activities. She recently received an award for 15 years with Universal Avionics!

We snuck in a major hike and camping trip to the Northern Cascades with some of our friends and their kids in early July.  Without doing any research on the hike, we found the 4½ hour hike filled with incredibly beautiful scenic vistas and some leg taxing gains in elevation.  Shannon spent the majority of the hike on various people’s shoulders adding a 40 pound “live” backpack to our burden.  This was her first real campout and tenting adventure … she had a great time around the campfire, checking out the trails near the campsite, playing games with the other kids and snoozing in her “princess” sleeping bag.

Shannon continues to grow, learn and …add to her massive collection of PC video game CDs (we’re somewhere in the vicinity of 30 now).  It’s amazing how accelerated her vocabulary, phonetics, mathematical and problem solving skills are because of them.  Her annual “SpringFest” school pageant in May had her up on stage with her fellow classmates belting out a tune which with her voice I’m afraid won’t be leading to any recording contracts in the near future.  Her music teacher at school gives her high marks for enthusiasm though!  Along with several years of ballet classes at school, she’s had about 6 months of swimming lessons this year and is now in the midst of gymnastics classes at a local facility. 

Nora slipped away in January and joined her friend Jodi and crew on what has become an annual Whistler Girls Ski Weekend.  She still manages a pretty full social calendar getting together with several groups of friends regularly throughout the year to dine, drink, and do special events.  Orchestrating a surprise 40th birthday party for her in November was fun, leading her to believe that I really wasn’t planning to do anything for her, and then seeing the look on her face as she walked unexpectedly into a house full of friends and family.

My SpongeBob calendar has December 24th circled on it.  I’m intending to stay up all night on Christmas Eve once again to try to catch a glimpse of St. Nick.  He always drinks the milk and eats the cookies I leave out for him, but after 40-some years I still haven’t seen him come or go.  Hmmm.  Here’s hoping Santa leaves something special under the tree for you and those you love.  Call me if you intend to keep the midnight vigil and we’ll talk “watch strategy”.  Have a great year and a Merry Christmas 2003!

  
P.S. – Check out the new “Steffens Family Pages” website design below and at:
                   http://www.digital-vision.com/alan   (no username or password anymore).