Return of the Blogger?

 Some time ago, all the backup copies of our family pictures failed. Computers and external hard drives all. I only have a very few of them saved on my work computer, and really only since, like, 2022.

I finally realized that not all was lost. I had this blog and our old one. And we have saved pictures! I shared pictures and wonderulf, wonderful stories. Over the last month I've gone from 2008 or so up through 2012, saving every single picture I uploaded and reliving all those early glory days of baby/toddler Prince and baby Princess. (Baby J-T had not yet arrived, much to his dismay when I start sharing stories).

How very deeply thankful I am for this old blog, for our Newlywed History, for Facebook, and for the scattered physical journals I and we have kept over the last 20 years of our marriage.

... and maybe I should try to get back to This Old Blog too.

Christmas trip to Disneyland, 2024
Joy, Princess, JT, Derrill, Prince

Jolly Old King Benjamin

In 2005 I came up with the following parody of "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas," using the teachings of King Benjamin from Mosiah chapters 2-4 in the Book of Mormon.

Jolly old King Benjamin said: “Pitch your tents this way.

Don’t you trifle with the words that I’m going to say.

Jesus Christ is coming soon, so my countrymen,

Choose this day whom you will serve and be born again.

“I have served my whole life through that you might be taught:

When you serve your fellow man, alone then you serve God.

And if I, your chosen king, have labored to serve you,

Ought ye not to do the same: serve each other too?

“Oh what thanks we all should give to our Heavn’ly King!

Though we serve Him, we are just unprofitable things.

First off, He created us.  We are in His debt.

Then we serve, He blesses us, and we aren’t out yet.

“When the clock was striking twelve, I was fast asleep.

There appeared an angel bright, and my heart did leap.

He gave me a message clear, and I know ‘tis true:

Jesus is the only way salvation comes to you.

“We must be little kids, and be easily taught;

For you know the nat’ral man’s an enemy to God.

Yield unto the Holy Ghost, put off the nat’ral man,

Trust in God, be humble too; with His help you can.

“If you’ve felt to sing the song of redeeming love

Keep in mind how great and wise is the Lord above,

Then, my friends, you will retain remission of your sin

And you will teach holy things to your children.

“Last of all, please watch yourselves, your thoughts and words and deeds.

Do not let your brothers beg – answer all their needs.

See that ye do all these things in order and wisdom,

Then one day you will return to God’s great kingdom.”

Christmas differences

They have "wrapping sheets" in "bookstores" here, but bookstores are where you go to buy books of empty lined paper, not reading books. We found three packets of wrapping sheets, and it's a pretty good term for them: pre-measured sheets of wrapping paper. You get a lot in each package, and it was really high quality, but it cost $8 per package. Coming from starving-grad-student days of buying dollar store wrapping paper, that feels expensive, so we actually saved some sheets to reuse for birthdays.

The price of rice goes up starting in Sept or Oct, I am told, as farmers and traders prepare for the big Christmas rush to buy rice. Rice is apparently the traditional celebratory food for Christmas. For our part, Christmas preparations involved driving the dirt back-roads looking for the one guy in town who butchers a pig (that's right, A pig ... one) each day so we could have our first pork in Nigeria.

Even my brother might appreciate the machete he used

Speaking of livestock, I ought to mention that Joy loves eating the skin ... but only in the US. There's something indefinably different about the taste of the bird skins out here. There is one part that is definable, though. We soak all our meat in a vinegar solution for about 10 minutes and scrub it before we put it in cold storage, and that helps, but there's still sometimes dirt on the skin, and the pork came with some of the hide still attached. There's no attempt to give rib cuts or differentiate between good cuts and bad cuts. I could just specify "not from the leg" and be thankful for what I got.

First World Problems: in the US, people complain about decorations going up so early. They complain about Christmas music blaring everywhere for months. I missed those problems! I miss Christmas decorations everywhere. I could find a few small plastic trees with a strand of singing lights. I was glad we kept the top of our old tree to be our new one.

(some*) People who don't celebrate Christmas in the US complain about its use and over-marketing. Here, most of the Muslims I spoke too also celebrated Christmas and were quite happy to wish each other Merry Christmas. Eventually I got over being timid about wishing people a Merry Christmas around here. This was nice.

Caroling is apparently a Western tradition. Most everyone was surprised that I was wearing a "Father Christmas hat." Prince occasionally sang and mostly hit a can of nuts with a bit of stick to make a drum. We caroled to our guards, and one fellow in their post turned the radio up while we sang. We caroled to our neighbor the chicken farmer and they sang with us. "We only do this in church." We offered to carol to some neighborhood women on their way, but they didn't have time and thought the idea was strange but invited us over another day. We caroled to our next-door neighbor just as they got back from a 7 hour drive and they were happy. They apologized for not having cider to offer us and we apologized for not having brought fudge. (Ah, the exchange of proper seasonal apologies was sweet: the acknowledgement that we both recognize the same Platonic/Rockwellian traditions and know we can't do it "right" here, but are sure trying hard! *sigh*) We caroled to another family in the compound ... and found a fellow Latter-day Saint who said, "You are stealing our songs! Those were from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir." When our mouths dropped (quite literally in my case) he realized he was no longer alone in Yola.

I tried to find out about Nigerian Christmas traditions, but was met only with the bland "We get together with our families and eat food and go to church." Then again, I imagine it is a difficult for someone who has only lived at home to know what they do differently from other countries. What, you mean the Wise Men don't come and leave presents in your shoes and Knecht Ruprecht doesn't make the children recite a poem or song they learned that year or else get a beating in America (Germany)? Why would you celebrate on the 25th when everyone knows Christmas is January 7, and what's up with all the commercialism for a strictly religious holiday (Russia)? Maybe next year we'll figure out what a true Nigerian Christmas means.

Safe and Sound

Today was a quiet day. We got some extra cleaning done, Princess was adorable, we played a lot of board games (including introducing Prince to Solarquest, a galactic version of Monopoly) and made chocolate cake. Prince and I finished reading the Wizard of Oz and he asked to go on to read book #2 in the series. Oh, and I cut my own hair and did more than just shave it all down for the first time. It turned out more layered than tapered, but it works. Everything was quiet outside.

If you want to know what's going on in the rest of Nigeria, look under the fold. The point of this post is that we are happy and healthy and well provided for. Only look under the fold if you want things to worry about or to make your prayers a bit more specific. We're fine and feel at peace.

When I was a Lad 2

As a stream of consciousness exercise, this is what each of us thinks about that title

My version:

When I was a lad I went to Yale.
Cause I knew then that I could never fail
For I studied very hard, and furthermore,
I polished up the apple for the professor.
    [He polished up the apple for the professor.]
I polished up the apple so frequently
That soon I had a Phi Beta Kappa key.
    [He soon had a Phi Beta Kappa key from polishing the apple very frequently.]

On graduation day I made a stop
At a very exclusive clothing shop
I opened up a charge account and asked them for
The best grey flannel in the clothing store.
   [The best grey flannel in the clothing store.]
That suit was a part of a great intrigue
For it proved I was a member of the Ivy League
   [It was part . of a great intrigue for it proved he was a member of the Ivy League.]

More of Allan Sherman's parody of Gilbert and Sullivan's lyrics here.

Joy's version:

When I was just a young boy, Christmas meant one thing:
That I'd be getting lots of toys that day.
I learned a whole lot different when mother sat me down
And taught me to spell Christmas this way:

C - is for the Christchild born on Christmasday
H - for herald angels in the sky
R - is for our Redeemer
I - means Israel, and
S - is for the star that shone so bright.
T - is for three wise men, they who traveled far, and
M - is for the manger where he lay.
A - is for all He stands for
S - means shepherds came.

And that's why there's a Christmas day.