winter

Greetings From the North Pole, Part VIII

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

Blogger’s Note: Over Christmas 2003, we became annual pen-pals with an elf named Siberius Quill, and he has again delivered this year! Transcriptions of past letters from Quill can be seen here.

Christmas 2010

My dearest Children!

Another year flown by already—and as I sat down to write you this evening, the Keeper of the Birthday Calendar, Monitor Milestone, reminded me that not only do you have a Teenager in your midst, but also another child in Double Digits, as it were! We track such things carefully, because as you might guess, birthdays and other such Big Events are prime opportunities for Young Ones like yourselves to do good or ill. Happily, you all remain on the Good List again this year—believe me, not all my Families do so well!

But old Monty had a second purpose in mind with his reminder: while a decade is no time at all in the Life of an Elf, it is a Significant Step for the children of Big People and a boy’s role in the celebration of All Things Christmas. Why, it seems no time ago at all that I told Master Brendan he was of an age to take on New Responsibilities in that regard, and now Master Gabriel has joined him! As you’ve no doubt guessed, there are Things You Must Know and Thing You Must Do. In a quiet moment, talk to your Father, Master G.—he remembers his own Tenth Year well!

Master B., we’ve noticed the Shifts in your attention and interests this year from Play Things to stuff of a More Serious Nature. Though your house is not small, you are in Close Quarters with your siblings (at least one of whom is still Quite Small) so you cannot do or have everything you would like. Patience, Eldest! St. Nicholas knows your needs and has done something unusual this year—you will find somewhere in your gifts an opportunity to choose something a bit more Grown-Up. Use it wisely!

As for the lovely Emma Rose and young Master Trevor, it is a joy to watch you grow, in grace and wisdom, as well as stature. Miss Emma, your love of the Arts is apparent in all that you do! You might recall I previously mentioned our elfin Songmaster, Jovial Morales, who provides the music by which we elves do our work? His mother, Choral (who was a Longpiper before she married) has heard you with the Children’s Choir and (I hope you don’t mind!) singing about the house. For nearly a millennia she has conducted our church choir, so you can be sure she speaks the Truth: your voice is sweet and will only get sweeter. Madam Choral says keep practicing, and remember: When you sing, you Pray Twice!

As for you, Master T., as is typical for Boys Your Age (especially those with Big Brothers) you are always trying keep up. You’ll be happy with the gifts old Santa has prepared—but I urge you to Be Patient, as well. Enjoy being young, and do not rush into the games and toys of Older Kids!

Finally—and I will not dwell on Sadness, knowing you are reading this on Christmas Day, which, like no other day, must be a Time of Joy—we know of the loss your family suffered in November. Suffice it to say that our thoughts are with you. The Devout Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Winter have joined their prayers to yours, and I have it on good authority (theirs!) that your Dear One is in Good Hands! Master G., your idea of hanging a special stocking was a fine one, but Kris Kringle had a different idea. Each Christmas he will leave a Special Ornament to hang on your Family’s Tree, in remembrance. And this year, he has left Something Else, something from the Wood Shop—he thought it appropriate for your Back Yard, and requested Dorothea Gudwerds of the North Pole Library to track down a Special Poem by one of your Most Famous poets, Emily Dickinson (who, by her language, could have a touch of the fey and elfin in her own blood):

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune—without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Again I’ve run on and made Little Sense, it seems. But you see with the Wisdom of children—I’ve no doubt Some Sense will come of it. Travel safe, my young Friends, and a Very Happy Christmas to you all!

Yours Still and Always,

Quill

Blogger’s Addendum: Bren’s opportunity for something a bit more grown-up was a gift card to Cabelas; he’s had is eye on a variety of hunting knives, as well as an UnderArmor hood/facemask. The special gift from the wood shop was a bird feeder. In the spring we intend to do some landscaping back there, including a fruit tree and statue.

The Dark Humour

/ J. Thorp / 4 Comments

[Blogger’s Note: This is kind of a dark post. Really did see the two crows today, and heard a story like the latter one once. But where exactly this came from, I don’t know…]

Midwinter morning. Atop a threadbare shrub along a littered suburban artery, two young crows jaw above the din. I speak no Crow, only English, and my windows are rolled against the cold, but I imagine their daring: the double-dog, the triple, the triple-dog, the dark humour hot in the veins of each, the guffaws and squawk of chicken! They cheat death daily, these two, walking the yellow lines for bits of salted flesh. It passes the time.

The light goes green; on cue, they darken my windshield, chasing each other with unexpected agility, rolling and climbing alongside the oncoming delivery van, sweeping past truck and traffic to frolic like fighter planes before a rumbling Ford moving too fast for conditions along the service road. They bank and ascend to a high bare branch, laughing breathlessly.

They eat death for dinner, these two. From a far tree two houses over, their mother calls. They flap slowly away.

I think of them now, in the long night. I think of a summer day, and two black-clad bikers crossing the plains, winding through the hills and narrow canyon roads, wind in their hair and devil-may-care, the sun warm on their leathers, the dark humour hot in their veins. They eat danger for breakfast, these two. They take turns riding the yellow lines with their feet on their pegs, boot toes turned outward to the oncoming cars, egging each other closer, closer. They play this game for long miles and hours. It passes the time.

The end was not monotonous. High in the mountains on a narrow switchback, the winner’s toe caught a fender at fifty. His leg turned to jelly. With unexpected velocity he took to the air, rolling and climbing, darkening the windshield of the car behind the one he clipped. He bounced from glass to pavement, pavement to rocky shoulder. Leather did little; flesh did less. Bone met stone and gave way.

The paramedics came and went. The volunteer posse cleaned up as best they could. The dark humour stained the pavement even after the crows paid their respects. From far away, the cries of a mother.

Holiday Letter 2009

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

At long last, here is the Thorp family Christmas letter for 2009. In future years, we intend to publish it electronically first and foremost. We’ll still send a Christmas photo or postcard with you, to let you know when it’s up and ready. If you strongly prefer (or require) a paper copy, drop us a line or leave us a comment here. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, friends!

Greetings From the North Pole, Part VII

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Blogger’s Note: Over Christmas 2003, we became annual pen-pals with an elf named Siberius Quill, and he has again delivered this year! Transcriptions of the 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 letters from Quill can be seen here.

Christmas 2009

My dearest Children!

I must say, it has been a Most Eventful Year, both in your home and in ours! Such bustle down below (in Minnesota!), what with the Four of you now all school-age and active, and your parents rushing hither and yon to this and that engagement. Concerts, practices, games, retreats! It’s no wonder the Old Year slipped past so quickly! Does it feel that way even to Young Ones like yourselves? After centuries here in the White North, it all seems but a blink to my eye…

And my! but we have been busy here—about the same time you were enjoying Thanksgiving at the Venjohns, all our best Reindeer came down with Caribou Flu, which is not unlike your swine flu: dreadful wheezing coughs and high fevers and constant fatigue. It passed through the herd quickly, like a rumor of an Early Spring, and we wondered how we would haul the sleigh. Our elfin veterinarian, Dr. Vendy Deervermer, and the rest of the Stable Corps worked double-time to nurse them back to health (and drinking extra cocoa to ward off the flu themselves!), even as our Aeroanimage, Buoyancy Castor, struggled to find a suitable substitute, just in case. Aeroanimagery, you may know or might guess, is the magical art by which Terrestrial (that is, Earthbound) Creatures are made to fly, and old Yancy is the Best in the Business—but with the nearby caribou herds also sick, his Viable Options were limited indeed!

Only two creatures were deemed large and strong enough; the Walruses proved quite “broncy,” as your father’s friend Jinglebob might say, when airborne, and the Polar Bears—suffice it to say that it takes more than Pixie Dust to keep Ursus maritimus aloft. Plus, they eat a Great Deal and won’t touch vegetables—and very Few Homes indeed leave cold cuts or hard sausage, much less raw red meat, for Old Santa’s draft stock!

It was Touch-and-Go to the last! Fortunately, Dr. Vendy concocted a home remedy made from homemade udder balm from a moose dairy in Siberia, cooling Peppermint Paste from our own Candy Kitchens, and traditional Inuit and Eskimo medicines, then boiled in a Tea. The resulting drink, along with the prayers of the Devout Sisters of Our Lady of Perpetual Winter, seemed to move them to recovery. (That, and the Magnificent Storm predicted by old Flurious and even now snowing over you as sleep and wake—the Reindeer love nothing more that a long pull through snowy skies!)

But enough of Our Problems! You have been Good Children, one and all, again this year—and so what’s a Watcher to do but spy over your shoulder to see what Questions you might have for the Jolly Old Elf, himself, this year? We’ve done just that, so even as Father Christmas munches his cookies and smiles at Your Note, he is able to leave this letter in Timely Reply!

Miss Emma, you’ve asked about Numbers of Toys and the Time It Takes—and I trust Masters Gabriel and Trevor have similar concerns in their own Heads and Hearts. I would urge you to ask Master Brendan to share my Past Letters with you again, in which I explain more about Which Toys are Made and Which Toys are Gathered. But in truth, we still make Many Hundreds of Thousands of toys and order Countless more. We make toys year-round, and indeed deliver them secretly Whenever and Wherever they are needed—much as St. Nicholas of Myra took care of those in need centuries ago.

How long does it take? Why, it takes All the Time We Have, which is No Time at All, when you think about it. What we do isn’t Possible in any amount of time, and yet each year we get Faster! Our official Time-Keeper, Pendulus “Tick” Chronin may actually be the slowest Elf at the Pole— except for his keen eye and quick thumb, which starts and stops the Great Chronometer at the start of each Shift, and each Christmas Eve. The G.C. measures time to the Nanosecond, and we have gotten so Lively and Quick at what we do that Tick may have to be quicker still. Picoseconds! Can you imagine?

And now I read back over What I Have Written, and see that perhaps it will make Little Sense to you. Facts are more Fluid than you might think, Children, and Faith, more Solid that Stone. Believe, and Wonderous Things are Yours to behold!

Travel safe, my young Friends, and a Very Happy Christmas to you all!

Yours (Truly!)

Quill

First Snow Freak-Out

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

I remember my first solo flight into a snow-filled ditch. I was 17 or so, driving a red ’83 Lynx (Mercury’s version of the Escort), headed to my high-school girlfriends house 20 minutes away. It had snowed in the morning, then warmed during the day to a slushy mess that froze into deep ruts in the evening. I could feel the car’s tires jumping sideways, trying to find a groove, as I drove — still, I was going too fast. Finally I caught the right rut, and it spun 180 degrees and then sideways into a snowbank.

I blinked, exhaled, and let my hands fall from the wheel. I thought a moment, then tried the accelerator to move the car forward. The tires spun. I tried reverse. Same.

I put the car in park, shoved open the door and stepped knee-deep into snow. No way I was getting out. Some Lynx.

I walked a short distance to a nearby farmhouse and asked if I could call my father. They obliged — probably even offered to pull me out, but I figured Dad would want the honor. He rumbled up 10 minutes later in Old Blue, a multicolor F-150 4×4, circa 1978, with a homemade plow on the front. He described what he figured happened, and was spot on, as usual. Then he hooked the pickup onto the Lynx with a yellow nylon tow strap and jerked the little car clear of the ditch.

“You want me to follow you home, or are you gonna follow me?” I asked.

“Aren’t you going to your girlfriend’s?” he replied.

“I just figured since the roads are bad and you had to…”

He cut me off: “The only way to learn to drive in it is to drive in it, so get going — but slow down!”

I’ve been off the road a few times since, all from driving too fast for conditions — but not in years, knock on wood. I’ve finally learned the age-old lesson of the tortoise and the hare: slow and steady wins the race.

Note that it’s “slow and steady” — not painfully slow. And not fast, like the foolish hare. Slow. And steady.

I raise this issue because each year in Minnesota, we commuters experience what I’ve come to call the First Snow Freak-Out. When the first snow sticks to the road, no matter how much or how little, how wet or how powdery, most of the driving population immediately divides into one of two camps:

  • 85 percent go hypervigilant — these you can tell by their wide, scared-rabbit eyes peering past the wheel and into the snowy haze; by their clenched teeth and white knuckles … and by the fact that they aren’t moving.
  • 10 percent go snow-leopard, roaring past the gridlocked masses, blazing their own trail around, over and through whatever is in their path, slinging road grime on on the windshields of the hapless herd, and laughing into their cell phones … until Mother Nature casually flicks them into the median.

The remaining 5 percent pass our 30-miles-in-2-hours-40-minutes commute by shifting our manual transmissions from first to second and back and improvising profanity laced lyrics to the Christmas carols on the radio (only the secular ones; the Christian songs afford the opportunity to weep).

Thirty miles in two hours and forty minutes. Because people couldn’t grasp the concept of a consistent 30 miles an hour. Three-quarters of an inch of snow on the pavement, and I saw cars snared in sumac, perpendicular to the roadway. I saw a semi facing the wrong way alongside the interstate. I saw two crumpled SUVs on the shoulder. And I saw miles and miles of brake lights.

And the truth is, it happened during the second snow, because the first came in October but didn’t last. Everyone forgot their autumn lessons, so December provided remediation, I guess.

Fortunately, this snow seems to be staying. That first evening was awful. The next day I worked from home, but the traffic reports were terrible. When I returned to work the following day, the roads were clear and dry, and stayed that way until yesterday. New snow in the morning, and traffic moved a consistent 15 to 20 miles an hour — too slow, perhaps, but at least steady.

Today, everyone was in sync. Congratulations, Minnesota — you survived the First Snow Freakout. Again.