Christmas 2009

For Christmas Eve, Ben, Amy, and Courtney joined me in Somerville for Thai dinner out and then a movie with hot chocolate, popcorn, and some delicious dark chocolate peppermint bark (and apricot nut bark) that Amy made and we all polished off. Courtney then drove back to the house in Acton, while Ben drove Amy home and returned to stay the night with me.

On Christmas day, Ben drove me to the Acton house in the afternoon, where the family festivities began.


Chapter 1: Opening Ceremonies

We arrived to stockings hung with care, and dad soon started a fire to accent them.


All three of us kids still have the stockings that our Aunt Karen made for us when we were very little, but for some reason mine is the only one to have shed letters.


We actually helped decorate the tree on Thanskgiving, but now I added my presents (in silver) to the mix.


Karen loves to set an elaborate table, and so ample dishes and cutlery awaited dinner.




Karen was out picking up Larry (her ex husband, current friend) when we arrived, so Ben, Courtney, dad and I talked over hors d'oeuvres laid out in the living room until Karen and Larry joined us.



Chapter 2: Opening Presents

Once everyone had arrived, we could get down to business and begin gift opening. Since I have traditionally cared most about making the most of the process (and making it organized), I have long been the family present-time organizer. We began with the stockings, which is a free-for-all (all of us simultaneously opening and admiring). As a result, it was all a blur.


Then it was on to the main course: the presents from under the tree. For this section, I pass out gifts in rounds (one for everyone), and then we take turns opening them around the circle.

I'm not sure what Ben is opening here:


But his theme for the day was all things that might maximize enjoyment of his new car, including window scraper and cleaning "sponge."




My main gift was an external hard drive with a terabite (!) of space, but I also received some additional useful gadgets, including an apparently fascinating LED flashlight.



Courtney has some fun and games in her future, one involving magnets, and another that will take advantage of her archery skills.



I gave Ben and Courtney Amazon Gift Certificates, and they returned the favor (sometimes pragmatism trumps creativity).



Karen received a classic pearl earring and necklace set for which she had been hoping, and likewise a Panini sandwhich maker from Williams and Sonoma (a company that apparently has a pineapple theme?--there are tiny ones on the wrapping paper and a pineapple cookie cutter on top) that she dubbed "her dream."




Courtney and Ben got her matching sauces from the same company to "paint the bread" before pressing it in the grill.

Since she owns and loves birds, I got her a multimedia book that features 200 bird calls. There is a page about each bird (organized by area of the world), and then a number on the page that corresponds to the number you select to hear the call.


We inundated my dad with WWII documentaries, mathematical puzzle books, and this fat volume on Einstein:



Meanwhile, my siblings had plenty to chew on.



Chapter 3: Feasting

Dinner was a Cornish game hen for each, plus vegetables, stuffing, and an elaborate salad (including avacado and sunflower seeds). Sadly, we were all too busy consuming to capture the process in images.


Chapter 4: Digesting and Enjoying the New Toys

After dinner, there was much to be done with what we had accumulated.

Courtney and Larry lingered at the table to engage in intellectual discourse,


while Dad and Ben figured out how to reconfigure my new hard drive so that it would work with a Mac computer.



Since Ben had brought his hard drive to watch a movie the night before, once they accomplished this I was able to copy music and movies from his to mine.


After they had sorted out my hardware, Dad helped Ben put his new hubcaps on his car.


Look at the difference!


Hoping for some exercise, I encouraged dad to set up his computer version of dance dance revolution, a game where you follow arrows (which are in time with the music) with your feet.


As we were hopping, Dad took a spare moment to browse his new expert-level sudoku.


And of course, no evening would be complete these days without sharing some of the delightful things we had recently found on YouTube.



Chapter 5: Pie and Goodbye

Karen had baked an apple pie, and used some cookie cutters to cut out apple shapes on the top crust. She had also picked up a vegan raspberry chocolate cake at Whole Foods (friendly to her lactose intolerance since vegans avoid dairy).

After dessert and more congenial lounging, we finally headed out late into the night. Ben drove himself back to Amherst, and Dad and Karen returned Larry and me. And to all a good night.

Farewell to Harvard College

In procuring Christmas photographs from Karen's camera this year, I also got some bonuses, including a few photographs from my college graduation.

The day began with the collective ceremonies in the large green between Widener Library and the nondenominational chapel, where we filed in via house, listened to speeches, and then filed out again. Because I graduated Summa Cum Laude, I entered early and got to shake hands with professors as they came down the center row on the way to their seats and congratulated us. Then near the end of this section of the ceremonies all of the Summa graduates went up on stage to shake the hand of Harvard's president (then Dr. Summer's). The highlight of these ceremonies was the Latin speech, which a very peppy graduating Harvard classics concentrator read so dynamically that we needn't refer to the English translation in the program to enjoy it.

After these collective ceremonies, which included all graduating undergraduates and graduate students from all schools (law, medicine, Arts and Sciences, etc.), we dispersed to our respective houses, where each student went up to get a diploma after the house master announced his or her concentration, any honors, and future plans.

We seem to have arrived early:


But Karen had a good view:




Afterward, Josh and I both have diplomas, but I seem absent my requisite headgear...


We then had lunch in a Thai restaurant to celebrate, where I received my first laptop, courtesy of Mamama!

One of my cards definitely featured both a rotund athlete and the words, "Summo Cum Laude." I suspect my father may have had something to do with this...





After lunch, we returned to the original spot for the afternoon ceremonies, which included alumni speaker actor John Lithgow, who told us: be creative, be useful, be practical, be generous. (You can find the entire speech if you click on this link: http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/commencement-address-john-lithgow-67-actors-own-words)


At the end, he read a children's book that he had recently written and dedicated to our class, entitled "Mahilia Mouse Goes to College," about a little mouse who makes it, getting her degree in the hard sciences. It came out about a year later, and I own it, including a CD of Lithgow reading the story (I believe from our commencement).

That evening, I was already in the car with Josh's family on the way to the Cape, and that was that. But it was a lovely day, and I still get a little sentimental thinking about it. Because my time at Harvard college genuinely was a spectacularly rich and joy-filled experience, and, as I have come to appreciate increasingly since, will remain one of my happiest.