Tradition

Saturday, December 2, 2006

Sunrise, icicles, jingle bells – images of a Saturday morning in December before (what seemed to be becoming an annual tradition) of a drive down to the city for Christmas pre-festivities. This year the ride would once again include OLeif, Collette, Rose, and Molly.

Last year’s highlights included Soulard Market (where several fruits (including pears) and candies were purchased), a lunch at Crown Candy (featuring a monster bacon sandwich for Molly, who was not aware that sandwiches including three inches of bacon, existed), and then a swing by Art Mart, just to browse through the paint brushes and clay.

This year, Collette could not exactly predict what route might be taken.

Before leaving, however, OLeif helped get another car out of the ice mounds. And they took off for OLeif to attend a two-hour rehearsal for the Christmas program the following evening.

Meanwhile, Grandma, Mom, and Carrie-Bri had been obliged to stay in Jeff City overnight. What snowy catastrophes lay in travelers’ wake that day? Probably not many. The roads seemed better even from the living room window view, where the icicles sparkled in the sun on every tree branch.

Soulard was noisier than usual that Christmas season, as Joe, Magnus, and Curly had all chosen to join the group.

With the rides to and fro being composed of absolute ridiculousness, there was a filling lunch of Reubens, grilled sandwiches, and BLTs, accompanied by several sodas and malts. And then it was off to Soulard.

Meanwhile, all the trees were still covered in ice and they glowed across the city, provided showers over passerby.

Soulard was the same as always, likely much the same (in many respects) as it had been back in its grand opening in 1779. Although many of the vendors were not present that day, (including the stall with the little fried donuts, which was Rose’s personal favorite), the old spice shop was still open.

Joe took home a half-pound of ground Simply Sinful coffee, Magnus had a bag of strawberry tea, Molly a bag of organic tea, and Rose ordered a pound of hickory smoked cheddar.

Then, skipping the Art Mart from the year before, they headed back a short ways to where OLeif and the kids walked the streets from the bookstore to Bissinger’s where chocolate was sold under glass cases, like jewelry.

Upon arriving back in St. Charles at five o’clock, everyone scattered for the evening. And shortly later, OLeif, Collette, Augustus, Rose, and Molly met up with Jimmy and little Meg, Ben-Hur, and the Popples family for the production of A Christmas Carol, directed by Susie.

Involving several comical scenes and even a bit of falling snow on the stage, the show seemed to be a success, for their second performance. And another two hours had already passed.

Upon conclusion of the play, they landed themselves at the Steak ‘n Shake for mostly cheese fries, chili, malts, and root beer floats, except for OLeif who was ravenous and ordered a mushroom steak burger.

It was a full day.