Manna From Texas
FOR REASONS THAT BECOME increasingly obvious as the temperature drops and Christmas comes closer – we will soon be heading to Texas for the holidays.
On Christmas Eve we will pile into the car after the Annual Christmas Eve Services at church and drive up to the Indianapolis area for the night. The next morning, Christmas Morning, we will get onto the Great Silver Bird called Southwest Airlines and fly to Texas.
Hopefully, all will go well and our flight from Indy to Houston will be uneventful and on time so that we can then get onto the Not So Great Silver Bird called by some other, less known name, and make the short jump down to Corpus Christi. Once there, we will collect our luggage and be met by an, as yet unnamed, family member who will drive us the final half hour to the Family Home.
By this time we will all be exhausted, stressed, partially deaf, and unprepared for the obligatory few hours of socializing with the family members who have already arrived.
Don’t get me wrong – they are all a swell bunch of people – you couldn’t ask for better, but by the time I finally get to bed, I will be so tired that I will no longer have vital signs and I will sleep the sleep of the dead.
After too many years of semi-gainful employment my internal alarm clock usually wakes me up at 7 AM, no matter what. On the first day after traveling to/from Texas my internal alarm goes off and I must, unconsciously, smash it against an REM induced wall. On December 26th I will wake up, God willing and the blood pressure rises.
The next week will have us engaged in family get-togethers, Living Room Performances by the young ones, and eating. If there is one thing this family can do better than most small to mid-sized nations – it is eating.
By the time we get back to Terre Haute, in a little more than a week, I suspect that my bathroom scale will be begging for mercy.
It always seems that, no matter how hard I try to watch what I consume, I end up meeting the basic qualifications to be considered an asteroid.
Why does this happen? Why do I behave like a swarm of locusts approaching Salt Lake City?
It is because the food is so GOOD!
On several evenings there will be barbeque and I’m a sucker for barbeque. Barbeque is the modern version of the biblical manna from heaven. If Moses and the Jews had had barbeque this good they would have wandered in the desert for another forty years.
“Aaron, pass the brisket – and some beans too. And maybe toss me some hot links.”
“But, Moses, what about the Promised Land? It’s right over there. I can see it from here.”
“Yada, yada, yada, Aaron, pass the Coleslaw. Ooh, I see a cheesecake – cut me a slice.”
So there’s my problem with these annual holiday trips to Texas – they wear me out and plump me up.
I wouldn’t miss them for the world.
Down the Hall on Your Left 
Wishing you safe travels and a Merry Christmas.
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