Krissie's Blog - 7

May 8, 08:39 AM

There is an amount of sacrifice in coming down here. There’s the sheer distance separating you from the life you left behind, and there’s a mental distance as well. We only have an 8-hour satellite window to call home or play on the internet. For me, I think of home when the satellite is up but rarely think about it when the satellite is down. Out of sight; out of mind. If you have a craving for a certain food, you will likely not get to eat it until after you leave, which could be months, or even up to a year. In the summer, letter mail takes about 2 weeks to get here. Package mail takes one month. In the winter, there’s no mail at all. You will miss birthdays, weddings, births, and funerals. Physically, you’ll miss long showers, warm breezes, the color green, and night. About a month in, I felt a little cuckoo and angry that the sun wasn’t going down, but that passed. The most noticeable thing you’ll miss is holidays. We celebrate them here with a big todo, but there’s something a little off with the big ones. But not in a bad way; it’s just different. Instead of your relatives, you’re spending time with other Polies who are missing their families as well. Let me tell you about holidays; they are very unique down here. And very fun.
My favorite parts of Christmas are the parts you can physically sense: the smells (cinnamon, pine, and firewood), the sounds (Christmas music, but only in the two weeks leading up to it), the scenery (lights, trees, and presents), the chilliness (that exciting cold wind blast you get when you come out of Midnight Mass that makes you want to sprint to the car), and the stillness (the silent night after opening the one Christmas Eve present, with the tree lit up and the cookie plate waiting for Santa). Well, down here, you’ll definitely get the chilliness, and, if you’re lucky, a few of the other things. When I was climbing back down off the roof from taking an observation on Christmas, I was sad that we don’t have a firewood smell in the air. But Polies have always celebrated Christmas. This is another Old Pole 1960-61 picture from the archives.

Here is our Christmas tree, which sat in the corner of the galley. (Photo by Reinhart Piuk)

It looks like Old Pole also had the formal dinners as well. In the summer we have them at Thanksgiving and Christmas. In the winter we have them at sunset, mid-winter, and sunrise. The day before there is the dinner prep. The following prep pictures are actually from Thanksgiving, but the work is the same for Christmas too.

This is Power Plant Anthony making a dough palm tree on the brie cover.

This is Fuelie Dan, aka “Tiger”, measuring the milk.

These are the pie-making stations.

Siding Carp(enter) Kevin puts on the finishing touches of crumble.

IT Tripp is cubing and showing that bread who’s boss.

Damien is…slitting the bread’s throat.

Erin and Shelby are very excited about pumpkin pie filling.
Because we have 250 people in the summer, holiday dinners are done in 3 shifts. First seating is around 4 PM, and third seating is around 7 PM. H’or dourves are served in the hall for about 30 minutes before each meal.

This is a time to see people freshly showered and dressed in their nice clothes…usually. Some of us didn’t bring nice clothes down. raises hand

Tiger Dan always had the best outfits. (Photo by Brian Churchman)

We had very nice Christmas music from a live band. (Photo by Reinhart Piuk)

Then there’s a candlelit sit-down dinner. The past and present dinners look similar; except they have a lot more candles and we have a lot more people.

The galley windows are covered, almost giving the appearance of night.

We dined on lobster and Beef Wellington. (Photo by Devon Pike)
More volunteers are needed for clean-up after such a huge meal. Although our biggest boss was well-intentioned, maybe trying to stack 10 plates was not a great idea.

So my boyfriend Jeremy ended up wearing wine and other people’s food.

Here we see IceCube Erik and IceCube Freija with their dish pit dancing. IceCube is the neutrino observatory, which I’ll explain later.

It looks like Red Santa is getting a very complex Christmas request from Alex.

And what would Christmas be without presents? Although, sometimes being told to “Close your eyes and hold out your hand,” can be a little scary. And you only hold out one hand because you don’t know that the box weighs about 20 lbs.

But it’s well worth it when your present is a giant box with Mario wrapping paper.

I was so impressed with the wrapping paper Jeremy MADE that I totally forgot about what could be inside. It should be noted that Super Mario is my favorite video game character. What could be better than Mario? My other addiction…

Dr Pepper! Eight 6-packs of delicious, heavenly Dr Pepper. We don’t have Dr Pepper here, so Jeremy ordered it from McMurdo. Don’t worry, he got me two more boxes (86 lbs worth) for winter. I still have plenty left for the season. I only drink one per week.
I should clarify that all of the festivities took place on Christmas Eve. Christmas morning is very fun and exciting here. I’ll tell you more about that next week.

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