Julie Pecenco’s Life in the Little City

Tonight’s holiday happening was the Sanford Society/Math Department party at SUCO (The State University of New York College at Oneonta) And no, I do not randomly crash math parties. Dr. Leah is a professor of mathematics at the college, and I often accompany her to departmental social functions. (Sanford Society is the student math club.) After the usual food consumption, we had a rousing game of holiday Yahtzee. What is holiday Yahtzee, you ask? Why, it’s Yahtzee played with red and green dice at a holiday party, of course. I managed to win the intense competition for the lowest score

After the dice game, the remaining attendees who weren’t doing Sudoku puzzles (This was a math party. They really do things like this.) played a card game called 24 that involved … arithmetic. Yes, I spent a portion of my evening staring at cards and trying to manipulate their values with arithmetical operations. Dr. Leah was so into her Sudoku puzzle that she ignored my pleas to save me from brain exhaustion. After spending my afternoon patching drywall, arithmetical wrangling wasn’t really high on my list for my down time. It was all in good fun, but I still think math parties are a little bit strange

When we left the Union to come home, we walked out into falling snow, which was lovely to watch out the window. Tonight we’re watching one of our favorite holiday specials, The Year Without a Santa Claus. I had never even heard of this Rankin and Bass classic until a friend mentioned it to me back in our college days, but it’s now on our must watch list from my extensive holiday DVD collection. A quick search at Amazon revealed that you can now get action figures of the fabulous Miser Brothers, Snow Miser and Heat Miser. How cool is that? If you’ve never seen The Year Without a Santa Claus , add it to your holiday viewing this year. You’re in for a treat.

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Tonight was the annual tree lighting ceremony in downtown Oneonta. Mayor John Nader led the countdown to the illumination as the revelers enjoyed music by the members of the Catskill Choral Society, the Catskill Chamber Singers, Hooked on Tonics, and others. Members of the Fokine Ballet Company performed vignettes from The Nutcracker in the numerous store windows along Main Street, and the winning entries in the annual gingerbread contest went on display.

I tried watching the Rockefeller Center Tree lighting ceremony on television last night, and turned it off after five minutes. It was all about pop stars I’d never heard of, and celebrities whose fame baffles me. We watched our DVD of Elf instead. Tonight’s festivities were the polar opposite. It was about performers who sing and dance for the love of it, and share their gifts with the community. It’s about friends and neighbors coming together to celebrate the holidays and enjoy each others’ company.

This is why I have decided to do my “Oneonta for the Holidays” project (see the previous post for more details.)

Above left: Hillary Reiter performs a scene from The Nutracker in a shop window on Main Street.

Above right: Hooked on Tonics, under the direction of Paul Carter, perform in Muller Plaza after the lighting of the city tree.

Below left: Children are reflected in the window of Otsgeo Outfitters as they watch the Fokine Ballet Company Dancers perform scenes from The Nutcracker.

Below right: The gingerbread creations on display in the windows of the Greater Oneonta Historical Society draw visitors.

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I have always been a huge fan of the winter holidays, and have been tossing around the idea of a holiday photo project for years now. As readers of this blog know, I’ve also become of a big fan of life here in our small city. So, I have decided to combine the two, and formally announce my “Oneonta for the Holidays” photo project. Styled on the the 1989 book, Christmas in America: Images of the Holiday Season by 100 of America’s Leading Photographers, I will be creating a collection of holiday photos taken in and around Oneonta, NY. For now, I’ll be sharing them here on the blog and on my website.

If you have any events, public or private, that might make good subjects for the project, contact me to set up a shoot.

Above: Riders enjoy a hayride down Main Street in a horse-drawn wagon during the Oneonta Tree Lighting celebration on Thursday, November 29.

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While we were visiting my family at Thanksgiving, we accompanied our nieces when my sister-in-law Annette took them to the mall to see Santa. Both were excited and telling everyone at school that they were going to see Santa, but when it was time to actually go see the man in red, two-year-old Megan started wailing and ran in the other direction. Molly, now four, was “brave” and brimming with excitement as she sat with Santa and shared her Christmas wishes. Megan hid with Aunt Leah as she looked on from a safe distance. As soon as we were out of sight of the big guy, Megan was her wild and crazy self, running around the mall with her new toy (courtesy of Mr. Claus.)

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Since it was the only time the whole family could get together this year, the Pecenco clan exchanged gifts two days before Thanksgiving. There was no tree yet, but we put holiday music on stereo and it was the usual frenzy, especially with a two-year-old in the room. (Robert, at right, like any four-month old, didn’t care about the gifts, but delighted us all.) The big gift this year was the wedding album my sister hired me to put together for her husband. They were married in 2005, and I shot it unofficially. They didn’t get an album, so she decided to have me create one for Patrick as a special gift. My parents received a 5″x5″ AsukaBook, while Patrick got the 10″x10″ AsukaBook EX. Now that I no longer have to keep it a secret, I’ll add the album to the album page when I get a chance.

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