Holiday Break

I remember when growing up that my mom just loved it when we kids were off of school. Certainly I loved having a day off, but now when I hear parents who complain "can't wait for school to start again," I realize that I understand what my mom was saying back then. Adam thinks that I love it because it's all about my chance to sleep in (which, I admit, is a big plus), but really, I love having our schedule to ourselves. And maybe because it's winter and cold and so the idea of going anywhere sounds like a trial on my constantly-chilly self (afterall, I am wearing a fleece sweatshirt and scarf as I sit here and type this.....in my own house), or maybe because I'm now in the 3rd trimester (as my need to purchase a giant sized bottle of TUMS is the most reliable indicator of that milestone), but I am feeling perfectly happy to stay here at home.

For whatever reason, the kids were all content to do it too. And I haven't seen them play together this well in, like...ever.

And we're not even spending all our time on the Wii either, I might add.

Christmas Re-cap

The Lights on Christmas Eve at Longwood Gardens

Yet again, it was another fabulous Christmas for us this year.  This year, Adam's family (mom, bro, and sis) and our good friend Ruth came to our house, thereby giving me the priceless gift of not having to load up the gifts, kids, outside winter gear, and what Santa would need, only to have to bring it all home again a few days later.  But not only that, they washed every single dish for 3 days, put up with my directions for cooking Christmas dinner, and kept my kids happy.  

In return, I gave them the gift of being dragged to Costco with peak holiday crowds, an allergic reaction to our cat, a couple of nights on a slowly deflating air mattress, a house that doesn't get much warmer than 63 degrees, and the chance to catch the stomach bug that had been moving through our family that week and that wiped me out for Christmas day.  Merry Christmas!   (It goes without saying I have, quite possibly, the best in-laws.)  

We started by having our big Christmas dinner early in the evening on Christmas Eve.  

Adam has become the master of the brine-soaked, convection roasted Turkey

Post dinner, we went to Longwood Gardens for the lights and the holiday displays in the Conservatory.  As usual, it was fantastic.  

Christmas Day:   

This year we did one big "Santa present" and got the kids a Wii.  

It was very well received.....

...and immediately put to good use.

After we got a small fill of some Wii action, it was on to the rest of the gifts.  

Isabel loved her pile of books from Grandma and Grandpa Smith.

Olivia made us a flag of a wreath painted with her handprints. 

Chris (aka "Uncle" as Isabel calls him) helping dress the new doll.  

My mom recently gave me all of my old (vintage!) Strawberry Shortcake dolls, and so this year she gave me some (NIB!) clothing and accessories to go with them.  

Chris and Sha-sha

Ruth and Auntie Kami

After gift opening and a little lounging around, (and since there is no snow here) we went to the field at Max's school to play some kickball.  A new tradition perhaps?  By this time, our friend Yvette and her kids were with us, and we were happy that they spent the rest of the weekend with us to play.    

Good times in 2008 for sure.

Stealing from Friends

Well, this year we managed to get out a Christmas card (and we even avoided our usual Christmas card-making consternation), but in exhange, I didn't do any holiday baking/sharing/passing out with neigbors, etc. I can just count it as satisfying some universal zero-sum theory or whatever.

But just in case you're still looking for that knock-out Christmas dessert, my friend Lacey (who is probably organized and talented enough to actually do cards and desserts) brought some of these Christmas Cake Truffle Balls over to my house the other day--and they were a hit. So I told her that she had to publish the recipe on her blog so that I could steal it and claim it for my own when I pass them out next year. You should too.

Yes, I too love things.

"Christmas 1976"

This year we didn't cut down a tree from the back yard because the only available choices were just too scrawny (and you thought last year's was scrawny!). Instead Max and Adam went to a nearby lot where Max picked out such a perfectly shaped noble fir that visitors are repeatedly asking if it is fake. He did a good job, that boy!

Me, however, I love the tree every year. Mostly, I guess, it's because I love my ornaments. I started collecting ornaments (or should I say, that my mom started collecting ornaments for me) as a little girl. And in our large family where space and things were rationed, I always loved pulling out my own ornament shoe box and evaluating the contents every year.  I still do.  Oh, and maybe because I've always had a touch for a sentimental and the dramatic too.

made from a toy I bought in a Covent Garden toy store in London

I also have a Beef Eater "toy" ornament to go with it

But, by far, my favorite ornaments are the ones that represent places I've visited. I started collecting this kind of ornament with my favorite traveling pal, Anna, when we spent a summer traveling some of Western Europe together while in college.  Since we were living out of our backpacks with not a lot of hauling space, and since our meager money supply was spent primarily on crowded hostels, chocolate in all forms, and art museums, there wasn't a lot left over for shopping.  Ornaments turned out to be the perfect "tourist trinket."   Now I love pulling out my Europe ornaments shoe box (which all these years has randomly been a K-swiss box where the lid is a big British flag--or else because I'm a big nerd). And the collection has grown to include ornaments from my subsequent travels, but I feel hesitant to include too many pictures here for fear of being more of a giant nerd than I already am.  However, if you ever come over to see them, I'll happily tell you where each one comes from.  

"Pinocchio" from Italy

in the background is an Eiffel Tower given to me by Challey, 

since I passed up my chance for a Paris ornament when there with her.

When we were visiting Prague, we bought decorated eggs--real blown-out egg shells that are ornate, colorful, intricate, delicate, and (I think) incredibly beautiful.  I think that I spent at least 20 minutes in agony trying to decide on just six to buy.  For the few weeks left in the trip, there are plenty of photographs of both Anna and I each with a small, handled paper bag in our hands, never stowed away in our luggage for fear of crushing these prized acquisitions.  And the eggs all made it home safely, and 12 years later, only one has been smashed (and only last year).  But now I kick myself that I didn't buy 3 dozen then and just ship them home directly from Prague....ahhh, regrets.  (And for the record, Anna, I also regret that I didn't buy a miniature Wallace Fountain when in Paris....$20 just seemed like such a lot at the time!)

 

the red egg is from Prague, the blue is a painted wooden egg from Budapest

"Mozart" from Salzburg, Austria

Dala horse from Sweden, from when Adam and I went together

glass bird that Adam brought me from when he visited Munich, Germany

Christmas Place Mats from Joce

I can't remember a Christmas from my childhood without the homemade placemats that my mom made from saved Christmas cards.  Wow, I loved them.  And I spent a lot of time looking at every single card and the composition and theme on each mat.  

Apparently she threw them away last year as laminated cardstock and construction paper just don't last forever.  But a little piece of my overly nostalgic self still grieved to  hear it.

Nonetheless, I had been saving my own Christmas cards for years, partly because I am overly nostalgic and partly because I thought that I just might make my own placemats someday.  Seriously, though, I just don't do crafts....ever.  It's just not in me.   So last year I donated all of my cards to my sister Joce who said that she was saving hers to do a placemat project too, and then forgot all about them.  

But that Joce, even if she doesn't get into much of the crafty-crafts herself, she is if anything a very thorough person.  And this year a package arrived in the mail to me, from her.  Voila: placemats!  And....... from my cards, no less.  And........ I think that she hasn't even done her own yet but did mine instead!  And....because she saved that piece of our childhood from complete annhilation.  And.......because I can remember so many of these cards and who they came from over the last few years.  *(Talk about killing two of those nostalgic birds with just one stone.)

And....because she just did a really fabulous job putting the whole thing together.  

I love them.  

Thank you, Joce.  

Sounds of the Season

Perhaps you've noticed that I've added a little poll to the right-hand side of the page highlighting my distaste for a few select Christmas songs. And so perhaps you think that I'm a bit of a scrooge. Let me explain.

I'm one of those types that starts listening to Christmas music as soon as Thanksgiving weekend has wrapped. So, I love it as much as the next person. Really. In fact, I have a hard time picking my favorite, especially when it comes to those grand hymn numbers like "Once in Royal David's City" or "O Come All Ye Faithful" performed with a full choir and orchestra. Growing up, my family listened to a lot of MoTab Christmas albums, and I suppose that it really hard-wired me to think that there is a certain kind of "official" music of the season.

But this year, after OD'ing on news programs after the election coverage, I find that I can't take listening to any kind of news anymore and I have opted instead for the in-car entertainment of all Christmas music--all the time. Therefore, I'm becoming really well acquainted with the full spectrum of Christmas music, and let's just say, a lot of it is incredibly schmaltzy. Ok, some are good songs with just really unfortunate arrangements, but some I just can't take no matter the performance.

So I'm polling a few of my favorites for most annoying Holiday songs in existence. However, I'm happy to take all other suggestions as well in case you just need to get it off your chest.

p.s. For some more enjoyable reads on varying Christmas music taste, you can read about my friend Rob giving into his wife's desire to hear cheery Christmas music, or don't miss the Jolly Porter's opinion on the existence of another certain holiday song.

Let the Holidays Begin

Adam informs me that the Christmas season is never officially underway until we have egg nog in the house. So I got him a good gallon's worth before we even put up a tree.

As for me, the holiday season officially started today because I always look forward to getting my fill of these little puppies. I think that I easily ate 10 in the car on the way home from the store (and all the time hiding them from my girls sitting in the back). Merry Christmas to me.

p.s. Thanks Kaerlig for sharing your must-have holiday items.

Drips from the Guilt Faucet

I'm sure that I'm not the first to feel like parenting is in so many ways a constant battle with guilt. Or maybe I'm just particularly suseptible to the parent-guilt these days as it seems that the feelings of overall inadequacy are a little more flowing rather than ebbing. But for a while now I've been thinking about how do we/I give kids opportunities or encourage their natural abilities, talents and passions so that they can become all that they have the possibility of becoming. But what I've really been thinking about is, how is this even possible when I know that some of the choices I make in parenting contribute to limiting the vastness of these "possibilities." Make sense?

Sometimes I think about something my sister said about one of the feelings that accompanies having a new baby--that you feel like the sky's the limit for them; that this baby could be whatever he or she wants to be from a world-renowned concert pianist or the next Albert Einstein. And I think that every new parent should feel this way--and every baby deserves a parent that feels this way about them. But, deep down I think that we know this isn't true: we really aren't created equal. There are always exceptions, but it seems that so much of what we become is really about how fortunate our circumstances are combined with how prepared we are to take advantage of those circumstances. So it's easy to realize the stuff like my son probably won't be a Michael Jordan thanks to the fact that probably won't be taller than 6'1"....if that. But what about the other stuff, like, the stuff that depends on what kinds of circumstances I as a parent can give him? Would he be a fabulous bagpipe player if only we actually signed him up for some lessons?

For example, last Friday there was no school so I took all the kids to modern dance performance at U Penn (and then we went to the new Please Touch Museum.....and wow, was it ever so schmancy!) and following the performance there was a short discussion with the dance company's director and with the dancers themselves. Several dancers said that they had been dancing since they were as young as 5. Ok, so I've got my 5-yr-old daughter in dance lessons (check!), but because I'm too cheap for anything else, they are only the dance lessons at the Community Center and not at some formal studio with an actual ballet barre and "real" teachers. So, it starts to feel like, count out the idea that Olivia will ever dance with a professional company. Or, what about the fact that I'm the kind of parent who is always so relieved when each season's session of soccer is over because I'm sick of the practice and game schedule. So I never sign up Max for year-round sports, and, poor boy, he's never had a pottery, karate, or celtic dancing class....and what if one of those is his true passion? But then again, how far as a parent am I willing to go (and frankly, pursuing a passion can be expensive, and I have to be realistic don't I)?

I think that I've always wrestled with how hands-on I should be: how much do I just let them each do what comes naturally within their talents and interests, and how much do I really push and pursue on their behalf. And maybe this can sound like a silly thing to get hung-up on, but (at least lately) this parenting guilt is some pretty strong stuff. And as for the feeling of parenting inadequacy.....well, if you've only got one child who's under the age of two, then you just wait.

Maybe this issue will wane with time, or maybe not. In lots of ways I don't see how it can. Although at least I now know that I can count modern dance off of Olivia's list as she told me that she thinks that other kinds of dancing are "more beautiful-er."

The Rest of Thanksgiving

Lest my Parade post make you think that I'm bitter about Thanksgiving in NYC, it's not so.

We had a great meal and some even better company (thanks to Uncle Chris being in town, and thanks to friends Laura and Ruth coming too).

Dinner was followed by some olde tyme board games (Strawberry Shortcake, circa 1980),
and we learned that Max has now become a Chess addict...

so, many thanks to Ruth for obliging him.

And, after 10+ years in this family, I finally got to participate in STACKs, an old family tradition in Adam's growing up (and named for each of the members in the family), of ice cream with mix-ins, one chosen by each family member.

And, for the day after, we opted to avoid anything that might be even remotely crowded with the standard holiday shopping/tourists out sightseeing/window display viewing/museum going/lighted tree gazing, types etc. Instead we went to an area in Manhattan in the very north called Inwood. In Inwood itself is a large, unsculpted park (vs. Central Park and its strategically designed woods) with great hiking and rock outcroppings for scrambling and climbing. Also, there is the spot where the colonists purchased the island for $24 in beads, as well as some old small Indian caves to explore. It was a success, not only because it was so much fun, but because we literally had the whole hill to ourselves.

Then it's home for some turkey leftovers and a night out at the movies (w/ free babysitting) after the kids are in bed. See, I love NYC!