Holiday Shift

A couple of weeks ago, I dropped my son off at the mall to see a movie with friends. I arrived a bit early to pick him up afterward, and as I was wandering about and looking at the different shops, I was surprised to see a long line outside of a jewelry store. It was a small shop with Covid protocols in place, which meant a limited number of people inside at a time, but still, why would there be a line at a jewelry store half an hour before closing?

But then I remembered the next day was Valentine's Day. Last minute jewelry purchases suddenly made more sense.

When I mentioned my initial puzzlement about the jewelry store line to my daughter later, she said, "Oh yeah, Valentine's Day. I still kind of think about that as something to be excited for, but I guess that was a long time ago."

The last real time she would have done anything interesting for Valentine's Day would have been in sixth grade, so half a dozen years back. She used to make amazing Valentines for the kids in her class. My favorite was the year of the "pocket mice" which were all little pink and red sculptures made from colored duct tape. All my kids made their own Valentines to hand out at school, which meant when all three kids were in elementary school there was a lot of cutting and pasting going on at our dining room table for over a week every February.

But now Valentine's Day barely registers. We get a lovely box from my mom every year, and that we still look forward to. The box always contains some lovely handmade cards made specially for each of us, shortbread heart cookies, and surprises. This year there was a lot of much appreciated homemade jam.

Aside from my mom's box, there is no Valentine's Day at our house at this point.

In fact, I'm starting to realize how much of a shift all the holidays have taken now that we are transitioning from having a home full of kids, to a home with just adults. 

My oldest is away at college. My middle kid graduated high school early and is doing classes mostly online at a local college. She's home, but is separated from what the rest of the house is doing much of the time. My youngest is in high school, and tends to go along with whatever is happening, rather than make suggestions or instigate anything.

Halloween was the first holiday I noticed slip away back in 2020. The pandemic killed that prematurely. I really enjoyed putting together costumes for my kids. Quinn was interested in dressing up as at least one of various categories of animal over his trick-or-treating years--and I think 2020 he was due to be an amphibian--but no trick-or-treat, no school dance, no costumes. That's done.

Halloween was a big deal for so long! It was several weeks of planning and work and the excitement of the reveal. Now we hand out candy, which is okay, but comparatively dull. Maybe we can become one of those houses that builds something cool? Bay View has several spots that put together amazing displays that people come from all around to see. Going forward, if we want to still experience Halloween as an event, we may have to do something like that. But the era of my kids doing trick-or-treat in costumes is over. If I still want to do Halloween, it will have to be in some other way.

Christmas has shifted in a more subtle manner. The logistics of it haven't changed: We unwrap presents at home in the morning, and then drive to Detroit to have Christmas dinner with my mom. There was a bit of a pause in that in the beginning of the pandemic, but we returned to it. The kids are still allowed to empty their stockings before the "grown-ups" come downstairs. Once everyone is up, we start unwrapping things from under the tree. It's still fun. I usually manage to find things the kids all like. But my kids commented this year that it's not the same as when they were little. The anticipation is different. The excitement is replaced with a level of appreciation that is nice, but not the same.

Fourth of July we started skipping even before the pandemic shut it down. The parade is very different from a child's eye view, and my kids stopped seeing it as something worth the effort of getting up early for. In a normal year, Milwaukee has a lot of fireworks. As my kids got older and we asked if they wanted to go watch the fireworks in the park, or by the lake, they shrugged it off as something they could do later. Fourth of July has become just a lot of noise.

Easter, strangely enough, has stuck around. We used to travel to see relatives for Easter, and hunt eggs in New York, or Ohio, or once at the cottage in Michigan. In 2020, in order to keep all the days from blurring completely together, Ian and I hid more than 80 plastic eggs all over the house. Because we didn't have to worry about making things too hard for small children, we got to be incredibly wicked with our egg hiding, which was fun. But Aden won't be here for Easter this year. I don't know if I can convince the remaining kids to hunt for eggs without her. Maybe? I hope so.

The only holidays I can think of that are improved by my kids getting older are New Year's Eve (simply because staying awake until midnight is no longer a problem) and Thanksgiving. When they were small, my kids were not interested in eating the food (aside from the rolls and pie), and there's not much to Thanksgiving if you don't want to eat. But now they all contribute to the meal and it's really great. Mona's good at mashed potatoes, Aden makes pies, Quinn starts the orange jello days ahead in the hopes it will gel, and they all help with setting the table and making cool place markers and centerpieces. They're also old enough to take pleasure in sitting at the table afterward and partaking in conversation with the visiting relatives, which was once the most boring thing imaginable. And we play games, which I enjoy better now that we don't have to make concessions for their ages.

We're not quite empty nesters, however it's getting easier to imagine. There are certainly still ways we are involved as parents, but the hands-on elements are fading fast. It's strange now to remember my kids once needed me for everything from bathing to getting dressed to crossing the street. Quinn may be here for another few years, but he does his own laundry and can cook for himself, and aside from needing a ride once in a while when the bus doesn't show, he functions independently from us.

We spent years building up all manner of holiday traditions, and most of them are now obsolete. Ian and I will have to start deciding where to put our holiday energy going forward. Life with Ian is fun, so I'm not worried we won't find things to do, but it will be like starting from scratch.

What did we do before we had kids? Hard to remember. But I'm starting to understand all those parents who clamor for grandchildren. I'm not in any hurry to be anyone's grandmother, but I see the appeal. In the meantime, I'm thinking about how we replace all the cute parts of various holidays with things we can be excited about in new ways. (I'm thinking travel....)

Valentine's Box

My mom is amazing.  She's an amazing artist, person, and grandmother, too, not just amazing as a mom.  I'm one of only three people in the world, however, who get to judge her directly on the mom-front, and the vote is unanimous that she is the best.

I've been struggling with how well I measure up in that role lately.  I know I am good enough most days, and there are moments I'm satisfied that I've done something I can be proud of, but I've never felt more inadequate to the task than in recent years.  I appreciate most of the freedom I have now that my kids are more independent compared to the baby and toddler years, but I miss the relative simplicity of their worlds being so small.  Often the first time I see them on an average day is when I get home from work.  They are beyond my reach.  It's a helpless feeling.  I worry I should be doing more for them but it's hard to know what.

When I look back on my own childhood and think about how much my mom managed to do, I can't figure out how she did it.  She would sew us real clothes, not just Halloween costumes.  She kept the house much cleaner than I'm able to keep my own and certainly changed the sheets more often.  She tended the garden, did all the bookkeeping, did all the labor at the art gallery full time, and somehow also maintained her career as a successful artist.

And then there was the food.  My mom prepared us excellent homemade meals every day.  I don't remember us ever getting food delivery or take out when we were growing up.  Once my brothers and I were intrigued by the look of something called "pizza" on a Little Caesar's commercial, and we asked if we could try some, so the next night my mom served up homemade pizza in the same broad pan she made lasagna in.  It didn't look the same as in the commercials (shapes are strangely important to kids, and the ones in the adds were circles cut into triangles and this was a rectangle cut into squares, so that was distracting) but it was good.  I don't remember her making it again, though.  In our house (usually on a Wednesday when I leave work early to take Quinn across town to Latin after school then have to pick up Aden right afterward so the two of them can do violin lessons until 7:00) there is often actual Little Caesar's pizza on the table so that people coming and going can grab something to eat before getting shuttled to the next place.  It's fine, I don't really beat myself up about it, but I know my mom would have managed it differently somehow and I am awestruck.

Happy Valentine's Dog!

That's what we say around our house, anyway.  We have a neighbor who has changing decorations and lights up on their house all year round, and part of their February display includes a Valentine's flag where the AY in DAY look like OG.  Every time we pass it we wish each other a Happy Valentine's Dog.

Chipper got groomed this morning, so we actually have a happy Valentine's dog.

I love Valentine's Day.  I can see why people would get irritated with it if they thought about it solely in terms of romance, but I've never thought of it that way.  It's just about making people smile as far as I'm concerned, and it's nice to remind people you care.  My mom always prepared cards for us and still sends me and my brothers a Valentine's box every year.  My kids gleefully opened it up this morning to find shortbread heart cookies, little wind up owls (Mona's had a broken foot so it just gyrates in place which is very funny so she's delighted), and beautifully decorated cards among other things.

Kids went off to school this morning with their homemade Valentines.  We looked at Target to see if there were any they just wanted to buy, but they didn't see anything they liked.  Aden did pick up some kind of candy treat to put inside each of her cards, and I showed Quinn how to cut out heart shapes and he went to town cutting them out in different sizes and colors.  Each time he finished one he'd update the count on his Magnadoodle board.  He got a list from school of the names of all his classmates and wrote all of them in cursive on the cards.  I love that bag of hearts.

But the big Valentine project this year was Mona's. 

When Valentine's Day sneaks up on you (Babble)

I’ve always liked Valentine’s Day, even though it usually meant finding out no one in my class at school could spell my name correctly.  I loved handing out little cards, and when I had time, making them myself.  Valentines are simple and nice and it’s one of those rare times when you can hand anyone you like a note.  During years when I was too swamped with a newborn around the holidays at the end of the year to bother with Christmas cards, I waited until Valentine’s day to send everyone a letter.  My mom always sends us a Valentine’s box with homemade treats and surprising things.  It’s a tradition I hope to keep up with my own kids when they eventually move away.  (Not that they say they are ever moving–according to them they will live with me forever and ever.)

Normally I help the kids make their own cards.  This is Mona last year at the violin store in Valentine production mode:

Usually we start talking about Valentines the week before so if there is anything complicated or unusual about what they want to do I can have some time figure out how to make it work.  Last year Aden made pop-up cards all on her own that were pretty cool.

But this year Valentine’s Day kind of took us by surprise.  I was associating it with next week on my calendar because it falls on a Sunday this year.  Then I realized the kids probably would have their Valentine’s party on Friday.  Then I found out there is no school on Friday–so the Valentines had to be done last night.  This did not fit in with my work schedule at all, so we ended up eating at Target an hour before bedtime and shopping for cards and pencils.

Of course, my kids can’t pick out easy cards that you just sign and are done with.  Aden wanted to continue her pop-up theme, and found something with dogs that you had to punch out and fold and attach to the main card.  Those took her over an hour before she ever got to signing anything.  Mona chose something with a rainforest theme that came with little play tattoos that were too hard to attach to the cards herself.  So we all sat together at the dining room table cranking out cards, and it took us well past bedtime but it was nice.

The biggest surprise to me was Quinn, because we set aside cards for their cousin, and when I gave him one to fill out, he correctly printed her name.  I know he’s been working on writing some numbers and letters, but I’d never seen him try something as complicated as an upper case E or an R and he did them really well for age three.  He will love being able to pass out his own Valentines at school next year.

I will admit that Valentine’s Day is one of the holidays where I miss Ian more than usual.  It’s hard having him so far away, and all his stories when I hear from him make me nervous.  I don’t like picturing him with a gun or in dangerous situations.  He seems fine and it sounds like he’s accomplishing a lot of positive things in Iraq, but not being able to give your main squeeze an actual squeeze on Valentine’s Day is lonely.

So this year I appointed Mona my Valentine’s date.  As the middle child I find she’s the hardest one to make time alone with.  I see Quinn alone all the time, and somehow I get moments alone with Aden, but Mona is always along for the ride with someone and private moments are rare.  I told her I would hire a babysitter for her brother and sister, and the two of us would go out to eat and do something special.  That something special will probably turn into a trip to Home Depot for something we need for the new house, but alone with Mona it will be special.  She’s really excited and keeps asking me, “Am I still going to be your Valentine this year, Mama?”  The only tricky thing is to not make Aden and Quinn feel slighted, so I’m trying to find someone to watch them that will feel more like a play date.  In any case, I’m looking forward to Valentine’s Day, even though it feels like my heart is overseas.

I remember talking to Ian about holidays during the last deployment, and he said they were no different from any other days, which in a war is understandable.  He barely noticed it was Christmas and forgot about Easter and Valentine’s Day and our anniversary.  I get that and it’s fine.  But it’s another way in which our experiences while apart diverge.  For us holidays are among the clearer moments when we know exactly what we’re missing.  We get used to the day to day life without Ian here and we miss him in a general sort of way. 

But when a day is marked and set apart we all look around and notice his absence in a way that doesn’t happen normally.  When I started talking to Aden about what kinds of Valentines she wanted to pass out this year, she got excited about it, and then got very quiet.  “I miss daddy.”  I told her I know, and I did too, and that maybe the box we sent with his Valentines in it would arrive on time.

If it makes his time in Iraq a little better to remember we’re doing Valentine’s things this time of year, then I hope he remembers.  If it makes his time harder, I hope it slips by unnoticed.

Either way, I have a date.  She’s short and missing a couple of teeth, but in lieu of my husband it’s hard to think of a sweeter Valentine to spend my day with.