Evolving Christmas Morning

Family traditions are funny things. We try to string as many elements of an event together as we can that link one year to another. Days like Christmas are supposed to feel somehow the same each year. But everything is always changing.

When I was really little I remember Christmas mornings at home. We hung tinsel on our tree, which was impossible not to just want to drag in handfuls all over the needles when we were small, but my mom always made an effort to get us to carefully hang individual strands onto the branches to look like icicles.  We always took the tinsel off later to store in its box for the next year, and it eventually got quite crinkly.

As we got a little older and could handle the car ride, the tradition for us was to drive to Ohio on Christmas Eve to spend the holiday with my grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins. My grandfather worked for Sears, so we got to circle things in the famous catalogue that we desired, and a fair number of those toys would end up under the tree in the den. I remember the torture of waiting for grown ups to finish their coffee in the morning until everyone was assembled and ready to throw open the doors in the family room to reveal the carefully decked out tree and the pile of presents underneath. Their tree didn't have tinsel, but did have golden tinsel garlands that wrapped around it. My grandma always made spritz cookies in the shapes of wreathes and trees, along with pecan crescents and date yums. She made stollen. At dinner there was her famous orange jello. For years our tradition also included my brothers feeling carsick on the their birthday on the drive back to Detroit.

Holiday Update

Happy New Year!  Welcome to a long catch-up post.

Even though I am a person who doesn't do new year's resolutions, I've decided that in 2015 I will:
1.) Buckle down and build the violin I have on commission.
2.) Edit my second novel, which I think about every day and didn't touch all last year.

At least the blocks are glued to the form.

The problem is finding time to do these things.  My assistant moved to Chicago so I'm swamped with all the repairs at the store myself, exercise takes time, rehearsals take time, my husband and kids need me.... But a violin maker and writer who can't make time for violin making or writing probably shouldn't get to claim to be either thing, so somehow I will find time.  Otherwise I'm not sure who I am.

In the meantime, I want to jot down something about our holiday break before I forget everything.  (I'm always sure I'll remember, but in the car the other day we were discussing what we did last New Year's Eve and no one was certain because it all starts to blur together.  We weren't sure if it was the year of Mona and Aden trying to stay up to midnight alone, or the epic dance party.  Going back on my blog and reading this reminded me that, oh yeah, lots of people, it was totally the dance party.  Having a blog is handy.)

The past few weeks have been so busy!  And it turns out my greatest gift was that we weren't hosting Christmas this time.  One of my brothers really wanted to go to Detroit, so that became the plan.  At first I was disappointed because I like having everyone here.  (That started because I kept having babies so close to the holidays that I couldn't travel, and the drawing power of babies brought everyone to us.)  But my Ohio relatives who usually visit were just here in the fall, and most of the rest of the family were here for Thanksgiving, so it's not like they didn't get time with us in Milwaukee.

Do you know what not hosting means?  No cleaning.  I looked around the clutter in the house each night after work and thought, "Eh."  It was a great relief.  And instead of that "make things presentable by pushing everything into closets and boxes" kind of cleaning that usually has to happen when we host and have no time to be thoughtful about where things go, we did a deep clean of Quinn's room, which was really satisfying.

Box of Memories

The Christmas holiday was incredibly busy around here.  We had lots of guests over a couple of weeks, all on the heels of birthday season and card making craziness.  I didn't really get much of a chance to write anything about it beyond the hunt for The Riddler and concert reviews, but there was sledding and three kinds of lasagna and homemade Indian food and lights that spelled out the word "Mold" everywhere (my brother was in charge of lights so don't ask me about it--I suggested we add more that spelled out "Mildew" and "Radon" just to make it even more festive but what do I know?) and a gigantic grey squash that turned into tiny muffins and campaign posters and telephone-pictionary and Scrabble.

Something I'd planned to post about and never got around to was my favorite gift this past year.  I finally buckled down and made a gift for Aden that I've had in mind for a while.

I make my kids' Halloween costumes every year.  My original thought, long ago, was to use the scraps from the costumes to make little toy versions of them each time and give them to the kids for their birthdays or Christmas.  That happened exactly once, when Aden was one year old, and I made her a stuffed bunny to match her bunny costume.  Then more kids, more costumes, more everything, but less free time.  So much for that idea.

But I liked that idea!  I never quite let it go.  And the thing is, Aden in particular is deeply sentimental.  She still has all of her old Halloween costumes in the closet.  I figured at this point having mini versions would give her something to hang onto that takes up less room, and maybe we can start discussing the possibility of passing those costumes along to other kids one day without it seeming as painful to her.

I dug through the sewing box and found fabric from all her past costumes, and hand stitched little versions of each stuffed with cotton balls.  I kept them kind of crude on purpose because they looked cuter.  I found blue beads to use for her eyes.  Then I got a simple box from a craft store and stained it and stuck all the little figures inside.

Aden loved it.  Actually, Aden cried when she opened it.  I joked that next time I would give her a present that made her happy, and she hugged me very hard and insisted it did.

Now, luckily for me, in eleven years Aden has been a kangaroo four times and a bat twice, so this wasn't quite as much work as it will be if I make Mona or Quinn such a box in a few years.  But it's still a good collection of little figures and I'm glad to have finally put it together.

I'm particularly pleased with the dragon:

Christmas

So, this is one of those posts where I'm kind of counting on the fact that my children don't see my blog.  Nothing bad, I promise, but this made me laugh and I feel like sharing.

My kids went to bed last night before we had a chance to finish baking the stollen that we usually leave out for Santa.  But no matter, they left something else out for him:

Mona had created a little duct tape snowman on a 'snowy' plate with a pencil and a note.  I will spare you most of her atrocious spelling (ask me how many times I just tried to type 'atrocious' until spell check liked it and you'll know where her problem comes from), but it began, "Dire Santa."

Anyway, I didn't dare look at the note until all the children were asleep and I was filling their stockings.  (At which point I also discovered Mona had put out a stocking for her beloved fish, so I filled a teeny tiny bottle with water and sealed it with a twist tie bow.  Because seriously?  What do you get a fish at midnight?)  The note began with, "Do you see the snowman?"  And then continued on to say that if he liked it he could have it, but if he took it he had to sign the red slip at the bottom.  I suppose like a receipt, but I suspect it had more to do with procuring proof of Santa's existence.

Quiet Joy (Babble)

The first Christmas we got to spend in our house in Milwaukee was crazy.  I had just given birth to my first baby a few weeks before and didn’t feel up to travel, so the whole family came to us.  My parents, brothers and in-laws, all my uncles, aunts, and cousins, all came to our home to meet Aden and celebrate the holidays and have a party for my brothers who were born between Christmas and New Year’s.  Our house couldn’t quite hold everyone and when we lined up all the available tables to seat people for dinner we couldn’t open the front door.  It was hectic but it was great.  My Christmases as a child were big fun gatherings, too, and I was happy that the holiday event had come to Milwaukee.

But as the generation of cousins I grew up with began splitting obligations with new families, and people moved farther and farther away, things have become quieter and quieter.   I’m no longer the relative with the smallest children to complicate travel.  And Ian is home now.  When he was in Iraq there was a distinct need to have additional people here on big holidays to help fill the void.  This year was set to be the quietest yet, but I didn’t realize how quiet.

The plan was for just my parents to drive out on Christmas Eve so we could enjoy the actual day together, and my aunt and uncle from Ohio would come out for a few days afterward.  The irony is that when we were hosting the masses we lived in a house about half the size of the one we inhabit now.  We finally have proper space to fit everyone at the dining table without causing a fire exit hazard, and now there isn’t even a need for the leaf in the table.  It’s strange how that happened.

Unfortunately, even that meager plan has been pruned down further at the last moment.  My father isn’t well and my mother called this morning to tell me he was in too much pain to make the drive.  I feel so helpless, and so does my mom.  They’ve run every test they can run and can’t find the cause of the problem, so now he just has to wait and rest and take Tylenol until he can get in to see a specialist next week.  Some days are better than others, and today proved to be one of the bad ones.  Part of me feels we should go there, but it’s a long drive and a family with three kids is not conducive to the rest my dad needs so there isn’t much point.  So I will stay here and worry and we will have Christmas morning with just my little family alone.

In some ways this makes me sad, because obviously I’d like to see more of the people I love, but my little family is wonderful.  I have such an embarrassment of riches to be thankful for–my three sweet and healthy kids, my husband home safe and sound, a house I enjoy waking up in every day, food on the table, a job I love…. There is nothing I lack and I am profoundly aware of how fortunate I am.  I’m concerned for my parents and wish I could help, but to feel sorry for ourselves is ridiculous.  It’s not the Christmas I was picturing, but there is nothing wrong with what we have.

What we have is different from what we’re accustomed to, but it’s peaceful and nice.  Ian and I took turns going out to the violin store to finish some work there while the kids stayed home and played.  They pretended to sled in the living room for a long time, which is one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.

Aden and I made stollen to put out for Santa.

Mona accidentally broke a wand that Aden had just gotten from the tooth fairy, so the two of us stopped at Target on the way back from the grocery store (neither of which, we discovered too late, was a good place to go on Christmas Eve) and Mona used her own money to not only buy Aden a new wand, but one for her brother as well.  We had Chinese take out in place of the meal my mom had planned to make.  We cuddled up for movie night.  We put out carrots for the reindeer.

And do you know why I’m writing this blog post?  Because I’m waiting for my children to pass out soundly enough that it will be safe to go downstairs and help myself to a piece of stollen and a carrot or two, and then stuff everyone’s stockings.  They are so excited!  Quinn is almost asleep at my feet, and I can hear Aden and Mona tossing and turning down the hall. 

This is the first year we’ve had a real mantel to hang stockings from, and we didn’t need to rearrange the world to make room for a tree in our new living room so it’s been a pleasure to have it up without it being in the way for a change.  The new house is fun to decorate, so we have a ton of lights up this year.  It’s beautiful and fun and I can’t wait to see the kids’ faces in the morning when they finally get to open their presents.  Quinn told me several times today in what order he plans to open them.  The one in the candy cane paper is first, then the one in the reindeer paper, then red one, then the one with the snowflakes on it….

It’s hard finding presents for the kids so soon after their birthdays, but I think I found them some things they will enjoy.  I heard people ask each of my kids this week what they want for Christmas and they all said they just want to be surprised and they will like whatever they get.  How can you not want to give presents to people like that?
So we are having a quiet, private little Christmas.  It’s a different kind of joy.  And it is miraculous. 

Whatever any of you are doing today, I wish you peace and all the love your heart can hold.  Happy Everything.