2017.13 Jolly Holiday

I am behind and I know it.  I have had a busy last few days what with the party prep, the party, and other big events keeping me busy. Plus I left my laptop at my in-laws and kept neglecting to bring it home. Not that if I had I would have remembered to blog, but you never know.

Tonight I want to share my experiences at one of this weekend’s highlight events. As usual the event was lavishly decorated.  The attendees were dressed in very festive attire. One attendee was resplendent in a lovely gold dress, another wore festive Christmas pajamas, and a third wore reindeer horns.  The snacks, well, what can I say? There were no complaints and as the evening wore on, some attendees were seen to be taking treats off of their friend’s neglected plates. 

Later in the evening, as the festivities progressed, there was much giggling, and frivolity.  Games were played, discussion of the upcoming Christmas holiday and what gifts they wanted.  One attendee wandered around randomly singing “jingle bells, jingle bells…” One young mother kept putting her baby on the floor and wandering away. I hate to bring up the following but by the end of the evening one guest had even peed on himself.  He probably should have not had so much to drink, but I am not judging.

All in all though, I would never trade doing childcare with the toddlers and babies at church for anything.  They are always a jolly and festive bunch, especially at Christmas.

Not tonight's rowdy jolly children, but a rowdy jolly bunch nonetheless. 

Day Twenty 2016

Tonight we went to Christmas Eve service and Pastor Kent said the twelve days of Christmas start tomorrow, so I figure I am off the hook for not making it to 25 days on target.  I have till Epiphany, and I heard from Kent who surely heard it from Jesus. 

My favorite part of the Christmas eve service is the children’s pageant, where the youngest children enact the nativity story.  It is an exercise in chaos.  Regardless of how prepared Kristin is, the play is like herding cats, and never seems to go the way it was planned. That is what I love about it.  

Tonight I thought the show was stolen by a little girl I thought was portraying a sheep.  She vigorously flapped her arms and nodded her head throughout the performance.  I thought maybe she was an angel, but the angels all had halos and wings.  I even asked Matthew, he said she was a sheep, and he had no idea why the sheep was flapping her arms.

As it turns out, she was a dove, which was confirmed by the children’s minister afterwards.  She was an excellent dove, and her performance makes so much more sense with that bit of information.  I blame the costume department.

After it was over my boys recalled when they had their turns as shepherds.  My Paul recalled that the year he got to dress up, none of the children’s costumes fit him. So they gave him a sheet, and a head wrap.  He looked like a shepherd until the head wrap he was tugging at came off and then pretty much he was a 10 year old in stripped sheet.

Children’s Christmas pageants? Always bring me joy.

not so silent night

I did not post an entry last night.  I know this is worrisome because last year I failed spectacularly and only did 19 days.  I am not talking about that yet.  The truth is last night when we got home I was worn out and went straight to bed.   My plan is to post twice today. Let’s see how that goes.

Last night was the children’s Christmas party at church.  This is what Kathleen had to say about it.

Merry, tired, but Merry! …merriment is a gaggle of Sunday school children making 'gingerbread' nativity scenes with marshmallow sheep and tootsie roll donkeys. They consumed more chocolate frosting than they applied as mortar on their graham cracker stables. They were loud. They made crafts and followed stars around church seeking the manger. They wore me out...merrily. I can still smell the chocolate. It might be in my hair. Chocolate smeared kiddos ...merry.

Here is what I know, there were about 200 children last night, age 1 to 12.  Also there were 30 monkeys, 15 donkeys, 8 hyenas, 4 elephants, 2 clowns and a partridge in a pear tree.  To say it was loud is like saying close is a lingerie store without windows. 

Kathleen’s project was to build life sized mangers out of graham graham crackers held together with a chocolate butter cream, the wishes and dreams of children, and angel kisses.  No easy task when those 300 children were just as likely to pipe the chocolate butter cream into their mouths as they were to use it as mortar to hold the structures together. Then there was coconut to use as straw, I am not going to lie, I am judging the kids who refused to use the coconut.  Where is baby Jesus going to sleep? On the cold hard ground? Santa is probably going to bring them coal.

Then there was some other crafting with marshmallows and black licorice.  You know who likes black licorice? No one. Well. Maybe those dwarves who live under the front porch, but they also like earwax so I don’t exactly value their taste palates.

Following the edible nativities (because who doesn’t love eating caramel donkeys and peanut butter cup angels?) there was a plastic perler bead and pam spray craft. Have you ever made bowls with 400 children?  Unless you are Karen McWilliams I don’t think you have.  It really made a bowl, although I was doubtful the whole time. Following that there was a ‘follow the star’ activity where all 500 children traipsed through the church looking for stars and loudly calling the names of their favorite bible characters. “On Dasher” “On Dancer” “On Zayn” “On Liam”.  Seriously I think someone needs to talk to whomever teaches Sunday school to these children.

At the end of the star search it was narrowed down to two finalists. The bad boy with a heart of gold versus the girl with a voice of an angel. Wait, no, wrong story, at the end of the search was a giant nativity set up in the star room with glow in the dark stars on the ceiling.  I told the children that the straw in the nativity was coconut.  Have you ever eaten straw? Well I know 20 or so kids who have.  Good news is no one was allergic.

Finally, FINALLY, all 600 children went upstairs to the WOW room to watch a video. It was the only time all night that it was finally quiet. I love quiet children…ok, truth Is I love loud children too, but wow were these kids loud.  When the parents came to get their precious bundles it felt like it must be 2 am or something, but no…only 10pm.

Kat and I had given our boys a choice between coming and helping or going to the movies.  I am as shocked as the rest of you that the boys opted to go to the movies.  The boys second movie wasn’t done till 11:45pm so we went and had adult beverages and late dinner while we waited.  It was so quiet in the restaurant.  Sigh, a mini Christmas miracle.

A little Christmas truth.

I think I have shared that my boys do not believe in Santa.  Kat grew up a non believe and I compromised as a way to appease her on the Christmas tree issue. (Remind me to tell you about the first year I did a Christmas tree with her).  This means we also eschew the whole elf on the shelf thing.  I have also recounted how challenging it was to convince my Matthew that it was not his job to tell his friends “the truth”

Last night at church a friend was saying that she cannot find her elves this year.  She has two children; a boy and a girl, ages 13 and 12, and she has 2 elves for them. She has searched high and low and cannot find the elves from last year.  She has said that if she can’t find them by the 5^th (which is when you are supposed to get them out?) then maybe her kids have out grown them.  It was an interesting conversation to be a part of.  How do you handle it when your children outgrow Santa?

My friend shared that she had asked her daughter if she was going to make a list for Santa of her Christmas wishes, and she got a typical pre-teen eye roll.  She asked the same question of her son and he responded “heck YEAH!”  I don’t know if his response is born of belief, or just a practical one.  If it were me then as long as Santa was bringing me gifts, I would be making lists.

I shared this story with the boys this morning and asked if they thought their friends still believed.  Matthew laughed and chimed in that he was sure his former classmate has known the truth since Kindergarten. I asked him if he was guilty of ruining his friend’s Christmas. Matthew was quiet for a while, then he assured me that he would NEVER have told anyone that Santa wasn’t real.

Yeah right.  That’s my boy, wrecking Christmas for his friends since 2001. 

Day Nine

When I was in the 8th grade and my time as a boy scout was in its death throes I went to “snow camp” at the boy scout camp on mt Lemon in Tucson AZ. I am told that the scout camp there is actually a great camp and that boys come from all over in the summer to attend. But this wasn’t the summer this was December and it was cold and sleeping on the ground in the snow was not something that growing up in AZ had exposed me to . But I went, and was cold. I also learned about “being prepared” using a frozen banana that weekend, but that is another story.

So there I was: cold, in the snow, and sleeping outside the week before Christmas and I thought I had it bad. It is all about perspective. The night I came back home someone broke into our house in the middle of the night, came in through my bedroom, and was in my Mom’s room when she woke up and started screaming and scared him off. Jenni woke up from the screaming, but I slept through the whole thing. The cops came out, turned on all the lights, investigated everything and I slept through the whole thing.

Where the hell am I going with this? Needless to say we were feeling a little uneasy in our home after that. The next day instead of driving all over town in search of a perfect tree, or fun presents, we went in search of mace.
Christmas eve we went to the family service at the Unitarian church, which traditionally consisted of Christmas carols on request, a reading of ‘a child's Christmas in wales’, (again growing up in AZ made this whole story seem so un-relevant to me), and candles and a discussion about being the light of the world. We drove up to the foothills to have Christmas eve dinner with the Reed family. And then we were supposed to drive back down into the city to see Sara dance at Christmas eve service at first christian church. While we were at Christmas eve dinner Julie Reed invited us to stay the night Christmas eve and have Christmas day with her family. Mom had an argument that we would have to go get all the presents from our house and we were not really ready, but in the end it was decided we would stay.

I slept through the Christmas eve service at first christian, (really how many Christmas eve services does one family need? I never questioned it growing up but looking back it seems we went from one to the next to the next). Because of my nap I was wide awake that night when we were supposed to be asleep. Jenni and Amy Reed and I were listening to Mom and Julie and Bill doing the last minute Christmas wrapping. That year Mom gave Jenni the wedding doll that her mother had given her when she was a child. The doll’s name is Mary and had been in a trunk wrapped in plastic for years. We could hear Julie saying “that looks a mess Janice,” and Mom saying “I’ll just fluff the skirt it will be fine”. Julie said “Aren’t your kids traumatized enough without that scary thing waiting for them under the tree, where is the iron I can fix it.” And Mom “can you iron 20 year old satin?”

There was also a discussion about whether they should open the package my dad had sent to see if it needed batteries or not. In the end it was not opened because there were no batteries in the house if it did need batteries.
But perhaps the best conversation of all was how does one actually wrap a lump of coal. Do you put it in a box? Stick it in a sandwich bag and shove it in the stocking? Throw it at the recipient? Evidently Jeff Reed had found his Christmas gift in his parents closet and had worn it to school thinking he would not be found out, and of course he was.

Again, not the traditional Christmas, but a good one. Evidence that although my Mom was an only child and living far away from her actual biological family, she found extended family wherever she was that loved her and her family.

Day Seven

La La La.

Alright, so once upon a time Kathleen had a boss. Not the boss she has now, nor even the boss she had before the boss she had now. Many years ago, ok not that many since I am not that old, but you get the idea. This guy did not like Kathleen. No, seriously he did not like her. I know, it sounds hard to believe but it is true. He wasn’t mean or anything, but he just was not a fan of Kathleen’s.

So every year we have this party and I try to be selective about who we invite, but Kathleen is kind and loving and invites people that I find irritating, but since she does it out of the goodness of her heart I put up with it. (Because I try and encourage her to be kind and loving to people who do not deserve it since the day she stops you know she will kick me to the curb). As a result, she tends to invite the people she works with. This is not to say that I do not like the people she works with, because I do like many of them, especially any of them that might be reading this. Some of them that I am sure would never ever read this, I may have found irritating in the past. But maybe only once and it was a long long time ago. I hope you get my point.

So in the dark and distance past, Kathleen took party invitations to everyone in her office. Invitations that I labored over were taken and distributed to people, including the aforementioned boss. All of this was in the spirit of Christmas and yuletide good times. At the end of the day Kat went into the office of the boss to drop off some paperwork and found the un-opened invitation in the trash. Ok, really? In the trash? Like he could not even take it home and throw it away there? Kathleen, being the kind hearted loving person she is, took it out of the trash and put it back on his desk. Not that he came to the party. The fact that he didn’t want to come to the party does not make him a bad person. But I have never been able to figure out the ‘just throw it away and not open it’ thing. What is that? How do you not even be curious what is in the envelope? Maybe there was cash? I am just saying.

So then, years later, Kathleen encounters this man at a work conference and he snubs her again. I know right? So Kathleen comes home and shares the story with me and with our nephew Baby Scott, (who was 16 at the time). Baby Scott thought Kathleen was making it up. We assured him it was true, that this man does not like Kathleen. Baby Scott offered up this gem of an insight, “there must be something seriously wrong with him, like deep down inside, really messed up. That is the only explanation of why someone would not like Kathleen.”

This story has 3 morals.
1. Some people are idiots
2. Baby Scott Rocks.
3. There really is a list, and sometimes Kat lets me cross people off of it.

Five GOLDEN Rings Ba Da Bum Bum

Ok, it looks like I haven’t run out of steam yet.

I have a confession to make. My boys do not believe in Santa Clause. I know, it sounds bad. I grew up with the myth of Santa, Kathleen did not. When Kathleen’s sister Stephanie had a daughter she made the decision that she was not going to do Santa with Elisa. So, Steph told Elisa the truth when she was pretty young. She explained that there was no Santa and that all the gifts come from family and friends. Elisa’s granny (Clyde’s Mom) told Elisa otherwise and then showered her in gifts from Santa as proof. I can remember a 4 year old Elisa telling me I was all wrong about Santa, because her granny knew him.

So, when Kat and I had Paul, we agreed that we could forgo the Santa tradition, (since Kat already compromises on the tree). I had no idea what a challenge it would be. Of course marketing and advertising are against us, but that is almost beside the point because the boys know what they see on TV is not real. The problem is that when my boys tell people that they do not believe, they are always corrected and usually by adults. When Paul was little it was somewhat amusing when people asked him what Santa was bringing him, because he always answered ‘nothing’ and smiled. When he was 4 they had someone come to his day care dressed as Santa and it was reported to me that Paul did not want to sit on his lap and talk to him, that they had to bribe him with chocolate AND a candy cane, that they had to give the treats to him BEFORE he would sit on Santa’s lap and that then he would not tell Santa what he wanted. They asked him if Santa could bring a present for his brother and he LOUDLY let them know that he, PAUL, was getting a present for his brother, and no one else was ALLOWED to.

But all of that is secondary to what my Matthew has gone through. Please understand, we tell the boys every year that it is ok for other kids to talk about Santa and to believe in Santa, and that it is absolutely not their job to tell everyone. In fact, I encourage them to keep their mouths shut about the whole thing. Matthew, however, has a very strong sense of truth and not truth. And in his world, not truth is a LIE, and there are big consequences for telling A LIE. So he cannot help but share what he knows about Santa, and it always gets him in trouble.

Before he started kindergarten an extended session worker in the church nursery told me that Matthew was telling all the other little children there was no Santa and that he was ruining Christmas for them, and that if I did not put a stop to it he could not come back to the nursery. I gave her my blank stare and said, “thank goodness we believe that Christmas is about Jesus then.”

Only in my head it was more like “listen you hateful hag, you are not in charge here, and you are not the parent of my kid, I know people that will shank you, you crazy witch.” Only I didn’t think witch, which led to another internal dialog about how she made me cuss in my head in church and how that was not very Christ-like of her, and that I hoped God would get her for that. And I think I showed remarkable restraint for that.

So the moral of this story is my kids do not believe in Santa and don’t make me shank you.

Day Three

I must confess that it is a fear of mine that I will get part way through this and get stuck, and run out of clever stories to tell. So far I am doing ok, but what if I wake up tomorrow with nothing to say? I wonder if Hemmingway ever felt this way?

My youngest son Matthew was born 9/2001 and had his first Christmas 3 months later. That year Big Brother Paul got it in his head that it was his job to be sure that Matthew’s first Christmas was a good one. Paul’s requirements included a tree decorated with cookies and marshmallows, Christmas caroling, a white Christmas, Christmas lights on the house, a snow man and special presents from Paul himself.

Of course more cookies went in Paul than on the tree, and have you ever tried to string marshmallows? I can’t recall just what Paul chose for Matthew’s special gift, but I do remember that it was more suited for a three year old to play with than a newborn. The night of our Christmas party about halfway through the party Paul herded all the children, most of them older than he, out on the front porch and had them sing Christmas carols to Matthew and the rest of our guests. As it turned out the only song that Paul knew the words to was “we wish you a merry Christmas” and that was about all the words of that song he knew, but he gamely sang it over and over.

I was pretty sure he was going to be disappointed in the weather, but that worked out too. As usual we had Elisa Gail for a few days after our party before we had to take her home Christmas Eve, and it started snowing on our way back from Henrietta. When we got home there was enough snow on the ground for Paul to make a tiny snowman. After it was competed he wanted to bring it in the house and put it in Matthew’s room to keep him company. I recall that he was not pleased to find out that there was a rule about bringing snow men in the house.

As a parent I want to believe that I am my child’s favorite in the whole wide world, but I tell you honestly that when Matthew was a baby I was always somewhere right behind Paul.