A Healer’s Geste

Holiday Facts

I’ve been slipping in the blog department, but I hope that fact reflects my solid traction in other departments.

Christmas Decorating
1. Our Christmas boxes are on the bottom and in the back of a large pile of boxes in the garage.
2. We have a curious 18-month-old.
3. We did not want to hazard carpet disasters like those we had last Christmas.
4. Conclusion: no Christmas tree, no Christmas decorating. Boring, bland, blah rental house.

Christmas Baking
1. In just over a week, I used more than 15 pounds of flour.
2. In less than a month, I used at least 7 dozen eggs.
3. In the past two weeks, my kitchen has not been clean at all. I did manage to keep up with the dishes every evening; however, my stove has accumulated two weeks’ worth of cruft and my oven emits burning odors if it’s heated past 350.
4. I enjoy making bread with a Bosch machine and with this book, which I checked out for the fourth time two weeks ago.

Christmas Tasks
1. During mandatory rest periods in November, I sketched out our holiday letter, made gift lists, and purchased online items. As soon as I was free and clear, I wanted to get out of the house, so I went Christmas shopping.
2. I had all Christmas gifts purchased and wrapped by the 16th of December.
3. I took Christmas pictures twice, finally telling Matt he had to work with whatever I had taken because I wasn’t trying again. I wanted to get our letters out around the 9th or 11th because we have a new address that most Christmas-letter recipients did not yet have. I sent out Christmas letters with pictures (no card, but Matt did the photo editing) on the 13th after stuffing and sealing envelopes while visiting at play group.
4. I did not give our neighbors holiday treats as has previously been my wont. However, as these are new neighbors, no one realized this deficiency; as these neighbors will not be our neighbors next Christmas, they will never realize it.
5. I did make up a blog year-in-review after sending out Christmas letters with the URL to visit.

Christmas Celebrations
1. Thursday the 21st Sarah hosted a lovely dinner for the playgroup mommies. We visited over appetizers, dinner, and dessert, from 7 until 10:30 without little 3-and-under interruptions. It was wonderful.
2. Saturday my extended relations arrived and we spent the afternoon and evening visiting at my parents’ place. We had cocktails, a seafood appetizer platter from Costco compliments of Jim & Paula, cookies compliments of Auntie Jan, and spaghetti ala Mom. The house smelled so strongly of baking cinnamon bread that you could catch wafts of the aroma across the street, where we parked.
3. Sunday, Christmas Eve, was a time I awaited with secret anticipation. Since we did not have any decorations to set the Christmas mood all month, I wanted to do something special at the beginning of our two-day holiday festivities. I got up at 6:45 to put cinnamon rolls and an egg casserole, both of which were prepared the day before, in the oven. I made coffee and a cream cheese frosting and baked some bacon as well. I had set the table, complete with white table cloth, the night before, and now put small presents on everyone’s plate (my own included). I got dressed as Matt got up and opened the boys’ bedroom door and began their preliminaries (Jaeger is never fit for running from his bedroom; we need to figure out how to regulate his system to a better schedule). They ran out to find it was dinner time! At least, that was Hans’ conclusion since the table was set with dinner plates. After putting the food on the table and praying, we opened the presents. Hans got a package of 5-packs of gum, which is his favorite treat; Jaeger had a large box of tic-tacs, which will stand in for “Jaeger gum”; Matt received two fun-packs of York peppermint patties, a special treat he rarely gets; and I had wrapped myself a large Symphony chocolate bar with toffee and almonds. We don’t have stockings, and so this was my substitution. I really enjoyed it and think we might just make this tradition instead of ever beginning stockings.
4. We went to Christmas Eve morning service, which was lovely and our boys behaved pretty well even though we forgot their books or foam toys.
5. From church we went to Grandma Winckler’s (Matt’s grandma) in Zillah. All the Wincklers in the area made it to the Christmas celebration (Dave has three siblings: one in Zillah, one in Pasco, and one in Indiana), as did all the grandkids (we are the only married grandkids and have the only great grandkids). Grandma had roast beef and roast pork and everyone brought various dishes and we had a feast. The one and only problem with Winckler feasts is that they all prefer fake potatoes, which is a terrible defect of taste. :) It’s a joke between Marji and I now, so that is said with all humor and no rancor. The Wincklers are all rife with food allergies, some even with corn allergies worse than my boys’, so everyone always knows exactly what is in every dish, which is convenient. The boys had presents from Grandma Winckler (known as Grandma Blueberry, since they grow and sell blueberries) in the evening and we left Zillah about 9:30, arriving home about 10:45. The drive was a little longer than average due to possible ice.
6. Celebrating Christmas Eve in Zillah meant missing the Christmas Eve candlelight service at church, which always makes me sad. We only do it every other year, though, and Grandma Winckler so loves having everyone over, so feels anyone’s absence, and so well feeds us that it is worth the sacrifice.
7. Christmas morning we got up about 8 — the boys had been awake for half an hour — had a simple breakfast, got dressed, packed the car, and went over to my parents, arriving 15 minutes later than planned at 9:45. Coffee, cinnamon bread, and presents awaited us. With the gathered crowd and the long-held tradition of opening gifts one at a time, gift giving lasted an hour and a half at least, and the crowd didn’t really disperse (i.e. the kids didn’t go downstairs) until 11:45 or so. At about 12:15 we departed.
8. We stopped at home to unload and reload, and then went out to Wincklers’. Austin, Barb, and baby Ava had breakfast there and we were to arrive around the time of their departure, which was 1pm. Ava was born premature in October and is supposed to be quarentined from any possible illness as much as possible — and two toddler boys count as possible illness x2 — so we were not able to celebrate as a full family. We pulled into the driveway at 1:20, just in time to see Barb and Austin’s tail-lights turn on as they pulled out, so we were able to wave a merry Christmas to one another as we passed. The timing was not coordinated, but couldn’t have been better. Emma was a dear of a patient aunt and read books to Hans and Jaeger for at least 45 minutes, including a new one she bought them as a Christmas gift. We had a ham dinner at about 2:30 and a quiet Christmas afternoon as the boys took an hour-and-a-half nap. We had dessert and opened presents when they woke up about 5, then Grandpa got out the Brio train set and helped them set it up and keep it up as they played. We started a game of Power Grid as the evening went on. We broke in the midst of it to put the boys to bed at Grandma’s at about 8 and we broke out the annual bottle of “good wine” with good cheese and crackers. We followed it up with finishing the game while Matt and his dad enjoyed a pipe. We left just after midnight and Matt and I were in bed by 12:45.

Christmas Vacation
1. Tuesday was spent recovering mentally and organizationally after the whirlwind weekend. Our house was chaos and because today was spent in balance of resting and working, it is not fully recovered but is at least habitable.
2. Matt has the week off and has no particular plans; I’m not sure if that means more or less work will be done. :) I don’t really care either way. It’ll be an enjoyable week.
3. The boys still have a couple Christmas presents left to open. We decided that this spread-out weekend of gifts was better than their previous birthday bashes in that we didn’t have to press them to disregard one gift in order to move on to more. It doesn’t seem like they need to be taught greed and told that they can’t enjoy one gift as sufficient. So we’re spreading it out and will let them open the gifts from us after they’ve played with the ones they already have — probably Wednesday afternoon. They still have a gift from my mom that she hadn’t finished yet, so that worked out with the year’s plan, too. :) We’ll just have a Christmas week.

Christmas Conclusions
1. Christmas doesn’t feel like Christmas without Christmas lights. I wish I had gone ahead and purchased a box or two to put up.
2. Christmas is more fun when there are small children. Christmas is exciting and magical to the under-ten set, they are fun to watch, and with new toys they take less supervision than usual. Once our own children are all no longer young, we might have to make sure and celebrate with nieces and nephews…and pray grandchildren are forthcoming. There’s only a six year gap between Kirsten and Hans, so their kids could easily overlap. :)