The Days After Christmas Suck a Little

First there's the initial flirting - signs Christmas is coming. You start to see Santa's face peering at you in Walgreen's, the Halloween aisle at the Jewel is slowly replaced by red and green candies, then lots of cheap toys from China start to flood in. You start to get a little excited. Then at work, people start to talk of the holiday parties, the secret santa swap, and the treats start coming into the teacher's lunchroom. You're beginning to see what the fuss is all about. The kids start talking more and more about it too -wanting to watch that old dvd of Elf we have buried downstairs in the basement, scouring catalogs that arrive at the house for toys that will fulfill their dreams of a perfect Christmas.

Yes, pretty much since Halloween ended we have all been looking forward to Christmas. After Thanksgiving it was pretty much non-stop celebrating -cookie swaps, girl scout outings to sing to seniors at nursing homes, parties, drinking, eating, cooking, cute holiday cards flooding the mailbox everyday. Then, all of the sudden it's Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and now it's done. Not to say it wasn't the climax I wanted. It was great in every way. Sure, I missed my family and friends who live far away, but it was the first year where I felt as if I have really set down some roots here. But still, now it's done. All that's left to look forward for the next two months (or three or four) is snow and cold.

I guess instead of feeling all depressed that the holiday season is over (New Year's does not count for someone who has small children, unless you've got a babysitter which we're too broke to get at this point), I'll reflect on some of the highlights:

1) Our family got a karaoke machine.

2) I learned much more intimate details about neighbors and relatives thanks to a little over-drinking of the substance known as alcohol.

3) I get to relive my childhood by playing with my daughter's new dollhouse.

4) I got to eat lots of sweets and not feel guilty, since I will never eat anything bad for me again after Jan. 1st. Ever.

5) I am in the middle of a two-week vacation from work. Although the term vacation is used loosely here, since I've been stuck inside a lot with two active youngsters.

6) But I love my adorable, healthy, sweet, smart children. Most of the time.

7) Ditto for my husband.


Happy New Year, everyone! I promise to write more in 2010!!

Holiday Cheer

Happy holidays, friends and families and cyber-stalkers! I am feeling a little relaxed because today is the first official day of Winter Break! Actually where I live in the Midwest, they just call it Christmas Break. They also have Christmas trees in the public schools and show the old VH1 video of David Bowie and Bing Crosby singing “Little Drummer Boy” to the entire school:

But what the hell, it’s not hard to get into the holiday spirit and since I celebrate pretty much all the holidays, who I am to get offended? Plus, David Bowie?! Awesome!

Tonight will be my block’s first annual progressive dinner party, otherwise known as The 12 Drinks of Christmas (don’t worry, Ma, they’re non-alcoholic of course). We start off with five families trekking out in the snow and the cold and go to one house in our ‘hood, have a drink or two, nosh on some ridiculously caloric appetizer while the 13+ kids reap havoc in the freshly cleaned home and then, after 30 minutes have passed, we get all our gear back on (that should take about 10 minutes by itself) and go to the next unsuspecting house. Our house is number four so the kids should be either completely exhausted or completely wacked from sugar by the time they get there.

We’re lucky that we moved to a block with 16 or so kids and most of their parents are fun and like-minded enough to hang out with us San Francisco ex-pats. We even have another family on our block who also hail from San Francisco so we're extra lucky. Tonight will be a good opportunity to further bond with the neighbors.

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Epilogue:

The 12 Drinks of Christmas have come and gone. Many sweet red and green drinks were consumed; songs were danced to, including "The Teaches of Peaches" when the kids were far away, and general good times were had. Unfortunately keeping the kids up until almost midnight resulted in some cranky children for the past two days, plus someone in this house (not me, I swear) puked, but 'tis the season for celebrating!

Syncronicity

Thanksgiving has come and gone, seems like forever ago now. We went up to Wisconsin and had an intimate dinner of 40+ people and although we didn't even sit at a formal dining room table but rather on chairs with plates on our laps, nor did we pass the "thankerchief" that Niko made at school, it was a great night. Here's the cast and crew who attended:

The kids once again got on their Persian outfits and danced for the adults - they sure know how to charm 'em!

But on a sadder note, my paternal grandmother, Lillian, passed away the week before Thanksgiving. She was 97 and we weren't very close, but I did feel a sadness about losing my last grandparent and felt very sad for my dad. It's never easy to lose your mommy, I can only imagine. So the day I found out that she had died, Nina brought home a book from school that she informed me she needed to read that night and there would be a quiz on it the next day. So we snuggled on the couch to enjoy the day's children's book, I'll Love You Forever.

For those of you who don't know this kid's book, it is a beautiful story of a mother's love for her child. We start reading this delightful tale of how, even though this cute little boy causes havoc at home throughout his toddler, child and teen years, at the end of each day the mom goes into her sleeping child's room, picks him up and sings to him about loving him forever. But then the story progresses. The boy turns into a man and leaves his mother's house. Still, she drives across town, brings a freaking ladder on top of her car, climbs up to her son's room and rocks him in his sleep. "This is sad," Nina whines as she's reading. Story continues: He gets married, she again breaks into his house to rock the giant man in his sleep. But then, turn the page, the man says goodnight on the phone because his mom is too old and sick to leave the house. Then, next page, the son is driving over to his mom's house. He goes into her room, picks up the shriveled up hunched over mama and rocks her to sleep, singing the same loving song. At this point I have tears running down my face. Nina looks at me, realizes I'm crying and then she bursts out in tears. We hug each other, sobbing profusely. Niko gets on the other side of me and we have an emotional experience, except Niko soon falls asleep on my bosom. We manage to finish the story and see that the son is now a father, and he holds his child and sings to her the same song his mother sang to him.

Now, I'm not the most spiritual person but the fact that she brought home that book on the same day my grandmother died is no coincidence. What it was I'm not sure, but ever since I've realized something important - I will die some day.

With that, happy holidays!!