On the Twelve Days of Christmas

We had a very busy Christmas season here.  Unfortunately, Chris had to take off the week before Christmas instead of the week after which kerfuffled my plans, but, I recovered :)

We made gingerbread houses with cousins, took an epic walk to Old Town on my birthday, spread out the gift opening to keep the excitement going, played board games, waged war against an awful cold, read lots of books, drank copious amounts of cocoa, ate the gingerbread houses, managed one play/devour-Christmas-cookies-date, and generally just lazed around.

It was pretty glorious.

Not the cold part--we're still battling that with very limited success, but everything else.  Glorious.

Now the tree is gone, the decorations are safely packed away until next year, the floor is vacuumed, and we're ready to get serious about this new year.  This week marks the beginning of both piano and swim lessons and a return to Cub Scouts and co-op so our pace is about to pick up considerably.

Wish us luck.

I'm going to need it to convince a couple of my children that knowing how to swim is an important life skill and also that it behooves them to just cooperate with said lessons because if they fail them one more time, mommy might lost her mind.  And nobody wants that.

On Christmas Day

We decided to brave the midnight mass for the first time as a family and it was only slightly a disaster.  We put the kids to bed in their church clothes and then commenced operation trim the tree/find and wrap the presents that we had hidden in all the nooks and crannies our basement has to offer.  Once it was time to go we just got the children up, put on their shoes and coats and loaded them up in the car.  I think it would have been completely fine had the mass not been really long--beginning with carols and then continuing with what Chris dubbed, 'the Mozart mass.'  I don't know if that's its actual name.  It was beautiful, with the full orchestra and choir, but by the time we hit the 'peace be with you's' the children were officially done and we exited the church with our dignity still somewhat intact.  

Santa arrived sometime  after we got the children back into bed and then we were all up again by six, ready to see what he left.  Well, the children were ready.  I could have slept another five or so hours.

Highlights from the morning included:

Margaret officially taking over Henry's role as chief candy thief.  I didn't think anyone would be able to steal the title but she cannot be trusted with any amount of candy within sight.  Or out of sight.  She is not particular--and also undeterred by little things like "danger" or the possibility of "falling off of the counter" and "cracking her head open."  

John wandering around giving us toys and telling us that they were our "celebrations!"  His "celebration" were the Rescue Bots that turn into dinosaurs that Santa brought.  He said it was a good thing that Santa brings things that I would never buy like more Rescue Bots and giant Lego sets and drones that are destined to crash and break into bits.  Isn't it though?  

Overhearing David chastising Henry in his sternest voice saying, "Henry, it's Christmas," in an attempt to convince Henry to just let him build the giant Lego set--because obviously Christmas means handing over your favorite present to any sibling who might want it.  

I only managed to craft one gift this year and that was a doll cradle for Margaret.  We found it at a garage sale last spring looking a bit bedraggled and David said he wanted to get it for his sister and ran back to the car for the money--which I thought was so sweet.  Once I got it into the car though, Chris asked me what the five dollars that David told him I needed was for.  Apparently David wanted Margaret to have the cradle, but not enough to spend his own money to buy it.  I painted it up and sewed a little mattress to go in it and I think it turned out pretty well, despite the fact that I cannot get the measurements right for a doll mattress to save my life.  I know I should make it bigger than the actual measurements of the bottom of the bed, but by how much?  I even made this one with boxed sides and it was still an inch short all around.  Luckily Margaret only noticed the fact that she now has a cradle that's considerably larger than her last one and all of her babies can fit in it.  And she is amassing quite the baby collection.

All in all, it was a wonderful start to the Christmas season, despite our less than stellar mass performance.  We played with new toys, took a walk to the park to give that drone a go in a spot with minimal tree hazzards (not me though, I never even changed out of my jammies), and had a seafood feast prepared entirely by my husband,  If that's not winning at Christmas day, I don't know what is.  

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Merry Christmas to you all!  And remember to keep the celebrations going!  Tomorrow we gingerbread :)

On the Rest of the Days of Christmas

otherwise known as, Better Late Than Never, or alternately, The Christmas Poem that Made Mom Cry While Attempting to Homeschool the Children......

I'm aware that it's mid-January but what are you going to do?  If you wanted to read a professional blogger who writes seasonally appropriate posts then you've clearly come to the wrong place :)  

This year I baked what I thought was a reasonable amount of cookies over Advent and kept them frozen in the basement and it was pretty much the best holiday decision I've ever made.  Anytime someone stopped by the house I had cookie trays ready to go--and there's nothing I like more than artistically arranging food on a tray.  No really.  I still have about half of the cookies in the freezer though so clearly I overestimated normal levels of cookie consumption, that or we weren't eating near enough cookies.

Chris was able to be home for a lot of the Christmas season this year too.  He was also spending a good portion of that time camped out in the basement still working.  "Go home and be with your family" they said, "but you also still need to get all of this work done."   I suppose having a basement dwelling husband is better than having no husband home at all.

We pretty much followed my Twelve Days of Christmas plan--eating gingerbread houses, going to see Star Wars, sightseeing in DC, having a cookie playdate and going on lots of walks.  I lost steam during the last couple days due to a migraine and we never did get around to making Christmas for the animals.  I did buy the birdseed though so maybe we'll have Valentine's Day for the animals?  Ash Wednesday?  Nothing says Lent like mom letting the kids roll pinecones in peanut butter and birdseed.

By the day after Epiphany I was ready for some deep cleaning and I took down all the decorations and hauled the tree out the backyard by myself during naptime, setting a Reintjes house record for quickest holiday pack up of all time.  The pine needle vacuuming on the other hand is an ongoing process.  I just tell Chris that every bit of evergreen we find hiding in the house is a reminder to keep Christmas in our hearts all the year long.

Although this was one of my hardest Christmases, this year also, surprisingly, ended up being one of my favorites.  Maybe because I didn't have very high expectations, or maybe just because I didn't get swept up in all the hustle and bustle of the season since I wasn't trying to do all the things--or many of the things at all.  It was difficult, but somehow I found my peace in the sadness.  Hopefully next year will be just as good, but maybe with more to celebrate and less to mourn.

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The Peace of Christmas-Time

Dearest, how hard it is to say---

   That all is for the best,

Since, sometimes, in a grievous way

   God's will is manifest.

See with what hearty, noisy glee

   Our little ones to-night

Dance round and round our Christmas tree

   With pretty toys bedight.

Dearest, one voice they may not hear,

   One face they may not see---

Ah, what of all this Christmas cheer

   Cometh to you and me?

Cometh before our misty eyes

   That other little face,

And we clasp, in tender, reverent wise,

   That love in the old embrace.

Dearest, the Christ-child walks to-night,

   Bringing his peace to men,

And he bringeth to you and to me the light

   Of the old, old years again.

Bringeth the peace of long ago,

   When a wee one clasped your knee

And lisped of the morrow---dear one, you know---

   And here come back is he!

Dearest, 'tis sometimes hard to say

   That all is for the best,

For, often, in a grievous way

   God's will is manifest.

But in the grace of this holy night

   That bringeth us back our child,

Let us see that the ways of God are right,

   And so be reconciled.

~Eugene Field

On the Third Day of Christmas

Mommy's "This is Harder than I Thought it Would Be Winter Wonderland."

Henry's "Streetlamp Spectacular."

David's "I Won First Place" masterpiece.

John John's ever classic, "Daddy Put Snow on My Roof."

And Chris' come from behind, "Bet You Didn't Know I Had Such Gingerbread Skills" work of gingerbread art.

Gingerbread house making went so much better this year than last, maybe because the kids are older, maybe because the big boys can stick with a task so much longer than they used to be able to, or maybe because I told them it was a contest.  It's hard to say.

Even daddy got into the action which made the whole thing a lot more fun and we were able to get everything mostly done before Margaret woke up from her nap.  I didn't read the instructions before we started that said the houses should sit for four hours before they can be decorated so they are sturdy enough.  Well, no baby naps that long, so we just went for it anyway and only had one total house collapse that needed emergency re-icing to shore the sides up.  Meanwhile daddy was laughing at me and my choice to only use the "good" houses from the kits I bought and not the "weird" ones.  Apparently an A-frame gingerbread house is much sturdier than a regular gingerbread house.  So says the engineer.

Which is your favorite?  Inquiring minds (aka David) wants to know.

On the First and Second Day of Christmas

Well, we got one day into my meticulously arranged and hand drawn Twelve Days of Christmas plan before it was in need of revising.  I'm not saying it's completely Aunt Kate's fault for bumping us to next weekend but......well, it totally is :)

Maybe next year I'll make our plan using post-it notes for ease of last minute changing.

We did get out to see lights on Christmas day night, but today we opted for the United States Botanic Garden instead of building gingerbread houses.  They have a fun train exhibit there that the kids thought was amazing.  It took a forty minute wait in line to get into the fifteen minutes worth of train display but the kids didn't seem to mind and they loved the rest of the gardens too.  We did a loop around the Capital Building while we were there and saw the Supreme Court building as well so that was fun....and also a little sad that we've lived here for over a year now and that was the first time we've really done any DC sightseeing apart from a handful of Smithsonian museum trips.  Oh well, I have a lot of kids and I can't emphasize enough how much I dislike driving in DC, it's second only to how much I dislike looking for elevators to get into and out of the metro stations with my double stroller.

Pushing most of our Christmas activities until after Christmas day really took the pre-Christmas pressure to get all the things done off and now it's making our post-Christmas day celebrations much more enjoyable.  We haven't had that dreaded after Christmas morning let down once all the presents have been unwrapped (because they haven't) and all the fun is done (because it isn't!).  

Here's to a happy rest of the Christmas season.....may you all drag out your celebrations for as long as you can!


P.S.  Why don't we all just take a moment to scroll back up and gaze admiringly at Margaret's hair?  This unseasonably warm and rainy Christmas weather is a bit unfortunate for creating the ideal Christmas atmosphere but the humidity is doing wonders for her little carrot top curls :)