As I type, Alida's present, Here Comes Science by They Might Be Giants, is playing in the background. Kali just emerged from her bed. There are sticker pages under way all over the table, along with partially eaten clementines, Christmas danish and chocolates. Dancing with Daddy to the silly songs has taken precedence over the other activities. Not sure that today can top the last two days, but low key unplanned fun times as a family, with parents dedicated to being as unproductive as they can be for the weekend, are equally special in this household. This blog post will be my greatest burst of productivity in my day - I will try to exercise mental restraint whenever things crop up that we could get done!
These past two days were so very special. And maybe even more so with the awareness that having a table full of 8 people to be together with is so unusual this 2020 holiday season. The main way we arranged our time together Christmas Eve and Christmas day was each person getting to choose a 1/2 hour activity to do all together. So that is how I'll order these holiday reflections. After watching the Shalom Christmas Eve service together, I kicked off our group activities by spending our first block of time each choosing someone (or several people) we wanted to send a card/letter to. It seemed fitting to spend time thinking about those that we couldn't be with this holiday and wanted to let know we were thinking of them. The girls have been busy making envelopes from sticker pages and I had a lot of repurposed Christmas cards for the cause.
Next up was my mom's half hour where we turned our creative energies to decorating the gingerbread cookies that the girls had made with her a few days prior. It was a good thing that Terah took a long time on each of her cookies, as she would focus intently on decorating a cookie and then promptly eat it. After eating 3 or 4, she was out of room in her belly but then sought permission to decorate one but not each it! As if permission was needed! The special touch this year was having black walnuts from our trees in the line up of decorations.
The evening culminated in Alida's half hour, which was a concert featuring vocalists, Alida and Terah, and pianist, me! The weak link was definitely the pianist. The girls had disappeared multiple times in the weeks leading up to Christmas to practice their songs. And I had played some carols on the piano one time with them, but honestly didn't know that the concert was really going to happen and that they were really wanting me to accompany them until the day of. Let's just say that my piano skills are pretty rough, but it was still very fun and they were most gracious with my mistakes!
Before we called it a night, Kali gave Terah one present to open to tie her over until Christmas morning. We definitely make it hard for her by putting presents in stockings and under the tree well in advance. She spent many moments kneeling by the tree in the days before Christmas trying to figure out what might be under the wrapping. Kali had the great idea of buying Terah the sequel to Sophie's Squash - a book that we have all had the opportunity to read to Terah MANY times! So now Sophie's Squash Go to School has been added to the collection. She was not disappointed!!
Jason and I were able to slip out for a walk/jog Christmas morning before any kids woke. And what a surprise to see some snowflakes coming down! If Tala had been hoping for anything, it was a white Christmas and I had more or less told her that that was not going to happen. How wrong I was! As we gathered to open stockings and eat Christmas danish, the snow came down. I'm so glad I was wrong and the weather didn't match the weather predictions I had looked at.
My parents were all dressed up (Terah seemed to be mixing up holidays and was threatening to pinch people who weren't wearing Christmas colors and so she helped make sure Grandpa was dressed appropriately). I went to get a picture of Mom and Dad in their spiffy holiday attire, and they were quickly photobombed by the littlest granddaughter, and so invited the other two to join them.
Stockings were distributed around and some gifts opened immediately to share. My dad was only able to share his black licorice with some members of the family. It brought back memories of many a Christmas when us kids got dad licorice for the thrill of watching dad eat some and then chase my mom around to try to kiss her - she is not a fan of it!
When all our stockings were emptied, it seems a good time to break things up a bit and get moving. Terah chose for her 1/2 hour that we all play sardines together. For those unfamiliar with the game, it is a form of hide and seek where only one person hides and then everyone else searches for that person and when they find the person they hide with them. You only have to play it once to understand the name of the game! It was very fun and maybe a bit too exciting for Dad, whose heart started flip-flopping on the round where he hid and attempted to get up in Kali's tree bed. It was Mom who took the prize, which was the satisfaction of listening to all of us trying to find her for a solid 10 minutes. We scoured the upstairs and downstairs and were ready to give up. I was starting to look in ridiculous places like cupboards that she clearly could not have fit into. Tala finally found her first under the train table up on a coffee table. Who would have thought it would be the 70+ year-olds picking the most difficult hiding places! Mom was clearly very pleased with herself, and with good reason!
That was the best round to end on, and Terah was ready to fit in another game before her time was up so we did a few rounds of Terah's version of Tensi (dice game) before we opened the presents under the tree. It's hard to choose the highlight from the gift opening, but if I had to choose it was seeing the girls each get a pair of slippers from Tala. You could say the gift was not 100% altruistic, as Tala had been enduring having her slippers stolen often over the months leading up to Christmas. They are unlikely to feel as much motivation now. This morning when Terah woke, the very first thing on her mind was to go find her "Lil Bear" slippers. The only trouble for me is that I'm now getting confused when I hear footsteps as Terah in her slippers now sound a lot like Tala approaching. :)
A month or so before Christmas, Terah had asked for a fancy white dress "with some extras." She added a veil to her wish list a bit later. She and Alida enjoy playing wedding and she was eager for her own dress and veil (and since her only frame of reference is my dress and veil that they play with, hence the request). Her gift was the only one that got shipped to the wrong post office and then shipped back to Richmond, where it is stuck in the holiday chaos. The veil, found by a friend at Gift and Thrift, was still a hit and she is showing great understanding on the delay of the other package.
By this time in the day, there'd been a good dose of hubbub and we blessed my dad in retreating for a nap while the rest of us did sticker pages together. Even Jason and I both did one for the first time!
But it wasn't too long until Jason and Alida disappeared and I found them snuggled together in our room reading one of Alida's presents together: How to Speak Chicken! When I went up to help get our Christmas feast of injera and wat (Ethiopian) on the table, I mentioned that we might not see them for awhile. Those two sure can bond over all things chicken!
They did pull themselves away to join us upstairs for a delicious meal (mostly thanks to Tangly Woods veggies and meat and Mom's culinary skills!).
Dad's half hour took us outside with our full bellies for some fresh air. We were given a scavenger hunt to find things that start with all the letters of CHRISTMAS DAY. More opportunities for creativity to shine. Terah was my buddy and we collected: Cactus, Hazelnut, Rock, Icicle, Snow, Thyme, Mullein, Autumn Joy, Sunflower Seeds, Dill, Ashes, Yarrow.
We came back in and got warmed up playing games for Tala's 1/2 hour. We played the party version of Bananagrams for most of the time - where the focus is initially on making words and quickly is overwhelmed by managing the chaos brought on by the party tiles which make you make words with one hand, or without using your thumbs, or after running around the table, or with having additional tiles given to you or one taken from you... We shifted to pick-partner Rook with 8 people, which was a twist I hadn't done before (1 card in the kitty and you pick 3 partners).
Kali's half hour was super fun and tapped into my artistic insecurities! We each had a paper folded into thirds. We each started by drawing a head of something. Then we passed our paper around the table and the next person (without seeing our head) drew the midsection of the body. In closing we got a third paper that we drew the bottom half of without knowing the head or midsection. Artistic ability is not required for lots of good laughs at the end!
We hardly ended our activities with a slow one as Jason took us to the garage for his half hour - he had replaced Mom and Dad's car with the ping pong table. I wasn't sure about Mom joining for this level of activity, but she noted that the rest of us were thinking a lot more about her ankle than she was (not sure if that was a good thing or not - though I do take it as a good sign as she went to put her brace on the wrong foot recently). I did hit my threshold of risk after about 10 minutes, and suggested we stop playing Around the World and go to one-on-one games for the remainder of the time!
We ended the day with Christmas cookies and most of us watching a new Christmas moving Jingle Jangle. What a full and fun two days. Interspersed amidst all the activities, delicious foods and gift giving were lots of sweet exchanges of love and affection and care for one another, which is really what made the time together so precious.
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