Tuesday, December 28, 2021

As the Year Turns

Have you ever been to a waterpark that has those big floaty water lilies in a series with a rope dangling above, with the notion that you will balance/dangle your way across to terra firma on the other side of the pool?

Yeah, that's about it right now. As 2021 scurries out to make room for 2022, we (Jason and Janelle) are fully engaged in the effort to keep our balance on what feels like fairly unstable footing with not a whole lot to hold on to. I say that as an emotion, not an ultimate reality, but I'll get to that in a bit. First, why does this turn of the year feel so wobbly? Here are a few of the reasons:

1) Janelle is, in case you haven't heard, ending her position as Academic Program Coordinator at EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, which has been her employer--not to mention so much else--for 22 years. Her last day is January 21. Preparations for the transition have been going on since this past summer, and are near fever pitch now as she grinds through the decades-accumulated particulars of her position with the capable person who will fill much of her role there; without knowing what good hands her responsibilities will be in, leaving would be that much more painful. As she prepares to say goodbye to the students who are currently mid-program and her colleagues throughout the university, it is not simply a professional parting. We've been saying that in a way she grew up at CJP; this ending is something to grieve--an identity release with no clear full substitute in view. One of my roles in all this is trying not to laugh at her when she worries that she's not capable of any other job, and holding her when letting go is hard. 

But let go she must (though she's been saying how glad she is that the relationships formed during these decades with colleagues and alumni don't have to end when she turns in her keys). It's been clear for years now that burnout is real, and it's part of Janelle's life. But CJP was always more than a job for Janelle. It was a place of connection, mentorship, meaning, affirmation, and education for her personally. It took a long time and the help of the best therapist she's found for herself to identify that while she has many sources of stress and anxiety in her life, a large part of her burnout was coming from the intensity of her work at CJP, and that the time had come to move on. Our whole family owes a lot of our paradigm to connections made through the CJP-affiliated community, and we've depended financially on the wages and benefits she earned there...it has felt like a relationship not to let go of glibly without something to replace it.

The trouble with moving on from CJP has been that while burnout persists, Janelle and I have neither the time nor mental space to sort through other options for long-term jobs or careers, and Janelle specifically needs some time for healing before she can re-establish contact (or establish it for the first time?) with her own sense of what she wants for herself. It has felt, as we considered this transition, that we needed to essentially let go of CJP with no plan for a full replacement for its role in our lives so that we--especially Janelle--could take stock of where we are at and where we want to go; we think we have to face the uncertainty squarely to open up a chance for fulfilling work involvements that meet our needs without dominating our lives. That work is part opportunity-selection, part personal transformation; i.e., how do we learn the skill of getting involved without getting stuck?

2) I am starting a small contracting business. This is not thought to be a long-term career for me, but a way of paying the bills in a time-flexible manner as we sort out our minds, our finances, our goals, and our opportunities over the next as-yet-undetermined span of time. My plan is to put a business structure in place that could function over the long term if needed, but which can be dissolved without fanfare if it is no longer needed.

What I have in mind is a simple home repair/improvement business, part time, with more of the work bunched into the gardening/farming off-season. I would help homeowners with their "punch lists," which is something it is very hard to get anyone to do in the current business environment, and in exchange for that valuable service I will ask for a sufficient hourly rate to allow us to meet our minimal financial needs with part-time work, and on a flexible schedule that defers to the work demands of the home farm. I will probably also do some subcontracting for friends who work in various trades. I am looking forward to that aspect socially and in terms of education.

Literal nuts and bolts are usually no problem for me, but working out the figurative nuts and bolts of starting a business is a process I find mostly just about as boring as it is convoluted, so it is no surprise that getting bookkeeping systems, insurance, tax prep, I.D. numbers, legal structure, business plan, invoice and contract templates all in order for the inception of the business has been no mean feat for me so far, and that work is ongoing. Fortunately I am not the first person to recognize that some people benefit from help with this mess; there is a whole Small Business Development Center dedicated to assisting entrepreneurs find the mentorship and resources they need along the way, and I have connected with a mentor there. It's going to be fine and I will keep up with the details well enough, the likely opinion of my sixth-grade teachers notwithstanding!

Would I want to be a part-time, small-time contractor for the remainder of my working life? I am doubtful of that, but I could be surprised. What I am excited about is getting out into the community more, making a social and service contribution and presence of my own, and using this hopefully low-key way of bringing home Federal Reserve Notes to open space for us to consider how we want to shape our lives in the next phase.

3) Mom and Dad Myers have moved here permanently, having now sold their WV Mountain House of Hope to Janelle's sister, Brenda, and her fiancĂ©, Greg. They downsized, downsized, and downsized all year, and we still had way more in the moving truck than anybody expected. Once it was all here it was more downsizing and sorting, but by now almost everything is in its place, and while the grief of leaving West Virginia is real, the relief is also real that they now have one place to manage, and not a very large one. Having them around more has been wonderful, especially for the kids. The natural flow of our two households will be even more appreciated in the coming days as we end a precautionary quarantine time for a holiday gathering that required sealing off the connection between our two spaces and not sharing indoor space unmasked. The "natural migration" of children and things ceased or became much more difficult during that time and we will have a new found gratitude for the normal ease of things.

4) Kali, now 18, is growing up! She's been homeschooled in the Unschooling model all the way along, so we feel like we are improvising many aspects of her budding adulthood. Without a high school graduation to mark the transition, it's hard to figure out what to hang my hat on when I express the feeling that she's seeming more and more ready to branch out. She's got her learner's permit now, and has learned to drive our manual-transmission Matrix, so more independence is on her horizon, but nobody seems to know how she's going to use it, which I guess is kind of the point. Her fall 2021 plans to travel back to the Philippines with Tala was disrupted by Covid and the hope is that that was just a postponement until this spring/summer.

5) COVID. Nuf said (though there is plenty to say). Vaxxed, boosted (those eligible), still not infected as of yet. We have been pretty cautious.

6) Garden plan 2022: With all the other changes, and with some rearranging to make room for Mom Myers to have a garden of her own here at Tangly Woods, it is as yet unclear what modifications will need to be made to our standard yearly gardening effort and layout. Usually we plan in January or February for most of the year, but we are unsure how to do that until we find out how much time we'll feel we have to put to it compared to usual, so we know it's possible we'll have to adapt our plans mid-stream and not be too hard on ourselves if the weeds or harvests get ahead of us. 

7) Tala went home. Our beloved friend, housemate, and chosen family member who had been with us since summer 2020 made the return trip in August to her home in the Kalinga territory in the Philippines. We stay in touch over email, text and video calls, but we all miss each other.

8) HAES (Health At Every Size) learning: Janelle has been engaged in serious study and a deep personal healing journey with the assistance of many podcasts, a book group with colleagues using Your Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor and we've read Christy Harrison's Anti Diet book out loud together and talked and talked about these issues. In addition to Janelle recognizing her own history of disordered eating, we've been coming to grips with our family's history of "orthorexia," or righteous eating, and internalized and externalized fat phobias. We don't want to contribute any more to the lionization of diet as the cure for all ills, nor the obscuring of health justice issues that that outsized focus has caused in our health care systems and in our culture more broadly. It's a partial identity crisis for our farm: If this isn't about "pure" or "healthy" food exactly, then what else is it about, and is what we have worked for partially a distraction from more pressing problems?

Wobble, wobble, wobble go the lily pads.

Except that each of these contributors to instability can be looked at in more than one way:

1) Janelle's leaving CJP is an opportunity for improved peace of mind, and for personal growth, transformation, and healing. It's a chance to find new opportunities to contribute our gifts and skills in ways that are well suited to our personalities and life stages. For example, Janelle is in the process of becoming certified as a Birth Doula, and hopes to be able to offer birth accompaniment regularly over the coming years.

2) My business stands the chance of really helping me/us connect in meaningful ways to a broader slice of our community, and could lead to any number of opportunities of who knows what types.

One of the most interesting and frightening questions for me is, what if there IS something more for me beyond home, family, farm, and a little light contracting to make it all work? I can't see myself moving away from gardening or deeply engaged family life, and chicken breeding is more or less a permanent fixture in my life, but other than that and the fact that I am 45 (not 25), I feel really open to what might come.

3) Mom and Dad set a wonderful example for us as to how to make a challenging change with grace and intention, how to ask for help when needed, and how to get it all done a little ahead of schedule! We'll hang on to the cord of that example many times, I am sure, as we navigate the lily pads of life. And we are so glad that our children have the gift of grandparents close by to learn with and from, play with and tease, love and receive love from, and share day to day life with.

4) Kali (and all our children) is such a loving, steady, joyful presence in our lives and we're so privileged to share our lives together. While there are surely trade-offs to the childhood Kali has had, on the whole I don't think she or we would trade the experience of having spent nearly the whole of it together in loving relationship. Oh, it may be (may be) easier to learn certain academic concepts by emphasizing them early and hard, but I'll wager many a psychologist can attest to the near impossibility of learning such relational concepts as unconditional love if you didn't experience enough of it in your childhood, and the same goes for unlearning such practices as self-loathing or shame. I am so eager to see where Kali takes her life, and the process she uses to step forward. About all I know about it is that it will be her own process, done her own way, and that she doesn't owe anybody an explanation for it, even me!

As that unfolds, we will continue to savor life together and the sweetness of our girls getting to spend ample time together. Watching Terah (6), Alida (11) and Kali grow and learn together and love each other so fiercely is one of our deepest joys. 

5) With the advent of the pandemic, we find ourselves in a very favorable position (having access once again to many unearned privileges combined with the fruit of some conscious choices and planning along the way): we have a relatively secure supply of food and energy, we share air space only with those we choose, we have a ready-made intergenerational pod, we've been able to work from home, and we already had plenty of experience being together most of the time. Even our curriculum didn't change, with the exception of the elimination of soccer league participation and regular unmasked indoor play dates. All in good time, we hope.

6) The gardens and the soil are an anchor of security in this time, even emotionally. Modifications will need to be made, but the sprouting of our beloved varieties this year will be, as always, like a visit from a friend. The routines and cycles we've initiated and integrated with the wild ecology are a force for steadiness and calm in the bigger picture, even though they overwhelm us in certain moments.

7) The gift of Tala in our life continues. Her contributions as an Indigenous person, and also just as herself, to our ways of perceiving the world is something we cherish; something we needed and still need. It is joy to be in touch with Tala, to see her working to grow some of her favorite Tangly Woods varieties at her family home, and for she and our family to know we've all got dear friends there on the other side of the world. When Kali is playing internet-based Rook with Tala late at night and I hear roosters crowing in the background of her video call, I smile to myself and wonder at the world we live in. 

8) The realization that we may have gone astray in an "orthorexic" direction in our attempt to establish a sustainable and sustaining life on this land is not only disheartening...it is also potentially quite freeing! So maybe we can pursue these passions as passions, not compulsions. Maybe we can return focus to the most pressing issues of ecological integration. Maybe we can take another step away from a culture that demands our dissatisfaction with self and life and towards "enough." Maybe we can turn some more attention toward working to improve secure access to diverse food choices for all. Maybe we can be advocates for reducing/eliminating stigmas, disadvantages, environmental problems, and other social determinants of health. Maybe this is one of the keys to moving into more truly effective contribution to a world greatly in need. That's honestly what it feels like.

And so, as we move into 2022, we are full. What we are full of depends on the moment, but it is all basically a mix-and-match from this list: things to do, food from the pantry or freezer, anxiety, wonder, trepidation, curiosity, gratitude, love. Never boredom! 

This post didn't lend itself to easily inserting pictures throughout, so if you've made it this far you can enjoy our first-of-the-month family photos from January - December 2021:

Monday, December 27, 2021

A long awaited and eagerly anticipated visit!

When you haven't hugged someone you love for a really long time, it feels really good. We got to experience that on Tuesday of this week when Jason's sister and husband arrived. With multiple negative Covid tests and no mishaps in our quarantine protocols, the dream of podding up for a few days came true. We didn't need to exchange Christmas presents of the wrapped sort - just being together felt like a gigantic gift. And it's the gift that keeps on giving as our kiddos are still soaking up some more aunt and uncle time. We'll go retrieve the younger two soon and leave our eldest for a good long visit (she loves us, but did request a full two weeks with them without any of the rest of us!).

They joined us, along with Emily, Jonas and Ivy, just in time for our 9th annual biochar burn. It's always an important marker in our year and we often invite lots of people, but it has not been a "big to do" since Covid. It was meaningful to be joined by multiple members of Jason's family and my parents for a shared reading of the meditation and getting the fire rolling. We chose to read the longer variation of the meditation since we have lots of voices to share around the reading, and Jason and I had been scurrying around up until the moment they arrived, so needed something to re-center us into what has been a very meaningful yearly ritual and event. I'll share it here interspersed with a few pictures from our time together. We had to get the kids out of the pit before we could start the fire. :) 
We kindle this fire for gratitude.  The wood we have gathered to burn is the flesh of plants, our partners and providers on this earth.  We gratefully acknowledge that we need them more than they could ever need us.  May the placing of each branch into the flames be an act of thankfulness for the sustenance we have received by way of their work this year, and a supplication for the provision of our needs in the year to come.  May we use well the energy they have harvested from the Sun.  We kindle this fire for gratitude.


We kindle this fire for memory.  We know that without fire, our species could never have become what we are.  To be human is to burn wood; to use its power to change things to our advantage.  We think of the long history of human life in this place; all the fires that have burned here.  We try to imagine what this place was like in those ancient times and learn what we can from the little we know of the people who inhabited this land then.  We kindle this fire for memory.

We kindle this fire for light.  The trees and vines that made this wood lean and climb towards it, and when they succeed in finding an opening to the sky, they produce a leaf in that place to bask in the Sun’s rays, and take their nourishment that way.  Through the plants and like the plants, we need light: to fully understand our world our eyes need to see it reflecting off of our landscapes, and we need it striking our skin to promote our health.  Even in our languages, light is truth and shadows are ignorance.  In this shadow time of year, the light leaping from this fire will be a comfort.  We kindle this fire for light.

We kindle this fire for warmth.  As flames spring from the branches burning here, we will eagerly hold our palms out to face them like leaves, absorbing a small fraction of the heat released there.  This world is our home and we know no other, but it can be a cold place, too.  When the summer sunlight has waned, and we are walking over the chilled and wet or frozen soil of winter, we need a fire to gather around every so often.  May we, like branches in a fire, each warm the other and, once warmed, respond with fresh warmth of our own, together producing and becoming something more than we could have been alone.  We kindle this fire for warmth.

We kindle this fire for life.  As the smoke rises, we will be reminded that life changes form; it is always being lost and destroyed, it is always being reborn.  The metabolic cycles coursing between tree roots and these branches were interrupted by disease, or by tools in our hands.  As they laid in the heap awaiting burning, fungi thrived by invading their interiors with hyphae and unlocking their storehouse of energy.  Insects chewed their way through bark and wood, feasting and growing.  The thick layer of duff generated by their activities is a rich haven for the roots of trees and all the soil creatures.  And now, through burning, a portion of each branch will return to the air as carbon dioxide, and plants all over the world will take and convert it to sugars and new fibers in their tissues.  The char that is left will be used to enrich the soil—a stable place to store nutrients and habitat for soil organisms.  We kindle this fire for life.

We kindle this fire for healing.  In these times too many of us are neglecting our connections to the soil, to the plants, to the Sun.  Our willful ignorance has cost us so much; has been so destructive.  We hope that this one small act of burning a char fire can be a part of a trend of restoration.  We know that humans, like all life on earth, cannot live without benefitting from the misfortunes of other creatures, and that no creature has more fully exploited this—has learned better how to induce harm for its own benefit—than we.  We acknowledge that we have gone too far.  And so we are attempting to put our ingenuity to better use.  May we learn to be attentive to each opportunity as it passes by for the building of health and the cultivation of vibrant life in our surroundings.  May we learn to be agents of good things.  We kindle this fire for healing.

We kindle this fire for our descendants.  Throughout their lives trees shed leaves and branches and root fibers, and exude substances through their living roots to nourish the soil community for their own benefit and for the benefit of their offspring.  Building on the richness they inherited, they leave their place richer than they found it.  We too live by the gifts of our ancestors to us; gifts of resources and knowledge, skill and values that were a response to their time and place.  We have adapted these for our time in this place, and we know our descendants must do the same, accepting the gifts we pass to them and adding their own.  With this fire we mark our desire to leave to them a world that supports their thriving at least as well as it has ours, and our willingness to work to make it so.  We kindle this fire for our descendants.

For gratitude, for memory, for light, for warmth, for life, for healing, for our descendants, here and now, we kindle this fire.

Each year is a little different with new surprises. This year's was definitely having homemade firecrackers through the burning of bamboo. The first one was a little startling and then it was very fun to do more (with preparation and ears covered). Terah was shrieking with delight. The wood was nice and dry and the fire went fast. We had enough hands that some could be snagged at times by a niece or set of nieces to pretend to be penguins. And then Terah and Ivy discovered they could use the ring as their very own hamster wheel. Also very cute, especially once they redirected it in a direction entirely away from the blaze! 

The fire went well and fast. It's the ring closest to the leaf pile, so the hose was used most of the time to keep the leaves wet. Were we to do that whole design again, we might choose to have the leaf pile a little further away... But, with caution and care, it works! Once again the brush pile was empty just about the time the biochar pit was filling up. We quenched the fire as the chickens found the remains of the brush pile and started finding all the goodies that were hiding beneath it. We even had time before dark for a visit to the piglets. They were, as always, happy to see us!
As we headed towards the house, my mind immediately went to getting things all ready to bring outside and what would be needed for people and it almost as quickly realized that we could all just go inside. It was the first time Emily, Jonas and Ivy had been in our home for a meal since probably last February. So a monumental occasion. We kicked it off with a butter shaking competition - a quick way to shake a lot of cream jars...and it's fun! Good music, lots of fun spirited humans, a lighted Christmas tree, and a little playful competition that ends up with a large bowl of freshly made butter. Much of which was used in the following days for all sorts of deliciousness!!

We kicked off our yummy meals with a haystack [this may be "taco salad" to most people] dinner before Emily, Jonas and Ivy headed home (with the plan to return for a full day together Christmas Eve). 
The first day or two that Christie and Mark were with us, I was sadly torn between home and work. But I also got to enjoy two full days OFF. The days were filled with walks, yummy meals, making gingerbread cookies, many conversations about all sorts of things, lots of tech consulting (for Mark/Jason/me) and writing a play (Christie and the girls).
There was a lot of excitement Christmas Eve morning when we all gathered again for a fun day together.
The first surprise of the day was that we all ended up being dressed alike pairs. Jonas and I were a complete accident. Same with Mark and Jason. Emily had a lot to do with the other three pairs, and we made quite a crew!
We didn't eat ALL day but we did enjoy a nutty sweet potato waffle brunch followed a bit later by us trying out my new aged black pepper cheddar and fermented Serrano pepper cheddar followed a bit later by Christie's amazing chocolate putting and then culminating in a feast prepared by Jonas.
There were a few non-food highlights of the day too. Christie and the kids put on their play which was incredible. Check it out if you are interested learning what happened when the Tooth Fairy and Santa decide to swap jobs: https://youtu.be/3OQp9wiAJDs.
Later in the evening our girls put on their Christmas concert. That was extra special as we were able to zoom in Jason's other sister and her girls and also Tala joined us virtually from the Philippines. If interested in some holiday tunes, you can check that one out here: https://youtu.be/00KiiCU6Io8
There wasn't a ton of "down time" but I did snag one little couch cuddle/story reading moment with Terah and Ivy which I treasured. We ran out of time to do ALL the fun things but our family was introduced to Utter Nonsense, complete with lots of laughter! Later in the evening we also played whisper down the lane charades. My favorite was that my acting out decorating a Christmas tree got translated to changing a very poopy diaper by the time it got to the end of the line. :) Speaking of Christmas trees, the most dramatic moment of the day was likely when our tree feel over completely. Thankfully it was able to be righted and only a few (not the most meaningful) ornaments broke. 

Christmas day came around kinda fast and with it a flurry of activity to get our three kiddos ready to head northward. But we did get to savor Christmas Danish (made by mom and ready to pop in the oven in the morning to savor hot and fresh!!) and a final brunch of homemade quiches (sausage, mushroom, corn, and spinach ricotta). While there was great excitement among our children for the adventure ahead of them, our middle daughter was also feeling a bit teary leaving home. But she was surrounded by love and some of her most familiar people and I'm doubtful she has missed us much since the emotional departure. I'm glad she loves us and home! 
So the house got a lot quieter mighty fast!!! Jason and I are trying to enjoy the time, but one of us is feeling rather overwhelmed and anxious about the lists connected to this season of the year and the upcoming transition/shake up in our home (we'll let you guess which of us that is and who is needing to calm who down!?). We are continuing our quarantine until we bring the kids home from Pittsburgh, but we were still able to enjoy a stroll to Hensley's Pond with Mom and Dad yesterday. It's been so unseasonably warm and felt odd to be hiking the day after Christmas in a t-shirt. But it was a beautiful day and the sky heading back was gorgeous! 
This is likely my last post of 2021. I plan to turn over writing responsibilities to Jason to try to do the yearlong summary. :) We'll kick of 2022's posts with "tearing down the wall" and podding back up with my parents. There's a lot of eagerness all around for that, and I think there will be a renewed appreciation for the normally very natural flow between our households. We'll see how long until my dad is ready to put the wall back up - I'm not sure he knew it could be so quiet at Tangly Woods. In all seriousness, I know how much they have missed us (ok, most especially the girls) during this time and we are so very grateful for what they gave up to make it possible for us to be with some of Jason's family. We're eager to do our third round of Christmas celebrations with them at New Year's, with a new sense of appreciation for our relationships!

Early Christmas

Our family of 5 did our "just us" Christmas day a week ago Sunday. We realized with the various small gatherings we had planned and the girls going to Pittsburgh that December 19th was our last day just the 5 of us until January 16th. So we made the most of it and pretended, pretty successfully, that it was Christmas. What that mostly boiled down to was one of our family retreat days with presents added. With the girls already enjoying their new chrome book, we just had stocking gifts to enjoy opening. We have the ability to make that last a few hours, especially with how meticulous Terah is in opening packages. 

This year Jason and I had landed on the Old Time Candy Shop when we were looking for Lifesavers and trying the sometimes-almost-impossible-feat of avoiding Amazon. The good thing about attempting to do so is that we land on some fun treasures. This was quite the find. We ended up going down through the site and picking out a handful of types of candy that we remembered well from our own childhood and figured our kids never would have experienced. It was a hit! And it was like a major trip down memory lane. In some cases it might have been better to leave our memories intact of how much we liked a certain thing 30+ years ago. Rolos were such a disappointment!!!

In addition to Rolos, our girls have now experienced Runts, Andes Mints, Pixie Sticks, Rock Candy, Necco Wafers, Nerds, Juicy Fruit Gum, and Barnum Animal Crackers. The most sentimental of all of those gifts for me was Juicy Fruit Gum, which I tried unsuccessfully to teach Alida to blow a bubble with. When our family lived in Jackson, MS we were part of Voice of Calvary Fellowship. The strongest memory I have from Sunday mornings, other than the gospel choir, was all the kids flocking to Mrs. Cooper at the conclusion of the service. She was an elderly black woman with a big heart and a purse full of Juicy Fruit Gum and she would hand out stick after stick. The flavor took me back in time! 

The site also had some old time toys. We've already been reimbursed for the whoopie cushion that didn't even last long enough for us to prank our visiting family members with it, so they were spared. The kaleidoscope has been a hit, as well as the drawing board. Some other things were a little lack luster (like those capsules that grow in water - what a let down...). But we got a lot of good laughs out of the morning. At one point Kali opened her rock candy and hers was the one that the handle - a little wooden stick with a ball on the end - had broken off of. I had given it to her as I assumed she'd be the one least disappointed. She looked at the package and was clearly trying to figure out what it was. We busted up laughing when we realized she thought the little stick was some kind of mallet to break apart the rock structure - she didn't even realize it was edible at first. She had just been opening a whole series of comical/odd presents, so of course she didn't think it was just a rock candy lollipop with a broken stick!!

Wally joined the festivities for the first time and got a few presents. The one he seemed to enjoy the very most was his very own "iceberg" [ice pack]. 
Later in the day, Kali made a final decision to depart once again from long hair and I did the honors of cutting her hair for donating. It was fun alternative giving moment added to our day - mostly because it was a less busy day where something kinda spontaneous could fit, but it added a nice touch to an otherwise sweet (in multiple ways) day!
Mostly the day was sweet because we got to spend it together! We watched a video of the Best Christmas Pageant Ever (I laughed...I cried) and we also watched Clifford (which Terah had a very hard time with as we were completely incapable of convincing her that nothing bad would happen to Clifford or the little girl). We had filled ourselves so full of Christmas stocking treats and other snacks that we only made one of our two Christmas meals. Instead of spending lots of time cooking in the evening, we enjoyed playing games together. And Jason and I even got a nap while the girls practiced their Christmas concert. It's nice to know we can successfully shake up the schedule and it can still feel very Christmas-y.