Love Came Down at Christmas

December is one of my high times of the year for feeling homesick, or perhaps heartsick is more accurate. This year it has really led me to question what I was searching for.

The best family Christmas I can remember as an adult was 2007. I flew home from Edmonton and it was so good to be back on the Island. It was one of the last Christmases we were all together and all healthy, or at least healthy enough to celebrate. It was a Christmas for bundling up all the good memories of childhood and experiencing them one last time. 

Christmas 2008 turned out to be my last “grown child” Christmas at home, although I didn’t know it at the time. Part of me wishes I had known it, although mostly I’m glad I didn’t because it let me experience the time without suffering too much from pre-emptive nostalgia, a condition I regularly suffer from! The travel was stressful because it would not stop snowing and I was incredibly stressed in general, because my time in Toronto was not going as well as I had hoped and I knew I had to go back and see things through to the end without any idea of what the end would be. But in between these moments of stress were so many good times, just the goodness of being at home and feeling secure no matter what storms, the real and the imaginary, were raging around. The New Year’s Eve engagement didn’t hurt either. 

I can stop my thoughts here and think yes, these are the things that I am homesick for, of course they are. I love the home I grew up in, and I don’t just mean the people in it. To have lived 17 years in the same spot, to know what every creak and groan of the house means, to know all the hidden treasures of the property & neighbourhood… these are the things that nourished my being. As someone who lives in a near constant state of panic it is incredibly important to have this safe space that helps ground me in reality. Yet time marches on, and I cannot return to those Christmases. We are all too different and disease has left a long-sorrowful mark among us. There are always now two people missing yet not gone, living in a shadow land, and no amount of wishing in the world will bring those days back of my aunt’s house smelling of turkey & gravy while four of us crammed into the entry way, trying to struggle out of boots & coats and get all the greetings out of the way, as if we hadn’t just seen each other the week before. I cannot share with my children the fun of my Gramma’s house, full of strange nooks & crannies, the platters of Ukrainian sausage & cheese & headcheese & cold roast beef & cookies & cherries served up as a “snack” while we played noisy family games and let our warmth shine out against the darkness. My children must make their own memories.

When we came back to Canada I was surprised to find that homesickness still returned at Christmastime, but in those years it was a yearning for the Christmases we’d had in England. I missed the Christmas feasts, the mince pies, the Clare carol service, and ghost stories at the Leper Chapel. I missed David’s yearly goose procurement, the carefully planned appetizers, the stockpiles of port & sherry, and the Boxing Day rambles in which we walked it all off. By some sort of Christmas magic our English years always involved a 4 day holiday, although often longer. Mostly, I think, I just missed the two of us being together and, at least for a season, having it all figured out.

I know very well from experience that the first year in a new place is the hardest. Everything is new and it is hard to figure out which traditions to cling to, which to let go, and which new ones to adopt. This year it felt like so much had to be let go due to circumstance. No appetizers, because we have no oven in which to cook them. Ditto for the Christmas bird. No snow. No extended family. No country-wide holiday. And while the lack of marketing made it easier to hit the Advent vibe, by Gaudete Sunday I was missing the total overwhelmingness of Christmas that we are used to.

Our church put on a Nativity Play. Walter was a shepherd, Annie an angel. Suddenly I was reliving something I was certain would be gone forever, the strangeness of putting on Christmas costumes and living out the nativity as a child. The dissatisfaction over not getting to be a member of the Holy Family (thank you, Walter) and the pride of being brave and standing up in front of all those people. After the play we went out as a family and just enjoyed the day together. When the sun set we enjoyed the spectacle of lights that is Xuhui, especially the added sparkle that came from some of the Christmas displays outside the malls. 

Christmas Eve Day is my big homesick day. I think this was always my favourite day of Christmas holidays as a child. There is still so much to look forward to – the candlelit church service, the one present I was allowed to open before bed, the time with friends & family, the hope of Christmas presents… It is a day for trying to stay warm, throwing on the Christmas music, and finishing the preparations for the next few days. This year, tho, it was the day after the day I had food poisoning. I doubted that it would be anything more than a day of frustration. Presents weren’t wrapped, weren’t even all purchased, and I didn’t know if I could make it to Mass, and the kids were squirrely from being kept in the day before, and there weren’t even eggnog & cookies to comfort myself with. Not even cheese!

David came to the rescue. He’s done this regularly over the past decade or so and probably much more than he gets credit for. Somehow he got us all into church clothes and out the door. He convinced me to do the grocery shop early, even tho’ it meant he had to carry two baguettes around for 8 hours. He got us to Xuhui with enough time to grab a small lunch before Mass and finish the Christmas shopping after. And more than anything else, he met every tentative negatively questioning comment of mine with a positive reminder. Neither of us thought that Christmas Eve Mass, at 5pm, would be crowded so when we were crammed to the sides of the narthex with no view of the church I couldn’t help but feel discouraged. It turned out that it was prime viewing space for the procession of choir children, all decked in red & white robes, followed by deacons bearing a litter of flowers and the Christ-child and, last of all, the priests in cloth-of-gold surrounded by a cloud of incense. My heart ache stopped right around then as we were swept with the crowd into the heart of the cathedral where O Holy Night was soaring above the bustle & confusion of thousands of people getting ready for Mass.

On Christmas Day as we sat around our table with our new friend, Ihri, I realized that it really did feel like Christmas. We were all laughing about something and the kids were coming and going with various Christmas presents in hand to show Ihri. We could have stayed closed off this Christmas, family only thank you, trying hard to capture some vague sense of what has already passed. But instead we pushed forward and I ended up discovering what it was that I was seeking – the sharing of Christmas joy with family and friends. Homes, people, traditions shall pass away but love? Love came down at Christmas.

Fourth Sunday of Advent: Home for the Holidays

The Fourth Sunday of Advent, that wonderful point in time where we're deeply into Christmas/Not Yet Christmas territory. As a kid this was always my favourite Sunday of Advent -- Christmas was *so close*, less than a week away, and school was out and I was home and everything was just geared towards the fun of the holidays.

I usually like to decorate the tree on Gaudete Sunday, but this year that certainly wasn't happening. So we moved it to a weekday, planned an easy dinner, and then let loose with the Christmas decorating! It was so much fun! We don't have much space and with David working from home it's too much for him to try to keep an eye on the kids AND write AND ensure that the Christmas tree doesn't tip over so I opted for a tiny tree this year. I think it was 1.5' tall. But, as we were away for half of Christmas, it didn't make sense to stress ourselves out with a tree that we wouldn't be around to enjoy. And one year if, God willing, we have more space our little Charlie Brown tree can be upgraded to a centerpiece or mantel decoration. Plus the kids didn't care and enjoyed being able to hang ornaments on a tree they could actually reach the top of.

Bobble Head Shakespeare approves. 

My friend's brother made the sign. All proceeds from the sale of his holiday signs were donated to help a family with the adoption of a child from a European orphanage. 

I put up the window clings after the kids went to bed. They were so surprised and happy when they woke up!

This year we had the opportunity to head to Victoria for David's birthday & Christmas (they fall in the same week). Our whole week preceding this Sunday was one of major preparation, because traveling with young children never seems to be easy no matter what. This time around was one of our best travel experiences with them and still felt like running a marathon (my FitBit tells me that I hit 5000 steps by 1pm which is pretty impressive when you consider that it all came from packing/readying the house to leave). We managed to get all the dishes washed and lots of other little cleaning tasks done before leaving. I give myself immense credit for this because I said we should leave on Saturday instead of Friday which meant we could have a much more leisurely (haha) time of getting out the door.

We almost had an emergency when my brother's roommate forgot to leave the keys to the car that was supposed to take us to the ferry. Fortunately my cousin Tara stepped up in a major way and lent us her [super amazing awesome family friendly] van. I was so happy because it is my favourite vehicle (seriously so easy to get the kids in and out and holds loads of luggage) and it saved on a lot of stress and toddler fights on the way to the ferry.

We also had another almost emergency because PHYSICS and I are doomed to be enemies. In the haste of packing up the bottom drawer of our bathroom cabinet did not shut all the way, and one of the kids helpfully slammed the bathroom door shut which caused the drawer to slide out all the way (I think?) which, in our tiny bathroom, meant that the door was completely blocked by the drawer and couldn't be opened. Thankfully, armed with a butter knife and ten million prayers, I managed to slide the drawer back into place after several frantic minutes and we were all good, although my nerves didn't recover until much later!

Emergencies aside, I feel that this is the first trip we've taken as a family, to the Island, where I can look at David and say "we've got this. We're adulting". We have a system down for the ferry -- a spot where we like to sit and where the kids are easy to manage, a plan for how best to feed the family while traveling and trying to not buy too much food on the ferry, and a method for keeping the kids entertained and relatively quiet. It's a flexible plan, depending on the time of day we're traveling, the weather, and the length of the boat ride, but the main pieces are relatively consistent. Arrive early. Secure a spot with ample room so that Walter doesn't feel crowded. If leaving from home, pack some tasty food (like a bbq chicken, baguette, and fruit) buy drinks from the grocery store in advance, but plan to pick up a few supplements (like cheese, yogurt, and ice/water) from the ferry cafeteria because taking a kid through the lineup is a great way to kill 20+ minutes and keep the children separate and occupied. Do separate bathroom trips with the kids because that usually kills 30+ minutes and they need to stretch their legs. Find little chores for them to do, liking carrying trash to the trash can, because it helps them feel like part of the experience (and... kills time!). Colouring is great and we learned on this trip that crayon easily wipes off of the ferry walls (because baby wipes are AWESOME for removing crayon).

Traveling on a Saturday, and arriving in the afternoon, meant that I could have a leisurely time unpacking in Victoria. David's parents are very generous hosts and his mum always has the room done up to perfection for our arrival. We were given "the suite" to stay in on this trip, which gave us plenty of space and privacy (so useful for toddlers and their nap/bedtime schedules). I had the time to get us organised and settled in which goes a long way to helping the kids settle in to strange beds and different sleeping arrangements.

Our Fourth Sunday of Advent was lovely. We were back at Mass after a two week absence. That alone was so nice. We were able to go to Mass with extended family, something which rarely happens, and that also was nice. And we know enough people at Star of the Sea that going there is like a mini reunion. After our giant parish in Vancouver, where it seems like no one notices when we're coming or going, it's nice to feel like part of a community again. Star of the Sea also has an awesome choir, which makes me happy, and it just happens to be a military parish on the naval base, which makes my boat-loving-pirate-obsessed little son very happy. He dubbed it "Pirate Mass" and was quite eager to go.

We never got to the Advent wreath and we never said our Advent prayers but the kids were so happy to be with their Grandparents that I don't think they noticed.

In which I finally get around to posting about our unusual Christmas

I’ve reached the point in life where I’m realising, if not always practicing, that to truly live & enjoy life to the fullest means making the best of what we have, even when it’s less than ideal. That was an attitude that I really had to bring to the table for Christmas 2014, because my new job required that I be in the office for Christmas Day & Boxing Day.

Of course there was a lot to be thankful for – a job in a field that I enjoy, a place of our own, family nearby, double-time-and-a-half pay... but that doesn’t quite compensate for having to work on one of the biggest days of Christian celebration, a day which our Church says should be “free from servile labour”, and a day where I wanted to be at home in my pjs, enjoying Christmas magic through the eyes of my children. I view it is a sign of my being a grownup with responsibilities that I managed to not complain about working on the holiday, on all holidays, much...aside from one or two meltdowns to David.

I was not the only one who had a meltdown, although clearly I deserve to suffer for making this one suffer by taking away her Christmas snacks

There were some minor Christmas miracles which helped. Yes, I did have to be in the office on Christmas Day AND Boxing Day. But I got Christmas Eve off and my Christmas Day hours were at least early enough that I was home before 4pm, which meant I still got a good chunk of Christmas afternoon & evening. And our children are still too little to know about dates. So I did the only logical thing I could do, which was to combine our Christmas Eve & Christmas Day traditions onto the 24th, and to spend the 25th in the manner of the Boxing Days I remember as a kid (ie presents from Grandparents & visiting around plates of snacks).

I’d like to sugar coat it, but a lot of things this year did feel a bit off. It was weird opening presents on Christmas Eve morning. But we still managed to have a lot of fun. David & the children really outdid themselves with my present, sending me on a treasure hunt through the house, where clues led to more clues (and chocolate bears!) and the whole needed to be assembled to create the map that led to my present’s location (a beautiful Anne of Green Gables necklace). The kids were really engaged in their presents this year, with Annie enjoying all the treats in her stocking and Walter enthusiastically tearing into his train & train station packages.

We followed our usual routine of stockings, followed by Christmas breakfast (this year waffles & peameal bacon), followed by baby naps, followed by big presents. And then it was time to revert to our normal Christmas Eve routine – Mass, a dinner I didn’t have to cook, and The Muppet’s Christmas Carol.

What to do when you don't have Christmas stockings or a mantle

Christmas Mass is often bittersweet for me, as I’ve spent most of my Catholic Christmases either away from my parents or away from my husband. This year’s seemed mostly like a tragic comedy, which was really frustrating as I had hoped for a nice family Mass. Although we got to the church 15 minutes early (which, with toddlers, is basically like arriving an hour early when it comes to keeping them entertained) the only place to sit was in the hall, with no view of the Mass (just bad audio). And a lot of the parents could not be bothered at all to keep control of their children, so we had a really hard time convincing our guys that now was not the time to run races around the hall with the other children. I was really cross.

We returned home to one near disaster, namely that after 5 years (1/6th of my life!) abroad I was so used to British customs (pubs open!) that it didn’t occur to me on any meaningful level that Canadian eateries would close ridiculously early on Christmas Eve. By the time I had gotten the children to bed it looked like we would be going without dinner, as our usual pizza place was closed and the others were looking unlikely. Fortunately David is a trooper and found number after number for me to call until we finally found a Little Caesar’s open & willing to deliver. We kicked back with pizza, wings, and a delicious bottle of wine that our landlords had given us for Christmas. Evening salvaged thanks to St Anthony & my husband!

On Christmas Day I took myself to the office, where I sulked at my computer until inspired to put on the Vatican’s Youtube Channel and listen to the Christmas Mass. I followed this with the Festival of Lessons & Carols from King’s College, Cambridge, and I confess that I may have shed a few tears behind the wall of my monitors in a sorrow for the life we have been forced to leave. Christmas is an emotional time. But at least my company sprang for lunch, and everyone was in a relatively jolly mood because we were all going home to families & fun once the work was over, and in my case my parents were picking me up after work and we were going to my house for Christmas Part II.

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Baby Jesus

This was the first Christmas Day in six years that I’ve spent with my family. My mum outdid herself with presents, so much so that she started making excuses for herself, and we all had a cozy evening enjoying our gifts, eating appies & sweets, and basking in the Christmas glow. David was particularly excited to find out that he was getting his long-desired stereo speakers as a gift from all of us. It was a really lovely end to the day, even if it was a really unusual Christmas.

Our Liturgical Year -- Part II

Continuing the recap of how we try to follow our Church's feasts & fasts with two toddlers underfoot. You can find Part I over here.

Christmas:
I will be covering off our 2014 Christmas celebrations in a separate post, but this is the rough idea. There’s always lots going on between December 22nd (David’s birthday) & January 7th (Ukrainian Christmas) so it’s a fun couple of weeks:

•  we always go to a Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve and do dinner out/take away to keep the day low on stress & rushing. 

•  we bake a birthday cake for Baby Jesus. The children decorate it and on Christmas Day we sing Happy Birthday & blow out candles. This is something my parents always did with me and I love it. 

I'm pretty sure this is around the time they discovered that the sprinkles were delicious.

•  we celebrate the Feast of Christmas until January 7th. The Feast of the Epiphany (Wisemen visiting Jesus) is the end of the 12 Days of Christmas, but I also like to do a nod to my Ukrainian heritage by celebrating Ukrainian Christmas on January 7th. 

Cabbage rolls, perogies, sausage, & pickles. Could it get any better?

•  Santa fills stockings & we all get presents to help Baby Jesus celebrate His birthday. Because the children are so little I’ve found that they have an easy time understanding that Baby Jesus is having a birthday party but because He loves them He is giving them presents, instead of just receiving presents. 

With no good place to hang stockings, and no nice stocking to hang anyway, we went the gumboot route.

Lent:

40 days of penance, fasting, & abstinence. As the children grow I hope to include more family prayers etc, but right now less is more for small attention spans and it seems this year we have definitely marked the season out as different.

•  Shrove Tuesday will forever be “pancake day” in my mind thanks to our years in Cambridge. Even the pubs served pancakes! So we make sure that we have pancakes for a meal or for dessert that day.

Crepes with a homemade chocolate orange filling. She was a happy baby. 

•  My children love singing “alleluia”, so this year I printed off an “alleluia” colouring page which they coloured in. We then had a procession through the house, singing alleluia. Then we “buried” it in the closet, where it’s staying until Easter, at which point it will come out & stay on their bedroom door. They’ve fallen in line with the liturgy & there are no alleluias to be sung in this house until Easter. I’ve had many a good laugh at hearing them remind whomever lapses – usually a “no alleluia, Baby Annie, no alleluia” from Walter or a “no ‘leu-ya” from Annie. 

A brief moment of team work. 

• Ash Wednesday we go to Mass and everyone gets a cross. We wear ours all day, and again it’s something that I find is a good point of conversation. 

•  Us grownups have our various Lenten sacrifices & fasts, but for the kids we’ve stuck with the “no alleluias” and it is working really well this year. 

•  We have a “Lenten path” colouring page on our fridge. We colour in one square each evening and see how close we’re getting to Easter. It’s been a big hit & Walter loves showing it off to anyone who comes over. 

How our pathway looked on Holy Saturday

• We’ll be taking down/veiling all of our religious images & statues as we get closer to Holy Week. (in theory. This year that proved to be one thing too much!)

Easter:
Holy Week is really difficult with two small children. The Masses are beautiful, but long, and with two children there’s not much chance of getting through the Easter Vigil. It’s a major sacrifice for me to give up these Masses, but for family harmony I need to let go – it makes the whole celebration a lot more stressful otherwise. When they are old enough to sit through the Vigil I think we’ll turn it into a special rite of passage. It’s a beautiful, ancient liturgy and so very special, but it does go on for 2-3 hours and that is so hard with toddlers. One of the blogs I read suggested trying to do something at home to mark the events of each day (Last Supper, Crucifixion, etc) and I am going to have a think about that, because I think it will make it a little more meaningful for the children. But I haven’t figured all that out yet. What I do know:

• We’ll all be making Easter baskets, which will be filled & ready for morning on Easter Sunday. A little chocolate, candy, small toy, & their new Easter clothes will go a long way to spreading some extra joy that morning!

It ended up being evening since their Baba wanted to be there to watch them open their baskets. It was a lot of fun!

• Easter Eggs will be dyed. Nothing fancy but still a lot of messy fun. They were really proud of their eggs last year

A bonus for me -- my mum took the eggs home with her so I didn't have to figure out what to do with a dozen hard boiled eggs (ok, it wouldn't have been hard -- salad lyonaise is the obvious answer)

• Alleluias will ring loud & clear, and so will the Easter music.

• We celebrate Easter for eight weeks, until Pentecost. So, family visits & dinners, a few extra treats, and a lot of excitement.

Last of the Old & New Year Celebrations

I still have to clear up the minutiae of December-January celebrations. There is always so much crammed into those few weeks between December 22nd & January 7th.

David’s Birthday

David’s birthday was fairly low-key this year, as we had too much going on to do anything that involved a lot of planning/people. But as we’re both really family-focused, our low key fêting of David still managed to make him feel loved and keep him as the center of attention. His birthday happened to fall on a Sunday, which is great as we both try to keep that as a day of rest.

Being Sunday, we kicked off the day with Mass in the morning. Then it was off to Peacock’s for chocolate scones & tea. And then it was back home for presents & pictures & naptime (for the kids). Meanwhile, I went off to make supper (ribs two ways (honey garlic & bbq); popovers; brussel sprouts; pineapple upside down cake with ice cream & whipping cream; beer).

Written down, it doesn’t sound like much but with the crazy hours that David had been keeping due to PhD work it felt like a gift for all of us just to be able to have a whole day with him.

the official commemorative photo

And, as an extra birthday treat, we sent him off to Cambridge so that he could see The Hobbit. I really wanted to go with him, but we didn’t think it was prudent to take the babies and it’s a bit awkward to find a sitter when you don’t know anyone in town! Fortunately he had a good time and I managed to survive a day alone with the kids.

New Year’s

We’re really rocking the low-key celebrations right now. New Year’s actually ended up being a blast, even tho’ it was centered on staying in & watching movies (Strange Days & The Hudsucker Proxy). We got a spicy curry box and some appie trays from Tesco, along with beer & a fine bottle of cava. At midnight we had our cava (and the cork managed to do a fantastic ricochet off of two walls and onto a sleeping Emily) and watched the countdown, I made my annual phonecalls (in which my family seems to think I’m really wasted because I find it really neat that I’m calling them From-The-Future in a completely different year and this just really doesn’t seem to impress them and hence they talk to me in loud, slow voices) , and I fell into a deep, cava-induced sleep.

On New Year’s Day we headed out for our annual tradition – New Year’s brunch. We went to Street Cafe to greet the day with a Full English (or beans & eggs if you’re Walter). This is the first year that we’ve actually seen people out & about on New Year’s Day, a big change from Cambridge (and even Victoria). I’d hoped to go for a family walk but the weather was so blustery that we had to scrap those plans and head home to warm up.

this is actually on Boxing Day, but her state of confusion remained the whole time it was cold & we were outside -- she's pretty sure that responsible parents keep their babies at home, indoors, & bundled up when the weather is bad!

 Ukrainian Christmas

While [most of] my Protestant friends have their Christmas decorations down by January 1st and my Catholic friends are happily taking them down on Epiphany (January 6th), we’re still going strong for at least one more day. Ukrainian Christmas falls on January 7th and we use it as a day to celebrate my heritage. We eat Ukrainian, or pseudo-Ukrainian, food and sometimes there are presents and always there are phone calls to my family. Calling Gramma for Ukrainian Christmas is one of my favourite things to do, because she is always so excited to remember that she’s Ukrainian. Ely has a few “continental grocers”, which a few years in England has taught me means Polish food. With a little creativity it’s not too difficult to assemble a meal that sort of picks up on elements from the food we had on special occasions as a kid – pierogie ruskie (perogies filled with potato & cheese), smoked sausage, kapusta (sauerkraut), dill pickles... I am so thankful for these Polish grocers, as it is so difficult to find these foods outside of them. This year we had perogies with fried mushrooms & onions, kielbassa, pickles, and some ginger cookies. It was a delicious meal, all the more so because it had been a year or so since we’d been able to indulge in these foods, and it was nice for me to spend some time introducing the babies to some family traditions. With the violence & unrest currently going on in Ukraine, we’ve all been thinking about our ancestral land a lot of late and blessing the luck of foresight & fate that pushed my Great-Grandparents to leave their country and start afresh in Canada.

English Christmas (in England!), 2013

So... Christmas! Or, as I’ve been calling it in my head, The Year We Wanted to Go Home but Couldn’t So I tried Extra Hard to Make things Nice. David tells me that I succeeded, which is great because it means my title isn’t a total waste of brain space.

This was our fourth English Christmas, but it did not contain the following things which I’ve associated with English Christmas: Clare College Advent Service, Clare College Christmas Formal, M.R. James’ Ghost Stories at the Leper Chapel, Christmas Dinner with my work team, and Christmas week hijinks at the office. All of these things were missed but most of them would’ve been impossible with the two babies anyway.

For something completely new, we got to attend the Ely Lights Switch-On. That should be fairly self explanatory. Market Square was absolutely packed with stalls and people, there was a big stage where various performers blared bad music (we are so not down with what kids these days are listening to), and the air was full of Christmas cheer. We shared a bag of roasted chestnuts, with Walter joining in on the action, and eventually fought our way to a nice bit of ground to await the countdown. Then the city lit up with Christmas lights and it was beautiful and magical and actually really special to feel part of the community.

Eating his chestnuts

 

Their Santa Hats from Baba arrived that evening

Our Christmas Pudding!

David really wanted an Advent Wreath, so on the first Sunday of Advent we walked home via the fens and gathered some winter greenery which I then wove into a wreath. I’m so glad that we did this, because it’s one of the first Catholic things we’ve done that Walter has shown interest in. He wanted the candles lit every evening, with supper, and he’d remind me to use the prayer book if I forgot. We caught him trying to cross himself a couple of times as well.

We once again did the tree decorating on the Gaudete Sunday week of Advent. This year Walter was old enough to help, which mostly consisted of him appropriating the Christmas tree box as his new most favourite toy. To save money I handmade most of the decorations and it actually turned out better than I thought. In England people like to hang bright, foil-wrapped chocolates on their trees so we went that route because it made more sense to pay for edible decorations than for ones we’d toss out.

Ended the evening with Christmas baking, of course!

Instead of supper out, we had our pub outing for lunch on Christmas Eve. Then we made ourselves brave and woke the sleeping babies in time for the 11:30pm Carol Service at our church, followed by Midnight Mass. It was funny being out in the middle of the night with the double buggy, all of us dressed respectably for church, and walking past the long bar lineups and the police vans in downtown Ely. When we got home it seemed that Santa had dropped off a couple small packages for the children, although Walter was mostly interested in stacking them and Emily had no idea why we wanted her to rip paper.

We all got to bed at around 2am, but at least the kids didn’t want to wake up until closer to 9. And they’re too little to understand about presents and Christmas morning, so we were able to take things at our leisure. It was a lovely day, with lots of talking to family, and relaxing, and no heavy cooking. Both kids were a bit out of sorts, wanting long naps, so it meant that David and I had a fairly easy time of it once we got them to sleep. Our special gifts for them this year were ikons from the Ely Cathedral Shop: St George & the Dragon for Walter and the Old Testament Trinity for Emily. We wanted them to have something that they could keep for years to come, especially as they are too little to know that we are short changing them on the toy front!

Trying to eat his new cutlery set

 

We saved our big Christmas dinner for Boxing Day, because cooking a big meal for the whole family with two kids is an epic undertaking. The cooking was mostly stress-free and we ended up enjoying a lovely meal together, right before Walter's bedtime.

7 Quick Takes - Vol. 19

--- 1 ---

Last year, when we moved out of our college accommodation, we donated/gave away a lot of our things, including all of our generic Christmas decorations. Now we’re in the position of having Christmas away from our families, so I’m trying to jolly up the house (and our moods) by making things here as nice as possible, without wanting to spend the cash we don’t have on replacing all the generic stuff we don’t want to keep. Solution – diy Christmas decor using things commonly found in the house (or: Kindergarten craft time). So far I’ve made 31 paper snowflakes to decorate the windows with and two popcorn strings for the tree. Making the popcorn strings, with Walter’s help, was the best. He kept raiding the bowl of popcorn, taking one piece, and going “mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm” very loudly as he ran away.

--- 2 ---

I’m sure I’ve mentioned how much I dislike baking. So much about it bothers me – the mess, the finickyness, the patience required... of course I still bake things, but my preferred recipes are of the no fuss, little effort variety. Thus I thought I’d tackle Christmas baking this year as part of my regular weekly lot. In England people are more likely to have mince pies or Christmas pudding for company, and we haven’t many plans with friends over the season, so I don’t need a huge batch of dainties like I would back home. I picked three tried & tested recipes from my recipe folder. I’ve been baking one each week for the last three weeks, freezing half to make part of our Christmas stash (which we really only need for Tree Decorating Night and Christmas Eve). The choices? Lemon Snow Bars (because LEMON!!!), Boderkoek (a Mennonite Christmas tradition) & Chocolate Torte (in lieu of brownies. Chocolate overdose!).

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When I complain about baking, my best friend reminds me that she enjoys it but dislikes cooking, which I love. We work as a good team in the kitchen and whenever I bake with her it turns into an enjoyable experience. She even helped me make baklava one year and everyone survived! And it was delicious! And I didn’t explode from rage! She suggested that we try living in the same city again so that I can do the cooking and she can do the baking and, as I pointed out, our husbands can get very fat.

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Now that Emily’s three month’s old, she’s showing that her newborn sleepiness is wearing off and a pseudo-sleep-schedule is emerging. She’s a pretty good sleeper, at least compared to Walter, but there are a few evenings each week where she needs some aid to get sleepy. Those are exhausting evenings, because I usually don’t need to step in unless it’s past ten pm and she’s still awake, but at the same time they are what beautiful memories are made of. I’m loving being able to rock and sing to her for such a long time.

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It’s been a depressing few weeks, with bad weather and a sick family. To cheer us all up, among other reasons, David entered a contest on the Catholic Herald for the best English translation of an article they published in Latin. We were all thrilled to find out that he won! They sent him a book as a prize. It was a really nice bit of cheer and excitement to drive away the winter blues.

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This is the first Advent in two years when I haven’t been in the early stages of pregnancy. It is soooooooooooo nice.

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I was all set to write velvety happy nonsense feelings about babies and family size but then the children stopped acting like society’s view of the Well Brought-up Child and started acting like normal children (ie that moment when you glance at the clock and realise it’s 5am and you really have been up since before 3 mothering one after the other and why on earth does Walter have to go through yet another phase of screaming constantly all day long if he wants attention or is told “no” and is Emily’s colic returning andandand)... and I’m exhausted. But at least they’ve been compensating with lots of Emily smiles and Walter kiss-hug-attacks.

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