Tag: holidays (Page 10 of 19)

Christmas Wrap Up

December 28, 2015 / DB

Christmas week always has odd effects on time and space. On one hand, it roars by, packed with activities and stress. It seems like you blink and you’ve gone from December 19 to the 26th in a flash. On the other, when I think back to picking folks up at the airport just over a week ago, it seems like a month ago with everything we’ve done in-between.

So much to catch up on. This will not be chronological, so my apologies for the jumps.

First, the important stuff. Our girls had good Christmases. M., who infamously struggled with her list, got a fuzzy, folding, papa san-style chair that she loves, a Snap Circuits electronic kit, and a Minecraft stop motion movie kit. She was wanting some Minecraft Legos, so she keeps calling the movie kit a Lego set, even though it is not. C. got an iPod Nano (engraved with her name on the back), a “Bag of Science” set, and one of those fake talking birds (Chirpakeet? I really should know the name of her gifts, right?). And L. got a drum set, a Cling Creator, and a remote control helicopter. All seemed happy with their hauls and have spent most of their time since Christmas morning playing with them. They also got Barnes and Noble gift cards that they cashed in yesterday.

Before Christmas, their cousins from Denver were staying with us. The five of them had a great time. There was almost no downtime every day. Which was a bit of a surprise because the weather kept them inside ever day. They went to see the new Chipmunks movie as well.

There was a wrinkle to our Christmas Eve plans. Normally we hit an early evening Mass as a family then gather for dinner. A stomach bug had hit a few people, though, and we decided Mass might be a little tricky.[1] So we skipped church and just had the family gathering. Everyone survived, no new people got sick, and it was a fun night.

Each year I kind of blank out how busy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are when you’re hosting events. Then, about the 22nd, I remember how insane those 36 hours are going to be. We cooked and cleaned pretty much all day on the 24th. More cooking once the presents were opened on the 25th. So, with nothing to do on Saturday, both S. and I slept well past 10:00. I can’t recall the last time I slept that late without being sick. And I’ve slept past 9:00 the past two mornings. This dreary weather doesn’t make you,want to get out of bed any sooner than you have to.

Unrelated to Christmas but still fun, we bought L. her first pair of basketball shoes yesterday. She won’t practice for another week, but yesterday just after the Colts game ended seemed like the perfect time to go shopping. We dug through boxes at Dick’s, found a pair that fit in roughly the colors of the high school that is running her league, and she was set. She wore them all last night and already had them on when I got up this morning. I think she’s ready to get started!

There are haircuts on the agenda for the two younger girls today. And I’m going to see The Force Awakens this afternoon.

Still a full week of break left, so plenty more time to do fun stuff in the hours the girls are normally at school.

C. got nailed overnight on the 23rd–24th. So much for thinking we were done with the “throwing pukey sheets in the washing machine at 2:00 am” part of our lives. ↩

The Week So Far

December 22, 2015 / DB

Just a few days into the Christmas break and already the stories are piling up.

We ended the calendar school year Friday with L. playing one of the lead roles in the first grade living nativity program. She was one of the cows that were annoyed by all the animals and people who were crowding into their stable in Bethlehem. She did a fine job, not missing any lines and getting laughs when she was supposed to.

From school we were off to the library, where the girls were allowed to pick out as many books as they could carry. L. and C. dumped their book bags in the back of the family truckster and filled them to the point of bursting. M. just walked out with a big stack in her arms. I told them between books, movies, holiday shows on the DVR, games and toys, and visiting cousins, they would have plenty to keep them occupied and no excuses to say “I’m bored.” I have yet to hear that phrase, but they’ve come close a few times.

Over the weekend we made two airport trips. Saturday we picked up my brother-in-law and his family, which meant we got to meet the newest cousin, baby L., who is seven months old. She was very smiley and happy to see everyone, which was nice since one piece of their luggage didn’t make it and we had to hang out longer than planned.

Then we went back Sunday night to pick up a sister-in-law and her kids who are making a quick pre-Christmas visit.

In between those trips we knocked out all the cookie baking and got them packaged up for delivery around the neighborhood.

Monday night was our annual family bowling night, which was fun as always.

Tonight the girls and cousins and some aunts are going to see the new Chipmunks movie. A couple of the adult relatives and I are going to see The Force Awakens next week.

The only negative came a week ago. As the kids were heading to bed on Monday, M. informed us that she no longer wanted anything on her Christmas list. She had decided the stuff she originally listed was too young for her. Which I had mentioned might be a problem a month ago, but she didn’t have time to hear me then. At first we were annoyed, as much at ourselves for always buying the gifts early as at her. We had in fact just wrapped and tagged everything earlier that day.

But after we put her to bed and S. and I talked about it, we realized M. was firmly in that awkward, pre-teen phase. Little kid toys still hold some appeal, but when you start talking to your friends at school about what you’re asking for, you realize maybe you should be interested in different things. Only you’re not sure what.

Since she told us she was scrapping her list, we’ve found a few blank lists lying around. But she’s never told us exactly what she wants. Which is a little sad. Every kid should have a lengthy list full of ridiculous requests. Her sisters both filled up a whole page with their lists.

We made a few executive decisions, placed some orders, and – knock on wood – the final replacement gift should be here later today. We think she’ll enjoy being surprised, but you kind of never know.

As always, this month is racing by. It’s hard to believe we’re just a couple days away from all the mysteries being revealed, our Christmas Day gluttony, and the Christmas music station going back to soft rock and old American Top 40s.

Kicking Off The Last Week

December 14, 2015 / DB

Last week of school before the holiday break. I could sense some anticipation as I drove the girls to St. P’s this morning. There are a series of parties and other holiday activities scattered through their weeks, and then they all get extra early dismissal on Friday. The first graders do an annual Living Nativity program that day, and then they, and their siblings, can leave school early.[1] So we’ll leave right around 11:00. All the spelling and math tests that usually fall at the end of the week are clustered around Wednesday this week. So it’s going to be a pretty easy academic ride for them.

But overall the girls seem pretty chilled out about Christmas compared to recent years. Perhaps that is just them getting older. And/Or having the riddle of where gifts come from solved. Or maybe it’s just the weather. Other than that surprise snowstorm the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and a few cool days at the beginning of the month, it’s often felt more like April than December. We’ve had heavy clouds hanging over us that look like they could dump snow at any moment, but the temperature has been well into the 60s for most of the last week. I’m all for snow around Christmas, but admit I’m fine with an unseasonably warm end to the year. And mild winter for that matter. The last three have sucked.

The girls have also been more interested in TV shows that are not primarily aimed at kids this year. If there’s a holiday bake-off type show on, they are glued to the TV. They also are enjoying the Christmas lights competition shows. I think they’ve been watching all the traditional shows I’ve recorded, but they often do that on their own.

“Hey, anyone want to watch Rudolph?” I’ll ask.

“We already watched it,” will be the reply.

L’s mood may be altered a bit because she got an early Christmas present last week. After seeing C’s list, which included an iPhone, an iPad, and an iPod,[2] L. added an iPod as item #11 to her list. She lucked out as one of her aunts brought a box of old electronics over for me to dig through and see what could be given to Good Will or put into a yard sale and then what should just be pitched. There was an old 30 GB iPod in the box. I charged it up, let it play for a few hours to confirm it worked, and then passed it along to L. The case is cracked a little, but it plays just fine.

At first she wasn’t sure what to do with it. She probably hand’t seen an iPod of that generation in years, if at all. But once I showed her how to operate it, she began taking it everywhere. She struggles a bit to keep earbuds in her little ears, though. So I found her some over-the-ear headphones in the Target dollar bin. As soon as she gets home from school, she changes her clothes, throws on her headphones, and walks around listening to her tunes. She even falls asleep with them on. The look fits her hip-hop personality quite well, even if she’s mostly listening to Kids Bop and Christmas music.

The last school day of the calendar year is always an early dismissal at 1:00. ↩
Whose daughter is she? ↩

How Myths Get Busted

December 7, 2015 / DB

We are dedicated online shoppers. Have been for years. During the last 6–8 weeks of the calendar year, it’s a truly fantastic tool for doing your Christmas shopping. No fighting crowds in parking lots and malls. No picking through damaged boxes looking for that last one that hasn’t been touched by a hundred grubby hands. Fill up your virtual cart, click the purchase button, and wait for the UPS/USPS folks to show up.

One of the bonuses of this setup is, we constantly receive boxes from Amazon, Pottery Barn, etc. through the year. So when the frequency of their arrival picks up in December, normally it doesn’t trigger any interest among the girls. Besides, more often than not, we get deliveries during school hours, so I can hide them away before the girls can see them and begin to speculate.

There’s been a wrinkle in that process this year. Our spot on the UPS route must have changed. Where once we could rely on the truck swinging through the neighborhood before lunch, this fall it began arriving during mid-afternoon. And now, with the extra holiday volume slowing them down, we’ve been getting deliveries after 4:00. Which means the girls are home. Which can cause a problem. Especially when you order something that isn’t from Amazon.

Last week we got a box from Pottery Barn Teen. When the doorbell rang, C. and L. flew to the front door and started yelling, “Dad! It’s a big box! From Pottery Barn Teen! What do you think it is?!?!”

Shit.

I quickly concocted a story that it was something S. had ordered for a friend who is pregnant.[1] “What did she buy her? Let’s look at it!”

I told them to knock it off, as it didn’t belong to them, and tried to casually make the box disappear. But as soon as S. walked in the door from work, the questions began again. “Mom, you got a box from Pottery Barn Teen. What is it? Is it a present for Mrs. W.?”

Fortunately I had texted my story to S. so she could follow my lead.

But we realized that box can not show up under the tree Christmas morning. Yes, the odds are high at least two of our kids know where presents come from, and even-money that all three know. Still, I’m not ready to hear, “We saw when that box got delivered!” when it gets unwrapped on the 25th. So it looks like we’ll be assembling a piece of furniture before the big day and finding a way to wrap it so appearances can be kept up.

A large box came today. Luckily between noon and 1:00, while I was at the grocery story, so early enough to hide in the attic before any young eyes could spy it and file it away for cross-referencing on Christmas morning.

Admittedly not the smartest idea. Fortunately the girls didn’t question why we were ordering something from PB Teen for a newborn. ↩

Thanksgiving Wrap Up

November 30, 2015 / DB

The first Monday after Thanksgiving, aka The First Day of the Longest Month of the Year. If you’re a kid, that is. M. has already said several times she wishes we could skip straight to Christmas and get this nonsense in-between holidays out of the way. I’m perfectly fine with four long weeks filled with Christmas shows, music, and beers. Anyway, I begin the month sitting on the couch, watching The Polar Express, with a seven-year-old who has been puking for roughly 19 hours next to me.[1]

As always, Thanksgiving break flew by. But our weekend was made up of two very different halves. Wednesday was gone in a flash, as the girls and I cleaned house all day, made a last-minute stop at the store and library, and otherwise prepped to host the next day. I topped the day off meeting a couple friends out for a few pre-holiday beers, including my first two Boulevard Nutcrackers of the year.

Thursday raced by, too, between the cooking and straightening and parade watching and, eventually, the eating. I made the bird and Giada’s stuffing.[2] Both turned out well, although I mistimed a bit on the bird – I had cleaned the oven the day before and forgot that it would not be cooking slowly anymore – and it was approaching dryness. But it was still good. Excellent contributions from our guests rounded out the table.

It was in the 60s here, so after dessert we met the neighbors outside for a bonfire and drinks while the kids played. They ran around like maniacs for hours.

By Friday morning the weather had changed. It was raining lightly so I headed up to our usual nursery to grab a tree. By the time I got home, it was pouring, so I timed that trip well. Tree was up and fully trimmed by dinner time, although all the outside decorations had to wait until Saturday to go up. We capped the day with the first viewing of Elf of the year. The first Bell’s Christmas Ale of the year was pretty tasty, too.

So after those three days roared by, we took the weekend proper at a much more leisurely pace. I think we watched at least 80 hours of TV, mostly sticking to holiday cookie and cake shows, with a few HGTV shows and some football sprinkled in. Saturday night we knocked out Christmas Vacation. L. got sick for the first time during the Colts game Sunday, which eliminated any chance of getting out of the house to do something. Fine by me, as I prefer to avoid all the Thanksgiving weekend mobs at shopping areas. For dinner I took our last batch of turkey and parlayed it into a pretty fantastic pot of chili. I have three different chili recipes I use each year, but this new one may retire them all.

I hope all of you had fine holiday weekends and are enjoying the dulcet sounds of Frank or Bing or Darlene this morning.

Our first sick day of the year. ↩
As always, it was actually dressing, but it’s more fun to use Giada and stuffing in the same sentence. ↩

More Of The Old This ‘n’ That

November 23, 2015 / DB

The holiday season is officially here! Which you know gets my juices going.

It was weird to be sitting in Arizona last weekend, switching around TV channels while S. was in her conference session, and coming across a Christmas cookie show while it was pushing 80 outside. I spent one year in northern California – we moved west the week before Christmas 1987 – and it was odd to my Midwestern core for it to be in the 50s and 60s over the entire school break. Living farther south, where it is summer-like during the holidays, would be even weirder.

As my Facebook friends know, I got a little head start on the holiday season, violating one of my self-imposed, admittedly silly rules. Saturday it snowed here. Hard. For 4–5 hours. We ended up with about 2” of snow when it stopped. Had it not been near 60 on Friday and the ground been warm, we likely would have had closer to 4”. Between the Winter Wonderland scene and a phone call from my friend Omar in KC, in which she told me she had listened to “Feliz Navidad” on her way home Friday, I cracked and flipped the radio over to SiriusXM’s Holiday Traditions station while I was running errands Saturday. A blatant violation of my prohibition against listening to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving.

I regret nothing.

You know who started their Christmas celebrations too early, though? The jackasses who decided to park a Santa at one of our local malls the FIRST WEEK OF NOVEMBER, that’s who. They need a punch in the head.

Also the Gap, which was already mixing Christmas music into their store music feed back in October. They suck.

I was in Office Depot or Office Max – they’re the same to me – last week and there were Christmas tunes BLASTING on the internal PA. Man, I love Christmas music, but to have to listen to it at that volume for six weeks? No wonder folks in retail get homicidal this time of year.

I began recording Christmas shows Saturday, and C. and L. watched both The Grinch and Elf on the Shelf last night. I don’t have too many years left where they’ll want to watch them, so I have no problem with them watching before Thanksgiving.

And now some other random notes.

A couple travel notes I forgot to share.

While we were waiting to drop our bags at the Phoenix airport, I had a couple interesting encounters. As we inched through the line, there was a family with a young boy, I’d guess he was 4 or 5, right behind us. Apparently he was tired of waiting and began kicking my suitcase. As first he just tapped it. Then he began kicking the crap out of it. His parents didn’t do anything at first. Then, just as I was turning around to give them a look, the dad yelled, “Hey, knock it off!” As I looked back I saw the entire family was wearing Philadelphia Eagles jerseys. I smiled at the boy and said, “I should have known it was an Eagles fan.” As soon as the words escaped my mouth I wondered if I had just made a terrible mistake. Philly fans aren’t know for their warm, fuzziness. Was I about to get my ass beat in the bag drop line for making a sarcastic comment about their fandom?

There was no need to worry. The parents laughed and admitted it has been a difficult fall to be an Eagles fan. I mentioned I was from Indy and the Colts weren’t exactly having the finest season themselves. It all turned out fine.

Later, as we continued to work through the line, we were talking about our friend who always gets pulled out of line for extra security measures. The only reason he can figure is that they do it because his head is shaved.

I mentioned that when I first began flying for work in 2002, I booked a lengthy west coast trip that lasted nearly two weeks.[1] Because of my jumping around the western quarter of the US, all my flights were booked as one-way flights. Which, in 2002, was an automatic red flag. Before every single flight I got pulled out of line at the gate and had my bag and body searched behind the little screen that was just to the side of the boarding area. Twice flights had to be held while security agents went through every single item in my possession. Including, I said to my friends in Phoenix, my contacts case.

As our line doubled-back on itself, a guy behind us chimed in.

“I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard you saying they searched your contact case. That’s where my buddy puts his pot when he flies, because they never search it.”

OK then.

There haven’t been any Reporter’s Notebooks in awhile because I haven’t covered any events since the first week of October. We’ve been busy, and I’m finding it harder to make the long drives I’ve made in recent years to cover games for my paper.

I did get to drive down to Milan in late September. Milan, if it doesn’t ring a bell immediately, is the town/school that won the 1952 Indiana boys high school championship. Which was the team that the movie Hoosiers was based on. I was hoping to get to walk around and check out the museum, but didn’t have enough time before kickoff.

The town, in many ways, feels like it’s still stuck in the early 50s. There are hand-painted signs saying “1952 Champs – Straight Ahead” as you enter town. Milan High School are the Indians. Which, whatever. But there is a bar/restaurant down the street that is called The Teepee. Which is a little weird. But the strangest thing was some of the Milan fans let out an Indian war cry when their team does something good. You know, the noise you made when you were little and played cowboys and indians, patting your lips with your palm. I imagine 20 years ago a lot more people did it. And 50 years ago? The sound was probably deafening.

The next week I was covering a game where Broad Ripple, David Letterman’s high school, traveled south to play a school down near our lake house. Now Broad Ripple is not the most affluent school in the world. Or even in Indianapolis. And they tend to suck in sports. Also, it was a chilly, dreary night. But there was exactly one person in the visiting stands that night. And she was the cheerleading squad’s coach or coordinator or whatever. It was so sparse that when I arrived, and the team was still in the locker room, I wondered if the bus hadn’t made it, or we were about to see a forfeit. I felt sorry for the Broad Ripple kids that no one in their families wanted or were able to make the 45-minute drive to watch them get their asses kicked. The final was 56–8.

Finally, I was lined up to cover the Class 4A football state championship game this weekend. IF the Catholic school we cover, RHS, won their semi-state game last Friday. They were on the road, down near Cincinnati, playing a team they beat by 21 in the regular season. I downloaded the app of a radio station down that way that was airing the game so I could listen. RHS fell behind 14–0 early. They had a long drive to start the third quarter but turned the ball over on downs inside the five yard line. They got an interception but gave it right back. They ended up losing 21–0. So no trip to Lucas Oil Stadium this weekend for me.

Big mistake. That was brutal. But I did spend the weekend with friends to break it up. ↩

Holiday Weekend Wrap

September 9, 2015 / DB

Many errands and household chores got crammed into Tuesday, so a belated look back at the final weekend of the summer. It was very good, but also kind of crappy.

The good parts were:
* The girls getting a four-day weekend. It was nice to sleep in a bit Friday before all our other activities for the weekend.
* Our KC friends the B’s were in town, staying with local pals the H’s. Together we went to watch our local high school play football Friday night, then down to the lake Saturday and part of Sunday. It was a perfect lake weekend: sunny and hot. We tubed and cruised, floated and swam, drank and ate.
* Some old friends who now live in Michigan were visiting the lake as well. It was good to catch-up briefly.
* After our guests left, we hung around Sunday night and had one, last relaxing summer evening down there. Well, if you call doing laundry, mowing the grass, and putting the summer toys away relaxing. Odds are there will be several more decent lake days before the season is officially over. But with a cross country meet every Saturday and a soccer game every Sunday for the next six weeks, the next time we use the boat will likely be when we take it out to store it for the winter. Man does the lake part of the year go fast.

As for the bad parts, they were all sports-related:
* Our local high school football team lost to one of its big rivals 24–21 Friday. That was a bummer because A) we all went to the game together (the girls had a great time), and B) our buddy Coach H is now the head coach. Losses suck a little more when you friend is the one who is taking the heat for it.
* KU lost likely it’s only winnable game of the year. Expectations are always pretty low at KU. This year they are as low as they’ve ever been. Blame Lew Perkins and Turner Gill, or Sheahon Zenger and Charlie Weis. Or all of them. The fact is the program is an absolute mess. The only good news is this should be rock bottom. It can’t get worse, right? Of course, it may not get better for awhile. I think David Beaty has the right combination of recruiting mojo and coaching chops to get it turned around. It’s just going to take 3–5 years. And maybe another round of conference realignment that allows KU to get in a situation where they can play four non-conference games instead of three. Unlike the last two coaches, I really like Beaty. Hopefully the cause isn’t hopeless.
* In addition, the proud, freedom-loving, equality for all men craving Jayhawk was besmirched on the field an hour to the west. We live in an era of stupid, manufactured controversies. Far too many of us scream with outrage over the tiniest of slights. This “controversy” is profoundly dumb. My bigger concern is why the hell was K-State making fun of KU when they were playing South Dakota? The Wildcats have won something like 17 of the last 20 football games against KU. Seems like they should be worrying more about Baylor and TCU than big brother over in Lawrence.
* The Royals got swept at home by the White Sox and then fell Monday to Minnesota. Thank goodness they won Tuesday, keeping their longest losing stretch of the year four games. Lots of wringing of hands about several parts of the team. I’m not wringing my hands just yet. Still three weeks to get things figured out.

It was a busy four-plus days. Hope all of you had fine holiday weekends to wrap up your summers, too.

Christmas 2014

December 26, 2014 / DB

Well, I believe it was a fine Christmas at our house. As I type this at about 10:30 PM, Christmas night, the girls are all in bed snuggling with one new item or another. As I take my last listen to my favorite Christmas songs, I’ll share a few details of our holiday.

Christmas Eve was a blur of trips to the grocery store, food prep, and last-minute cleaning and straightening jobs around the house before we had to get ready for 5:00 pm Mass.

There was a chance of snow Wednesday night. Or, rather, there was an expectation of heavy snow but with the balancing factor that it had been in the 50s for a couple days and the ground would be too warm for the snow to stick. As far as I know, it never changed over to snow. But when we walked out of Mass at 6:30, heavy drops of cold rain blew directly into our faces. Not the most beautiful of Christmas Eves.

From Mass it was on to the in-laws’ for our annual Christmas Eve dinner. Good food, good company, and a quick round of gifts after.

We headed home so we could watch a movie (most of Christmas Vacation, although the girls were too wound up to really pay attention) and get the girls settled down for bed. An uncle and two aunts came to spend the night with us, which is a must. The girls have never had a Christmas morning where there was not at least one aunt or uncle around when they opened presents.

We forced the girls to bed around 10:30, to many complaints. M. had been whining for two days about how unfair we are to them. The neighbors, she tells us, are allowed to get up at 6:00 to open their presents. We informed her 6:00 gifts were not happening in our house so she needed to change her attitude in the last bedtime before Santa came. She literally stomped her foot and grunted, her new favorite way of disagreeing with us. Then both she and C. complained that they wouldn’t be able to sleep. They figured things out, eventually, as everyone was fast asleep when I went to bed at 12:30.

M. was the first in to our room, at a completely reasonable 7:30, the exact time we told her we would consider getting out of bed. Which makes me think she had been awake for at least an hour, staring at the clock until it reached the magic minute when we were willing to get up. The other two were roused and brushed teeth as the aunts and uncle were notified that their presence was required downstairs.

And then the best 20 minutes of the year, if you’re a kid at least.

M. had asked for Sänd, the Brookstone-specific brand of kinetic sand. She got regular kinetic sand, which she was happy with, although she let everyone know she had asked for Sänd.[1] She also got a warm robe and Battleship, as she is our family gamer.

C. got a new makeup kit. Unlike the one she got two years ago, she did not use 60% of it in the first four hours she owned it. She also got a Simon game[2] and a Spirograph, which has been a big hit.

L. got the most popular gift, a Zoomer Dino which is a lot of fun, although it sure has to be charged up often. Other gifts included a Knot-a-Quilt set and a bungee pogo stick. In her stocking was a Pete the Cat doll, which is now permanently attached to her.

That was the Santa loot. From dear old Mom and Dad, the girls got an iPad Air, which caused much shrieking. We’re hopeful that they behave with it and there are not arguments over playing time, one sister playing with another sister’s game, etc. So far they’ve had the most fun sending messages to other people in the family, and the neighbors, using Siri. They also made faux-feces with M.’s kinetic sand and sent pics to everyone, saying it was “Green Turdes.” When I think back to Christmas 2014, I think the lasting memory will be “green turdes.”

Everyone also got robes and slippers and the game Life from their grandparents. There were also small Lego kits and Barnes and Noble gift cards in their stockings.

So the girls did pretty well for themselves. It’s going to be interesting how they handle getting games for the iPad. So far they’ve only downloaded free games, other than Minecraft which I paid for. I have it locked down so I have to approve purchases first on their iPad and then on my iPhone, so any future buys will need careful parental review. Over the past year they’ve saved money for Lego kits, books, and other special purchases. I wonder if they’ll start sliding that money over to the App Store instead.

After gifts we had the traditional large family brunch, which fed 17. Then in the afternoon five more extended relatives joined us for dessert. I was wiped out by about 3:00, two glasses of wine not helping, so I pulled the “It’s My House” card and went into the basement where the kids were playing and watching A Christmas Story and took a nap. When I woke, many of our guests were gone and it was a much quieter home. Host of the year!

So Christmas 2014, good. I read this a few minutes ago and it rings pretty true. No telling how many more Christmas Days like this we have left.

I hope all of you had fine holidays as well.

She wrote a note put with Santa’s cookies and milk reminding him that she reeeeeeeally wanted Sänd and would be disappointed if he didn’t bring her some. Seriously… ↩

No volume controls. How have they not added one in the last 30 years? ↩

Final Countdown

December 23, 2014 / DB

Happy Christmas Eve, eve!

It feels like I should say, “Man, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas has really flown this year,” since I think I say that each year. But it’s especially true in these years when we’re on the short side of the holiday cycle. In those years where there are nearly five weeks between the holidays, I usually have a few days right before the Winter Solstice when I’m a little burned out on the whole holiday spirit thing. But this year I’m keenly aware that in just over two days I’ll be unchecking all the Christmas songs in iTunes, putting the movies away, erasing all the DVR recordings, and a week later getting the tree and decorations taken down and put away.

We tried to do something new over the weekend. We booked a family trip on a carriage ride around Monument Circle and through downtown Indianapolis. We went Sunday night and lucked out, as it was chilly but dry and windless.

We didn’t tell the girls where we were going, but on the drive down, we gave them a series of hints and they tried to guess. Which turned out to be pretty funny. They filled a notebook page with their guesses and M. tried to draw circles around them and make connections between them. They never really got close. But we told them just before we made it to the heart of downtown which got them very excited. And as we hit downtown traffic, we kept passing, and then getting passed by, a carriage at a series of red lights. They loved watching the horse, and decided that’s the carriage they wanted, as it was trimmed out in blue rope lighting.

When we got to our designated spot, sure enough, we got a blue-trimmed carriage. They thought the horse, named Aladdin, was really cool. And they enjoyed the 20-25 minute ride. I guess it being the last Sunday before Christmas outweighed the Colts playing in Dallas at the same time, because downtown was absolutely packed. The girls thought it was cool to see people stop and point at us, or take pictures as our carriage went by.

In addition to taking a lap of Monument Circle, we rode past the state capital building, down by Lucas Oil Stadium, then through the section of Georgia Street that was redone before the Super Bowl to have a central pedestrian mall area. It was filled with Christmas trees and ice sculptures, which the girls thought were great. They also thought it was very cool to drive by St. Elmo Steakhouse, a place they’ve heard about but never seen. We’ve taught them well because they all know about St. Elmo’s world famous shrimp cocktail.

It was a nice and fun way to spend a December evening. The girls immediately decided we have to make this a new holiday tradition. Which I’m down with, although I also realized we’re not too many years from the girls thinking our holiday traditions are dumb and they’d rather be doing something with their friends than spending a few hours downtown with their parents.

The traditional cookies and treats all got made over the weekend, too. My world famous hazelnut toffee chocolate chip cookies. Well, really Giada’s world famous hazelnut toffee chocolate chip cookies. The chocolate crinkles that tons of people make but the girls insisted we make as well. Pretzel treats with melted Hersey’s Hugs and M&M’s. And bags of “Reindeer Chow”; Chex cereal with melted chocolate and Nutella, sprinkled with powdered sugar and M&M’s. An entire corner of our kitchen corner is currently buried underneath all those sweets along with the other items our neighbors and friends have shared with us.

Elfie got in the act, too. On Saturday morning he was waiting for the girls inside our big mixer with a note saying “Let’s bake cookies!” He’s also been found drinking from a syrup container, sleeping under the Christmas tree, and riding our decorative sleigh with a stuffed reindeer attached by rope reins. This morning he has the girls super-sized Find Santa book laid out on the floor, with a bag of Hersey’s Hugs next to him. Interestingly enough, he picked the page where you are searching for Santa at the North Pole. I’m not sure the girls understand the significance of that, since on Christmas Eve morning he’s always perched on the mantle, waiting for his final trip home.

There’s lots of cleaning and other prep ahead of me in the next two days. So, in case this is the last post before the holiday, allow me to wish all of you the merriest of Christmases.

(One thing I forgot. One of the local radio conglomerates is headquartered right down in Monument Circle. As we drove through before we parked, I pointed that the Christmas music station was in that building.

“Oh,” said M., “is that why we have such good reception, because we’re right by the building?”

I think I laughed and muttered, “Sure.”

“I bet lots of people come down here to listen to the station because the reception is so good,” she continued.

I decided it wasn’t the time to explain FM radio propagation to her.)

Holiday Cheer Notes

December 16, 2014 / DB

Nine days out, the holiday tension is getting thick at our house.

Shortly after our tree went up, the girls began making presents for each other and putting them under the tree. They were mostly paintings and drawings, but everything was placed into a gift bag or wrapped in a box so they looked like any other gift.

They decided last week that waiting until Christmas to open them was dumb, so they tore them all open. I’m not sure what happened, exactly, but a few minutes later C. was up in her room crying. Did someone make fun of the gift she made? Or did her sisters not put the same effort into her gifts that she put into theirs? Either way, feelings were hurt.

There’s a lot of that going around, unfortunately.

L. brought home her school-made gifts for us last night, along with a note suggesting we open then right away so they can be part of our decorations. She made us the obligatory tree ornament, a little piece of pottery, and brought home some hot chocolate mix that included marshmallows she decorated as snowmen.

Wound up by presenting those to us, she and C. decided they wanted us to open the gift they had put under the tree for us two weeks ago. They were jumping up and down and yelling they were so excited. So we were very happy to receive a bag full of individual Starburst candies that they had taken from their Halloween stash. Such sweet little girls!

I’m really not sure why they even bother with school this week. Just about every day is filled with holiday activities, homework has been ratcheted way back, and most of the projects they have are fairly small. I guess that would be the case no matter when the last day of school was.

In Elf-related news, I’m pleased to report I’ve stepped up my game this year. Instead of just hiding, Elfie has been doing more silly things this year. Riding horses with Barbie. “Zip-lining” from the window treatments to the dining room chandelier. Playing cards with some of the other stuffed animals in the house.

But my favorite was when I stole an idea I found on the Internet and sat him on the toilet and dropped some peppermint candies into the bowl. I set him up the night before and was careful to use some double-sided tape to make sure he didn’t fall in. Luckily I gave him a quick check in the morning, because he had flipped over and was hanging by his feet over the floor. I quickly replaced him and woke the girls up.

They screamed! Unfortunately, he flipped over again before we left and I had to just remove him from the seat for his safety, or so I told the girls.

Each morning L. has a writing project in class where she draws a picture of something and then writes a descriptive paragraph. She wrote that she found Elie “…on the tolit…” and he “…poopd mintz…” I can only imagine what kind of things other kids write that her teacher has to keep a straight face about each day.