On New Year’s Eve I made several international appetizers, an idea I got from my favorite blog. I made kafka, Australian fairy bread (or rather poured sprinkles in a fancy mini cake plate and let the kids make their own), a Russian beet salad, roasted chicken (country of origin undecided– I did tell the kids that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry got engaged while making roast chicken together, so maybe Great Britain…??), a baguette (They adore the book, Monsieur Saguette and His Baguette!), some crudites, and a cheese board. We also did a lot of karaoke, played some games, and let the three oldest kids stay up until midnight. At midnight they went outside and banged pots and pans while watching the fireworks. While I was cooking I watched the Netflix special, Death to 2020, which was very funny.
I am backblogging so don’t remember a ton but did snap this picture of the kids playing school. Lydia and Mary were trying so hard to teach Ammon math. It was very endearing.
Today I biked in the morning before going slowly throughout the day. I did vacuum, read to the kids, give Ammon a reading lesson, sit through a small part of Lydia’s harp practice (per her request), teach Mary a new piece on the piano, study art history with Mary, play dolls with Clarissa, do some laundry, clean the kitchen multiple times, walk with Abe, and play a long game of Apples to Apples with Abe and the girls (and Ammon for part of it), but other than that I lay on the couch. For hours, probably. Christmas was so fun, but I am still tired!
Lydia did her harp practice and read two Artemis Fowl books. Mary taught Clarissa how to paint, built Clarissa an elaborate marble run for Clarissa to knock over, practiced her piano, studied art history with me, and took her new stuffed pig all around the house all day on a leash she made herself. Ammon was inspired and made his stuffed snake a leash, but instead of lovingly dragging the snake everywhere, he left the snake to fend for itself in front of the fireplace.
Abe also took a lot of naps because work is really stressful and overwhelming right now. He is basically an inch away from promoting two quarters earlier than expected, but his team has maxed out everything they can bill and unless some crazy fluke happens, the quarter will end with him barely missing that. So he’s tired and stressed, but still pleasant and helpful as always. Right now he is passed out next to me while we try to figure out if we want to watch tv or go to bed early. I am assuming it will be the latter since he appears to be almost sound asleep.
*note a day later: Abe did wake up and we took a walk around our block several times before bed. It was freezing but nice to do something besides lie around some more.
On Sunday we went to Zoom church with CoC, and that was fun. We also house cleaned, and Abe had hours long calls with Dean Richardson and his AXB friends. Jere came over in the evening for an outdoor, distanced visit that was both super fun and super freezing. Mary and Lydia both spent hours painting him portraits of him which I neglected to get photos of. Maybe I can ask Jere for a picture of them so I can put it on here. They were adorable tributes to Jere and his new beard. When they saw Jere on Zoom during the Miner game night his beard made a big impression on them, I guess.
On Saturday Abe and I took down most of the Christmas decorations. We were exhausted so it took us an absurdly long time to get very little done, but at the end of the day I had replaced Christmas with a winter wonderland theme.
My friend Rebecca painted me that little 202 wreath. Isn’t it darling?
The kids spent the day playing with their new toys. In the morning Abe and I played with Ammon and Clarissa, respectively.
Lydia was up by 6:55 am, racing around the house in frustration that no one else was awake. We finally got everyone to the tree by 8:30ish am, and we zoomed in Tom and Suzanne and Alexa’d in my mom for the gift opening. I prepared the kids this year for a scaled down Christmas, but I always get sucked in by Black Friday sales and, well…it wasn’t the scaled-down event they’d been prepped for. Instead, there were so many presents that the kids needed pep talks to make it through the final push of the pile. They just wanted to play with the toys they’d already opened so we had to cheer them on to the end.
Though I did feel appropriate amounts of guilt and shame for this exercise in material consumption, I will say the kids spent the rest of the day playing with their gifts. I had to beg them to watch Klaus with me while I was cooking dinner and, after Ammon and Clarissa were asleep, The Call of the Wild (which was sooooooo good!). Left to their own devices, they just wanted to play with everything all day. And that’s part of the goal, so yay! (The other part is that gifts are my love language, and few things bring me more joy than giving my children gifts. I loooooove birthdays and Christmas mainly because giving them gifts makes me unreasonably happy.) Here are two videos of the kids opening presents:
We actually didn’t take a ton of pictures, probably because it was such madness during gift opening and then afterward I was asleep for a long time. We did karaoke as a family in the afternoon, and I finally started moving productively again in the evening, when I cooked a beef tenderloin with a red wine sauce, a lemon-parmesan-artichoke-kale salad, popovers, and a citrus salad for dinner. After clean-up, I worked out, showered, Alexa’d with my mom, played dolls with Abe and Clarissa, and watched The Call of the Wild cuddling with the girls and Abe on the couch.
I have to say that as much thought and preparation as I put into this holiday, I might have been outdone by Lydia’s own preparations. She sewed seriously amazing pillows, stuffed animals, and slippers for everyone in the family and also filled out the sweetest book about things she loves about her dad.
She spent a lot of Christmas day studiously devouring a fact book my mom gave her, and at dinner whenever it was her turn to speak she spouted off new fascinating facts she had learned. She explained that at school the other kids all know more interesting facts than she does, so she is cramming so she can keep up.
Mary and Ammon also put in their own fair share of effort preparing beautiful pictures, cards, and even pillows and stuffed animals for people. Lydia taught Ammon how to sew and he sewed a stuffed mouse for one of his siblings!!! I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Clarissa actually never fully unstuffed her stocking because as soon she discovered it had lollipops, all she wanted to do was eat them. (They are her favorite candy.)Playing with a new toy to Clarissa from Clark and Swathi.This was after we cleaned up the worst of the Christmas morning mess…yikes!!!Mary is absolutely amazing on her new jump rope from Nana
This was a very merry Christmas, and one that I hope stays in memory forever. I feel so lucky to be going through life with my favorite people in the world, and celebrating holidays together is one of my very favorite things. Merry Christmas!
In the morning I did an easy bike work-out before running some errands. I dropped gifts off at Courtney’s house and then Chelsea’s before coming home and getting the kids bathed and ready for the day. I dressed the girls in their matching star dresses…and then took no pictures of them! We did send a Christmas polo to my friend, Jean, though, so at least they were dressed for that.
And then Abe cooked us a Hello Fresh lunch of chicken alfredo and after we all watched A Christmas Story on the couch. Well, I slept through it but everyone else enjoyed it and now they all understand the leg lamp challenge from the scavenger hunt. Abe actually found a leg lamp not five minutes from our house, and now it all makes sense!
At some point in the day Ammon or Lydia must have taken a picture of Mary and Clarissa dancing on the playroom couch:
In the afternoon, Daniel Olsen, Mary’s piano teacher and our friend, dropped by with some fantastically delicious treats and we had a great (socially distanced, doorstep) visit.
At 5pm we did a reader’s theater reading of The Christmas Carol with the Miners over Zoom. That was so delightful, and I hope that becomes some sort of new tradition.
And then I made oil braised citrus salmon, a kale apple salad, and wild orange rice for dinner. Abe read Luke 2 while we ate.
Then we called Clark and Swathi’s crowd before heading over to my mom’s to drop some things off and have a quick Christmas visit. While we were gone, my friend Michaelann dropped off some cookies for the kids to decorate.
After Ammon and Clarissa went to bed, the girls stayed up and sang Christmas carols around the piano with Abe and me. We finished by turning off the lights, holding lit taper candles and singing Silent Night. Next time I am going to fill a pitcher of water and bring it into the room because I spent the whole song playing the piano and ducking right and left dodging the flames on the girls’ candles. I think it might have been more peaceful just to have the water there and know that if they accidentally lit me or anything else on fire, we could put it out right away–so, er, not to worry.
Then the girls wrote a note to Santa. Lydia got vulnerable in hers, and Mary was understated and modest, as usual:
Lydia: I have tried to be [good] this year, I am jealous of Mary but try not to show it. Mary: Dear: Santa I was well as good (I dont know wich way a d gose) as last year Ammon (as dictated by both Mary and Lydia): Ammon has been very good this year but he whines a lot but he’s doing better than last year I can tell you. He is very nice and sweet and friendly and is learning how to read and write. He has been having trouble social distancing. Clarissa (as dictated by both Mary and Lydia): Clarissa was a good princess. She was good at persuading people to give her what she wants. She’s very charming and cute. She loves her imaginary grandma. [Clarissa has an imaginary grandma who gives her authority to do whatever she wants. She invokes her grandma’s will whenever we tell her she can’t do something.] She can be bossy and no one gets any peace around her because she bosses people around and we do it both because we are charmed and because we don’t want her to scream. We love you Santa! Enjoy the treats!Santa (Abe) wrote the above reply.
Then Abe and I stayed up until midnight watching my new favorite Christmas romcom, Dash and Lily. It was my third time watching it. At midnight we finally started playing Santa and getting the gifts under the tree. I had wrapped most of them before hand but with all of the sorting and the few gifts left to be wrapped, we didn’t get to bed until 1:30 am.
It is my dream to sometime finally coordinate wrapping paper on all of the presents, but this year we still had a bunch of wrapping paper to use up. But we did use it up, so maybe next year!
Today I baked cookies, folded some laundry, and back-blogged a LOT. I have plans still to bike, do more laundry, tidy the house before Christmas Eve, and if possible do some gift deliveries and errands, but it is 6:11 pm so I will have to hustle. If I get some pictures at some point, I will throw them on this post. But as of this sentence, I am caught up on the blog. Hallelujah!!!
**added later** We drove to Salt Lake to drop something off to our friends, the Sonntags, and also Abe’s parents. I also stopped into Whole Foods before we all drove to see this house in the Avenues:
The kids were delighted. Lydia said, “It looks a little cramped, but in a good way.” Tom and Suzanne know the owners, and I guess they have to start putting these up in September to get them all up in time!
In the morning Abe read to Clarissa between calls. This is his busiest time of the year at work but he is still such a committed and loving dad. This is the sweetest girl. After my workout on my way up the stairs I found her playing quietly with Lincoln Logs.Lydia dyed a lot of snow blue and then informed her siblings they were to dress up for Christmas pictures. And then she took this photo of Mary.For lunch I made mushroom “crab” cakes out of lion’s mane mushrooms and king trumpet mushrooms, along with a cheese souffle and steamed broccoli. Here Ammon and Clarissa are shredding the mushrooms for the mushroom crab cakes.
I also went grocery shopping and picked up some fabric at Joanne’s. In the evening we went outside to see Saturn and Jupiter, which were both visible. I had Gustav Holst’s Jupiter playing inside with the door open so we could both see and listen. I wonder if that song got played a LOT that night all over the world.
Jupiter is the visible dot in the sky.
Our old neighbors are related to our new neighbors, and they came over and set up a telescope in our yard. We went out to take a look, and that was neat. But I actually have some hard feelings towards the ex- neighbors that set up the telescope (unrelated to the telescope), so after seeing them I went inside to decompress. Abe, as usual, is the kindest and hardest-to-offend person on the planet, so he helped me through those emotions afterward. He is so emotionally generous, even when people are at their gruffest. I wish I could be more like him.
