The bright side

So, let's remember what I did manage to pull off this Christmas:

Temple Square (that's my "I should be studying!" face)


St. Lucia Day; Bunny and I delivered Lussetkater to every Scandinavian we knew of.   (St. Nicholas Day got put on hold this year; Mr Renn's Grandfather's funeral was that day and we left before the crack of dawn to drive there)



Several dinner guests.  I'm sure I had my "I should be studying!" face on for them too.  Mr Renn did all the cooking, I just had to set the table.





And.... this is Christmas eve.  I was so burnt out; all I wanted was to melt into my bed and sleep for a week. Can you imagine me even trying a stunt like that with these crazy people in the house?

No excuses.

That was a long hiatus, wasn't it?  It's just as well I didn't make a detailed record of the last 6 weeks, because they have been pretty universally un-fun.  Thesis deadlines then comprehensive exams, then a couple of days then a Christmas I was unable to adequately prepare for..... complicated by more than one (unrelated) complete death of my one-and-only computer.  I am largely wallowing in emotional backlash that tastes the same as antepartum depression.  Too few happy thoughts  to penetrate the stress.



But hey!  Comps are over (other than defending them in February...) and Christmas is over (even if I resent how it turned out when I just couldn't do all the things I'm supposed to do for Christmas), so it's time to move on to new stresses.

Stress #1: I have a thesis to write, and while I am paying for my thesis advisor's time, there's really nobody who's going to keep me on schedule besides myself.  I have about 30 distinct insecurities that each bring me to tears when I try to figure out how to make this happen.

Stress #2: During an emotional high in August, I bought a ticket to Alt Summit.  Then deadlines and comps dissolved me into a puddle of introverted insecurity as well as rendering me totally unable to actually prepare for an over-the-top networking event.  I am terrified, and unprepared in most ways.  Plus, did I mention my computer problems?  It's hard to design a last-second business card for your thesis survey without any software. Plus, I'm not even sure if I can find the business cards for this blog...... haven't seen them since the move. ENTROPY.

Stress #3: Christmas Break.  All my kids home all the time.  I love my kids and I'm trying to enjoy their company.  But oh, the messes.  The energy, the hurt feelings, the drama, and the messes some more.   They make me tired, and sometimes make me want to hide in a closet to be alone for a few minutes.  They have all been sick and stir crazy and sugar glazed.

Stress #4: Money.  New homeownership (spending money on fun things like tree removal and a water softener) + a Christmas I wasn't very organized about + unexpected computer repairs + dentists don't get paid leave for holidays.   None fun.

None of these stresses feels quite as heavy or immediate as comps did, but half of the stress of comps was the way it was infringing on my ability to pull Christmas off.  I'm still emotionally recovering from the whole ordeal.

But, lest I leave you with that bullet train of whine, here are some silver linings.

Silver Lining #1: While our house has proven to be way too dark for me (and skylight windows keep getting bumped up my renovation priority list), the snow we've had since Christmas has done a lot to help brighten up all of our north-facing windows.  Plus my parents gave me a happy-light for Christmas.  (My life is so glamorous).

Silver Lining #2: While Bunny continues to be absolutely insane (so stinking strong willed and flat-out strong for a 2-year-old... let me show you the fat lip she gave me on Friday when she started flailing with a toy in her hand after I picked her up) she also says please and thank you without provocation.  It always thrills me when I get an unexpected "Thank you, Mom" out of her.

Silver Lining #3:  Sir O is as sneaky as the day is long, but he's also got an innate sense of paternal fairness, so when he sneaks a treat, he sneaks one for all of the siblings.

Silver Lining #4: Despite all the stress, illness, and lost sleep this month, I only missed my 6am M,W,F workout class twice. I am proving to myself that I can make a difficult lifestyle change and I'm holding my holiday calories at bay. I still hate doing it half of the time (especially when I'm sick and tired), but habits don't start sticking until you convince yourself they are not optional.  If you are me, anyway.)

Silver Lining #5: The list of house projects is mind bogglingly long, and the budget is hard to predict, as our income varies each month.  But we finished our basement storage room before Christmas and moved half of the bins and boxes living in our garage down there, so parking is less precarious.  Plus now we can move on to parts of the house that we actually intend to live in.

Silver Lining #6: Despite some really disappointing and emotional numb days, I've been pretty easily moved by the spirit this month.  It's been a humbling experience, but usually when I was most overwhelmed, I'd get subtle reminders of how small my stresses are in the grand scheme of things.  This didn't always keep me from being grumpy or withdrawn, but it helped.  Plus I cried a lot.

Silver Lining #7: Despite working on a thesis about blogging, I have not been able to string 10 minutes together to write anything coherent for my own blog.  I'd have lots of thoughts I wanted to write down during the day when my hands were full, or late at night when I was finally laying in bed and getting sleep was a high stakes game.  So here, look at me!  MAKING IT A PRIORITY!   Sometimes giving myself permission to prioritize things that don't matter to anyone but myself is really difficult. But this matters to me, and I think I am a much better person when more of my experiences have gone through the organizing filter of being interpreted and recorded in a searchable way. So while I can't currently edit photos (grrr to the computer problems again), I can write!

Christmas "Break"

When you are a young undergrad student, Christmas Break is a very real thing.  You survive finals, then you crash at your parent's house, sleep for 2 or 3 days straight, grace extended family gatherings with your presence, get a horrendous illness and nurse yourself back to health before school starts again.  Simple, straightforward, and insanely self-centric.


When you are the mom and the grad student, Christmas Break is a very un-funny joke.  Not quite as unfunny a joke as finals at Christmastime, but still lunacy of the first order.  You barely survive finals while doing your utmost to not fail at the family's expectation for what Christmastime is supposed to be.  You do your best to avoid the irritated vibes from your kids and spouse for all the balls you are dropping.  You really want, and rather need, to collapse in a heap once your last final is officially behind you, but there is no time.  There are new emergencies on your plate.  You have just over a week to throw everything you've got at salvaging the holiday from your previous neglect.  Plus, extended family gatherings mean managing your children in public - herding cats and all that.  And if, perchance, you were ever to come across an empty 20 minute pocket of time, you know you really ought to be getting ahead on reading for the next semester.  You never once manage to be in bed before 1am.  You manage to box away the flurry of decorations and realize you are nearly floored by sleep deprivation and illness.  You realize you have the flu, and a sinus infection for New Years, and that you are out of time.  Your break is over and you never actually managed to take anything that resembles a break.  You maybe cry a little bit.

But self-pity aside, a lot of things were really lovely about this holiday.  And I think I managed to leave everyone with good memories in their mouth.  This child is even still suspending his disbelief, rather willingly, but in spite of my many failings.  It may be the last year of that magic. You rarely in life get a chance to realize you may be experiencing a last.  They're tender and rare and appreciated.

In which the Captain steals the show at the Ward Christmas Party

stretch marks

Why yes, I did just accidentally go a month without blogging one word.
It's lunacy - my life.
But it's nice to be able to say I haven't blogged for a month because I've been too busy doing things.  In the past when I've gone a month or two with mostly radio silence it's been because I've been essentially depressed and overcome with unhealthy apathy.
So sure, the effect of my absence is the same either way, but I prefer a more buoyant excuse.



The month of November ... the blur... I have no temporal details for you just now.

But things floating to the top of my brain include:

We are becoming genuinely concerned about Sir O's intense anti-social habits.  It is becoming apparent that the kid sets himself up to get picked on; he makes enemies easily.  He's intensely defensive and likes to lord over people when he can get away with it.  He also goes to ridiculous legths to avoid dealing with new people or new experiences.  Altogether not a super-loveable pile of characteristics.  Lucky for him we love him anyway, but I can't take away the social awkwardness he faces.

Conversely, my 3 other kids make friends wherever they go.  The Captain, despite his physical awkwardness, is often the center of socialness because he's so dang delightful.  And Bunny flirts with most strangers (though only from the safety of her parent's arms.)

Bunny also plays with her tongue all day long.  And on her it's darling.  But her brothers have started copying her, and a 3,5,or 7 year old blowing excessive raspberries at you is not cute.  It's just rude.

Mr Renn has been picking up a lot of slack for me this holiday season.  He's taken ownership of all of our holiday baking, gingerbread building, neighborhood gifts, and contributions to family parties.  In other words, he is a lifesaver.

I've realized that despite my proclivity for it, I have a rather pathetic collection of holiday decorations (for every/any holiday).  I may never arrive at that place where I feel I can give myself permission to spend time or money toward that end.  Over the years thousands of items have been put in carts, only to be removed before purchase.

Mr Renn claims we can start looking into buying a house of our own in earnest come February.  You cannot grasp the weight of this promise - but I'm posting it here to hold him accountable.  10 years of "I don't want to bother with that until it's our own house/I don't want to have to move that" have taken a toll.

Sir O has developed an intensely irritating habit of discarding and losing expensive articles of clothing.  He never loses the cheap stuff, only the newer and most expensive things.  If I had a dollar for every time that kid has lost or destroyed an article of clothing the first time he wore it - I'd have at least $50.

My first grad school finals are December 17th, and I am a mess until then.

I am not getting nearly enough sleep to function properly.  Hence my sluggish responses and reflexes.  And yes - this blatantly affects my performance in class. Vicious cycle.

Our gentleman began potty training and then quickly lost interest.  Time for plan D.

Bunny is standing often, and her brothers are the best cheering section a girl could ask for.  But when they cheer too loudly she realizes she's standing and quickly gets herself back down.  She's only taken 1 step, and she's still mad at me for tricking her into that one.

She's also terribly fond of playing peekaboo, and while her favorite is to hide in the curtains, she'll also hide her eyes with the backs of her hands, and make a squished up face that is beyond charming.

She still loves her dad more than anything or anyone in all the world.

I bought Sir O some sketchbooks, and I love what he comes up with.  Today in church we got 5 pages of clone trooper helmets.  We've also gotten a lot of dinosaurs, volcanoes, trucks, tall buildings, and mountainsides (with either a U or a Y emblazoned on them).

Our Gentleman's tongue thrust shows no sign of letting up.  I watch him talk and all I see is his tongue hanging out.  Speech therapy forever more, because that's how we love to spend all that extra time of ours....

Our Christmas cards are running late this year.  Hopefully they will arrive this week and we can create a super-sonic assembly line to get them back out in the mail without eating up too much study time.

Because yes, finals at Christmas time is utterly brutal for moms who are students.  I cannot speak for moms who are teachers or professors, but in a great many households Christmas is a production put on by mom behind the scenes.  When mom's time, focus, and energy is at a crazy premium, things get hairy.  Let's just say we're going to be flexible with celebrating St. Nicholas day this year.  Like - almost a week late flexible.  Same goes for St. Lucia.  I am giving myself a year off, and hopefully next year Bunny will be old enough to be the center of that celebration.

I only bought 2 new Christmas albums this year.  So far that's a record low.  But when you have over 1200 Christmas songs on your playlist, it becomes increasingly difficult to justify new additions.  Still really loving Joshua James, Sleeping At Last, Sufjan Stevens and Bebo Norman.

So, there's some catchup of the random-crap variety.  I hope I don't prove this spotty for the entirety of grad school, I still want to document life outside of film responses.  But you know, I'm dropping balls all over this place.  I'll try not to leave this one lolling on the floor for too long at a time.

Last Call

Christmas catch up posts are officially over once I share this gem:



We had my cousin and her husband (who have requested that I give them a cool pseudonym) over for dinner and I elected to throw together an impromptu nativity. (We did, after all, still have the sheep costume). I'm really hoping my kids will be more open to creating tiny narratives as they get older, it'd be fun to make them, and even more fun to watch them some years down the road.

Pseudonym, how about Pigling Bland and Pig-wig? They're Beatrix Potter creations, and oddly appropriate. No good? Then I'd have to call them the Fezziwigs.

Sir O's Kindergarten Christmas Program

There is a particular hilarity that accompanies any public performance by herds of such short people, and this was no exception.  The super-secularized little show was darling and funny by default, and sweet.  It was also pretty poignant and somber, as it was less than a week after the Connecticut school shooting, and all the adults were still rattled and tender.



Poor Sir O, he has a track record that whomever he gets attached to in his school classes will inevitably move out halfway through the year.  He does not handle this well, but at least he has these photos to remember "Precilee", the girl who got him hooked on "My Little Pony."  Ah, Kindergarten.

More Sugar

We had so much fun decorating our gingerbread houses last year that we felt we had to fit it in this year.  I couldn't find a gingerbread house kit I liked though, so we wound up finding a template online and making our own.  It was the only Christmas baking I attempted this year.  Then we tackled decorating with our usual crazy flair.  Mr Renn's personal pet project was the clock-tower.  Maybe some year we'll make a whole gingerbread neighborhood, we were halfway there this year!

(Sir O's own house)

Merry and Bright

Christmas at our house was a rather low-key delight fest.  I've learned to be less ambitious with my postpartum plans, so we scaled everything back, but still upheld our established traditions (at least the ones the kids would have missed).





There weren't a lot of "filler" gifts, but there was a new TV for Mr Renn and a Wii, a mini trampoline, and tumbling mats for the boys, so plenty of "wow" factor that morning.  Can you tell how my winters usually go by the gift selection?



We did our traditional rounds, visiting my grandparents and ending at my parents' house.  (Mr Renn's parents are in Argentina or we'd have visited them too.)  Our kids about doubled their gift count there.




All in all it was delightful, although my kids with so much sugar and so little sleep are destined for crashing.  As a child the end of Christmastime was nearly tragic, but as a parent I find I am ready for it once it comes.  A return to routine and an end to the steady stream of junk food sounds good come January.  But I do miss getting Christmas cards in the mail, they are very nearly my favorite thing about Christmas.  Almost as favorite as Sir O and the Captain remembering what Christmas is all about.



Those two had the New testament nativity accounts memorized by the end of the season.  (It helped that we sing Handel's Messiah so regularly at our house.)  With a few prompts Sir O could recite the whole thing.  Made me happy to have that story so familiar to them.

The gentleman sheep

I'm buckling down and remembering November and December, belated as it is.  Someday my children will thank me for this effort, maybe.

Less than a week in advance, our family was asked to be the majority of the Nativity Christmas Pageant for our church Christmas party.  And to find our own costumes.  The costume wrangling was the hard part, but I did manage to procure this sheep costume for our Gentleman, and he stole the show in it.  He pranced across the stage throughout the whole production and caused a fair lot of genuine belly laughs. (Especially when he body-slammed Sir O the shepherd).  The photos taken there didn't turn out, so we had to re-enact it again with my cousin and her husband, just so I could get a photo of this.  All of my children are little turkeys, but this one is also a ham.

Drive By December

I am up to my eyeballs everyday in the business of keeping a family of 6 and a house halfway decent.  My bloodshot eyes can no longer be camouflaged with visine and my skin is throwing a sleep-deprived tissy fit.



But, despite the pace and my failure to adjust to it, life is good.  And if Bunny can continue to sleep more (even more!) at night, and the boys can be weaned off of my computer and onto their incoming Christmas presents, then perhaps I'll find some moments to remember what my own voice sounds like.



These are from an emergency Christmas Card photo session during Bunny's first week of life.  Can you tell how cooperative my kids were?

December, undocumented as it was, has been full of successful compromise.  Enough tradition-keeping that everyone feels celebratory, but also enough traditions put on hold that I can be an effective dairy farm.  I did not bake my little head off this year.

And every time I sat down to write something, I fell asleep instead.  Truly, severe sleep deprivation in my corner. But as I'm having trouble sleeping, our Bunny is growing rather wakeful.



Her eyes, which have decided to be all-out blue, are taking a whole world in these days.  She's a pensive little thing, when she's not got a bubble in her belly. I'm anxious to find out who she is, and what she's thinking when she watches her crazy brothers flop around.

{last} Christmas Carol Spotlight: Go tell it on the Mountain

There were lots of contenders to be fit into my last day of this, and my considerations were all over the place - Joseph by the Killers, Le Noel de la Rue by Edith Piaf....
But I kept coming back to Go tell it on the Mountain.
Mostly, I think, because my entire 4th grade class learned to play it on the ukelele.  And if that isn't an awesome memory, I don't know what is.

And the version by the David Crowder Band makes me think about it in deep and mellow ways that are a perfect match for the breath I am taking before we dive into pure holiday bliss/stress/abandon.  Listen, breathe, dive.

 

Christmas Carol Spotlight: Silent Night and Shaun Barrowes

IF you are going to record a Christmas Album, and include the songs that everybody else includes on their Christmas albums, please do us all the favor of making your recording sound at least a little bit unique.  It will help me to forgive you for your lazy song choices.  And maybe actually like your album. Just saying.

 

Christmas Carol Spotlight: A Cradle in Bethlehem

Because you can't have too much Nat King Cole in December.  I've tried, but it can't be done.  His was the first version of this song I ever learned to love.  So far as I can tell, it was written for Cole's 1960 album, but it's full of the influence of the folk music of the American South. It's another great lullaby carol.

 

Christmas Carol Spotlight: Wexford Carol

I'm always happy to include a bit of Irish-ness in my Holidays.  This spectacular Carol hails from Enniscorthy, and makes me smile every time. It's another treasure from the Oxford Book of Carols, without which my Christmases might become quite dim.  I'm pretty sure if the radio airways were full of the contents of the Oxford Carols, there would be far fewer people complaining about Christmas music.  But since there are not, I boycott Christmas Radio entirely, and make my own playlists with spectacular carols like this one. Doesn't it just send festive shivers down your spine?

Christmas Stories: Nine Days to Christmas

When Sir O's preschool teacher asked me to take a turn reading a Christmas story to his class, my immediate reaction was to choose Nine Days to Christmas. It's the perfect blend of culture and festivity and narrative, and we love it around here.  It's a cute introduction to the Mexican custom of Christmas Posadas, and centers around a very special star-pinata.



Because I was supposed to bring a stocking stuffer associated with my book, sir O and I set about making mini star-ornament-faux-pintatas.  Other than the 2 times I burned my fingers with the hot glue gun, it was a really easy and fun project.

I bought a tube of mini plastic gold ball ornaments, and a pack of gold birthday crowns at the party store.



I used the points on the crowns to make conical points for the stars. (Use hot glue, not craft glue, fyi).



Then I cut and folded slits to make a flat-ish surface to glue against the ornaments.



5 cones for each star. They were not perfect, but for a project with a preschooler for a sidekick, I thought they were absolutely adequate.  And the kids in his class loved them, which is the most important part, right?

Christmas Carol Spotlight: Bring a torch, Jeanette Isabella

I have loved this song since I was a little girl, and always perked up when I heard it.  Unfortunately, that has never been as often as I wished. (And even less often is it a version with vocals.) It's a French song (Provencal) and not originally intended to be a Christmas carol. But the English translation, with it's perpetual references to Christ is born, and to not wake a baby sleeping in a stable, it's hard to not make that correlation.  Isn't it pretty?

 

Christmas Carol Spotlight: Zither Carol

This lovely Carol is arguably of either Czech or Polish Origin.  Depends on who you ask.  It was traditionally accompanied by an actual Zither, (BIG SURPRISE) hence the name.  Though it is sometimes also called the Children's Carol.

 

Christmas Carol Spotlight: As Lately we watched

As Lately We Watched is a 19th Century translation of an Austrian Carol,   Hirten auf dem Felde.

It has sort of been relegated to being an obscure "choir carol", and that makes me sad.  It's a lovely carol, and could be arranged any which way and be a great Christmas staple.

Christmas Stories: The Remarkable Christmas of the Cobbler's Sons

I think what I love most about this beautiful book is that it captures the magic of the Alps, the visitation of which is near the top of my bucket list.



The Remarkable Christmas of the Cobbler's Sons is also illustrated by Barbara Cooney, and I've loved most all of her work in children's books.
It's a lovely bit of fancy and fairy tale and folk-lore that never forgets the importance of it's archetypes.  And it doesn't fail to mention the Baby Jesus either.  I'm pretty sure that's near the top of my Christmas story criteria.



If you have even a tiny soft spot for Tyrolean culture, (Heidi fans, anyone?) you will very likely fall madly in love with this book.