I love the way the December calendar works out this year, with the 1st on Sunday. The weeks are so nicely laid out as a result. So today is Sunday, December 8th and the first week of December is over. It was a busy week for us, in a pleasant way.
I have a Roz Chast cartoon from the
New Yorker on my refrigerator that's titled "The Fall Collection." I particularly identify with the first outfit, "The perfect ensemble for days that become increasingly cold and dark." But I also like the middle outfit, "What to wear when it suddenly hits you: soon, the "holidays." A few months ago I got interested in trying to plan ahead for those
"holidays," so as to enjoy them instead of getting all stressed out and doing everything at the last minute. I copied a lot of stuff from one of those "Get all your Xmas shopping done in July!" websites and even made week-by-week plans for cleaning the house and otherwise getting ready. I cleaned a couple of rooms, sort of, and then started cutting corners, and anyway, it didn't work out. But I did do a few things early, most importantly the cards. I actually took them to St. Louis with me and had Rocket Boy sign them all. I can't believe it's December 8th and I'm done. I feel so free.
I also thought I would start baking cookies early, but there is a problem with that idea: the cookies will be stale by Christmas. On the other hand, the twins inhale everything I bake, so it is more likely that the cookies will vanish before getting stale. My goal is to dole them out to the twins slowly, a few each day, so that by Christmas we'll have at least a few left, just to show that I did in fact make all these varieties. This will work as long as the twins do not find the cookie tins, which are in the garage, and it's
very cold in there, so it tends to discourage young people who like to wear shorts and t-shirts and go barefoot around the house. I've made three batches so far: confetti cookies (prettier than they taste), panocha squares, and Norwegian holiday cookies. (I don't know what is so Norwegian about them. They probably have another name that I don't know. This is one of my grandmother's recipes. She was not Norwegian.)
(Postnote: After doing a little research I discovered that the Norwegian holiday cookies are probably a version of thumbprints, and are more Swedish than Norwegian.)
We had several activities to attend this past week. Tuesday, there was the Winter Arts and Academics Festival at the twins' middle school, which I enjoyed thoroughly. Thursday we attended a Posada, also at the middle school, which was interesting in part because of the different crowd. Boulder is a mostly white, Anglo community, and I have gotten used to seeing mostly white, Anglo parents at school events. But the twins' elementary school and now their middle school also have a not insignificant Latinx population (plus the middle school has a bilingual program), and those people attended the Posada. The kids and I were almost the only Anglos there, except for some teachers. My Spanish is very rusty, but it's not gone entirely, and I have some knowledge of Hispanic culture (from growing up in California, six weeks in Mexico one summer, three weeks in Guatemala another, reading, studying Spanish for a few years, etc.). So it was fun. The photo shows Kid B trying to hit the pinata.
When we got home, I pulled out our old copy of
Nine Days to Christmas: A Story of Mexico by Marie Hall Ets and Aurora Labastida and re-read it to the twins, which helped them understand some aspects of the Posada that had confused them, such as why we were standing outside the cafeteria while most of the people were inside, singing a song in Spanish that they couldn't understand, until finally we were let inside. This is quite a good children's book, although I think the text is a little long for a child the same age as the protagonist (five year old Ceci, who is in kindergarten). The fact that my eleven year old middle school students were interested enough to listen to it says something.
Yesterday, Saturday, we had two activities. In the morning, Kid B and I attended the annual harp concert at the main library. I love this concert, and the last two years Kid B has really wanted to go to it, but this year he was ambivalent and I kind of had to bribe him (I promised to drop him off at the George Reynolds branch library afterwards so that he could play on the computers). This made me sad -- I think it won't be much longer until the twins don't want to do anything like this with me. I was remembering when I took Kid B to a performance of the Nutcracker a couple years ago. He probably wouldn't want to do that now. But I can't really complain. I didn't want to do things with my mother for at least ten years, maybe fifteen, starting around this age. On the other hand, boys are different from girls. We'll see what happens. Anyway, the harp concert was lovely. Last year the performers all dressed in velvet, which I loved. This year most of the harpists' outfits included red. One girl's dress reminded me of the dress I wore to the Paly Winter Formal back in 1977.
Saturday night we attended the Boulder Parade of Lights, downtown. We took the bus, which was standing room only and crawled through terrible traffic. "I don't know why anyone tries to drive to this," I told the twins. "Much more sensible to take the bus." We arrived just as the parade was starting and found places to stand on the north side of Walnut. The kids found it an excellent place to get candy, even though those handing it out had to climb over dirty piles of snow to reach them. We enjoyed seeing their middle school's marching band (they screamed their teacher's name, but he didn't appear to hear them). Afterwards we walked over to Pizza Colore on the mall, where we'd eaten some good pizza a few months ago. But many other people had the same idea, and the tiny indoor seating area was full, so we sat in the tiny
outdoor seating area instead. This did not make the twins happy. It was probably the warmest Parade of Lights I've ever attended, but that doesn't mean it was
warm. We miss the Cheesecake Factory, which was always perfect for post-parade dinners. We finished our pizza quickly and walked to the closest bus stop to wait for the bus that would take us home. And waited. And waited. About an hour later, a bus finally arrived. I don't know what was wrong, but we were very cold by then. I told the twins that next year we'll DRIVE downtown (we'll need to be early, if they're in the marching band).
Today we're thinking of starting to decorate the house. The house is not truly ready for this -- I need to vacuum, at the very least. But it's Christmas, and the house should be decorated. The first step is to clear away a space for the tree, which I have done (see photo), and the next step is to bring the tree and all the storage containers up from the basement. I told the twins that and they said NO, they were NOT going down in the basement. But the spiders that live there are all dead in the cold (though their egg sacs line the walls). And it's important to do this between snowstorms. It's chilly today, but the back yard at least is free of snow (the north-facing front yard probably won't be free of snow until April). So I must finish up this blog post and get going. I'll let you know the results next time I post.
I have a Roz Chast cartoon from the New Yorker on my refrigerator that's titled "The Fall Collection." I particularly identify with the first outfit, "The perfect ensemble for days that become increasingly cold and dark." But I also like the middle outfit, "What to wear when it suddenly hits you: soon, the "holidays." A few months ago I got interested in trying to plan ahead for those
"holidays," so as to enjoy them instead of getting all stressed out and doing everything at the last minute. I copied a lot of stuff from one of those "Get all your Xmas shopping done in July!" websites and even made week-by-week plans for cleaning the house and otherwise getting ready. I cleaned a couple of rooms, sort of, and then started cutting corners, and anyway, it didn't work out. But I did do a few things early, most importantly the cards. I actually took them to St. Louis with me and had Rocket Boy sign them all. I can't believe it's December 8th and I'm done. I feel so free.
We had several activities to attend this past week. Tuesday, there was the Winter Arts and Academics Festival at the twins' middle school, which I enjoyed thoroughly. Thursday we attended a Posada, also at the middle school, which was interesting in part because of the different crowd. Boulder is a mostly white, Anglo community, and I have gotten used to seeing mostly white, Anglo parents at school events. But the twins' elementary school and now their middle school also have a not insignificant Latinx population (plus the middle school has a bilingual program), and those people attended the Posada. The kids and I were almost the only Anglos there, except for some teachers. My Spanish is very rusty, but it's not gone entirely, and I have some knowledge of Hispanic culture (from growing up in California, six weeks in Mexico one summer, three weeks in Guatemala another, reading, studying Spanish for a few years, etc.). So it was fun. The photo shows Kid B trying to hit the pinata.
When we got home, I pulled out our old copy of Nine Days to Christmas: A Story of Mexico by Marie Hall Ets and Aurora Labastida and re-read it to the twins, which helped them understand some aspects of the Posada that had confused them, such as why we were standing outside the cafeteria while most of the people were inside, singing a song in Spanish that they couldn't understand, until finally we were let inside. This is quite a good children's book, although I think the text is a little long for a child the same age as the protagonist (five year old Ceci, who is in kindergarten). The fact that my eleven year old middle school students were interested enough to listen to it says something.
Yesterday, Saturday, we had two activities. In the morning, Kid B and I attended the annual harp concert at the main library. I love this concert, and the last two years Kid B has really wanted to go to it, but this year he was ambivalent and I kind of had to bribe him (I promised to drop him off at the George Reynolds branch library afterwards so that he could play on the computers). This made me sad -- I think it won't be much longer until the twins don't want to do anything like this with me. I was remembering when I took Kid B to a performance of the Nutcracker a couple years ago. He probably wouldn't want to do that now. But I can't really complain. I didn't want to do things with my mother for at least ten years, maybe fifteen, starting around this age. On the other hand, boys are different from girls. We'll see what happens. Anyway, the harp concert was lovely. Last year the performers all dressed in velvet, which I loved. This year most of the harpists' outfits included red. One girl's dress reminded me of the dress I wore to the Paly Winter Formal back in 1977.
Saturday night we attended the Boulder Parade of Lights, downtown. We took the bus, which was standing room only and crawled through terrible traffic. "I don't know why anyone tries to drive to this," I told the twins. "Much more sensible to take the bus." We arrived just as the parade was starting and found places to stand on the north side of Walnut. The kids found it an excellent place to get candy, even though those handing it out had to climb over dirty piles of snow to reach them. We enjoyed seeing their middle school's marching band (they screamed their teacher's name, but he didn't appear to hear them). Afterwards we walked over to Pizza Colore on the mall, where we'd eaten some good pizza a few months ago. But many other people had the same idea, and the tiny indoor seating area was full, so we sat in the tiny outdoor seating area instead. This did not make the twins happy. It was probably the warmest Parade of Lights I've ever attended, but that doesn't mean it was warm. We miss the Cheesecake Factory, which was always perfect for post-parade dinners. We finished our pizza quickly and walked to the closest bus stop to wait for the bus that would take us home. And waited. And waited. About an hour later, a bus finally arrived. I don't know what was wrong, but we were very cold by then. I told the twins that next year we'll DRIVE downtown (we'll need to be early, if they're in the marching band).
Today we're thinking of starting to decorate the house. The house is not truly ready for this -- I need to vacuum, at the very least. But it's Christmas, and the house should be decorated. The first step is to clear away a space for the tree, which I have done (see photo), and the next step is to bring the tree and all the storage containers up from the basement. I told the twins that and they said NO, they were NOT going down in the basement. But the spiders that live there are all dead in the cold (though their egg sacs line the walls). And it's important to do this between snowstorms. It's chilly today, but the back yard at least is free of snow (the north-facing front yard probably won't be free of snow until April). So I must finish up this blog post and get going. I'll let you know the results next time I post.
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