Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas, Your Flight Has Been Canceled

With family in Minnesota and on the East Coast, Christmas has become a days-long celebration starting in Minnesota with the Cheslas and the Olivers and ending in New Jersey shortly after the actual holiday with the Partenheimers. But when traveling between two locales with the ability to produce snow, I should know that even the best-organized plans can be interrupted by winter storms. Oliver and I were supposed to fly out this evening to Philadelphia so we could celebrate a belated Christmas with my family, but Delta canceled our flight on Christmas Day in advance of the snow that is now falling across the Mid-Atlantic states.

I am quite thankful that Delta decided to err on the conservative side and cancel flights well in advance, which saved me from unnecessary packing, and more importantly, from enduring flight delays and endless hours in an airport with a baby. But Delta, please answer your phones! For over 24 hours now, I've been trying to rebook my flight, but the website isn't showing any "alternative flights" and the reservations line plays a pre-recorded message about not answering calls due to "extreme weather conditions."

If I have to be stuck anywhere, at least I'm "stuck" here at home, where everything is baby-proofed and set up for Oliver. While we wait for flights to open up, I can get a head start on the post-holiday to-do list...or I could just relax. As exciting as Christmas is, it's tiring! I think I need a few days to recover.

I successfully did all my Christmas shopping online this year, saving myself from dragging a baby to the mall, but cleaning the house in time to host Christmas Day lunch ended up being too challenging with a rug rat following me around ready to make a new mess. So Chris took Oliver to his brother's house for the better part of Christmas Eve and while he got to play, I got to clean. The cold that had presented its first symptoms the day before was in full swing and I just about physically wore myself out, but I had received the rare satisfaction of being able to make timely progress on a full-house scrub-down. When our little family reconvened that evening, Chris announced that watching Oliver is tiring too. The recognition of how energy-depleting full-time child-rearing is may have been the best Christmas present ever.

We spent Christmas Eve at Chris's parents house who were hosting the Chesla clan - Grandma Ann and Grandpa Joe, five of their seven children, their spouses, over half of the kids of kids and three great-grandchildren, with a fourth enjoying the festivities in utero. I jokingly describe the Cheslas as being the Polish version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Oliver is still trying to make sense of this large, boisterous extended family he was born into, but he surprised me by how much he warmed up to a large crowd. His two older cousins arrived with a plastic bin full of toys and despite a room full of people, he happily played with them. At his usual early hour of 6:00 p.m., he was ready for bed and thankfully went down without a protest in the pack 'n' play we had set up in an upstairs bedroom. With Oliver sleeping, Chris and I were able to enjoy dinner, the gift exchange and socializing without interruption.

He was sleeping so soundly that Chris's mom offered to let him stay overnight and she'd bring him over the next morning. It was an attractive offer, but I couldn't bear the thought of missing out on Oliver waking up at home on Christmas morning. Even though he still doesn't know what Christmas is, I'm really sentimental about him being at home and waking up in his own room on the 25th and coming downstairs to see what "Santa" brought. And as thankful as I am to have married into such a large, loving family, I want Christmas morning to be a time Chris and I can call our own with our new family.

As will be the case for years to come, our Christmas morning started early when Oliver woke up around 6:30 a.m. We ate our breakfast, played and then attempted to open gifts, but postponed in favor of a power nap for Oliver. (I suspected another ear infection and today filled the prescription the doctor had given me a week earlier as insurance in case an infection popped up over the holidays or while in New Jersey.) After a nap and a dose of Ibuprofen, Oliver finally joined us for opening gifts. As expected, he didn't quite get it. I would peel a piece of the paper away and tried to talk him into pulling the the tab of paper the rest of the way, but he just sat back and watched me open them. However, he was quite interested in what was emerging from the wrapping paper and happily played with his new gifts. The scene was in quite contrast to last year where he spent the entire gift-opening time nursing.

By noon the Olivers and family friends from Montreal, who are currently living in St. Paul, were over for lunch. Fellow new moms were always surprised to hear I had offered to host on Christmas Day. But this gathering was for immediate family, and since their big meal is on Christmas Eve, their traditional Christmas Day meal consists of soup and sandwiches. And that I could handle. I made the soup a couple of days in advance, bought fresh bread from the coop the day before, and served cookies from the cookie exchange I participated in the weekend before.

It was the low-key Christmas Day I wanted, although with folks gone before the sun had set, I lamented that despite all the anticipation and preparations, Christmas just goes by too quickly every year.

Documenting the Quest for Boston

My brother, Scott, the artistically creative one in the family, not only trained months for the Philadelphia Marathon, but at the same time created a short documentary of his quest for Boston. You can see the final product on YouTube. 3:10 to Boston

The documentary wouldn't be what it is without someone behind the camera, which in this case was his girlfriend, Kathleen. He trained, she filmed. Her quest for documentary footage was captured by a race photographer and immortalized, where else, but on Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/photo.php?fbid=464466413364&set=t.503223364 The picture makes me chuckle out loud.

Congrats Scott on fulfilling a dream and to both of you, a job well done with the documentary.

Visit with Grandma and Grandpa

Oliver's grandparents decided they haven't seen enough of Oliver lately and asked if they could take care of him this weekend. They'd even drive to St. Paul to pick him up to save us the trip!

I'm fortunate to have in-laws I don't hesitate to let care for Oliver. Except you would have wondered with all the last-minute instructions I gave Grandma before she left with Oliver. I handed her a lunchbox loaded with more food than he could eat in two days, even as she reminded me that they do have food at their house. Toys and a booster seat. They had that too. I felt the need still to point out every item in the diaper bag, just in case she wanted to know ahead of time in which pockets specifically I had stashed the wipes, his sleepsack, extra pacifiers, spare sippy cups, his lovey, his sleepsack, the Ibuprofen in case his ears or teeth were bothering him, but if she thought it was the teeth, there was also this gel she could put on his gums, and the antibiotics he needs to take with his lunch and here's how you fill the syringe, you know, just in case you've never seen the ingenious design Target uses.

Chris interjected that they'd manage fine even without all the detail I was providing. Realizing that with the teething, ear infections and early wake-up that morning that Oliver's schedule was probably completely off and last-minute reminders about his usual snack, meal and nap times would not be applicable, I decided that information already provided was going to be sufficient. Besides, Grandma looked like she was anxious to start her day with her grandson. So off they went.

I was free! For a few hours at least.

And what did I do with my time? I ran a load of dishes, vacuumed without worrying about waking the baby and mopped the hardwood floors dirty with the residue of meals Oliver still hasn't mastered keeping on the table. Fun stuff, huh? I was desperate to get a head start on cleaning in preparation for having guests on Christmas Day, even though my house was going to be dirty again by Saturday. But at least it won't be as dirty.

Thankfully I had planned an afternoon of cross-country skiing with friends, or I never would have actually used my free time to do something for myself. With our meet-up time looming, I finally put away the mop and the vacuum and went out to the garage to find the skis I hadn't used since the early months of my pregnancy two winters ago.

And Oliver? Because he spends so much time with me and is clearly attached to his mom, I'm always anxious about how he'll handle separating from me. But when he smiled at Grandma when she entered the house, I started to have confidence that the day would go well for both Oliver and his grandparents. Aside from some crying when he arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house and realized Mom hadn't come with him, he had fun. And Grandma and Grandpa got plenty of enjoyable quality time with him. All the activities that can become monotonous for me because I do it day in and day out, like dealing with mess at meals or reading the same book over and over again, were new and exciting for them.

It Will Be a White Christmas

On a quintessential Minnesota December day with its cold, crisp air, a fresh blanket of snow and flakes gently falling from the sky, we drove out to the Krueger's Christmas Tree Farm near our old hometown of Stillwater to pick out the family's first real Christmas tree. Yes, Chris had successfully pleaded the case against another year of decorating with an artificial tree. We strolled among the snow-packed rows of trees and I realized it had been years - well over a decade - since I'd helped pick out a Christmas tree and I remembered how much fun it had been as a kid to find the "perfect" tree. I always wanted a huge tree, like you see in home decorating magazines, but my mom steered us towards the littlest ones. Now that I had more say in the decision-making process, I had other factors to consider - what was the skinniest we could find to fit with our child-proofing plan of wedging the tree between the couch and two walls in our living room?

We've been talking, reading and hearing about child-proofing since before Oliver was born and not once did anyone ever mention the child-proofing consideration needed with a tree. At first I wasn't thinking about the dangers a tree could pose, but rather how the spot in the living room where we set up the tree last year is now Oliver's toy pile. Then I realized that a Christmas tree is just a festive equivalent of a bookcase full of breakable knick-knacks. Child-proofing experts recommend that you bolt tall furniture to the wall and relocate anything small and/or breakable within reach of your baby. So what about the tree?

Friends with cats recommended tying fishing line to the top of the tree and securing it to a hook attached to the wall to prevent it from being pulled down. Some of my mom friends bought table-top trees; others decided to skip the tree altogether. Since we've managed to successfully leave our floor-level wine rack un-baby-proofed, we decided to take our chances with a tree and opted for the barricade method. The tree is blocked on three sides and if Oliver really becomes curious about the tree, we can block the fourth side with the coffee table. We had tried to include Oliver in decorating the tree, so when his first instinct upon being handed an ornamental ball was to fling it at the ground, we were relieved to remember we'd bought the shatter-proof ones back before we weighed how baby-friendly anything we bought to display in our home was. Oliver, meanwhile, enjoys looking at the tree, especially with the lights on, but so far he's stayed mostly away!

Luckily we bought our tree last Sunday, because this past weekend we were housebound and shoveling ourselves out of the biggest snow storm to hit since the legendary Halloween blizzard of 1991. The snow shut down the airport and the one of the main interstates, forced even snowplows from the roads and warranted two back-to-back snow emergencies in the City of St. Paul. Twenty-four hours of snow came first, (about 18 inches in St. Paul) followed by a deep freeze with high temperatures in the single digits and wind chills far below. Chris and I alternated between taking care of Oliver and shoveling, and the front of our house looked like a system of snow trenches after we shoveled from our front walk to the street and the sidewalks.

I love a big snow storm when I don't have to commute or be anywhere. I used to have a long commute that turned hellish with even a little bit of ice or snow. So I was thankful this weekend to have nothing to do but stay home, decorate the tree, and yes, shovel. But snow is the only reason you see your neighbors during the winter in Minnesota, so in between breaks from shoveling, I caught up with neighbors, and met some new ones.

Oliver got his first first-hand experience with snow. I'd never bothered taking him out to play in the snow in previous snowfalls because, honestly, it seemed like too much work. Layering up a non-walking baby to go sit in the snow didn't seem worth it. But this snowfall was too big to pass up. We had to say Oliver had gone out in a blizzard, or else he'd be somehow rejecting his Minnesota roots. I think Oliver was wishing he'd been born in a warmer locale though.

He cried while we put on his thick, stiff parka and snow pants, and then his boots gloves and a hat that snapped under his chin, and we spent more time with this process than he spent outside. But once out in the cold air, he perked up and actually seemed to enjoy the blast of fresh air. I got pictures of him standing next to Oliver-high snow banks and he liked watching his dad try to make snow angels. But then he got snow down his snow pants, which ended his intrigue with the snow.

Ear Infection, Round Three

After the second round of antibiotics to treat Oliver's ear infection was completed, I was told by his pediatrician that I didn't have to bring him back unless his symptoms worsened. They didn't worsen, but the problem is that his symptoms never actually cleared. And I finally accepted that I was just as miserable with Oliver's crankiness as Oliver was with whatever continued to ail him.

Unlike classic ear infection patients, it was not putting Oliver down for a nap or to bed that was a problem, it was when he woke up. The first half hour to an hour after he woke up from his nighttime sleep or his afternoon nap has been a constant struggle. He rarely woke up crying, but if I tried to get him up shortly after he woke up, he was a wailing, thrashing mess. However, if I just left him in his crib to give him some time to (possibly) fully wake up, his happy babbling quickly turned into persistent crying. So I would check on him and maybe give him his pacifier and change his diaper. If I was lucky, he'd go right back to sleep for another 30-45 minutes. But often I found him bouncing around his crib and looking happy and excited to start or continue his day. Because he was probably fully awake, if I left him there, he did not go back to sleep and would stand in his crib and cry. But if I took him out, his mood took a 180 and I would be back to having a cranky baby. So I'd put him back in his crib and repeat the process of checking in on him when he started to cry and only knew I was able to get him up for good if he didn't scream during the next attempt to take him out of his crib. Needless to say, I was frustrated by this process and missed the days when I'd come into Oliver's room to find a smiley, happy baby who stayed happy when I took him out of his crib to change and dress him.

I was confused by what was causing the end-of-sleep problems, because Oliver appeared to be getting enough sleep. Most nights he's in his crib by 6:00 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. and awake at 6:30 a.m. and doesn't wake up in between. Many of my friends wish their kids would sleep that long! And his afternoon nap is usually around two and a half hours, well within the average range for a baby his age. My latest theory is that the quality of Oliver's sleep has been affected. He probably takes after his dad who likes to sleep long and is a deep-sleeper, as well as after me, who doesn't function well on poor or inadequate sleep.

I'm happy I brought Oliver back to the doctor. The good news is that despite what I thought, the last round of antibiotics had cured the infection in his right ear. Unfortunately, his left ear is now infected. The doctor examined Oliver's gums and said it appeared like he is getting his top right tooth. Teething is well-known to be painful for babies, but I didn't know that because the nerves in the mouth and the ear are connected, teething can actually cause "referred pain" in the ear. So yes, it is no wonder that Oliver has been tugging at both his ears.

The doctor prescribed the antibiotic Cefdiner again, because it had proven to cure at least one infection in Oliver and hopefully it will cure the one in his left ear now. I brought up the subject of tubes and while she cautioned that tubes aren't a miracle solution, hence the protocol is to try a few rounds of antibiotics first, she thought Oliver is nevertheless on the path towards needing tubes, because we still have months of cold season ahead of us and Oliver is already on his third round of antibiotics.

A Dying Mother's Letter

The writer Lisa Belkin, columnist of the New York Time's Motherlode wrote in today's column ("A Dying Mother's Letter" - http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/a-dying-mothers-letter/) about the letter Elizabeth Edwards had been writing to her kids. The letter, years in the making, supposedly contains all the advice, big and small, a parent would want to bestow upon her kids. Belkin wrote about being inspired to write a similar letter for her sons, but that the task was so enormous, it was overwhelming.

I immediately thought of my blog and all that I want to be able to tell Oliver. Writing to your kids is indeed an enormous task, because it's impossible to record a life's worth of lessons and advice. I think you've got to start somewhere though. In my case, one blog entry at a time. While the purpose of my writing hasn't been to give advice, my values, my personality, my lessons learned, are all woven into the stories I tell about Oliver's childhood and my experience as a mom. Many entries are hastily written and the ideas not well-conveyed, and some entries will never be posted. But I keep writing.

I hope to live a very long life and assume that I will be around along enough to help Oliver grow up well into adulthood. Oliver will hopefully have many positive memories of me and will have learned a lot about his mom and life in general from our daily conversations and interactions. But what will he know about his mom before he was born or from a time in his life where few memories remain? What remained unsaid or became forgotten in the daily pace of life?

Writing a blog lets me record experiences or thoughts on a subject as they happen so the memories aren't altered or forgotten with time. I can tell stories that might not come up in conversation or aren't of interest to or at the comprehension level of a young kid. My thoughts are more coherently and eloquently presented than the give-and-take of a casual conversation. And I hope that someday the stories written in my voice will complement Oliver's memories of me.

I was lucky to have my mom in my life as long as I had and I still have many clear memories of her. But how much I wish she had left similar writings behind. I obviously didn't know her as a young adult and I only knew her in the context of being my mom, so to read about what she thought and felt when she was a young mom would have been incredible.

Few of us have famous moms who have had articles and books written about them. But despite everything written about Elizabeth Edwards, little of it will probably help her children understand who their mom was, what she believed, how she wanted her kids to succeed or what they can learn from her. And some of what was written will be painful for her kids to read, whether the information was accurate or unfair. So as much of a public figure as Elizabeth Edwards was, the most important and informative piece of writing for her kids will undoubtedly be their mother's "dying letter."

St. Nicholas Day

When I was a high school exchange student in Basel, Switzerland, I celebrated my first St. Nicholas Day, or Nikolaustag. I had four younger host siblings, the youngest of whom was just shy of seven, and a host mother whose favorite holiday was Christmas. Every night during the Advent season, she gathered the family after dinner to sing Christmas carols and read a story from the piles of Christmas-themed children's books she pulled out every year.

One night, there was a knock at our back door. My youngest host siblings, Susanne and Stefan scrambled to the door. They knew who was there. I was surprised when I saw who appeared to be Santa Claus walking into our house. He sat himself down on a stool, laid a large sack on the ground and pulled out a leather book. Us kids lined up and one by one were instructed by St. Nick to tell him three good things we had done, which he compared with his notes in his book.

My youngest siblings were so excited they could hardly control themselves, the oldest was slightly bemused, but acting more mature than your average eleven-year-old, went along for the sake of his brother and sister, and then there was I who was still trying to sort out this St. Nick tradition and what the heck I was supposed to say. It's not that I was lacking examples of good behavior or deeds, it's just put on the spot with my entire host family watching, (and at the point some curious neighbors who'd stopped by - apparently St. Nick was jointly hired by a couple neighborhood parents and was making the rounds) I was at a loss for words, especially ones in a coherent German. My host mom, sweet as she was, fed me my lines. And I passed! Satisfied, St. Nick reached into his sack and handed us bundles of nuts, chocolates and Clementines.

The evening ended with a loss of innocence, though, when Stefan recognized the logo from a Swiss grocery store chain on his package of nuts and asked his mom why St. Nickolas was handing out nuts from Migros. Even before my host mother was able to offer up an explanation, the truth dawned on Stefan and he started crying. His older brother desperately tried to convince him that St. Nickolas was real, but that he'd just run out of nuts and needed to pick up some extra packages at the grocery store, but Stefan was nearly hysterical. And I could tell my host mother, who'd done such a good job to make the Christmas season a magical time for her kids, felt really bad and was kicking herself for not noticing that the packaging would be a giveaway.

At least my memories of that night are fond, even if that year was the only year I celebrated St. Nick's Day. When I lived in Germany, I lived in a dorm or on my own and it wasn't a tradition my family in the U.S. followed. But here in Minnesota I've encountered a number of people who not only know what St. Nick's Day is, but grew up anticipating treats or even a small gift awaiting them in their shoes on the morning of December 6.

Oliver must have been a good baby this year, because when he crawled out of his room this morning, he found a pile of Clementines and his size four shoes filled with chocolate coins. He thought the surprise was neat and enjoyed tossing the coins and the Clementines and tried taking bites out of each, foil wrappers or skin and all. Since he doesn't have any top teeth, he didn't make a dent in either.

I hope celebrating St. Nicholas Day is a tradition that sticks in our family. And though I don't think I'll ever go as far to hire a neighbor to come to our house dressed as St. Nicholas, I have learned from my host mother's mistakes and am sure to check the packaging of any treats St. Nicholas brings.

First Visit with Santa Claus (and the Mrs. too!)

Oliver didn't cry as hard as I thought he would while sitting on Santa's lap. Considering that he cries himself into all out hysteria whenever I leave the roam (he cries so hard sometimes that I fear the neighbors will hear and wonder what's going over here) that I thought a strange guy with a big beard and a funny outfit would be too much for him. But he let me walk him up towards Santa and Mrs. Claus and even set him on Santa's lap before letting the tears flow. We took the requisite pictures which captured Oliver either crying, stuffing his hand in his mouth or both.

"Kind of what I expected," conceded Chris.

"That actually went a lot better than I thought it would," I replied.

When discussing Christmas traditions, Chris said he really wanted to get a picture of Oliver with Santa Claus. While I didn't immediately veto the idea of taking Oliver to the mall, a look at the prices they charge for just one print was enough to convince Chris to skip that idea. But when I read on my moms group website about "Cocoa with the Clauses" put on by the Lions Club at the St. Anthony Community Center, I knew we had our compromise. Chris would get his picture of Oliver on Santa's lap and the event was free, which made me happy. We didn't have professional pictures taken, but they let parents snap as many as they wanted with their own cameras.

On our way out, I heard one mother lament to the grandfatherly Lions members staffing the table at the entrance that this would be her last year at Cocoa with the Clauses. Her daughter is in third grade now - the exact age I was when I probably had my picture taken with Santa just to humor my mom, not because I believed there was a magical man who flew around the globe on a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer. That point will come with Oliver in a blink of an eye, but until then, I've still got a couple more years of photo ops. And maybe Oliver will warm up to Santa by then.

Going Bananas Over Bananas

Our Early Childhood and Family Education (ECFE) classroom has everything a 14-month-old could want to play with - a cushioned pool full of plastic balls, a toddler-sized trampoline, play structures with ladders, slides and doors, books, puppets, and toys that spin, jingle and whistle and a play kitchen with miniature pots and pans and plastic food. When the parent discussion time starts, we sit cross-legged in a big circle on the floor and let the kids play with toys in the middle. I can't keep Oliver in the circle though, because he just wants to explore the room.

Last night I was happy to see him occupied with the play kitchen. For one, I hope he takes after me and likes to bake and cook. Second, at this age, they start to engage in "pretend" play, but I hadn't yet seen Oliver mimic real-life activities while playing. But then he saw the banana.

Oliver LOVES bananas. He salivates over bananas like anyone with a sweet tooth salivates over chocolate. Not only are bananas healthy, so I'm not worried about Oliver's obsession with them, but for a baby with only two teeth, they're incredibly easy to eat. They don't need to be washed, sliced or softened either - just peel and serve, so they're an easy snack and quick to eat. I haven't timed Oliver eating a banana, but I bet he can eat a large one in three minutes - and not leave a mess behind. But because there can be too much of a good thing, (bananas can cause constipation in babies, for one) we limit Oliver' banana consumption. We offer him one after he's eaten the rest of his breakfast or as a snack, but otherwise, keep them out of sight. If we offer him a banana before he finishes chewing, he'll fish out whatever is in his mouth so he's ready for that banana.

Oliver crawled over to me clutching the banana and deposited it at my feet. Uh oh. I've seen that look before. He's in the stage now where he sort of flings things at me - a book, his sippy cup, his Snack Trap stocked with Cheerios or Goldfish - and wants me to help him with it. In this case, he wanted me to peel the banana, because he wanted to eat it. Pronto! He actually thought the banana was real!

We were in the middle of a discussion, coincidentally, on guiding behavior, so I tried the first line of defense with babies - distraction. I jokingly pretended to peel the banana and take an exaggerated bite out of it, then offered it to Oliver to pretend eating it. I acted as if it were a big game. Well, that just made him more frustrated that I hadn't actually done what he wanted.

He threw it back at my lap, but one of Oliver's classmates grabbed the banana as he crawled by him, which sent Oliver into hysterics. A tantrum was about to ensue over a plastic banana.

While the other baby's parents tried engaging their son in another toy, the teaching assistant thought she was helping to calm Oliver by bringing him a different plastic banana to play with. He just became even more frustrated that he wasn't getting to eat his banana. When the other baby discarded his banana in favor of another toy, I grabbed both bananas and shoved them in the back of the drawer that held the plastic fruit. Oliver was a crying heap of a baby at this point, so I picked him up, fished his pacifier out of his diaper bag and desperately tried to comfort him after the massive disappointment he'd just endured.

While the parents in our class actually thought the incident was funny and Oliver's hysterical crying adorable, for all our sakes, I'm going to make sure those plastic bananas stay hidden from view. As for last night, Oliver recovered relatively quickly once that banana was out of sight, and, presumably, out of mind. When we got home and I went to prepare him his bedtime snack, I knew exactly what would satisfy him - a banana he could actually eat. Oliver was a happy boy.

Christmas Traditions

I'm the type of person who's annoyed by stores putting out Christmas decorations by Halloween. Let me enjoy Halloween and Thanksgiving and then we can move onto Christmas. So I'm adamant about not doing anything "Christmasy" until at least the day after Thanksgiving, (for those of us in colder climates, I consider taking advantage of warmer weather to put up outdoor Christmas decorations to be a reasonable, and wise, exception) but now it's December 1, and well, let the Christmas season begin!

Growing up, my family never went all out for Christmas. We decorated a small tree, hung stockings from the mantle, placed a few decorations around the house and left the exterior bare, except for the occasional wreath. Although my mom liked the ambiance of a sparkling Christmas tree in a dimly-lit living room, my parents weren't into decorating, so that was the extent of it. The Griswolds we weren't.

As for traditions, they came and went depending the ages of my brother and me. Christmas was marked as little kids by photographs with Santa Claus at the mall and the Christmas pageant at Friends Meeting, choir concerts in middle school, the Christmas Cotillion in high school and the crunch of exams and semester-end projects followed by weeks-long winter breaks in college.

Some simple traditions stayed the same throughout most of my childhood. We came together as a family on Christmas Eve when we ate an early dinner at the Springhouse Tavern and then spent time at my paternal grandparent's house, where the adults opened gifts. (My brother and I were allowed to open one from my grandparent's - the rest waited until "Santa" brought them on Christmas Day.) Everyone reconvened at our house on Christmas Day. And by "everyone," I mean both sets of grandparents, my Uncle Gary, my parents and my brother. (This is when I really longed for cousins.)

Nothing compares to the excitement of early childhood when you believe in Santa Claus and hope that this year you'll be able to stay awake and catch a glimpse of him, or at least his sleigh and reindeer on their way to the next house. Waking up to see all those presents under the tree was a dream come true. But by the time I had entered my college years, Christmas had lost a lot of its magic. Everyone was busy with work or school and sometimes it seemed my brother and I were the only ones adamant about continuing "tradition." As an adult, I have more understanding of my parents and grandparents who'd probably grown tired of following every little tradition fastidiously year after year.

Having a baby gives reason to reclaim the magic of Christmas, and a new generation is an excuse to start new traditions. But Oliver was only three months old last Christmas and in the weeks leading up to the biggest holiday of the year, I was still rather overwhelmed (and tired) by motherhood. Despite it being our baby's first Christmas, it was anti-climatic. Oliver obviously had no concept that it was a holiday and he spent all the present-opening time under a cover for a marathon nursing session, so he never even saw us open his presents. The only pictures I have of him from Christmas are the ones I insisted Chris take of the two of us shortly after we put the tree up.

Looking back, I'm proud of what I did accomplish. We got the tree up, I managed most of the holiday shopping by myself, (thank goodness for the Internet!) we hosted Chris's family on Christmas Day, (thankfully one of their Christmas traditions is a light meal - sandwiches - on Christmas Day since they're still recovering from the feast on Christmas Eve) and I got Oliver and myself on a plane to Philadelphia the day after Christmas.

Even though last year ended up being about simply pulling it together rather than creating new Christmas memories, I've been given an extra year to think about what traditions to start. Every year I've been acquiring more decorations and look forward to when Oliver is old enough and we can make an afternoon or evening out of decorating the house. An advent calender, something I'd loved so much as a kid, especially the ones with chocolates, is a must-have for any kid and I forgot to get him one! Oops! Put that on the list for next year...We are going to a community Christmas party on Saturday, because Chris wants a picture of Oliver with Santa Claus, even though I know that's not going to go over very well. But all in the name of tradition, right? We never celebrated Nikolaustag (St. Nickolas Day) as kids, but after my time in Switzerland and Germany, what a fun and easy tradition to work into the season.

Chris also finally convinced me to get a real tree. We have a fake tree, which Chris hates, but I got it at a second-hand store and consider it more environmentally friendly than buying either a real tree, or a fake one new. Plus, you have to water a real tree every day and I hate vacuuming up needles. But now that Oliver is mobile, we need a tree we can tuck in a corner and barricade with a table and our fake one is too big. With a promise that we'll buy a small, skinny tree, we're headed to the St. Paul Farmer's Market this weekend to pick out our family's first real Christmas tree.

Oliver is still too young to understand Christmas, so in actuality, I have another year or two to build on whatever we do this year. I want to try a bunch of different things and see what sticks. Maybe some activities we'll just end up doing every couple of years when we feel like it, while others will become tradition. I'm sure there'll also be the traditions that are clearly more important to me than they will be for Oliver. But in reality, many traditions you don't realize are important to your kids until years down the road when they it announce it as their favorite Christmas memory - or until you suddenly stop doing them.

Even though Oliver is still very young, this Christmas is already more fun. He's much more observant and interactive, so I talk to him about Christmas and try to build the excitement even if I know he doesn't understand a lot yet. But he's already noticed our stockings we hung above the couch. I point out his stocking and explain that on Christmas morning he's going to be able to reach in his stocking and pull out treats and gifts from Santa.