Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

As we have for a couple of years now, we celebrated Christmas Eve at Chris' Uncle Pat and Aunt Carol's house. They're welcoming people with a "more the merrier" attitude towards hosting, and Carol goes all out with the Christmas decorations.  It was a "small" Chesla gathering this year with only two dozen people, but still full of fun and good stories.

Once everyone had arrived, we took up a tradition started by Chris' grandparents of lighting the Advent candles.  All the little cousins got to light a candle and the adult cousins handled the readings.  We also sang Christmas carols, and I appreciated that Pat and Carol thought to print the lyrics, not just for the German guests among us, but for me too!  Matteo sat on my lap as we sang and he loves music. I was astounded that he was trying to "sing" along, which consisted of half saying, half singing the last word of each line, but it was nonetheless really cute.   

Matteo with his Aunt Danielle

Our au pair Celina and her boyfriend, Marius, who is visiting from Germany

The grandchildren got turns lighting the Advent candles.

Oliver loved playing Santa and passing out presents.

After we sang, we opened presents.  Dan and his six siblings and their spouses all exchange gifts and their children exchange gifts with their cousins.  There always ends up being something for the littlest kids because they wouldn't be able to make it through the evening without being able to open something.  For my children those gifts were University of Minnesota Gophers t-shirts from their aunt and uncle and matching footie pajamas from Grandma.  They changed into their new pajamas before the car ride home and I was so tired by that point that I wished there had been a pair for me.

On Christmas morning Chris got up before everyone and cooked blueberry pancakes, eggs and bacon, and our German guests especially enjoyed this all-American breakfast. I really appreciated having this family time around the table before the gift-opening frenzy.

I had a surprise gift waiting for me when it was time to clean up from breakfast - a  new kitchen faucet.  Chris' friends had tried to convince him that a kitchen faucet does not count as a gift for your wife, but that's how our relationship works. I complain about something (in this case, I worried our faucet, which we'd already fixed once, and was really on its last leg) and Chris surprises me with a solution.  So I loved the new faucet, but I felt so guilty about what I'd put Chris through.

The afternoon of Christmas Eve was pretty chaotic with our kids and German guest to tend to, a lasagna to make, gifts to wrap and a house to pick up and in the middle of this all, Chris casually suggested that if there's nothing left for him to do, he'd like to take apart the kitchen faucet to see if he could fix it.  I admit that I might have in a less-than-kind manner ixnayed his suggestion and told him I thought that was the worst timing ever. Obviously I had no idea that Chris was trying to get a jump-start on the faucet replacement so he wouldn't have to stay up until 1:00 a.m. like he ended up doing.  Now that's true love, right?

The kids were as equally excited about their gifts as I was about my new faucet.  While we don't know whether Kiera and Matteo understood that it was Christmas, they did understand how to open gifts and were excited about it being their turn to do so.  The kids ended up with gifts not just from two sets of grandparents, but from Celina, her "Oma Heidi" and Marius.  They were so spoiled this year!

By the time we made it to Chris' parent's house for Christmas Day lunch, the kids were punch happy and us adults, were, well, we honestly looked like we were hung over. Some of us were getting over colds and all of us had stayed up way too late Christmas Eve and the days leading up to it and we were all ready for a nap. Luckily we plan for Christmas Day to be low-key.  Lunch happens whenever we show up and we have nothing on our agenda other than to spend time with the grandparents, who our kids adore, tired or not.

As tired as we were, we had celebrated Christmas exactly as I had hoped we would.  It was also a memorable first Christmas with Kiera and Matteo.  Depending upon when you come home with your children, that first Christmas can be more stressful than fun.  We had the gift of over 10 months home though, and our kids are so well-adjusted that I didn't have to worry about over-stimulation with large family gatherings or lots of presents, or attachment issues with everyone wanting to hug and kiss the newest members of our family. 

Thankful This Christmas

Last Christmas, this was our family:

One year later, this is our family:

Ten months home, we're coming to the end of our year of firsts, but Christmas was one of the most special.  On Christmas Eve we sang Christmas carols and lit the candles on the Advent wreath, and an intense feeling of thankfulness filled my heart.  These two almost weren't my children, but are, and forever are.  A year ago I had longed so intensely for them and on Christmas Eve this year I had Matteo seated on my lap and Kiera snuggled up next to me. Gathered around the Advent wreath were brothers and parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends and cousins, all who loved and adored them. 

On the Hunt for Our Christmas Tree

I might have oversold Minnesota winters.  Before matching with an au pair, I warn him or her how brutal winters here can be and make sure he or she is hearty enough to come live here.  We can't afford to have someone freak out when the temperature drops below zero and want to stay indoors because that makes for a long and sedentary winter, both for the au pair and our children.  But Celina wasn't phased.  She bought herself a warm coat and is fully prepared for winter's arrival.  Since they so rarely ever have snow at Christmas where she's from in Germany, she confided in me that one of the things she was most looking forward to about coming to Minnesota was having a white Christmas.  With lots of rain and highs consistently in the 40s this past week, I'm afraid Celina's wish isn't going to come true.  I do everything I can to give my au pairs the year of their dreams, but gosh, Minnesota, you're letting me down! 

It was with this unseasonably warm weather that we went on the hunt for the perfect Christmas tree at Krueger's Tree Farm.  We picked up a saw and trekked out into the fields.  I was glad I had dressed the kids in boots, not for the snow, which there was none, of course, but for the mud!  The unseasonably warm weather meant that more people than expected had also decided it would be more fun to chop down their own tree and the pickings were slim.  After tromping around to for a bit, we decided we'd try our luck with a pre-cut tree instead. 

Advent Calendar

As tired, working parents, there's so much we want to do with our kids, but there just isn't enough time in the day! Thankfully our au pair Celina steps in to bring a special kind of creativity and magic to our household. Her most recent offer was to make an advent calendar for the kids and she totally outdid herself. 

She took inspiration from an advent calendar she saw on Pinterest and went from there. 

She and a fellow au pair friend spent all day scouring both Michael's and a neighbor's yard (who had conveniently just trimmed a birch tree) for supplies and assembling the "calendar".  Their final creation ended up being a Christmas decoration in itself.

Celina didn't just fill the cups with a chocolate for each kid, but also puzzles pieces.  Each morning the kids get anywhere from two to four puzzle pieces with the final pieces received on Christmas Eve to complete a Christmas-themed puzzle.  This idea is genius because my kids love puzzles!  So much so that she could have easily gone without the chocolates

Last Christmas Waiting For You

I've never spent a Christmas waiting for a child.  My first two were fall babies, so the Christmas prior I had no inkling I'd have a nearly-three-month-old the following year.  This Christmas was of course different, as has been seemingly everything during this adoption process.  We originally thought we'd have our children home well before Christmas and then we faced the depressing reality that we wouldn't meet them until 2015, for a process we began in 2013. 

Putting aside the circumstances I couldn't control, I vowed to enjoy the season with the family I have with me here now.  It felt like the busiest Christmas ever as we simultaneously stayed on track with the final stages of the adoption process and hosted our au pair's mother, so some things simply didn't get done due to not enough hours in the day.  Yet when I think about the memories from this past month, I know I made time for what was important. 

I don't know what Oliver and Soren will remember from this Christmas, perhaps very little of what exactly we did.  But I do hope they remember that it was fun.  Because that's what it was for me.  We baked gingerbread cookies with friends, learned the lyrics to our favorite carols at Dawn and Drew's annual Carols and Cocoa party, visited Santaland at Macy's (thanks Dan and Nan!) and read Christmas book after Christmas book from the collection we've accumulated over the years.  Although this Christmas will go down in our memories for being a brown Christmas, we still enjoyed winter activities like Soren's first try at downhill skiing and tubing for Oliver and me.

And then there was the usual big, boisterous Chesla Christmas Eve gathering.  Oliver and Soren had a blast playing with their cousins and opening presents and even got to stay up until (gasp!) 10:00 p.m.  It was wonderful to see my husband's family embrace Marcel and his mom on a holiday they were spending so far from home. 

Christmas Day itself was much quieter, with much-needed downtime.  After opening presents at home, we enjoyed a light lunch at Dan and Nan's and opened yet more presents.  By Christmas night we were already researching and designing plans for a custom Lego table, because yes, with a five-year-old in the house, this Christmas could be described as the "year of the Lego".  We have this crazy dream of not having our house overrun with tiny plastic bricks. 

During all of this, Kiera and Matteo were always on my mind and in my heart.  I did end up spending this Christmas without them, but I'll remember it as the last Christmas waiting for them. 

Carols and Cocoa

After a two-year hiatus from Carols and Cocoa, we made it this year!   Every year we crowd into my friend's living room to sing Christmas carols accompanied by a piano.  Except two years ago it snowed enough the afternoon caroling was planned that I couldn't even manage the short ten-minute drive to her house.  Then last year their daughter came down with the highly-contagious Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. So I was thankful that this year the weather cooperated and everyone was healthy. 

My friend's husband played the guitar while his sister played the piano and everyone who wanted to sing sang along.  Adults took breaks in the kitchen to sip hot cocoa or tea and munch on seasonal treats while the kids alternated between joining us for a carol or two and then disappearing to the kids' bedroom to play.  Oliver's favorite song right now is Frosty the Snowman.  Both kids liked ringing the bells we were given for a raucous rendition of Jingle Bells.  It was a wonderful way to spend a winter afternoon.

Sankt Nikolaustag

The Facebook post of a friend who recently moved to Leipzig, Germany tugged at my nostalgia for the innocence of childhood and a tradition brought from my short time in Switzerland. 

"Walking up the Leipzig apartment stairs last night, shoes filled with goodies waited quietly outside doors where children live."   

Sankt Nikolaus managed to make it from Leipzig to St. Paul last night to fill two additional pairs of shoes.  Oliver and Soren woke up to shoes filled with chocolate coins, clementines and GORP, an Americanized nod to the traditional nuts, dried fruit and chocolate children in northern Europe receive. 

Each boy also received an extra gift from Sankt Nikolaus this year - a book.  I decided to move the Book on Every Bed, an initiative to promote reading by giving children a new book on Christmas morning, to St. Nicholas Day.  Since I like to gift Christmas-themed books, I thought it made more sense for the kids to receive the books before Christmas.  Now they'll have some more time to enjoy One-Dog Sleigh and Little Santa. 

Christmas

It was another exhausting Christmas, as I guess it is with kids and will be so for years to come.  But busy in a good way, because the busyness stemmed from all we wanted to do with or for our kids and family and they are what bring a renewed joy and excitement to the Christmas season, so the craziness is worth it.  And I recognize that this was my first Christmas as a working mom and I think I'll have a better idea next year of how to pace myself so that the shopping, baking and activities take place at a more reasonable pace.  Given how we flew by the seat of our pants this season, Our nanny was a huge help, as she grocery-shopped for us, kept the house tidy, and engaged the kids in a month of various Christmas activities that built on what we were doing with them on the weekend.  This Christmas was also especially busy too since Chris was finishing up his last semester of grad school and preparing for a January term class (his true grad school finale) and I happened to be busier at work than is typical for this time of year.  So yes, I was tired, but happy.

The climax of the Christmas season for Chris's family is the gathering of his dad's side of the family on Christmas Eve, which we spent at his Uncle Pat's new place with about 30 other relatives.  The scene was as I had always imagined a holiday gathering would look like for a big extended family.  Tons of food, little kids running around, the loud chatter of multiple conversations going as everyone catches up, boisterous laughing as relatives reminisce about themselves or family members in much younger days.  It was such a warm, welcoming and loving scene.  Unfortunately, Soren refused to sleep, and Oliver was often "squirelly" as the night wore on and both kids ended up going to bed, oh, three or four hours past their bedtime.  But what can you do when it's the only time we have to spend with some of these relatives?

Luckily Christmas morning was very laid-back.  The pace of the morning defined the reason Chris and I make it a priority to have the kids wake up in their own beds on Christmas morning and then spend as much of the day as possible at home.  After a breakfast of home made blueberry waffles - Oliver's favorite breakfast lately - we spent a leisurely, pajama-clad entire morning in a cycle of open a gift, play with it, open another eventually.  With the high energy, chocolate-fueled evening from the night before, I appreciated being able to give my kids downtime with just Mom and Dad.  After nap on Christmas morning, we were off to the grandparents' house where we again kept the kids up way past their bedtime, although not as late as the night before.

But that Christmas morning we at least had no agenda.  The kids enjoyed playing with all their new trucks and construction vehicles and puzzle and Oliver took pictures with his new camera, a hand-me-down 7-mega-pixel point-and-shoot Pentax from his Uncle Scott.

Chris had gotten me a gift that came with no gift wrap, but made me feel so well cared for.  He set up Dropbox for me so I can back up all the pictures and videos I've taken of our family over the years.  And he not only took the initiative to start the process of figuring out the best way to back up our digital history, but he started what would be a two-day process to copy everything to the online server.  He then configured Dropbox to automatically copy once a day any new pictures or videos saved on my computer.  But the real thoughtfulness behind his gift is not just that all my digital memories or now saved, but that he did everything for me.  The nagging worry that grew every time I heard about a theft in the neighborhood or a lost iPhone, or the frustration I felt for not doing something I knew I'd instantly regret once it was too late, all those feelings vanished.

How to Handle Santa Claus

I so clearly remember the magic of believing in Santa Claus.  One Christmas I woke up in the early hours of the morning to the sound of what I was convinced were reindeer lifting off from the roof our little ranch house in Medford, N.J.  When I saw the presents under the tree and in our stockings, I knew I had not imagined it.  I had always assumed I'd want to pass along the magic of Santa Claus, but since having kids, I started to question how create the magic without lying and trying to keep up a story that will inevitably be exposed.

Keeping up the charade of Santa Claus seems like a lot of work, especially for something you know they're going to learn the truth about eventually.  And you're constantly changing your story.  First you tell them the Santa you're taking them to see is the real deal, but then when they see Santa everywhere else they go, or start to question why they're seeing Santa anywhere at all before Christmas, you find yourself admitting that the guy whose lap they just sat on is actually just pretending to be Santa because the real Santa is so busy up at the North Pole making toys.  Or whatever convoluted story you find yourself making up on the spot.  While I definitely tell my kids a lot of little white lies, (especially if it means they'll quit whining) the subject of Santa seems like a lot of lies.

Even if you don't have a moral objection to lying about something as innocent as Santa Claus, the "if you're naughty" threat does go against one of my parenting philosophies and that is avoiding empty threats.  Something every child expert will tell you is not to issue a threat you can't or won't follow through with.  My kids may drive me nuts sometimes, but they'll never actually get coal in their stockings. 

The question I dread the most surrounding Santa Claus is why he brings some kids gifts and not others, even if they've been good.  There is no good explanation for why "Santa" doesn't bring gifts to poor children, other than the simple truth. 

I was one of those kids who probably believed in Santa Claus way longer than my peers. Or maybe I just happily skipped believing the truth. I asked my mom at one point whether Santa Claus was real and she managed to answer without answering at all by telling me that he's real as long as I continue to believe so in my heart. I don't know when I stopped believing in Santa Claus, but since I'd never been told flat out that he was completely made up, I gradually grew away from believing in the myth. 

As a parent, I'm trying to figure out the right balance for addressing Santa Claus.  I want my kids to believe in Santa, not as a real person, but as a mythical figure who represents the magic and fun of Christmas.  I believe that Christmas can still be special for kids even if they think of Santa as a big game we play every year.  And just as I don't feel the need to go out of my way to get my kids to believe in Santa Claus, I also haven't yet made any attempts to dispel the myth.  Like my mom, I guess I'll just step back and let my kids decide for themselves.   

A very merry brown Christmas

We had what Minnesotans refer to as a brown Christmas - meaning no snow.  And while snow is what I think Chris asks Santa for every year, with a new little one and a toddler, I'm not complaining right now about the lack of it.  Not only am I not climbing over snowbanks with a car seat or trying to push a shopping cart loaded down with children through a slushy parking lot, but we've had some unseasonably warm days as well.  I've been able to do more walking with the stroller than I usually do at this time of year, and the fewer items of clothing you have to bundle your kids in, the easier it is to "dash" out to the car. 

We did have quintessential winter weather earlier in the month when a few inches of snow and brisk temperatures greeted us on the morning we went to pick out our Christmas tree.  But the otherwise lack of snow the rest of the month didn't make the holidays any less festive.  We baked and decorated gingerbread cookies to deliver to our neighbors, sang Christmas carols with friends, received a visit from St. Nicholas, visited the Macy's "A Day in the Life of an Elf" at Santa Land in downtown Minneapolis and baked dozens of cookies for our annual cookie exchange with friends.  Although Oliver was not happy about visiting with Santa Claus at the beginning of the season, he was clearly interested in him as he excitedly pointed out Santa everywhere he saw him, whether it was a glimpse of him in a newspaper ad or a live Santa exiting the grocery store.

After the last trip to the post office had been made, presents had been wrapped and stockings had been hung with care, we packed up the kids and headed to Chris's parent's for the annual Christmas Eve potluck feast where we caught up with each other on a year's worth of news.  We had planned to put Oliver to bed upstairs around his normal bedtime, but before we knew it, it was THREE HOURS past his bedtime, he had consumed nothing but milk and trail mix and he was making repeated laps around the first floor wearing a Santa hat. 

Soren made the rounds among the arms of relatives and introduced himself to those he hadn't met before.  His Great-Grandma Ann particularly fawned over him.  She has Alzheimer's and although I was cognizant of continuously referring to him as her great-grandson or her grandson Chris's son, I was never completely certain she really knew who he was or if she'd remember him later on.  But that didn't seem to matter that night.  She seemed so happy to be able to cuddle a beautiful little baby in her arms and get a few smiles dripping with drool out of him. 

It was a sentimental evening for Chris's grandfather too who cried when he told Chris how proud he was of him and the beautiful family he had created.  Every time he gets to see his beautiful great-grandsons is a blessing, he said.  Now Chris's mom is the type to cry at weddings, but in my observations of the Cheslas, the Chesla men aren't the crying types. So I found the story especially poignant.
Despite the over stimulation of Christmas Eve, Soren kept his night-wakings to a minimum and Oliver slept in. Awesome!

We got Oliver dressed and camera-ready and went downstairs to open presents, but it turned out we were more excited about opening his presents than Oliver was. As soon as the presents had gone under the tree in the days before Christmas, Oliver had trouble staying away from them. He liked sorting them and using them like blocks, but on Christmas morning, he just didn't get the concept of unwrapping them. He'd become engrossed with the most current unwrapped gift and didn't care much that something equally as fun was underneath the wrapping of the next gift.  It was a good reminder for me as a parent that a few special gifts can go a long way.
After our traditional Christmas Day soup and sandwich lunch, and a nap for Oliver, we had a final round of opening presents at the grandparent's. 

This was the first year since moving to Minnesota that I haven't gone back to Philadelphia at Christmas time.  Now that I have a family of my own and Minnesota feels like home to me, I like being able to spend Christmas here, have my kids wake up on Christmas morning in their own beds and maintain as stress-free of a holiday for them by limiting the number of celebrations we attend and banning travel on the actual holiday days.  Unfortunately, it is impossible to be in two places at once.  So that means there were four of us missing from the Partenheimer Christmas celebration back in Philadelphia.  The first couple of Christmases after my mom died were really tough.  Bu the holidays are once again happier and more lively times now that my dad is remarried.  My brother, dad and I didn't just get a new step-mom/wife, but a whole extra family with Debbie's daughter, son-in-law, two kids, as well as her mom and mom's new husband.  With eleven people gathered around their table on Christmas Eve, they achieved having the most people come together for a Partenheimer Christmas.  So even though we couldn't have been two places at once, that doesn't mean I didn't fantasize about it being possible, or at least how I could convince the Philadelphia relatives to move to Minnesota.

A Book on Every Bed

The "A Book on Every Bed" campaign is simple.  Place a book on your kid's bed on Christmas morning (or whatever holiday you celebrate) and spread the love of reading.  The campaign's goal is to put a million books on a million beds because, alarmingly, significantly less than half of kids in the U.S. have books in their homes and/or have parents who read to them regularly. 

Oliver and Soren are lucky, because they will never be lacking books since I think kids can never have enough of them.  (Even if they just want to read the same few over and over again.)  If relatives or friends want to spoil them, then spoil them with books.

I happened to read about "A Book on Every Bed" shortly before I took the kids to story time at our favorite kids bookstore.  They get books from Mom and Dad every birthday and Christmas, so I decided that in the spirit of the campaign, I'd make sure two more books are added to the tally.  We'll see what books await Soren and Oliver at the foot of their crib or bed this Christmas morning.

Soren's first St. Nicholas Day

Oliver helped Soren observe his first St. Nicholas Day by eating his chocolate.  I had made a special exception in allowing Oliver to eat the Hershey's kisses St. Nicholas had brought, but gosh, those little size 6.5 shoes can hold a lot of candy!  So I eventually cut him off. Oliver whined and cried when I put his Hershey's Kisses-filled shoes out of reach, until he discovered he could pilfer some Kisses from Soren's shoes. (Even his little shoes fit a lot of candy.)  I guess Oliver figured Soren wasn't going to eat his candy anyway...

With his chocolate supply cut off for the morning, Oliver still got to enjoy a Clementine and a handful of trail mix with breakfast.

Christmas carols

I can't sing, can't read music, never can remember more than the first line of a song and don't even really have much interest in music, let alone singing.  I'm often embarrassed to sing in groups, lest I annoy the person next to me by singing so horribly out of key.  Heck, I'm self-conscious about singing in front of my own kids.  But the nostalgia of Christmas carols is too strong to stop me from wanting to sing along.

So I actually enjoyed myself when I attended a "Carols and Cocoa" party friends hosted.  I couldn't have found a more wholesome Advent season gathering.  In an era of over-scheduled calendars and music on demand, how many of us have the opportunity to sit around the piano with our kids and friends, mugs of cocoa in hand, and sing Christmas carols? 

They even provided a packets with the lyrics for those of us who don't know the words past Fa la la la la, la la la la.

Maybe next year

We had prepped Oliver by asking if he'd been naughty or nice, whether he'd been a good boy this year and what he wanted for Christmas, but this year he didn't even give Santa a chance to ask.  Last Christmas he was none too happy about sitting on Santa's lap, but he couldn't walk yet and wasn't as strong, so he didn't have much recourse when he was plopped on Santa's lap.  This year he's a full-fledged toddler with a (strong) will of his own.  Letting him swipe as many cookies as he wanted from the snack table had kept him in good spirits while we waited in line, but right before it was his turn to visit with the jolly old man and his sweet wife, Oliver made it clear he was  not interested. So while Oliver hung back with Dad, I took advantage of Soren napping, placed him in Mrs. Claus's arms and got my photo op with at least one of my kids with the Clauses.

We tried cheering Oliver up by taking him over to have his face painted.  Oliver LOVES painting - he'd been talking about it since he got up that morning.  Except he didn't understand that he wasn't getting to paint - that someone was going to paint for him instead.  He probably thought, what's the fun in that?  He sat patiently at the table at first and eyed the paints, brushes and paper, but became increasingly agitated when no one granted his requests for "paint" and "brush."  We decided to leave before a full meltdown ensued and we literally carried him away from the table. 

As we left, we saw a couple of other kids Oliver's age who cried at the sight of Santa Claus, so it's clearly the age.  I guess we'll just have to try again next year.

Advent Calendar

Although it's not quite December, Thanksgiving has passed and we can officially get ready for Christmas.  I had been on the hunt for a wooden Advent Calendar, the kind with 24 little doors or drawers, perfect for stashing pieces of chocolate.  I never found what I was looking for, but did stumble across the idea for an Envelope Advent Calendar, where each envelope contains an activity for the day.  Chris and I think this will be a nice tradition for the boys, because it encourages us to do something fun and festive together as a family each day leading up to Christmas.  And the set-up of the calendar is something I can pull off easily despite having few crafting supplies and even less talent or creativity.  With a clothesline and clothespins, a box of small white envelopes, a sheet of labels to print the template of numbers onto and some note cards, I'm set.

Chris and I brainstormed as many toddler-friendly ideas as we could and wrote them out on note cards.  (Including a picture representing the activity would have been nice since Oliver can't read yet.)  Some of the activities we are planning to do anyway, like pick out a Christmas tree, and others are just fun and simple, like eating a Christmas cookie for afternoon snack instead of one of the usual healthful options.  Planning the Advent Calendar made us think about how to instill the fun of the Christmas season with other activities Oliver would like to do.  And it gets us to plan and commit.  It's easy to come up with ideas and then not go do them. 

Some of the activities Oliver has to look forward to in December:

• Pick out Christmas tree
• Decorate the Christmas tree
• Have a snowball fight
• Build a fort
• Build a snowman.
• Bake gingerbread cookies
• Visit Santa
• Take a drive to see Christmas lights
• Read Christmas stories
• Go sledding
• Eat a Christmas cookie for snack
• Open one present early
• Decorate Christmas cards
• Paint a picture of a snow scene
• Shop for a present for Soren
• Make a Christmas ornament
• Go to the zoo
• Help Mom wrap Christmas presents
• Attend Christmas cookie exchange
• Watch How The Grinch Stole Christmas
• Bring a green and red ball to swimming lessons
• Visit the Night Train exhibit at the Twin City Model Railroad Museum
• Skype with a relative we don't see often
• Sing Christmas carols

To keep the activities as flexible as possible, we won't put a note card in an envelope until the night before.  We noticed we have a lot activities that require there to be snow, but if the ground stays barren, those activities will be recycled until next year.

Christmas, Part Two

Delta never did answer their phones, so I religiously logged onto their website with my travel itinerary confirmation number in hand and discovered that I had been automatically rebooked on an afternoon flight on Tuesday, December 28 via Memphis and getting in after 11:00 p.m. into Philadelphia. Having a connection and arriving so late wasn't ideal, but it was doable, even with a 15-month-old, and I didn't think I had any other option. So after being able to relax much of Monday, I started packing after Oliver went to bed and made arrangements to take a cab to the airport the next day. At 11:10 p.m. we finally touched down in Philadelphia. Chris joined us two days later, as scheduled.

Whenever I go on vacation or visit people I haven't seen in awhile, I have grand plans of what I'm going to do with my time away. Despite having an extra two days to relax at home in St. Paul, I arrived with a bad cold and feeling completely wiped. Nights were late, whether due to picking up Chris late at the airport or celebrating New Year's Eve, mornings were early because of Oliver, and my time during the day was devoted to spending with family for the little time I was going to be in New Jersey. I couldn't catch up on sleep even if I tried. So some of best-intentioned plans, like taking advantage of free admission to the Philadelphia's Please Touch Museum using our Minnesota Children's Museum membership, were side-lined in favor of hanging out closer to home, taking walks in town and going to the local library (where Oliver was more interested in spinning the DVD carousel and ripping magazines off the shelves than he was in reading books).

Despite fighting exhaustion and not doing everything I wanted to do, I enjoyed what we were able to do, like spending a day at my new step sister's, where Oliver got to hang with his older cousins, visiting my grandmother, who marveled at anything Oliver did and hosting New Year's Eve dinner with my brother for a group of friends. Although our delayed arrival meant we missed seeing my uncle, we managed to make up time with everyone else and, most importantly, they all got to spend time with Oliver.

And despite the hours spent in an airplane, delayed bedtimes, missed naps, napping in different locations and whatever else we subjected Oliver to, he handled it all as well as you could ask of a 15-month-old. Letting him sleep became my top priority and I tried mitigating the stress with an uncharacteristically liberal use of a pacifier and lots of snacks. When well-fed and well-rested, Oliver adapted to our ever-changing schedule and new people.

We're back in Minnesota now, still unpacking and readjusting to our old schedules. I can hardly believe it's January and Christmas is really past. Eventually we'll get the tree down and Christmas decorations put away. Maybe I'll finally have a chance to take a breather and reflect on the memories of the whirlwind 2010 holiday season.

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.

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.

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.