Christmas 2009

Jeff chided me for not posting anything about Thanksgiving, so I promised I would post something about our Christmas this year.

It really was rather quiet. We invited a couple of families over, but got no takers, so we had a very low-key, largely pajama-clad day. Emily suggested that we have pull-aparts for breakfast, so she and I started the morning by making the dough. While the breadmaker did its thing, we opened a few gifts. Once the dough was ready, the whole family (even Larry!) convened in the kitchen and rolled balls of dough, coated them in butter, and covered them in a brown sugar-cinnamon mixture. While that was rising and then baking, we opened more gifts. After a break to eat, we finished up the gift madness, and relaxed a bit.

Both Emily and Larry got new digital cameras:



Sarah enjoyed some Dr. Who related gifts...



a marshmallow shooter (courtesy of Emily)...



and some new rain boots! (She hates rain boots, but loves Converse sneakers. I'm hoping maybe she'll wear these high-tops as a lark...)



Emily received some new games for her Nintendo DS, along with a cool gaming chair for her room. Complete with new earbuds, she's set!



A couple of gifts involved no technology at all. Here, Emily sports her new jacket from Nana and Papa and knit cap from Mom. Who knew we'd chosen the same color? Couldn't be more perfect!



Among other things, Larry got a new sweater (we picked it out on our Canada trip over the summer)...



and a radiometer - just for fun!



The big gift for the whole family was a Wii. We decided it was time we caught up with the rest of the world before this technology is obsolete. Now Sarah can play the Harry Potter game she won at Azkatraz, and I'm hoping the Wii Fit we got to go with it will help me lose some weight in the new year!



Sarah and Emily decided to figure out on their own how to hook it up. They came petty close, and, with minimal help from Larry to finish things up, were playing tennis and bowling in no time at all. I have to admit, it is pretty fun.

Since we had no company, I kept our Christmas dinner simple. We had garlic pork roast, cranberry wild rice, green beans with bacon and brown sugar, and red (apple) and green (grapes) fruit salad. For dessert: a plum torte I made and froze back in October, with whipped cream.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I watched some more Christmas movies, we all tried out the Wii, and enjoyed having a chance to just relax and spend some time together as a family.

More Christmas Decorations

I suppose since I showed pictures of my mantles, I ought to publish some of my other decorations from this year's Christmas season.

Our Christmas tree did not rain needles on us as we decorated it, and is holding up quite nicely. It really does have a pretty shape, and may be one of the nicest trees we've had in a number of years. I still love how every one of our ornaments - most one of a kind, and many handmade - tells its own story.



The banister sports its usual array of pine cones and berries.



I love assembling 3-D puzzles. Problem is, once I get them put together, I don't want to tear them apart again! I've had this Victorian house for 12+ years and still love it. Some years ago, when we were still living in Arizona, my mother decided to make Christmas greenery to decorate the outside of the Victorian house. We've saved those mini garlands and wreaths, and use them every year to ready our miniature puzzle house for the season.



Here's our house. Wonder what its inspiration was?



By the way, here's the neighbor's pyracantha bush that yielded its berries for our mantle decor. Didn't I read somewhere once that heavy berry growth foretells a colder-than-usual winter? If so, we're in for a doozy, because there are lots of berries everywhere this year!

Well, the weather outside is frightful...

It truly has been frightful lately. Once the arctic snap ended, we got our classic Portland winter rain and standard low 40's temperatures. Pretty manageable. But then the rain stopped, the thermometer eased its way down a bit, and the winds picked up. Just so you know, we get some wicked winds here in December and January. Gusts can reach the 50 mph mark easily. So, the thermometer might say it's 32, but the wind chill brings it down into the 20's. And it sounds like a banshee is wailing outside the house. That's what we've had going on here for the past week or so. It's funny, but even after living here for 10+ years, I still can't get used to seeing fir tree detritus in the yard and gutters after a wind storm. I grew up with leaves, so it still takes me aback a little.



Today, I got up and noted that the wind had stopped, and the weather seemed to be changing. I think my observations jinxed us. The girls and I left the house to get our H1N1 vaccinations and to run errands. Famished after waiting two hours for our shots, we decided to get some lunch. In the middle of our meal, Emily suddenly said, "Oh, my gosh, it's snowing!" And was it ever. Not forecasted, it caught us completely off guard. It was coming down hard and fast, and that meant we needed to forego our errands and make our way home quickly. If you've ever visited us, you know that you have to climb a rather impressive hill to get to our neighborhood. And, when it snows and the streets get covered, we can get snowed in - or need to chain up the tires to go anywhere. The fear is that we'll get caught downhill and won't be able to make it up to our house (nearly happened to Larry once...).

We made it home just in time because we ended up getting nearly 4 inches within 3 hours. We built a fire in the fireplace and sat next to it playing games in the light of the Christmas tree with snow gently falling just outside the living room window. Very peaceful and cozy.

Darkness has come upon us quickly and the opportunity for pictures is rather limited...



Emily is out playing in it now - because it's supposed to warm up and rain tonight. Her masterpiece is a Dr. Who-inspired Weeping Angel snow sculpture. No mere snowman for her!



By morning, it may be washed away completely. I hope so, since I have two doctor's appointments, the girls are both due at the dentist for a cleaning, and I have a party to attend tomorrow night - our busiest winter break day yet!

In the meantime, Larry has to go in to work tonight, so he's putting chains on his tires in an effort to get there in one piece. Poor baby...



We'll see how it looks in the morning, and whether we can make it to any of our appointments! In the meantime, it is pretty...

Failed Birthday Celebration :(

We really need to simplify our lives. I came down with some kind of stomach bug a couple of days before my birthday, and spent it and the day before stretched out on the sofa feeling queasy and sleeping as much as possible. We had plans to go out to dinner to celebrate my big day, but I didn't feel up to it. Somehow, sitting in a riverside seafood restaurant, watching the Christmas Ships parade by (usually such an enjoyable evening) didn't appeal. No problem; we'd just find another date.

So we compared schedules. Trying to accommodate Larry's work schedule, my performance schedule, and Sarah's babysitting and social life has proved utterly fruitless. I'm singing two nights, Sarah is babysitting or going to parties with her friends two more... The earliest dinner date we can come up with is December 23rd. Too close to Christmas - I'll still be wrapping gifts and baking cookies by then. Guess we'll have to put off my birthday dinner until after Christmas.

It's pretty sad when the joy of the holidays interferes with the joy of having a day all your own. Larry keeps suggesting we should both celebrate our half-birthdays in June instead, but that's not when I was born, and it just doesn't feel right. I think we just need to simplify our lives - or be sure to stay well a week before Christmas!

Christmas greenery

Every year I decorate our mantles and add a touch of greenery. Usually, I buy a mantle swag and arrange the items around it. But this year I had an epiphany; we live in the Pacific Northwest where we are surrounded by conifers. Why not just snip some greenery from our backyard and use it? I did just that and arranged it in and around the mantle decorations, and, I do believe it's the prettiest they've ever been. Isn't it amazing what thoughts of economy can do for the imagination?

Family Room Mantle:



Living Room Mantle:

Christmas Tree Saga

We have a holiday tradition at our house. We go out to a tree farm and cut down a Christmas tree - usually the first weekend in December, so we'll have plenty of time to enjoy it. We bring it home, and leave it on top of the car for a few hours, because, what's the rush? We take it off, usually after dark when it's extra challenging, and place it in a bucket of water where it sits for several days until we have time to bring it in the house and place it in the tree stand.

This year, it was extra fun. We were a bit bummed that it wasn't raining when we headed out to find the tree. (There's nothing quite like trudging through a forest of trees in the cold, damp rain for an hour or more, then kneeling down in the mud with a saw...) No, it wasn't raining this year, but it was cold. In fact, it was 27 or so degrees when we found the perfect tree. Lots to choose from this year; we went to a different farm, and the selection was GREAT! We found a beautiful Noble Fir - our favorite - in record time, and got it home, where we promptly left it on the car for the requisite length of time per our habit. That night, we placed it in the standard bucket of water and leaned it up against the house - just like always.

Did I mention it was 27 degrees? And did I mention that the forecast showed that to be the high all week? No rain or other forms of precipitation were expected, but the thermometer plummeted. Did we think of that when we plunged the tree into a bucket of water? Apparently not. By morning, we realized our folly, and by then, of course, the bucket of water had become a bucket of ice. What to do?



We moved the tree into the garage where it surely would thaw in a day or two... But no. Temperatures continued to drop, until one morning I headed to my morning pool workout, and saw a thermometer that read 9 degrees! (News flash: when it's that cold, an uninsulated garage isn't much warmer than outside.) Larry left all the lights in the garage on for a day or two, but that didn't do a bit of good.

I thought we were destined to bring the tree into the house in its bucket of ice, but decided on one more approach. Remember the space heater and heat lamp we used to attempt to dry out under the sink after the dishwasher leak? I took them out to the garage and placed them, along with a drop light, artfully around the bucket in an attempt to finally thaw the damn thing out.



After 12 hours or so, we had slush. Larry and the kids finished the job by pouring warm water into the bucket, and - finally - we were able to extricate the tree from its imprisonment.

It's in the house now, and, eventually, we'll get the lights on and decorate it, but, what's the rush? There are still 10 more days before Christmas! The big question: will it suffer any ill effects from the ice? It may be raining needles as we try to hang ornaments!



Maybe next year we should rethink our Christmas tree tradition...

Schedule change!

Well, my sub job ended just in time. I finished up with my fifth graders just before Thanksgiving, and the timing couldn't have been better. With all the holiday preparations, decorating, shopping (and don't forget birthdays!), I needed this time off. On top of that, my choir has eleven(!) performances this year, averaging three per week! I think I would be a crazy person right now if I were working full time, too. I still get called in to work a day here and there; I've been doing a lot of half days these last couple of weeks, and that's been perfect. If I work afternoons, I can still go exercise in the pool in the mornings, and that feels good. We'll see what the new year brings. Maybe I'll have time to get some deferred maintenance done around here!

We're warped...

Well, it's official: we're warped. We finally got brave enough to take all the weight off the water-damaged floor and take a peek at the wood. The verdict: it's no flatter now than when we first attempted to "fix" it. We now realize that, because there's a ceiling below it, rather than a slab, it merely flexed with the extra weight applied. We will have to have it repaired. Ugh! I shudder at the thought of the hassle and dust that implies! I do believe it can be sanded down rather than having to replace floorboards, so it could be worse. In the meantime, we're trying to ignore it...

Halloween 2009

Halloween was on a Saturday this year, and there was a full moon. I don't know about your neighborhood, but things were not the norm here...

To start out, both Sarah and Emily were invited to parties and sleepovers, which included trick-or-treating in other neighborhoods. Sarah and her friends trick-or-treated for the Troops; Emily and her friends for themselves. :-)

It seems that all the teenagers in our neighborhood took off for places unknown. All we saw last night were young kids. As a result, it was an early night. Things started hopping around 6:30 and went non-stop for about an hour or more. By 7:45 or 8:00, it was all over. We went through a lot of stuff in that period (we give out trinkets instead of candy); next year we'll have to start fresh.

Sarah resurrected her Hogwarts uniform that she put together for the Harry Potter convention, and went as a student from Hufflepuff House, complete with robe and wand.



Emily, always on the quest for inanimate objects to dress as, went as a gumball machine. It was quite the challenge to make, as the concept was for the bag to inflate to give it that round appearance that a good gumball machine should have. We layered two clear garbage bags together, cut arm- and leg-holes and taped those openings together. Emily blew up several dozen water balloons with air and placed them inside the layered bags - instant gum balls! We taped the top of the bag, and turned it down to make a casing that we put a drawstring through, thus allowing it to be drawn in at the neck. Next, we devised a valve and placed it on her shoulder, so that if the bag needed reinflating along the way, it would be easy for her to get to. The result, though not as perfectly round as would have been ideal, was pretty cute!



We carved our infamous jack-o-lanterns - two this year - and were quite proud of the results.



We had a spooky tree...



... and a haunted house.



All in all, a success - though we don't have as much candy around here as usual! Whatever shall we do?!