Weekly recap + what we ate: The week before Christmas

Happy New Year. And just like that we are in a new year, another revolve around the sun. I feel like I am just now digging my self out of all the mounds of wrapping paper and packing material and dirty dishes and carbs that is the wake of Christmas. All evidence of our good fortune to have gifts to wrap and food to dirty dishes, so I can’t see it all as too much of a burden to reset.

The week that was before Christmas was… very full. Perhaps a little too full in some areas. I was reading my journal entry from the week before Christmas last year, 2021, and this reflection struck me:
“I feel like I’m doing that thing where I do a lot of last minute Christmas buying, and it’s a little out of control… There are an infinite number of things that are designed to be minorly useful but majorly appealing in the Christmas rush. I just need to resist. And think what would actually add value if given right now. Too many presents dull the worth of each thing. On paper, two or three toys doesn’t seem like a lot, but on Christmas Day, it is enough.”
As I ventured out to stores last week, I kept thinking of those thoughts that 2021 me wrote. It seemed like there was a huge list of stocking stuffers, groceries, and last minute presents to procure. And at one point, I simply told myself, “Okay, I’m done.” The mental and financial wells were just tapped. So on Thursday I decided that I was not going to anymore stores – I don’t know by what industrial complex I was feeling pressured to keep going to stores, but I was ready to stop listening to it. There were still things on my shopping list, but I realized that list was so arbitrary. And the list didn’t make Christmas, or family memories, or times of peace and relaxation. So I migrated some of the things on that list to the birthday list – because they were fun ideas that I thought the kids might still enjoy – or I put them on the “everyday” list – because they were necessary things that I masqueraded as Christmas present, but which I should just buy for the kids anyway because they needed them – and I stayed home and made three batches of cookie dough. And went to the theatre with friends. And went to the movies with the family. And went to church. And savored the biting cold. And was grateful that I wasn’t trying to drive or fly anywhere.

Fun and Festive things from the week:
–Celebrating our anniversary. Our sitter had to cancel at the last minute because she wasn’t feeling well, and I was a little bummed. But the ten year old, made us a banner and cut out paper hearts and put them on the couch in front of the TV and told the Husband and I that we could have a movie date at home and she would take care of the two little kids. And she did. I had already made dinner, so she fed the kids and kept them entertained and brought the Husband and I dinner in the basement as well. It was the sweetest thing. The Husband and I watched See How They Run, an Agatha Christie inspired murder mystery set against a production of The Mousetrap. It was highly entertaining and funny and so very meta. Then after the movie, instead of turning on something else on to watch, we decided to turn off the tv and just read books while sitting on the couch together as the ten year old (tried to) put her siblings to bed. It was not the evening that we planned, but it was pretty nice. (And a lot cheaper than what we had planned.)

– Zoolights. We met up with some friends for the Zoo’s holiday light display. This was the first year that the Zoo has held Zoolights since the pandemic, and people had to sign up for tickets in advance, which made it a lot less crowded than it used to be. That certainly made navigating the zoo a lot easier than in the past. The lights were beautiful, and there were some new lantern animals. We were a little disappointed, though, that the animal houses weren’t open; in the past, some of the animal houses were open so we could see animals as well as lights. Oh well. Things change. It was a pretty late night. After we spent a few hours walking through the lights, we went to an Indian restaurant for dinner, and by the time we got done with dinner it was almost 10:00pm and we still had about a 45 minute metro ride home. I will say the kids were all real troopers with all the walking and the late dinner – they were a little restless at dinner, but didn’t complain. They were probably too tired to whine. On the way home, the baby sat on my lap for the train ride home. And fell asleep. Then while sleeping, peed on my lap. It was probably all that water she drank during dinner. Any thought I had that she might be ready to night time toilet train… well that answered that. When we got home around 10:30p, I carried her home – the Husband offered, but I figured only one of us needed to be pee soaked. But even with arriving home pee soaked, it had been a pretty wonderful evening.

–Making Holiday Cards with the Kids. I wanted the kids to do something hands on for the teacher cards, so I used painter’s tape to create some images on cards and had the kids paint over it. Once the cards were dry, we peeled off the painter’s tape and voila! Some of the cards turned out a little runny because the baby spilled an entire container of water all over the cards, but I think it gave the cards and nice blurred quality. I always like this technique because it’s pretty simple to execute, but I think highly effective visually. The kids even made some of their own designs too.

– Seeing a musical. I went to see a production of Beauty and The Beast with my friend and her kids. Originally the ten year old was supposed to come, but she wasn’t feeling well, so I took the five year old and the three year old instead. The three year old did pretty well, although she got upset when Belle and her father was separated and spent the rest of the show cuddling on my lap. Afterwards she said, “I like the show, but I don’t want to go back there again.” Not sure how to interpret that. I had a good time, though. I did feel like the show itself is a touch too long – it’s pretty much the Disney movie with four or five additional songs, and it seemed like it took a long time for Belle and the Beast to meet and start their journey. Despite that, the production felt really special because of the casting of the leads; Belle was played by a self described “queer curvy” Black actor, and the Beast was played by an actor who had only one leg. (There’s a story in People Magazine about the production.) And at first, I though they were going to take a “blind” approach to the casting, where we weren’t supposed to notice that one actor had a peg leg or one actor was a different body type than what you would usually see onstage, but then I noticed they changed some of the words (replaced “fair” with “fine”, took out places where the word “fat” was used), and then there was a moment (spoiler here… ) at the end, when Gaston and the Beast are fighting when Gaston grabbed the Beasts artificial leg and it was just stunning. You could see that this production wasn’t pretending that the two people playing the lead were stereotypical fairy tale storybook leads – their idea of “Beauty” was based on more than superficial appearances. It was a really bold statement to make onstage.

–Celebrating Hannukah with friends – The friends we went to the theatre with were Jewish and they invited us back to their house for dinner and to light Hannukah candles after the show. It was a lovely evening with friends, especially since our kids are all of the age where they can just play with each other and the adults can talk and have a beer and not constantly worry about what the kids were doing. And to top it all off, my friends even gave me an early birthday present – a camping chair! They are avid campers and every time I go camping, I have always borrowed a chair from them, and now I have my own. I’m so delighted that my friend and I can now sit in matching camp chairs by the camp fire.

–Seeing It’s A Wonderful Life in the movie theatre. There is movie theatre near us that was showing classic Christmas movies and on Christmas Eve, they had a matinee of It’s A Wonderful Life, so we got tickets and went to see it. We always watch It’s a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve, and I thought this might be an extra special way to watch it. We took the bus to the movie theatre – discovering a new to us bus route that is a block closer to our house than the bus route we would have usually taken to the theatre – that felt pretty awesome, to discover a new bus route. And we got popcorn and soda – though I accidentally dropped my popcorn on the floor as I was leaving the concession stand, and I almost had a meltdown over that tiny thing, but the theatre gave me another bag to make up for it.
A nice touch was that the film was introduced by Jeremy Arnold, a film historian, who talked about the history of the movie. He pointed out how there is a film noir tone to the movie and how Frank Capra’s movie encompasses so many film styles, which I had never thought about before, but it did made me appreciate the craft of the film a little more. Also – fun tidbit, the film won a technical Oscar for an innovative way of creating snowfall. There sure is a lot of snowfall in the movie! The kids seemed to have a good time, though the three year old eventually ended up in my lap again. And fell asleep. And then peed in my lap. Perhaps having her split a large soda with me and her brother wasn’t such a great idea. So yes, twice in one week, a sleeping child peed in my lap.
It was pretty bitterly cold when we left the movie, and I hadn’t brought a change of clothes for the baby, so I gave her my puffer vest to wear in hopes that she wouldn’t be too cold in her pee soaked pants. We popped into the mall in hopes of buying her some pants, but then the husband saw that the next bus home was arriving in two minutes, so we decided just to get on the bus. At which point I discovered that I had left my phone at the movie theatre. The Husband and kids got on the bus and I went back to try to find my phone, which at first no one had seen and I was starting to panic, but then the lady at the ticked desk asked around and someone did end up having it. All in all, it was a lot of excitement for one afternoon.

–Our Christmas Eve Tradition. The Husband’s family had a tradition of reading The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve. (I guess technically it’s A Visit from St. Nicholas, but no one calls it that, do they?) My late mother-in-law had about a dozen copies of the poem in picture book form and when she passed, we brought them all into our home. Our Christmas Eve tradition is after church, we have dinner, then the kids get Christmas pjs, and we read The Night Before Christmas, each person picking out one copy to read from. We go around taking turns reading and we show each other the pictures in our books and compare how each artist interpreted the poem. This year, I bought a new version to add to our collection – I had come across Loren Long’s version while picking up some stocking stuffers at Barnes and Noble and I loved how he rotates the story through several different households. I thought it felt like a really fresh take on the poem.

And then we were at Christmas, which I’ll save for another post…

Grateful for:
– The ten year old’s faith in Santa. I don’t know if she still truly believes in Santa. But she believes in the magic of him – she helps her younger siblings write letters to Santa and tells them about him. She puts out cookies and milk on Christmas Eve, and even writes him a letter, expecting a reply. It’s pretty magical.
-The Husband being safe. One day last week, it was raining and the weather was awful, and he got into a car accident. It was pretty ugly, but I’m really glad that he wasn’t hurt.
-The local Botanical Gardens. I was feeling really overwhelmed one day, and I decided to go to the Botanical Gardens to sit and it was the pause I needed that day.
-Connecting with friends.

One last thing… I was pretty flabbergasted by this display which I saw in the grocery store as I was on the hunt for candy canes. (Which, incidentally, I had a really difficult time finding. I finally found one box of small candy canes tucked way in the back of a shelf at Target.).

I couldn’t find candy canes during the week before Christmas, but I could stock up for Valentine’s Day. Wow.

What We Ate:
Saturday: I went out to dinner with my friend – there was a band playing at the local Irish pub, and she knew one of the musicians so we went to listen.

Sunday: Can’t remember…

Monday: Turkey meatballs with pasta and red sauce.

Tuesday: Stir fried vegetables with noodles, and stir fried cabbage from Vegetarian Chinese Soul Food by Hsiao-Ching Chou. I borrowed this cookbook from the library in an attempt to cook more vegetarian food and I love how simple and flavorful the recipes are.

Wednesday: Indian food after Zoo Lights

Thursday: Vegetarian Chili from The Weekday Vegetarian. This chili’s secret ingredient was dark chocolate – which gave it a smoky mole flavor. I would put a little less chocolate in it next time – the chocolate flavor was a little pronounced.

Friday: Peruvian Chicken and Pizza Take Out

Saturday: Frozen tortellini and red sauce.

Sunday: Christmas Dinner – roast lamb leg (used this recipe), butternut squash salad (from America’s Test Kitchen. no one really ate this; it was a little undercooked), Scalloped potatoes, Jello ribbon salad (from my Mother In Law’s recipe), Filipino sweet rolls (this recipe from Saveur), broccoli (simply seared in pan with salt and pepper), and sticky toffee pudding for dessert.