Christmas in the Sheep Fields

A few days ago I posted a Facebook status that asked, "Does it count as being in the Christmas spirit if you don't feel like doing any of the work?"

I meant it to be a bit flippant, but the more I think about it, the more it sums up my feelings about Christmas this year. Generally one is expected to either be exuberantly dashing about to stores and parties or bah-humbugging along (usually while still dashing about to stores and parties).

There is no Dasher in me this year. Yet I bear no ill-will toward Christmas. It's still delightful. The lights twinkle just as well, the songs play just as merrily, the occasional social event is just as much fun.

But when it comes to my personal contribution to the festivities, well, I hope to show up. In something that bears no stains or rips more than an hour old. I have baked a couple batches of cookies, and that was plenty, and I have wrapped two or three gifts for each duckling (and only the ducklings) from the remnants of last summer's yard sales, and that was plenty. The tree was decorated once, but ducklings somehow quite innocently keep getting entangled in the lower reaches, so it now looks like the result of an ornament fight in the woods.

In a brief, quickly-abandoned attempt to write a Christmas letter I dug through this year's blog archives and remembered last year's Christmas. (And marveled again at the phenomenon that the stuff I wrote a year or more ago is always so much more profound and witty than the present drivel.) The twins were in the six-month growth spurt, nursing night and day and just learning how to gag down a few bites of applesauce.

Nights have certainly improved since then: how quickly one learns to take eleven hours of quiet for granted. But days have become much, much more complicated. The babies who napped twice a day, rolled about in a blanket in the corner, or rode along in mei tais have turned into The Energizer Bunnies of Chaos. Just opening the refrigerator door is an exercise in strategic withdrawal, as by the time the necessary object is removed, one or more inquisitive heads will be blocking its closure.

No wonder by the time nap time or bedtime hits, I can't come up with the energy to tackle a beautiful and creative Christmas project--or even the energy to care that I don't. I could berate myself over my laxness or express bitterness over various cultural expectations, but I don't really want to. I think all that stuff is very fun, I just don't want to this year. Some years one can be a Magi, bearing gifts from afar, and some years one is a shepherd, showing up impromptu and unequipped with a crowd of stinky sheep. The manger is open to all.

I wonder if God sent the angels to the shepherds and the star for the wise men because he knew the shepherds wouldn't have a clue what the star was about and the wise men wouldn't believe the angel--or, at least, would not enjoy it as much as working out all their star position charts. There's a messenger that's right for each of us, and I think mine will show up while I'm sitting in the rocking chair by the Christmas tree, singing carols to two howling toddlers who just fell and bonked their heads again.

Crismis is Cumyn . . .

and D1 is happily decorating every house she is given access to with seasonal signs, on which she sometimes consults over spelling and sometimes not. She even got D2 into the game, laboriously copying out The Twelve Days of Christmas, although she only got as far as "Six geese a-laying" and D2 gave up the attempt midway through the fourth word.

This morning they asked me if I wanted to hear the song they had composed. They stood next to their advent calendar and sang for each day's creature: "Oh, the cow is white and the camel is peach and the bird is white and the sheep is gray and the angel is red . . . " all the way through to "and Mary is blue and Joseph is green and baby Jesus is white" "no, brown" "no, white" "no, brown."

At lunchtime they were rehearsing the angel chorus for the Christmas program and after reciting "Good will toward men," D1 asked, "But what about the ladies?"

So, a merry and inclusive Christmas to all of you!

Spam, Spam, Spam

I've been getting a lot of comment spam lately, so I've turned off anonymous comments. If you have a problem with this, I'm not sure what you should do about it. Cry, perhaps.

Settling In

People keep asking us if we are settled in yet. It is hard to say, as I am not sure what being settled in would look like. If measured by intentions to unpack more boxes, then we're pretty settled. Indeed, I'm wondering why we packed all that other stuff.

On the other hand, I'm not sure settling in is on the agenda list. When we first arrived, we dashed around doing lots of networking and job hunting. Then we spent a couple of weeks just sleeping as much as possible. Now DOB has begun his bar preparation (interspersed with a lot of sleeping) and I am mostly trying to keep everyone else from interrupting. And, when I can, sleep.

The extra time with the kids means we have been doing a bit more school . . . but only if they are very good and help with the housework first. D1 is really taking off with reading, and also likes writing her own stories. Her spelling still being loosely phonetic, reading them is an invigorating challenge, rather like puzzling out Beowulf. "WOCT . . . hmm . . . oh, walked!"

We have also been studying the planets and anything else related to outer space that catches our fancy. They made some marbled paper with food coloring and oil and a lot of mess on the counter, and then they cut it out into suitably-colored and proportioned planets to post on our windows.

It's been clear and cold lately, but everyone was happy to see St. Nicholas had put mittens in their shoes on Sunday morning, so we bundle up at least once a day and go out to soak in a few minutes of sunshine. The challenge is finding it--I had forgotten just how low the sun is in the sky this far north. Even at noon the sun has to find a gap in the trees. When we are feeling very inspired, we bundle up at bedtime and go out to look at the stars. (If you want to get up at 2 a.m. on the 14th, there's supposed to be a great meteor shower, but I, for one, will not.)

Yesterday I managed to make three varieties of Christmas cookies with the older ducklings' assistance and didn't lose my mind once. The babies were not allowed to participate. However, they do get to sing with us, and D3 has taken to patting our mouths with her slobbery hand and insisting, "Song! Song!"

D1 Explains Life

D1, at breakfast one day: "Hey, I figured it out: people get married and have kids, and then thur kids get married and have kids, and then thur kids get married and have kids. And people are born every day, and people die every day."

Today she asked me, "How do I know, when I'm listening, what is what I am thinking and what is what I am listening to?"

Suitable for All Ages

We could put on serious faces and explain that the reason our children don't watch television is out of concern for their morals or mental development or the health of their eyes.

The real truth, though, is that we just hate children's television. If Dante had known about it, he probably would have peopled one of the less-serious levels of hell with images of singing, dancing, oversincere hosts spouting babble about Being Nice.

Unfortunately, from what I've read, it is exactly the programming that is most tedious for adults that actually has marginal benefit for children. The slow, boring, repetitive kind, not the kind with amusing in-jokes.

So we've simply operated on the assumption that we will let the children watch television when they are old enough to enjoy the kind of things we want to watch. This is tricky, since preschoolers don't process things as adults do. This was driven home to me when we got to the climactic scenes in Little House on the Prairie and D2 didn't want to read anymore. The realistic emotional strain of the tension between the settlers and the natives was too much for him, even though no actual harm ensued or was even directly threatened.

On the other hand, give him a story with tigers threatening to eat people up, poisoned apples, or sword-wielding knights, and he'll listen with glowing eyes. It's not about the degree of violence, it's about the safety of the delivery package.

We've discussed letting them watch a Christmas movie with us, but it was obvious that some "family favorites" would just not be suitable: It's a Wonderful Life, for instance, would be terrifying to small children. (We might settle on White Christmas; bombs falling is not such a big deal.)

But the other night we had promised D1 that she could sleep in the living room, and we also wanted to watch a dvd ourselves. And then we realized we had struck upon the perfect balance of suitability. The series we wanted to watch contained nothing frightening, no disturbing images or bad language or examples of children misbehaving.

Which is why D1 is now watching Jeeves and Wooster with us. Well, sure, technically there is all the lying, stealing, drinking, gambling, and skirt-chasing, but Wodehouse's ability to turn all that into eminently wholesome entertainment is one of the wonders of English literature. Mostly D1 appreciates the people falling into ponds and hiding under the furniture.

Deck the Halls

In a fit of temporary insanity, we promised the kids we would decorate the house the day after Thanksgiving. My mind filled with hazy memories of a peaceful, solitary day deep-cleaning and artistically arranging treasured ornaments, interspersed with raids on the fridge for Thanksgiving leftovers, all to the soundtrack of favorite Christmas CDs.

We forgot that we would arise exhausted, that the children would be exhausted and cranky (and yet insistent on continuing as promised) and that their ideas of decorating would be very different from mine. Specifically, the older two's idea was to set things out equally spaced in straight lines or simply in a stack. The babies' idea was to throw everything on the floor and step on it, which I allowed them to do with the nativity blocks and the Melmac plates.

Having begun, though, we had to continue, and the future looked brighter after a nap. Thanks to a kind extended family member, we had a coupon for a free tree at a local farm. Their Majesties accompanied us in the truck, and we tromped through the woods in a brief and not-too-picky quest for the perfect tree. (Still a definite step up from tromping through the aisles of the hardware store.)

Once we returned home and had done sufficient battle to erect and put lights on the tree, we could move forward with the real decorations.
As always, the beads were immensely popular. We stuck to the non-breakable decorations this year. The kids insisted on having the overhead lights out most of the time, and D3 especially enjoyed basking in the glow from the tree, exclaiming, "Light!" (Today D4 picked up the nativity block with the star on it and exclaimed, "Light!")

We wound up with some not-too-hot apple cider. And then we shoved everyone in bed very quickly and collapsed. Not quite Hallmark, but the kids seemed to enjoy it.

However, the idea of taking Advent slowly and adding the decorations gradually is looking better all the time.