A Christmas of a Different Sort

Townshend brought home a nasty stomach bug from school right before the winter break. He actually was out of school for the good part of a week, and despite all our best efforts, he shared it with the rest of us. Amid all the chaos, we ended up going into the doctor's office just to be sure things were ok. She said that our local strain of this "GI bug" was a looooong and nasty one and we'd just have to ride it out and hope for the best. Everybody (except for Hubby - the lucky duck) got a turn or two with this bug and we just couldn't justify traveling and sharing this doozy of a sickness, so we quarantined ourselves and waited it out.

when the kids are well and the parents are sick... you build a fort!

The silver lining in all this excitement was that it came in waves; which, though dragging it out longer, meant that there was always one or two healthy people at a time to help the sickies. Still, it did go long and by the end of the second week we were all feeling the itch of cabin fever. So, we started going out in shifts.

falling asleep in odd places

First, Moon and I were mostly healthy, so we ventured out to the local conservatory for some fresh air with a summer-ish feel.

A day or so later, Moon had relapsed but Towhsend was feeling better. Hubby never got *sick*, but he was very tired and not quite sure that he wouldn't be sick soon. So, Hubby stayed in with Moon and Townshend and I went out to visit the other local conservatory. It was a lovely reprieve.

On the Sunday before Christmas (Christmas Eve-Eve) we were still just a little too sick to go to our normal church meetings. I was bummed about that 'cuz it was supposed to be a musical one with scripture readings and those are my favorite sort. Still, all was not lost. We did a quick search online to see if we couldn't find a neighborhood church that was hosting a Christmas Eve service that we could go visit. And we found one! And it was a candlelight service! And their website said "Everyone was welcome"... so we went! I really enjoyed it. We sang lots of Christmas songs, they had lots of readings and it culminated with Silent Night, by candlelight. It left me feeling really festive and focused on Christ.

putting out stockings on Christmas Eve

The next morning was Christmas! We did presents throughout the day (the kids couldn't stay focused, so we'd do a few, take a break to play and then do a few more). But mostly we played games and hung out at home.

By the next day, we were all feeling good and ready to be out and away from the house. Happily, there was an open gym at the local community center in the morning which we made good use of.

We had a winter hike with some friends on Friday. It was a little chilly and a there were a few flurries. Despite the cold, it was good to be out in the trees. And it was nice to have a good visit with friends while the kids kept each other company.

And that was our Christmas week! Sort of felt like we were making lemonade from some less than awesome situations life had sent us. Instead of chilling on the beach with lots of extended family, we stayed in and mostly just slept. But we got a bit of a stay-cation, got to explore our city a little which is pretty fun too. So, maybe not a traditional holiday but sometimes a Christmas of a different sort can be good too.

Christmas Projects

I always get excited about diy-ing gifts for Christmas. There's a lot of fun in plotting and planning and coming up with something that seems perfect. And then there's the fun of creating it; watching your idea come into reality. And it's extra great when you're really happy with how they turned out.

However, as Christmas gifts are top-secret in nature, there's no place to safely share the glee of watching things come into being. So, I sit on them.. and save them.. maybe post teaser pics here and there, but really, I have to practice patience and wait until it's safe to share, without spoiling surprises. Like now!

First thing I got done this year was a decorated tote. I find parents are hard to buy for as we get older.. but what parent can resist a homemade gift from their kid (even a grownup one), right?  So, my mom's a quilter and this seemed perfect. Plus, this one was fun, since the first couple layers were only a peek at what was, I could post them online as a teaser.. the blue outline could be almost anything, for anybody! But as soon as I laid on the lettering, it had to wait for the big reveal. Here's the final image. I love how it turned out!

Next there was another tote bag, for my niece. This one I sewed from scratch and was much more colorful... and I added a sparkly monogram on the one side 'cuz, while distance prevents us from being super familiar with her likes and dislikes, my brother (her dad) assures me she loves all things sparkly. And it turned out really cute! Plus, I love the bright yellow inner lining as a charming contrast to all the pink on the outside.

Then, last second, I decided to make another bag; this one would be for my sister-in-law. I had some fantastic blue polka dot fabric that was a good weight for a bag, but I needed a contrasting color to go along with it.

At first, I tried dying some fabric for the second color, but it turned out poorly... I kind of hated it, so back to the drawing board I went. Happily, I found a store (not too far from me) that sells fabric, and they had some that was more what I was looking for. And, though Christmas deadlines loomed, I got the bag done and everything out in the mail just in time.

But the biggest project this year was a little toy kitchen for my boys. However, Christmas this year didn't go quite as well as we'd planned. We all got sick and we ended up canceling our travel plans to stay home to recoup and not share our stomach bug. So, rather than a Christmas gift, with the delays in the creation and assembly of the toy kitchen turned into a New Years Day present. 

Christmas Time is Here

Wishing everyone everywhere a lovely and bright Christmas time!

Christmas Fun!

We've been doing it enough years running that it seems like it's likely solidified into a full-fledged family tradition now, to catch the Holiday Train. The decorated full train of festive cheer! Whenever it makes its way to our bit of the line, we try to arrange to get on.

This year it was a chilly evening, and the train was running a bit behind schedule. This gave us time to study the system map. We learned that the red line has a new bit that goes express during rush period, which Townshend was excited about and immediately incorporated into his train play.

By the time the train pulled into the station, the platform had gotten quite crowded and everybody was fully chilled, so seeing the train pull up was a very welcome sight.

Still, for as cold as I felt after standing outside for a while, my sympathies go to the folks in the open-air, flatbed car holding Santa, the sleigh and helpers making sure nobody flies off during the ride. Hopefully they've all got thermals and warm jackets!

This train ride is one of those magical things that the kids get really excited about... that definitely takes the edge off the chill. Plus, the inside is so brightly decorated you can't help but smile. Then this time, inside it was quite full making it extra toasty warm.

It was mostly standing room only.. the kids got seats, but poor Hubby got stuffed in a corner on the other side of the car:

And bonus, since we ride the Holiday train away, we get to ride another train to get home again! All the fun.

Now, days later, Moon is still hopping about talking about the whole experience. Yeah, it's a keeper.

Crazy Project Update

So, in the background of all the hustle and bustle that is life, on my backest burner, there's been this ongoing random music-sorting project from church. Some time ago, I made incremental progress worthy of being blogged about (here). This week there was some more, exciting and new, forward motion.

Prepping things and getting ready to jump in..

There'd been a significant slowdown in my ability to find time on Sundays to get into the AV closet since my last post. My librarian friends were looking, with ever-increasing longing, at the potential space being taken up by the unsorted filing cabinets (wishing to move a couple TVs and things out of the library itself) until finally we got together and brainstormed possible ways to get things moving again.

Success!! All the carts fit inside now. Woo!

We explored a few options and, finally, we settled on roping in the Young Men and giving them a service project... in one evening, we'd systematically empty out the cabinets into boxes, toss out the cabinets, then move the boxes to my car to be transported somewhere more easily accessible to me (my garage), leaving the AV closet more able to hold all the various carts of AV equipment. A definitive WIN all around.

And so it was done.

A bit daunting? Yes.... but, it's good! Now I can get at these boxes any time I want to, which greatly increases the chances that the project will indeed, one day, come to a positive and final conclusion. But, with all my Christmas deadlines looming, these boxes will probably be cooling their heels until the new year, at very least. Still, forward is forward no matter how slow.

Thanksgiving!

Some years, Thanksgiving is a fairly simple holiday.... families gather, food is eaten, we talk about what we're thankful for, we all go home. This year, our Thanksgiving was a little more unconventional.

This was our year to do Thanksgiving with my family. Originally, the plan was to head up to Wisconsin for a typical sort of weekend, but then, plans changed! There was a move happening in Iowa, and who can sit around in Wisconsin eating when we could be helping? So, to Iowa, the family went.

My branch of the family was a little under the weather, heading into the weekend, so for Thursday we stayed home to see if we couldn't all get further along the path to health. Turns out, a friend of mine from church was having a big dinner and had a lack of guests (and she didn't mind our having colds), so we crashed her dinner. It was delightful!

Then, Friday, only Townshend and I were in condition to travel, so we left Hubby and Moon home and headed to Iowa. Once we got there, we jumped in and helped with the finishing touches of the move-prep.

We worked most of the afternoon and into the evening and got quite a lot accomplished. We even got in a quick load of a few odds and ends to the new place, rain notwithstanding.

Saturday was the big day; big truck, all the helpers and all the stuff. Happily, the rain took a break for the day. We started in early and it was a full force effort! They had a big truck, plenty of space for stowing all sorts of things:

At first it seemed like we might not fill it... however, load by load, fill it we did!

In the midst of it all, we took a lunch break.. food prep while being between houses requires a little ... creativity!

Before too long, it was back to work. We got to the new place and the unloading began. Bit by bit, everything was transferred until the truck was empty.

Slowly, things started to take shape inside... Saturday night the family helped move things around a little in the first baby steps of unpacking and making a new place a home.

view out the new kitchen window, just before the empty truck drove away

Sunday morning there was a storm on the horizon that was predicted to be a doozy.. so, Townshend and I stayed for the first hour of church and then hit the road to try to keep ahead of the weather. Bad weather aside, I really like road trips. There's a beauty to all types of scenery; green forests, urban skylines, deserts, farmland. I enjoy watching it go by and seeing the diversity of the world.

Though we passed several cars in the ditch, we managed to miss most of the nasty parts of the storm and get home without incident. Good thing too 'cuz that night it definitely did storm. Iowa got its 8 to 10 inches of snow and we, here in the Chicago area, got 4 or 5 inches of slushy wet, heavy, messy stuff.. so we got a snow day on Monday! It was perfect. A holiday weekend full of friends, family, helping and then resting.

I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Dia de los Muertos

One of the exciting things about having a kid old enough for kindergarten is the added element of field trips! Before the school year starts, the local school offers a lottery for the language immersion class and Townshend got in. Woo!

They spend a good amount of their day learning and speaking in Spanish, and they also focus on learning about Hispanic culture. Dia de los Muertos is celebrated on November 1 and 2 and, judging from the stories he's been telling and the worksheets he's been bringing home, that's been the main theme of class for the last week or so. And, then last week they took all the Spanish immersion kids, K-5, on a field trip to visit the National Museum of Mexican Art tucked in a neighborhood of Chicago that's known for it's Mexican-American roots.

With a little brother still at home, it's a bit of a dance for me to get away for a whole day. Knowing that, I'll probably only have one school trip this year, but this field trip looked so fun!! So, I cashed in all my favors and tagged along.

It was a big ol' group of kids but, turns out, there were lots of other parents who felt as I did, so we had a fairly good ratio of adults to kids. Still, it was a little crazy to have all those kids wandering the neighborhood, but we did pretty well!

First, we visited a Mexican bakery to pick out a sweet treat:

Wandered the neighborhood a little bit to check out the murals. There were some really amazing ones; despite it being a snowy, windy day, I wished we could have had more time to wander a little bit more:

We ate lunch at one of the many neighborhood Mexican restaurants. It was so yummy! It made me a little nostalgic for my time living in Logan Square in the Hispanic district.. Yummmmm:

Our final stop was at the museum to see their Dia de los Muertos exhibit. We had an awesome tour guide who walked us through and told us about all the displays. It was fascinating. First, she talked about the history and origins  of  Dia de los Muertos influenced by the Mayan and Aztec traditions:

The next room focused on how the traditions changed with the arrival of the Spanish in South America. The culture shifted their focus slightly with the introduction of Catholicism, but they retained many elements of the original traditions:

There were other, more modern interpretations of old traditions and culture. As I've come to learn more about this tradition, I've really come to love its celebration of life and family connection even beyond death. Some of the imagery may seem a little morbid at first glance, but it's actually a reverence and appreciation for death as just a next step; that is a cool way to look at it:

I had a great day.. Townshend, however, seemed less impressed.

the face of a kid excited and enthusiastic about new foods and experiences

Overall, the kids did great, still, by the end, we were all ready to head home:

It was a cool trip! I'm excited to know that, as they do this every year, I'll likely have a chance to go again.