Another Tennessee Christmas

Lovely, as always. Different, in that this is the first year we've had puppies join in...two of them. Lilli, of course, who is now 9 months old, and David's 4 month old hound/possibly beagle mix Wander. They had played together at Thanksgiving, and they are old friends by now. If Wander could have his way, they would be boyfriend and girlfriend too.


We visited the chickens and the horses across the street. We let the dogs run around in the tennis court, the closest we had to a dog park.


We had a nice solstice celebration where Grandpa made flaming coffee and hot chocolate, even if the hot chocolate was deemed undrinkable by the kids. It was still beautiful to watch.


We made cookies: gingerbread, Russian teacakes, marzipan, oatmeal chocolate chip. We had delicious but simple meals because we all decided we didn't want to spend all our time in the kitchen. Still, it seemed like my mom was almost always cooking or cleaning. I always feel a bit guilty about how much time I spend just hanging around by the fire, when I know at my own house I would be scurrying around to cook and clean and plan the next meal or activity.

We watched a few movies. The first night, we all watched a great production of "The Nutcracker," not the one that I keep hearing about and do want to see (from 1993, directed by George Balanchine, narrated by Kevin Kline and featuring Macaulay Culkin), but a production from 1986 with the Pacific Northwest Ballet, with production and costume design by Maurice Sendak. We all liked it quite a lot. 

On Christmas night, we watched "The Help" (David had gotten it in his stocking, and only my mom had seen it already). Max actually seemed really interested in it, and Otto watched it all, although he got a bit restless and left the room a couple of times. It did spur a lot of discussion about race and civil rights, and the next morning, the boys and Martin spent an hour or so watching YouTube videos about Medgar Evans.

The last night, we all watched "Oliver" together, (the first time I ever remember watching it).  My dad was astonished I hadn't seen it, and it was always one of my mom's favorite movies to show her third grade class. The boys were totally engaged, and I was surprised that I knew every song. Lots of, "Oh! That's where that song is from!" moments.

We played many rounds of Uno and Go Bat and one night, the adults played Hearts while the boys played Legos beside us. My mom is pretty good at card games (and extremely competitive, even though she does not believe she is), and she managed to shoot the moon, as they say, two times, both of them successful. 

On Christmas Eve, we wrote letters to Santa and Max read "The Night Before Christmas" to us all. The boys already know the first half by heart, since we have an advent calendar which reveals a sentence or two from it each day. We've had the calendar since Max was first born, and we use it over each year. But we never get past day 20 on it, since that's usually when we head to Grandma and Grandpa's house. So while they know the first half really well, they get a bit lost for the last bits.


We had full stockings on Christmas morning, a big breakfast with two kinds of sweet rolls (in other news, I gained several pounds), a nice Christmas morning opening presents on the porch (where Grandpa lit a massive fire and warmed up the whole thing with space heaters and by hanging blankets to stop the drafts). It was all very cozy and fun.


Other highlights: the boys wished for and received real German nutcrackers and smokers and a promise of bowler hats from the old fashioned hat shop in Chicago. Everyone got animal hats and matching fleece jackets and down vests. Grandma got a nice big dog crate and plenty of supplies for a puppy of her own. Next year's celebration will be crazy, with three puppies! Hopefully Wander and Lill will be old and wise by then. Another year will make a huge difference for them. They'll be the equivalent of somewhere between 7 and 10, I suppose. So somewhere between the ages of Max and Otto. Dog years really do fly by. But even in people years, I'm amazed how quickly the years seem to go. Looking back on previous years, I see that the boys have grown so much, even though it seems like it was just a couple of months ago that we celebrated Christmas in 2010.


It was really a wonderful year, and it was a very nice way to celebrate the last week of it, playing cards by the fire or watching movies or gathering around a big table, full of delicious food and a delightful family.