A Lot Like (or a lot about) Christmas...

As routine as I things seem, it is those details that we look back on fondly. So after my writing angst on Monday, here's the very long daily report of Crane activities. This blog is exactly why I don’t send a Christmas letter. It’s going to take me 3 pages to do a week, it’s hard to imagine trying to do a year.

We are having a great week at the Crane house as we welcome in the month of December. We got our Christmas tree out last week, and quickly discovered that the entire middle section of our pre-lit tree was no longer pre-lit. I also quickly discovered the reason, when I shocked myself touching the wires of a broken light. Tried to replace that light with no results, so as if having a fake, pre-lit tree isn’t quite tacky enough I just bought a string of lights to put over the string that came with the tree. It works, which is good enough for me.

Saturday morning we woke up to about 6 inches of fresh snow, which made it a perfect December 1, and perfect trim the tree day. Rob got a call from the Elder’s quorum that someone from the ward was moving, and needed some help. It was a lovely day for tree trimming, not so lovely for moving, but Rob nicely bundled up and headed right over. About 5 minutes after he left Nikki called to say that her and Clint and the kids we on their way to Grannie Annie’s, which is just a few blocks from us for breakfast and did we want to join them. At first I felt guilty that Jake and I were going to have a nice hot breakfast while Rob was standing in a bank of snow trying to move a piano, so I said we better skip it. But I quickly decided that I’m not THAT good a wife, and Jake and I bundled up and met Nikki and Clint for breakfast. For someone that refuses to eat much Jake can eat an amazing stack of pancakes.

After breakfast we headed over to Bowman’s to pick up a few things (boneless skinless chicken breasts on sale $1.59 a pound which is one of our staples), and headed back home. Rob had just walked in when we got back, and I told him where we had been (which he took very well, considering he was frozen and had just moved a piano) and we decided that we really needed new snow tires on one of our cars and we needed them pretty quickly (apparently it didn't do so well on the few blocks to the neighbors house), so we took the car over to the tire store, and then Jake and I headed out to get a few other groceries and “snow” accessories (Jake’s coat from last year still fits, but he needed new boots). We headed back and Jake spotted his little friend Chyanna out playing in the snow, so we bundled him up to join her, and her brother Tanner. There is nothing more fun than the first real snowfall of the year, esp. when you are 4, 6, and 2.

I went in the house to get some cooking done (I love to cook when it’s snowy outside, something about the cold air and the warm kitchen with fabulous smells is one of the closest things to heaven I can imagine). I cooked up a big beef loin roast, some pear pumkin seed stuffing (I just made up the recipe, it turned out pretty good except I think I would skip the sage next time and only use thyme, the sage over powered the sweetness of the pears), some buffalo chicken dip to snack on during the week, and a blueberry (Bowman’s had blueberries on sale) cake. That way we would be all ready with lots of food to eat after our fast on Sunday.

Then I went to get Jake from the neighbor's to decorate the house and tree. I love to get out the Christmas decorations. I took all my dolls out of the cedar chest and told Jake about Santa bringing me all those dolls when I was a girl. We got out all the wonderful Christmas gifts my mom has given us over the years, Jake’s favorite is the little music box that plays "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" with the dancing Santa and squirrels. It was nice to be able to put the glass ornaments all over the tree this year, instead of just at the top out of reach of toddler hands. We also put Grandma Hill’s Santa and Mrs. Claus in a central place, and I told Jakey about my grandma, and the wonderful memories I have of Christmases in her home, with that same Santa and Mrs. Claus looking over us. I love having something that reminds me of grandma sitting in the middle of my living room watching over our Christmas festivities as I know how much she loved the holidays. That love of holidays and traditions is a gift she passed on through our family. Then we put the nativity on the fireplace mantel and hung the stockings.

After we got all the decorations up, we settled in for our own Christmas tradition, which of course revolves around books. Before Jake was born I found an advent calendar, that has a small Christmas book for each of the 25 days of advent. We read a Christmas story every night, and then hang the books on the Christmas tree. The first book is a book of Christmas poems by various authors, and then Jake talked me into reading a bit from our abridged (more kid friendly) version of Christmas Carol, or “Scrooge” as Jake calls it. I really was a lovely day.

Sunday was fast Sunday, and I didn’t have to teach this week, so it was a pretty laid back day, we actually all slept until almost 9:30. No T.V. before church, so we hung out listening to Christmas Carols, and read a bit more Scrooge. After church we watched Hairspray (Jake LOVES this movie), and ate lots of good food that I made yesterday. Our Christmas story for tonight was an excerpt from Wind in the Willows about Rat and Mole’s Christmas adventures and the caroling field mice.

Monday back to work for me, back to school for Jake, and back to household projects for Rob. He’s working on getting all of the wall paper (the very scary wall paper, that made the room look a lot like my bedroom when I was 14, which was kind of nostalgic and weird at the same time) out of the guest room so we can paint soon. When they did our house, they textured all the walls, but we discovered that they didn’t texture first, and wall paper after, so only half the wall in that room is textured. I suppose it kind of made sense to get the wall paper layed flatter, but I would have just textured all the walls and then hung the paper. Jake got to have his cousin Colin come over and play with him for the day, so he was happy as a clam, and then still had his daily play date with his friend Milo in the last afternoon from 4-6. He was passed out from all the hard playing when mom got home from work. In fact he was out for the night by 6:30 which would be great except he is a kid that sleeps for 10 hours a night no matter when he goes to bed (this is why we keep him up late because for us that means sleeping in) so he was wide awake and watching Nick Jr. (because I wasn’t about to get up with him) at 4:30. Story for Monday was the legend of Good King Wencelas.

Tuesday was a long work day again, Rob finished up removing the wall paper, and I got a call from mom that dad had to gone out to Grandma Dopp’s because of some plumbing issues (very nasty plumbing issue apparently), and she had a freezer there that wasn’t being used. Mom said it still worked but was pretty gross, and she knew we had been talking about a new freezer, and did we want this one. We have been saving for a freezer to help keep a good food storage (not the disaster kind, but the kind so you can get LOTS of chicken breast when they are on sale which saves a lot of money), and were hoping to have enough at the beginning of the year, but this is definitely an answer to prayers (good thing we paid tithing on Sunday) to get this freezer which will allow us to put the money towards filling the freezer. Dad dropped it off and Rob spend the afternoon cleaning out the layer of mold and mildew. It looked pretty good when I got home, but Rob actually just threw away the shirt he was wearing as it was pretty yucky. We sprayed it down with bleach and left the doors open for the night. Story for Tuesday was The Nutcracker.

Wednesday was pre-school again for Jake, he is getting really good at writing his name, in fact at church on Sunday he wrote both his first and last name on his paper. As a good mom that’s attentive to her child’s academic needs, I of course was not even aware that Jake knew how to spell his last name, let alone write it. Then his daily play date with Milo, and daddy continued to work on the guest room, and freezer. Rob went out and bought some rust free silver paint and completely painted over all the rust spots, and all the shelves of the freezer so it looks almost brand new. Grandma and Grandpa Dopp stopped over for a visit, and Grandma delivered a darling gingerbread (well technically graham cracker) train that her and Nikki had made for everyone in the family. Jake was so excited about the train, although not too happy when mom told him he couldn’t take it apart and eat it the first day, but he could eat it after Christmas (you know after it sets out a few weeks and collects a bit more dust so it’s nice and healthy for the immune system). While Grandma was here she even read him his Christmas story for the day which was Twelve Days of Christmas. Grandma even offered to cheat and read him another story, but he’s a stickler on the rules and told her only one story a day until Christmas. We read it again when mommy got home, and talked about the various merits of maids milking, lords leaping, and partridges in pear trees as Christmas gifts. Apparently Jake would much rather have a Transformer.

Whew, I think I will post this now, and we can catch up with the rest of the week next week.

There seems to be no middle ground with me, either bored with minutiae, or drowning in it.


Cheesy song lyric for today “I am…I said, to no one there, and no one heard at all not even the chair”.