A Magical Library

We went out caroling yet again this evening, but left the house so late that we only went to half the houses we planned on. It didn't help that we stopped by The Mangum Family Christmas Lights...



Rachel was so mesmerized she didn't want to leave. Miriam, on the other hand, had fallen asleep in the car and was super annoyed when we tuned the radio to the correct station and jazzy Christmas music started blasting through the speakers.

When we noticed the time we decided we'd skip our other stops (sorry other people we were planning on caroling to—my kids already ate your treats) and just go to Miriam's primary teacher's house since we knew they didn't have any little children to wake up with our obnoxious Christmas music (and we know how annoyed children can be when they are awakened by obnoxious Christmas music).

Visiting this sweet couple is always such a treat. Always.

They invited us inside to play (and took plenty of pictures of us doing so):

Welcome to Christmas Break

We went to the museum (of life and science—what else?) yesterday afternoon. We spent most of our time outside (after walking through the Sprockets, Pulleys, Springs exhibit inside). It's too nice outside not to be there (except that some of us are battling colds—so we're indoors resting (unfortunately)).

Here's Benjamin enjoying the chimes outside:

Rachel's Class Christmas Party

Yesterday the kids and I spent the entire day at Rachel's school. It was both exhausting and exhilarating. Perhaps it's was mostly exhausting for the grown ups and mostly exhilarating for the children. At any rate, that's how it seemed at the end of the day!

Rachel's class is doing a unit on bears and are currently studying polar bears. I brought in supplies to do a "blubber glove" experiment with the kids, which was well-received. Then the other room-parent talked about snowflakes and the kids made snowflakes with much enthusiasm until lunchtime.

Christmas Cheer

At church a few weeks ago a friend offered us a couple of dresses her daughters had outgrown. One of those dresses was a fancy-schmancy, sparkly-frou-frou little red dress, just perfect for Christmas. Rachel was thrilled to have another Christmas dress (she's outgrown all of hers and passed them on to Miriam). On Sunday here's what my little brood looked like just after church (or perhaps just before...I can't remember):

Spelling Bee

Rachel's school had a spelling bee this year. I guess it's something that they do every year. I guess it's also a relatively normal thing within the US education system (though, don't get me wrong because schools are state-run (they aren't federal so any attempt to ensure that children across the country are receiving the same learning opportunities should probably be stifled immediately (I jest; because I'm not actually all that against Common Core Standards (it's not a curriculum, people))). But seriously, spelling bees are a thing here.

When I was little we had a couple of games on the computer that I liked to play—Treasure Mountain  and Spellbound!—both by The Learning Company. You could incorporate your own spelling list in the Spellbound! game. I'm pretty sure it was the only time that I ever got to use the computer for homework as a child (this was back in the day when we had to handwrite all our homework—can I be admitted to a nursing home yet?) until I hit middle school and refused to ever set foot in school ever, ever again (and was subsequently enrolled into a "virtual" school and got my own computer (hello, digital age—you can cancel my nursing home application now)).

Anyway, I was an okay speller and I had fun playing Spellbound! but I considered the idea of a spelling bee rather foreign. And also the stuff of nightmares because...spelling...out loud...in front of an audience?!

See? Nightmares.

Nursing Homes

On Monday we went to a nursing home with some of our ukulele friends to do a little concert. The nursing home was decorated beautifully—with two gigantic Christmas trees in the lobby and a little bird-watching area for the kids to enjoy while they weren't playing. It was quite fun.

We played Jingle Bells, Away in a Manger, and Once There Was A Snowman. One of the girls also plays the violin so she played a couple of songs with her mom accompanying her on the grand piano (which was also just sitting there in the lobby). To finish off our concert we sang We Wish You A Merry Christmas with piano accompaniment once more. It was short and sweet and something that I really wanted our children to experience.

I remember going to nursing homes to perform throughout my childhood.

Once in grade three, our primary went and I remember that my mom made me sing O Tannenbaum all by myself, in the original German. My class at school had learned it for our school Christmas concert. It was one thing to sing that song on stage with my classmates. It was another thing to sing it standing all by myself in front of an audience of complete strangers. But I did it. And when I was finished and we were visiting with the patients at the nursing home, I remember someone asking me how I learned to speak German. So I said, "I don't speak German." And then the conversation dropped off suddenly into a long, awkward silence.

But overall it was a good experience, I guess.

Heiss Holiday Humbug 2013

The girls wanted to help make this year's Christmas newsletter, so I used some of their holiday doodles and managed to come up with [what I hope is] a cohesive design. The girls drew these on paper and later transferred them to cut-out pieces of cereal boxes—very professional—intending to give them to every single person in our entire extended family. We've since misplaced the ziploc baggy full of these unique ornaments. Rachel took them to school for show-and-tell and then...who knows.

If we find them before Christmas our family might be pleasantly surprised by some (rather rudimentary) homemade gifts. If not, they'll get a little taste of them with our newsletter. I took pictures of the girls' blueprints, manipulated them in photoshop, and stuck them in.

You can download the newsletter here.

What e'er thou art

I found this "LDS perpetual advent calendar" online (in a news "article," (or "news" article" (I'm not quite sure where to put those quotation marks) of all places) and printed it off so we could read a nice little story every day before Christmas. It's been nice so far but Andrew and I have already determined to make our own perpetual calendar for next year (or, at the rate I complete projects the year after (or even the year after that)). We'd prefer if the scripture/quote actually went along somewhat with the theme of the story. And we'd prefer if all the stories were...I dunno...fact checked.

The story for December 1st paid homage to a thoroughly debunked article claiming that The Twelve Days of Christmas was written as a way to secretly teach the catechism of the Catholic church to young English children after King Henry the Eighth caused the creation of a new church because he "wanted to sin and have a church justify his actions," which is a gross simplification of the whole situation. Catholics weren't banned from practicing their religion until after the death of King Henry, anyway, so I'm not sure why they're blaming him for that (as unsavory a character he may have been).

So, the story for December 1st annoyed me, and the story about candy canes, and Andrew skipped "The Three Trees," which I think is a sweet story (because it openly admits to being a folktale and makes no pretentious claims about being "the true meaning" of this or that) but is one that he just can't stand.

We also didn't like that they put the story of Joseph Smith's last Christmas on December 22nd rather than on December 23rd (which is his birthday). I mean, had they put it on December 7th I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but to put it the day before his birthday rather than right on it? That just looks like a mistake. There are rules for this sort of thing: if you're going to be off, be way off so that it looks like you did it on purpose. If you're so close but just a little off it looks like a glaring error.

And don't even get me started on the typesetting (crazy hyphenation all over the place).

I'm sure I sound rather picky now. But the truth is we have been enjoying reading the story each night. Most of the stories come from church magazines and are faith promoting and teach good lessons.

But the annoying ones are so annoying—some sort of theologic neologism. Take "The True Meaning of the Snowman," for example, which I saw in a catalogue once (and which you can see here). I find that sort of thing ridiculous. A snowman is a snowman. Ahem. Anyway...

Tonight's story was fairly interesting. It was called "Gifts for a Newborn King" by Geraldine A. Garretson, and was originally printed in The Friend in December 1992. While a little orientalist in nature, it was a well-researched article and was presented well for a young audience. Our girls were captivated, especially since we have a little box full of frankincense and myrrh sitting out by one of our nativities.

Our interest was piqued, however, when Andrew read this part: "'Myrrh, whose name means "bitter," comes from the Commiphora myrrha tree.' Myrrh means bitter?" Andrew asked. "Is that true? Are Miriam and myrrh from the same root?"

Turns out, they very well could be. We knew that Miriam meant bitter (and in fact battled with this knowledge for a while because who names their child 'bitter'? (Probably the same people who name their firstborn after livestock.)) we just hadn't linked the root of the word to myrrh (which does, in fact, mean bitter).

Miriam was thrilled to bits over this newfound knowledge, completely over the moon. Ecstatic, really.

She is in the Christmas story. She has her own tree. She was a gift for baby Jesus. Could her life get any better? Probably not!

"Big deal," Rachel said. "My name means sheep. Sheep are in the Christmas story, too."

And thus a gloriously hilarious scene unfolded in our living room, wherein Rachel bleated unceasingly while Miriam did her best to enact sap oozing out of a Commiphora myrrha tree.

What e'er thou art, kids, Act well thy part.

Bits and Pieces

Today we said goodbye to our Pop-Onz. We inherited them from some friends in Egypt. The toys were meant to be put in storage back in the States. Instead they got shipped to Egypt and a box of sheets was put into storage. Our friends gave us the toys and bought new sheets. We brought the toys with us when we moved back to the States a couple of years later.

Although we gave most of our toys away (and then I think they were subsequently stolen off the street, right Bridget?) before we moved, this particular set we felt was worthy to drag halfway around the world with us. Our kids have been enjoying it for five years now, in three different houses, in two different countries. But it's time to say goodbye...because the truth is that we're making room for Christmas gifts. Pop-Onz are fun(-nish) but we think that the "replacement" toy will be more fun. At any rate I hope it will stimulate more of a desire to construct things (Pop-Onz don't offer much in the way of creative building). We'll see.

Either way, this set of toys enjoyed its last romp around our living room this morning. We found a new home for it so it will continue to be played with, just not at our house.

Caroling

Yesterday for Family Home Evening we baked some white-chocolate-chip-candy-cane cookies while Daddy was at his last HOA meeting of the year (and basically ever because he resigned (which we're all kind of happy about (not that it was hard; it was just another thing and we don't need another thing cluttering up our calendar right now (grad school is enough for us)))).

We were hoping to go caroling to deliver them to our neighbours but, honestly, baking cookies with three little ones was enough of a project for the evening. Rachel is, thankfully, old enough to actually be helpful, though sometimes she wants to help a little more than I'd like her to. She insisted on cracking the eggs, for example, which might've gone a little faster and been a little less messy if I had cracked the eggs myself (but I know it's important for her to do these things so I let her even if it means I have to back away and take deep cleansing breaths). Patience is one of those things I'm constantly working on and since mine was all used up by the time Andrew came home, we just read stories and got ready for bed instead of going caroling.

Today Miriam and I made up plates and printed out labels (so we'd remember who got which plate) and when Daddy came home from work/school we went out caroling. Our song of choice was "Jingle Bells" since both Rachel and I are pretty good at playing that on the ukulele.

We also made some little sleigh bell shakers for Miriam and Benjamin to jingle during the song since the bells that we ordered (three weeks ago, but who's counting) finally arrived.

When Rachel asked if she could bring her ukulele along, Andrew originally said no (even though I was planning on bringing them), and Rachel said, "That would be really dumb, Dad, to just go and sing at people's houses without any sort of instrument actually making music. Like, no piano or ukulele or trumpet or anything? No one does that."

"You can bring your ukulele," I told her. "I was planning on that, anyway, but when we go out with the Adamsons next week we probably won't bring our ukuleles. We'll just sing a cappella, which means without having any instrument playing along. It's a thing."

So, tonight we headed out with our ukuleles and sleigh bells and delivered 11 plates of cookies to various families in our neighbourhood and beyond.

I will admit that I felt a little awkward to ring people's doorbells and expect them listen to our family perform but I think that everyone we caroled to enjoyed it. It was fun to see their face light up with the surprise at having a five-person band appear on their doorstep (not that we're incredibly talented...just that it's fun to have music delivered to your door). A few families said they had never been caroled to (it's a dying art, apparently) and others shared some memories of caroling with us (our neighbour's family would drive their tractor around with a trailer on the back filled with hay bails for seating; they'd drive around collecting neighours to increase their caroling choir as they drove around their agrarian neighbourhood (he said he wished he had a tractor so we could do the same)).

Our home teacher invited us in for a chat, even though he'd been home sick all day. His wife had to put the dog outside because the girls were absolutely freaking out about it. But all three kids enjoyed the cats. Benjamin was playing peek-a-boo with one of their younger cats. It was slinking around the living room and he was chasing it, yelling, "Boo!" He had a great time!

They sent us home with a Christmas treat for ourselves, which Benjamin carried to the car for us. He fell asleep on the way home but was still clutching the little treat bag. I tried to remove it from his fist so that I could unbuckle his seatbelt but the minute he sensed it slipping out of his grip he woke up and snatched it back, declaring, "MY! MY! MY!"

It was certainly a fun evening and I hope the girls made some good memories. Caroling is something that I'd like to become more of a tradition for our family and whether or not Andrew is as enthusiastic about that idea as I am he's certainly being a good sport about it.

I don't remember ever going caroling in Alberta as a family, but I did think back to many years ago when my family once went caroling in British Columbia. We had just made it to the Anderson's house, I believe, and poor Patrick (who was maybe two) got sick and threw up all over the van so instead of merely caroling we ended up borrowing cleaning supplies so that we could get the interior of the van to the point where we could stand getting back inside.

I'm sure that memory surfaced only because of the situation I found myself in last night (ie. covered in vomit). I'm pretty sure Benjamin must've eaten a bad apple now because he was fairly fine all day (aside from being a grumpy boar) and no one else is feeling even remotely ill. With any luck it will stay that way!