Is Christmas over already?

This is the gingerbread house I made for Lizzy's 18th birthday. She spent her birthday 1700 miles away from home at college studying for finals. I've made her a gingerbread house every year for her birthday since she was born. She tells me it made it to Pennsylvania intact.

Thus began our epic December, with five family birthdays, Advent and Christmas to celebrate, as well as getting our eldest graduated from college and the three college students returning home for the holidays.

Maria graduated from the University of Northern Colorado (the other UNC) on December 12th, Summa Cum Laude (is that right, Maria?) with a degree in Physics. Even though she took a ninth semester to finish up her degree, she still managed to graduate at age 21 in 2009.

Yay, Maria! We are so proud of you!

She is now waiting to hear back from five different grad schools where she has applied to study Medical Physics. Her first choice? MIT.

(Note to homeschool skeptics: Maria would be the first to tell you that she didn't get all her smarts from her mom, but through perseverance, hard work and motivation. She also got some from her dad. Okay, she got a lot of smarts from her dad. When she was born he told everyone, "Let's hope she gets her looks from her mom and her brains from her dad." I didn't think it was a compliment then, nor do I now, but I'm glad she didn't get her looks from her dad. Oh, did I say that? Anyway, I'm not sure at what point, we homeschooled parents are permitted to declare victory, but I think #1 has done a pretty awesome job of her life so far and we are very proud of her.)

We finally had everyone home together as of December 19th, at 7 pm, when Lizzy's flight arrived (sans her luggage) and we could all hug and kiss one another again. The last time we'd all been together was the Sunday before Memorial Day weekend. Such times come fewer and farther between as your kids grow up and move away. Hug them close while they're little!

This is our attempt at a family photo. It's extremely difficult to get 12 people and 2 dogs to sit still and keep their eyes opened. I really wanted to try another day, but we were never able to pull it together. Oh, well. Thus it becomes our family photo for Christmas 2009.

Now they sit still.
On the 21st of December we loaded everyone up into 2 cars (okay, one monster van and one station wagon), with 2 dogs, food for 13 people (Maria's beau came with us), food for 2 dogs, winter clothes, including ski pants, ski parkas, ski gloves, goggles/sunglasses, long underwear, warm socks and boots, 2 cots, 2 sleeping bags, extra blankets, towels, cookware, sleds, Christmas presents and Christmas decorations, laptop computers, games, craft supplies, Christmas cookie baking supplies, wine, beer and eggnog and departed for the beautiful Colorado Rocky Mountains. Our destination was Snow Mountain Ranch, the YMCA of the Rockies retreat center near Winter Park.

Let me tell you, it was so worth it. Despite the agony of hauling all that junk up to the mountains (after all, we had yet another birthday plus Christmas to celebrate), it was worth it. We practically had the place to ourselves, as most people, evidently, like to come the week after Christmas.

Our first day there, the kids got to go sledding with Santa. Yes, Santa. It was beautifully sunny and the sledding hill was awesome. (Even mom tried it a few times. What a rush!)

Other days were spent ice skating and cross-country skiing. I would have taken more pictures of the outdoor activities, but my camera actually froze at one point. Yes, it was quite cold. But we had a roaring fire in our cabin to look forward to each night, with a nice glass of wine. It was bliss.

Even the kids got into the spirit. At first, when we told them that we were going to spend Christmas in a cabin, they were upset. "It wouldn't seem like Christmas," they complained. I objected to hauling decorations and gifts up to the mountains. We had enough to haul with the dogs and the winter gear. But my kids persisted and I'm glad they did. The decorations made the cabin (and our attitudes) very festive. The kids did all the decorating. It was great!

On Christmas Eve, Santa came to our cabin bearing gifts. It was quite a sight! He had a big bag full of gifts for everyone. Later that evening, we went to the YMCA's candlelight service, as we found out there was no midnight Mass at the Catholic church. (It seems there is only one priest, but he has to say Mass at four locations over Christmas). We sang carols and listened to a sermon and stayed in our seats for the communion service. It looked like we must've been sitting in the Catholic section of the chapel because there was a whole row of folks who stayed in their seats. My husband went up to them afterwards and asked of they were Catholic. They were. So we told them about the Christmas day mass that would be held the next morning in Granby.


Christmas morning, we got up fairly early and went to Mass at Our Lady of the Snow Catholic Church in Granby.

We had such a marvelous time, everyone is in agreement: we should make this a family tradition.

It's not like there's nothing happening around here...

My husband actually reads my blog and tells me that I should blog more often. I think at least one of my college kids reads my blog too. I wish they would comment every now and then just so I know there are living beings reading this. (hint, hint).

My husband is very encouraging, sending me emails with subject lines like, "For your blog" and "You should really blog about this." I appreciate it, I really do. If I didn't have one million and one things going on at any given moment, I would really love to blog about all the wonderful topics he sends me.

The trouble is that real life keeps intruding into my blogolife. We've celebrated our oldest daughter's graduation from college (yay!!) on December 12th. We're very proud of her and her accomplishments. She majored in Physics and worked very hard, not only in her classes, but also working as an assistant manager for the university catering service. She managed to work her way through school without relying on mom and dad to pay her way. She is now applying to grad schools across the country, hoping to pursue studies in Medical Physics.

I'm promising more updates after the new year and hope everyone who reads this blog has a very joyous Christmas.

We're taking the family to the mountains for the week of Christmas. We'll be staying in a cabin at about 9,000 feet...lots of snow and cross-country skiing, sledding, ice skating...and maybe a sleigh ride. There is a lovely little parish nearby, in Granby called Our Lady of the Snow. We're looking forward to midnight Mass there and taking up half the pews.

A very blessed final week of Advent to you all!

Christmases past

Here's a Christmases past photo essay:

Christmas 2002

in England

~Christmas Day 2003~

Our first Christmas back in Colorado after England

~Christmas 2004~

~Christmas 2005~

~Christmas 2006 and record snowfall!~

~Christmas 2007~

(taken on Epiphany, January 6, 2008)

~Christmas 2008~

(this Christmas!)

Happy 7th day of Christmas!

I caved and decided to accede to my kids' requests and we're having a few friends over on New Year's Day. The house ain't House Beautiful, but it's warm, so we're going to celebrate the day with family and friends.

We took a studio portrait yesterday...not the picture perfect one I had in mind, but my guess is a few years down the road I'll look at it and smile.

I still have to write that Christmas New Years' letter, but maybe I'll get to it once the college kids go back to school.

Five more days of Christmas left!

Christmas guilt and blessings

I tend to have high expectations of myself and how our family is going to celebrate holidays. I've read so many wonderful books about celebrating the liturgical year and bringing the faith alive to your kids and I want to try it all. I would love to be able to do more of these things, but life and grocery shopping too often cut into my time. I was thinking about some of the things I wanted to do this Advent but didn't do for various reasons. For example:

The Jesse tree and ornaments stayed in the box. The nativity scene didn't even make an appearance until December 24th!

The Christmas cards are still in their boxes and the first draft of the Christmas letter is still on the computer, unsent.

I didn't make homemade gifts for all the kids' teachers, neighbors, friends and relations. I hardly made any homemade gifts at all!

I didn't get together with my friend who plays the viola, as we had planned to have a string trio or quartet for Christmastime.

I didn't even wrap some of my Christmas gifts until the afternoon of Christmas Day!

We haven't gotten all the kids together yet for the traditional Christmas photo op. Hoping to do so on Sunday.

Haven't planned the annual Christmas week/New Year's open house and it don't look like it will happen this year unless I get some lightning bolt of inspiration from heaven above.

On the other hand, there were some very good things that happened this Advent, among them:

We were able to get to daily Mass quite frequently this Advent, and everyone was able to get to confession before Christmas.

We were able to reign in the Christmas gift-buying this year and tone down expectations for Santa's generosity. This alone accounted for far less stress and more enjoyment of the holiday.

We were able to buy a beautiful tree for far less than we had spent in previous years. It looks lovely and smells marvelous.

We were able to eat dinner together most nights and say our Advent prayers together, which was also a huge thing for us as most nights we are going different directions with so many evening activities.

We are all together, safe, healthy and happy and for this we are truly thankful!

On the second day of Christmas...

My tummy still feels full from yesterday's sumptuous repast. And my brain feels somewhat squishy too. Wondering if those words are spelled correctly and my spellchecker says "no misspellings found".

Anyhoo, (wonder if that's spelled correctly?) We had a great Christmas feast with all ten kiddos home, two grandmas and one grandpa, one boyfriend and his sister, which (if you're counting) totals 17.

The prime rib, which worried me endlessly, since I don't normally spend that amount of money on a piece of meat, turned out splendidly, if you enjoy really red meat dripping blood. Well, I do, so everyone else better enjoy it too! And I dug up fresh horseradish from the winter-frozen garden to complement the meat. The Cabernet Sauvignon from Balistreri Vineyard was stunning with the meat. We also had garlic mashed potatoes, steamed asparagus with butter-lemon sauce, fresh green beans (the skinny French kind), fruit salad, dinner rolls, and my mom's delicious corn souffle. I made three pies (chocolate pecan, mincemeat, and an apple-cranberry thing I made up), light AND dark fruitcake, all topped with freshly whipped cream.

Any wonder, then, that I felt so full, I thought I would explode last night?

And I still feel full this morning. The bathroom scale says I should exercise more (at least that's how I interpret the numbers) and my stomach says, "weak tea and toast, please."

But, it's the eldest daughter's 21st birthday today, so a celebrating, we will go. We plan to walk the dog first, then spend time talking about used cars (her car recently went kaput), visiting Balistreri for some adult wine tasting and ending the day by taking her and her boyfriend out to dinner. (Salad, anyone?)

Happy feasting to one and all!

December Births Remembered

My oldest, who's turning 21 on Dec. 26th, was born on St. Stephen's Day. When I went into labor in the early morning hours after Christmas Day, I knew I was going to have a boy since we had picked out the name Stephen. My husband didn't like the name Stephanie, however. I think he either dated someone by that name or knew someone and didn't like her...anyway, Stephanie was out. So, I was quite surprised when my baby was a girl! We had talked about girl names, so we had some picked out, but I just knew that since I was going into labor on St. Stephen's Day, my child would be a boy!

Shortly after giving birth to Maria (as in three months later!) I found myself pregnant for a second time. My second baby was due on December 26th! Fast forward to the following December. It's 4 days before my due date and my daughter's first birthday. We had just moved into military housing and still had moving boxes piled everywhere. I was on active duty in the Navy and my husband was on shift work for a defense contractor. We had a young child and precious little time to unpack boxes!

On December 22nd, I picked up Maria from her day-care provider. As soon as she came in the house she threw up on my expensive Pakistani wool rug. I had a very bad feeling as I cleaned up the mess. Within a few hours, my stomach wasn't feeling too good either. Since I was so close to my due date, my husband drove me to the urgent-care clinic at a nearby Air Force base. There was a lot of this sort of stomach virus going around and several people were throwing up. All they could tell me was "don't get dehydrated!" Before we left the urgent-care clinic, my husband had to run to the bathroom to throw up.

We went home and proceeded to throw up all night. Fortunately, there were two toilets near the master bedroom because we were using them both. The next morning I felt much better, but I called in sick to work because I had terrible stomach cramps.

"Were they at regular intervals?" my Navy petty officer asked me.

"Why, yes! They are coming about once every 5 minutes!" I replied. "Maybe they're not stomach cramps after all. Maybe they're contractions!" So I decided to make a hasty trip to the Air Force hospital at Andrews AFB. When they put me on the scale, I had lost 5 pounds from my last prenatal visit. So I guess I was a bit dehydrated, which brought on labor. As soon as they got an IV into me I felt better. My poor husband, who had also been throwing up all night, had to coach me through labor without the benefit of an IV.

Our son, Pier, was born on Dec. 23rd, 3 days before his sister turned one. On Christmas morning, as we waited for the on-call doctor to sign the release papers, we went to morning Mass in the hospital chapel with about a dozen or so others, some of whom were wearing hospital gowns. At least I could put my clothes back on! A friend had given me a cute little Santa suit for my newborn baby to wear on his homecoming. The nurses all thought he was so cute, one of them asked if she could "borrow" him to show him off to some nurses on other floors. I said, "sure," and she whisked him away for about 20 or 30 minutes. My husband, who wasn't there at the time, thought I was crazy letting someone go off with my baby. I fretted until she came back with him.

We came home from the hospital on Christmas Day. We had just moved into military housing three weeks before his birth, so we still had moving boxes everywhere and the Christmas tree, which was propped up in the corner of the room until we could find the Christmas tree stand, was dropping needles like crazy.

A kind-hearted neighbor brought us some Christmas dinner on paper plates, which we ate while sitting on moving boxes. We were so exhausted that evening, that we decided not to try opening Christmas presents until the next day.

So, here's to my first two Christmas babies, who will both be 20 for three days this year! There's a good reason to have babies when you're young!

First Sunday of Advent

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. We don't typically put up our Christmas tree or other decorations until much closer to Christmas, as we try to remember the penitential aspects of the Advent season. Granted, Advent doesn't seem nearly as penitential as Lent. For one thing, we celebrate FIVE family birthdays during Advent. Mine is this Thursday, followed by Libby's next Thursday and DJ's the following Thursday (see any pattern there?). Pier's is two days before Christmas and Maria's is the day after Christmas (she'll be 21...wow!)

Anyway, it is hard to be penitential during the Advent season because we're thinking of sugerplums and fudge and gingerbread houses and sugar cookies and fruitcake. And, of course, there's St. Nicholas Day on the 6th...Our Lady of Guadalupe on the 12th...St. Lucy's Day on the 13th and several other name days for our family members. December is just one big party at our house.

So, in order to make an effort to maintain a bit of the penitentialness of the Advent season, we are going to make an extra effort to do some other things this year, among them, a Jesse tree. Some explanation and directions for making your own Jesse tree can be found here.

Additionally, we are planning on making our own gifts this year for our Secret Santas. Since there are 12 of us in our immediate family, we found it a bit easier to write names on pieces of paper and draw these names out of a hat on Thanksgiving Day. Each person draws a name and will be the Secret Santa for that person. But this year we made an extra caveat that you must do something creative and make a part of the gift yourself. So, it doesn't have to be entirely handmade, but it has to be at least partially handmade. For example, it could be a gift basket that you assemble yourself, with things that the person enjoys like a movie themed basket or a spa treatment basket. The little kids can make cards or coupons good for helping Mom around the house or doing a special job for Dad. Or, they can do a spiritual bouquet of prayers for a certain person.

We're also going to make an extra effort to eat dinner together as a family each night, light our Advent candles and say the Advent prayers. Along with this, we may have each of the kids read a passage of Scripture.

One other thing we are going to try to do this year is to make some Christmas treats for our neighbors, many of whom are elderly.

I know from past experience not to make too many plans for Advent because I always think I can do more than I realistically can. But I hope this year we will remember to keep Christ in the Season and escape the materialistic madness that always seems to envelope society this time of year.

Blessings to you for a Christ-centered Advent!