Tag: Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Mom gave us a fake-snow machine! It’s more convincing than one might think–particularly in pictures.

I baked gingersnaps, orange rolls, cinnamon rolls, chocolate shortbread, baguettes (for Christmas Eve cheese fondue), and dinner rolls (for Christmas dinner).

I bought twinkling lights for the tree this year and so had several extra strands of lights leftover. I tried my hand at writing “Merry” on the fence (I think it came out pretty well).

On Christmas Eve everyone took turns reading stories. Heather played a few songs on the cello. I played a few songs on the trombone. We opened books from the girls and spent some time reading and eating treats. London practiced being a present under the tree. And then Santa came.

The girls were up about their usual time on Christmas morning–which is about 6:45. But they let us sleep a little longer and we got the morning moving around 7:30.

After pictures and stockings in the living room we moved on to the family room with the tree. But first Corinne had a few surprises of her own for the morning. She created, in secret, a surprise gift randomizer. This entailed her writing down gifts from herself on sheets of paper and sticking them in the pages of a picture book. We each opened the book to a random page to receive a special gift from her. Several of them involved her making us special items in Minecraft. She also gave us gifts she made at school including her “Christmas is…” book in which she describes the memories that make Christmas special for her.

I ordered the family campfire art from Uncommon Goods. Took a few back and forths with the artist to get the proof correct, but it came out pretty well. Even has London and Phoenix curled up by the fire.

Corinne was super excited to receive a box of “Captain Crunch’s Oops all Berries.”

I found a copy of the Springbok “Twelve Days of Christmas” puzzle on eBay for a non-absurd price. Jess’ family had it growing up and she’s been wanting it for nostalgia for a while.

Corinne became enamored of the horse toy when she saw it in a local shop. So she was extremely happy to find it under the tree.

Heather received a variety of things, but I think the thing she ended up being most excited about was the wireless computer mouse that she can use at school with her Chromebook and at home with her tablet.

Amongst other things (including the aforementioned snow machine), I received a variety of 3D printing supplies including some fancy filaments and a case for my newish Kobo eReader (which I keep meaning to write up a quick post about because I’m very pleased with it).

It was a good year. Though for unknown reasons I really had a hard time feeling much Christmas spirit this year. Didn’t feel like Christmas was near and then it was here and even during the day it somehow didn’t feel like it was happening. The girls all seemed to have a blast though. Corinne still has the unbridled joy and excitement of childhood that clearly comes through in her pictures. Heather is reaching the more subdued teenager stage.

I think perhaps next year I need to spend less time in the immediately preceding days trying to get baking done and more time just enjoying things. Maybe it will be easier if there aren’t car repairs needing to be scheduled (still not done), leaking ceilings to be worried about (hopefully resolved), and broken dryers to be fixed (seems to be working again now). Being an adult can sure be a drag sometimes.

With Christmas on Monday this year it, again, felt like a sprint to the finish. The girls had Friday off from school, but I was still working. So Saturday and Sunday were filled trying to get everything ready.

I used the weekend to bake! Peanut-butter blossoms, sugar cookies (the girls cut and decorated them), chocolate-cream pie, and crème brulée for desserts. Rolls for Christmas dinner, and baguettes to dip in cheese fondue for Christmas-Eve dinner. It took all day both days, but I got it all done.

For dinner on Christmas Eve we had our now-traditional cheese fondue with fresh baguettes, vegetables, apples, and whatever else we decide to dip. Corinne and Heather read a couple of stories, I played Christmas songs on my trombone (fairly poorly, but with all the baking I hadn’t had time to practice that weekend or warm up), and Jess read a story.

This year, in an effort to help the girls develop the ability to consider the interests of others, we had gone to Barnes and Noble and had them select books for each other as gifts. And then Jess and I switched off with them to select gifts for each of us. So after our songs and stories we all opened our books from the girls, drank hot chocolate, ate cookies, and read a little from our new books while listening to Christmas music. With the fake fire glowing in the fireplace, just needed some snow falling outside the window to make it a perfectly pleasant evening.

The girls set out eggnog, cookies, and carrots for Santa and his reindeer and then they were off to bed.

In the morning we were up at dawn (which is the girls’ usual time) to see what transformation had taken place in the house overnight.

Christmas was on a Sunday and school / work ran through the Thursday before. So we kind of ran into the day. School and work, school and work, then Friday, Saturday–boom–Christmas.

I spent almost the entirety of lead up baking. On the 23rd I made a bûche de Noël using the same recipe as my birthday cake (chocolate cake, vanilla instant-mousse filling, and chocolate buttercream frosting). It’s not the traditional French recipe in any form, but it tastes better. I wasn’t sure if the cake recipe would take to being rolled, but it worked well enough. I used a half recipe and baked it in a parchment-paper lined baking sheet. I messed up right at the end of preparing the cake and added a full amount of boiling water, but I also messed up and cooked it for the usual length of time. Thankfully those two mistakes seemed to cancel each other out and it came out fine.

On Christmas Eve I spent the day baking fresh baguettes to eat with fondue, and rolls for dinner the next day. I also worked with the girls to make sugar cookies using dough I had prepared the day before. Jess baked a chocolate fudge pie.

The evening rolled in and we ate our now-traditional cheese fondue with a variety of dippings: fresh baguette (so good), vegetables, apples, & crackers. The recipe Jess came up with this year was, by far, the best yet and will likely become the go-to recipe in the future.

Then we each read a story in the living room in front of the faux-fire. I read The Polar Express, Corinne read a booklet Heather wrote last year, titled Christmas Is, about what kinds of things makes Christmas feel special to her (which includes: picking out a special tree, decorating the house, the Christmas chain countdown, driving around town to look at lights, and reading a Christmas Eve story [among others]), Heather read Winter Candle, and Jess read The Night Before Christmas. The cats joined us for the stories and Phoenix even let me get a picture.

The girls each opened presents from each other (novelty socks and slippers!) before leaving out egg nog and cookies and heading to bed. And eventually the house was calm and quiet and the Christmas Magic happened.

Christmas morning started in the dark with Heather waking us up to say she didn’t feel well and had a headache. Then waking us up again a bit later to reiterate not feeling well and then she threw up. So it was a rough start. By that point everyone was up and moving and she felt much better after throwing up. We’d chalk it up to over excitement, but she also had a fever, which seem harder to fit into that narrative.

Anyway, she was feeling better so we got the show on the road at about 6:45am.

We made another set of gingerbread houses this year. Jess has been sick all week and made a noble attempt, but ultimately didn’t have the energy to fight through. So her house is the dilapidated shack in the back.