On Our Own

Our Christmas tree was dragged out several weeks ago, but while moving the furniture to vacuum yesterday, several pine needles were sucked up, bringing back, for just a moment, that nostalgic scent of Christmas. This past holiday season will definitely be a memorable one for our family. Although we missed being with family and friends, it was fun for us to piece together our own traditions, which turned out to be heavily influenced by the Ebert and Spendlove celebrations we love. 

The first weekend in December we headed to a nearby forest to cut down our own tree. I have always had visions of trudging up a desolate mountain, locating the perfect pine with axe in hand (okay, axe in Steve's hand) and chopping down our Christmas tree. This year, we found the forest, did the trudging, located the tree, and then to Steve's delight, tracked down the tree farm employees to do the axing. While they tied the the tree to the top of our car, we sipped hot apple cider in a little log cabin. Steve's and my visions were both met!

Every year, beginning December 1st, we read a Christmas book each night and have hot chocolate by the Christmas tree. This year I read stories that were more Christ centered, which came from a book that my Aunt Jean had compiled for me several years ago. Accompanying each story is a scripture to read and a Christmas carol to sing. These nightly readings was one of my favorite traditions this year. However, on the night that we read the Gift of the Magi, a story of a woman who cuts off her hair to sell it so that she can buy a gift for her husband, Sophia snuck away and found the kitchen scissors. Just I was finishing the story, we found Sophia cutting her hair. She explained that she wanted to give her hair away as a gift. How could we get upset? She seemed to have misguided, but good intentions. In addition, we've seen worse. What is a few new layers in a four year old's hair anyway?  

On a Saturday afternoon, Sophia and I escaped together to see Santa. Upon the first sighting of everything red, Sophia burst into Verrill Farm's holiday room, jumped onto Santa's lap, threw her arms around his neck, and announced that she would love a unicorn for Christmas -- a real one. Thanks to the job training that Santa must go through, he made no promises.

The first year Steve and I were married, we invited Stan and Ann over to make a gingerbread house -- from scratch! I think it was about two in the morning before we had finished baking the ginger bread. The Hansen's went home and Steve and I spent the entire next day finishing the house. It wasn't until the Costco kits came out that we attempted this German tradition again. A season can't go by without decorating a gingerbread house, now in kid style.

For the past two years I have taken the kids to the Concord Museum for their Family Trees Celebration. Thirty trees throughout the museum are decorated and each tree's theme matches a children's book. We stop at every tree and read the corresponding books, spending several hours at the museum. This year some of the books we read were The Very Hungry Caterpillar, A Pair of Red Clogs, Tops and Bottoms, and the book that accompanied our favorite tree, The Snowy Day. We always love to talk about how the decorations on the trees relate to the books. Afterwards we stop for cookies and hot chocolate in one of the cafes on Concord's quaint Main Street.

On Christmas Eve I headed into Boston with Emilie, Jonathan, Annelise and Sophia. Emilie and Annelise could not bear to forgo Grandma Gretta's tradition of taking the girls to the Nutcracker Ballet. Although we missed having Grandma with us, we enjoyed all the beauty and excitement of the Mother Buffoon, the China dancers and the Sugarplum Fairy. We added Jonathan and Sophia to our group this year. Sophia sat on my lap in awe at the graceful dancers, the changing scenery and the colorful costumes. To my surprise, Jonathan had actually read a copy of the Nutcracker that we have on one of our bookshelves. On the way to the performance, he explained to all of his sisters the story in detail and even corrected them in some misunderstandings that they have had. Jonathan loved the performance. However, he made it clear that his favorite part was the Russian dancers and that it was difficult to sit through the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Land of Sweets.

When we returned home, Steve and I went to work preparing for Christmas Eve dinner. Grandma Ebert always makes an elegant dinner, another tradition that we could not forgo. We pulled out our best china and silver and baked Marilee's rolls, Grandma's pomegranate jello, a great new brussel sprout dish, which my children actually love, and of course, mashed potatoes. I warned Steve in advance that I would not be making roulade, the traditional Christmas Eve German meal that Steve looks forward to all year. I agreed to the next best option, fillet of beef with Gorgonzola sauce. We placed a gift, which was a caramel apple this year, at each place setting, a tradition which has been carried down from Steve's Grandma Milne.

During dinner, the Dolan's from our ward carolled to us. What a sweet surprise. Somehow it made us feel not quite as alone on Christmas Eve. 

After dinner we began our Christmas Eve performance. Following in Grandma Spendlove and Grandma Calder's tradition, we began the night with a talent show. On the piano, Annelise played Jingle Bells, Jonathan played Away in the Manger and Emilie played Minute I. Sophia did her rendition of Clara from the Nutcracker and Ezra made various animal sounds on cue, along with some car and truck sounds as a bonus!

While Steve and I had been preparing dinner, the kids went to the basement and became play writes, costume designers, researchers and performers. With no help from Steve and me, they came up with a Nativity scene, complete with props, scripture references and costumes! It was such fun to see their interpretation of Christ's birth. Other than Joseph being quite domineering, Mary tugging on and pounding the baby when she didn't get her way and a wandering shepard, we were quite impressed with the performance. 

Thanks to Grandma Ebert, we still were able to open our traditional Christmas nutcracker and pajammas. The kids were concerned that they may miss out on this tradition. They love their Christmas jammies and were so excited when we pulled out Grandma's gift. Steve and I also couldn't wait to add our new nutcracker to our collection, another tradition carried down from Grandma Milne.

To end the night, we had peppermint ice cream pie and the children listened intently to The Night Before Christmas, the poem that Uncle Scott always reads on Christmas Eve at Grandma Rose's house. The children were soon off to bed and Steve and I had a few minutes to sit in front of our beautiful tree before we were off to finish our Christmas Eve chores.

On Christmas morning we followed in traditional Ebert fashion and lined the kids up youngest to oldest. They made their progression down to the family room, located their stockings and pulled out baseball cards, comfy spa socks, jars of bubble bath and books of lifesavers. Steve and I still get to enjoy our own stockings, which my mom sent, keeping with tradition. We pulled out a potato ricer, whipping cream dispenser, Ina Garten cookbook, cologne, biography and other fun items. 

We spent the remainder of Christmas day playing with the gifts that we opened. Sophia and Annelise circled through the house with their American Girl dolls, Emilie enjoyed her music, Jonathan and Steve played the Wii, with spurts of the girls joining in, and Ezra spent chunks of the day making baskets and hitting his baseballs.(He insisted on using the wrong end of the bat and finding more joy in completely knocking over the T-ball stand than hitting the baseballs with any percision!) We appreciated so much the effort that our family put forth in helping us experience our favorite family traditions despite being miles away. We prefer and love being with family and friends at Christmas. However, this year gave us the opportunity to celebrate the holidays Steve and Camille style.       

The Big City

In another attempt to truly experience the East Coast, Steve and I packed up the children and headed down to New York for Thanksgiving. Our weekend began on 79th Street and Central Park West for the Macy's balloon inflating event. We braved the cold and the crowds to watch Buzz Light Year, Smurf, Kermit the Frog and others become much larger than life! 

The kids were excited each time they identified a new character slowly taking shape, but the highlight of the evening was being live on New York City's Channel 5 News! We realized that the cameras were about to roll, just feet from us. An NBC news reporter asked Emilie, Jonathan, Annelise and Sophia to shout "Happy Thanksgiving!" on cue -- definitely the highlight of the night! 

We then wandered down Columbus Avenue in search of New York Pizza. We ended up tucked in a small shop with hardly enough eating space, but with pizza well worth the sacrifice. 

It was then to Central Park and a night of ice skating. As we left the streets of Manhattan, full of holiday crowds, we found Central Park beautiful and peaceful. We circled around Tavern on the Green, with its trees full of twinkling lights, walked through a tunnel with a lone saxophone player, serenading couples wandering the park, and listened to the clopping feet of horse drawn carriages in the distance. When we reached the ice skating rink, Steve and the kids slipped on skates and headed for the ice. Ezra and I made our way back to the car by way of various shops and a stop at Starbucks for hot chocolate. We picked up the ice skaters and listened to reports of their immense progress, with Emilie and Jonathan now able to skate alone, Annelise much more confident, and Sophia surviving her first skating experience with no injuries or tears. As we headed north out of the city, all five children fell asleep before reaching Matt and Ruth's apartment, our destination for the weekend.

On Thanksgiving morning we drove into Manhattan to experience the Macy's Day Parade with Matt and Ruth and Ruth's three sisters who were also visiting for Thanksgiving.  Although the crowds were thick and the view from Matt's big screen television would have been much better, we loved every moment of being at the parade in person. We happened to find the perfect spot for the kids, inside a gated area, where they had an unobstructed view of the same balloons that they had seen the night before, along with marching bands and dancers. Steve and I both agreed that this just may have to be our new Thanksgiving tradition. 

After the parade, the Perkins returned home to prepare Thanksgiving dinner while Steve and I took the kids to the Bronx Zoo. (We all knew that too many cooks in the kitchen along with little helpers would be more than one small apartment could take!) With each recent trip to New York, I have wanted to take our family to the Bronx Zoo, the setting of many children's books and movies. Finally we made it and our expections were met! The buildings and grounds were more like a Neoclassical European estate than a city zoo, with columns, domes, fountains and groomed lawns. Due to the holiday and the cold, there were no crowds, which was perfect for a family with five young children. We saw huge boa constrictors, an impressive Madagascar exhibit, the famous gorilla habitat and the bug carousal. However, the children all agreed that the highlight of the day was a tiny blue poison dart frog in the amphibian exhibit.

We joined Matt and Ruth for Thanksgiving dinner. Ruth successfully prepared her first turkey and the dinner included Matt's famous mashed potatoes, a sweet potato dish, made from a recipe that I just had to ask for, hot rolls and a pomegranate fruit salad, followed by a pumpkin roll and chocolate cake for dessert. 

The next morning Ruth, her sisters, Annelise, Emilie and I headed into the city for the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular.  We donned our 3-D glasses as we followed Santa's sleigh on a ride around New York City, watched the Parade of the Soldiers, an original Rockettes scene, a scene from the Nutcracker and the elegant living Nativity to end the show. This turned out to be the perfect over night transition from fall celebrations to the Christmas holidays! 

We did a little shopping on 5th avenue, walked past the Christmas windows and then left the Perkins, as they headed to Serendipity and we wandered through Central Park and then met up with Steve to search for Jonathan's street  vendor Gyro's that he had been desperately requesting since we had arrived in New York.

 

The remainder of the afternoon was spent at the South Street Seaport. We took the kids into the Body Exhibit, where they were most facinated to learn and see that tumors, made out of teeth, hair and fingernails can grown in random areas of the body. We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge as the day was ending, along with all of the commuters heading home for the weekend. And then we watched the tree lighting at the Seaport, proceeded by a men's chorus and Santa's train wobbling up the cobble stone street.  

We then returned to Matt and Ruth's for dinner and Wii playing, complete with High School Musical III competitions involving each house guest, young and old alike.

All of us fell asleep before the night was over. After Steve finished a card game and a night of conversation he returned to our room to find us all fast asleep! 

The next morning the Perkins joined us for the movie Bolt! 

We began our drive back home, but not before we had to replace two shocks that blew out only two miles into our journey. The experience proved to be a perfect "glass is half full" teaching moment for our kids. Fortunately we were seconds from a Sears auto shop, rather than on a desolate freeway, a huge mall with shops and restaurants was next door, the auto part store was still open for 45 minutes so that our part could be quickly picked up, we were not inconvienced during a work day, and the bill was in the hundreds, not thousands! Despite this minor inconvience, our trip was a huge success!