Preparations

Yow-zer.

My kids were BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS. It was 0 º F outside today, so we were a little stumped on what to do with all their energy.

Fritz is back at work and – I love him; it was great to have him around for 5 solid days over Christmas; but I was almost relieved when he walked out the door yesterday morning. The more he's around the more I start feeling like I'm doing a really disproportionate share of the housework. When he's gone, I'm DEFINITELY doing all the housework. So there's some degree of irony: Fritz's gone – Ann does all the housework – Ann isn't too frustrated about it. Fritz's home – Fritz does marginal amounts of housework – Ann is annoyed by his insufficient help.

I'm working on organizing the house over the holiday break. My work tends to be more focused thinking than productive action. Well, honestly, it's pretty much a lesson in futility, trying to organize with the kids underfoot. That I am even attempting to organize witnesses that the kids are better than ever at entertaining themselves. Really. Relative to where we were 4 months ago, there's been a giant leap in self-sufficiency. But it's still an uphill battle to do something like organize.

For our upcoming renovations, all five of us will be moving into and sharing ONE bedroom. For about 3 months. Well, it could be a shorter amount of time, but I'm thinking long so that I can be happily surprised rather than disappointed. Fritz and I are trying to look at the positive: with two-thirds of the house under construction there will be less area to clean (on a daily basis (I hope))! At least the construction is happening when school is in session; this would be much tougher if the kiddos were on vacation! It's also an opportunity to clean things out of the house!

Needless to say, it's taking some forethought to cut our living space to one-third of the current size. Fritz and I have different understandings of how thoroughly this needs to be done. Fritz's version is along the lines of just-push-everything-into-corners-and-cover it with plastic. My version is more involved. I feel like I need to rearrange toys and rearrange the living space in addition to the bedroom consolidation. Can't use my desk space? Then I need to move it somewhere where I can work. I also want to pack up all things we won't be using and donate/throw out all the things that we don't need. Why store it if we don't need it anymore, right? I might have a point, but I'll acknowledge this kind of thinking might be making a mountain out of a mole hill.

What is apparent is that Fritz and I have some different ideas about how the space in our house functions, and what's important. This is not surprising: I'm the only adult at home with various combinations of children for about 10 hours a day. Fritz is only really here with awake children (and me) for an additional 3 hours. Of course we have different priorities and perspectives!  I want to switch the lounge-y sofas (picture here) into the space we'll be using during renovations – because they're more versatile and comfy – and leave The Sofa for The Art of Proper Conversation covered in plastic. Really? It's so hard to move the sofas! Fritz sighs.

I worry that if we are too rash about our preparations, I'm the one who will be grinding her teeth the most.

Christmas Tree Traditions

I love seeing people's Christmas trees and hearing their tree traditions. These days, I wish I had more time to talk to people about their Christmas tree! Instead, when I see a Christmas tree, I'm mostly directing Trixie away before she pulls off a valuable ornament, or worse.

Even at Christmastime, blue tape manages to be part of our household decoration.
Sigh.
Would somebody please stop buying my kids blue tape?
(Me.)

I find it fascinating the way some people have many Christmas trees, and some people just one. Some people decorate their trees with a theme, and some people have matching ornaments, and some people just a hodgepodge of ornaments. Some trees have no ornaments, some are sagging under the weight of ornaments. Some trees have colored lights, some have white lights. Some trees have big lights and some have small lights. Some people like as many lights as possible, some people like just a few or none. Some people mix up their strategies every year, some people have the same strategy every year. What does it all mean? Maybe nothing, but I like to think about it!

Furniture and toys in disarray. Just keeping it real, you know.

We don't change much in the Wyse home. Our tree is the same every year. We fall in the as-many-white-lights-as-possible and hodgepodge-of-ornaments categories. We put up the same hodgepodge of ornaments every year because each ornament has a meaning embedded in it. It wouldn't be quite be Christmas if we didn't put up the little jack in the box ornament and then tear it off the tree to wind it up 20 times a day. Or it wouldn't quite be Christmas if we didn't hang up the felt teddy bear my godmother made with my name on it which is throughly ungluing itself after 38 years.

One of my friends said she liked our Christmas tree the other day, and I rather shrugged her comment away, because there's nothing at all specially designed and planned about our tree. And yet everything about it is special. To us.

Growing up, one of my aunts gave me a Christmas ornament every year. Others gave ornaments occasionally. When I graduated from college, my mother separated "my" ornaments out, and sent them along with me for my own tree. Every year since my mother has given me (and then Fritz, and then our children) more ornaments for the tree. Some of the ornaments belonged to Fritz's grandmother. My aunt continues to give us ornaments. Sometimes, my grandmother gives ornaments, too. All three kids have their own growing, personal collection of ornaments. For now, all the ornaments hang on the Wyse Family Tree. But some day, those ornaments will be separated and sent off with each child, just like mine were.

(Removed photo.)

So I don't really know if our tree is particularly pretty or not, but it's okay either way, because for us, the meaning transcends the aesthetics and it just feels right.

Merry Christmas! May it feel right, however you spend it!

Drive Safely, Fakes, Candy

For about a week, Mattias has been sick with something. The details are not actually interesting but they are still managing to absorb huge amounts of time and energy. So let's talk about something else.

Have you noticed a lot of crazy driving lately? Here in the Denver area, I've noticed a significant uptick in bad driving habits in just the last three days. Running red lights, rolling through stop signs, more cell phone usage than normal, speeding and tailgating. I get it: the holidays are stressful, people are trying to Get Things Done. I watched a driver pull over to the side of the road to let a tailgating car pass the other day. It was such a nonagressive, simple solution to the problem. I've never done it before; but I think I will the next time I have a tailgater. I want no part in the driving madness.

We don't have a fireplace, and every year at Christmastime I want one. I even pine (haha!) over silly portable ones in Home Depot. Fritz sighs deeply, "Fake tree, fake fireplace, what's next?" He sent me this link for a tabletop fireplace. Yup. Sign me up. I'll take it. (Just kidding, it's not big enough for the stockings.)

Speaking of the stockings, I'm filling the stockings with really boring stuff like toothpaste and toothbrushes and underwear this year. I do this every year and I think nothing of it. Even if I filled the stockings with toys, the kids tend to be on such overload that they barely notice what's in the stockings. So it might as well be stuff I have to buy anyway. But I did buy some lollipops from Hammonds. Hammonds is a local, small batch candy maker. I'd never heard of them before we moved to Denver, but they do sell all over the US. Their candies are like beautiful works of art. I especially love rifling through all their old fashion candy styles: like the stuff my great grandmother had in the drawer beside her bed in the nursing home. Or these ribbon candies. I had to sample a little bit of what I bought this year... and the taste is amazingly pure, melty sugar. It's nothing like the chemical aftertaste stuff you buy at the checkout in the grocery store. I forgot candy could be so wonderful.