How COVID Stole Christmas

Covid didn't really steal our Christmas but Gray suggested I write a story with this title upon us learning of canceled and expected to be canceled events due to family and close friends catching it.  It was definitely a different kind of Christmas and some of it is yet to be celebrated...but celebrate we did, in many places- traditional or not- and many times- traditional or not.  Here are some highlights...

International Christmas party at the Bakers.  This was the retelling of the Christmas story, somewhat spontaneously.  Loved Matt as a sheep.  It was great to meet/be with some families that are not from the US and celebrate with them.

At that same party, the boys enjoyed experimenting with the fire.

The day of the Christmas parade, the boys and I were at a lacrosse "Hunger Games" food bank tournament.  It was coooold but always love to watch them play.  Meanwhile, Julia played in the Hillsborough Christmas parade, while Barnette, Allie, and Matt watched (poor Nanny had...covid).

Allie was super pumped to sing in her school Holiday concert.  It is always so well done and I've missed it the past two years when they have done some adapted version with no audience due to covid.  

Allie was right by her bud Molly but unfortunately this gap between the Jolly Green Giant (actually she's probably normal sized!) and Mr Jaws Christmas tightened up pretty quickly and little Allie could only be seen in half second increments when she poked her head through.  

This is (I think) the first Christmas where I read an entire devotional by Christmas day.  Helped me keep my focus a lot.

Candy Cane Hunt! 

Christmas Cookie decorating!  My favorite childhood tradition and now that the kids are more independent, I'm enjoying it a lot again. (I used to be afraid of it and let them do it with grandparents or something)

We went to Shanghai Dumpling for a very rare family dinner out and then to Target to let the siblings buy a gift for each other.  This year they drew names and they liked focusing on just one person.  We went separate ways in pairs in Target but kept running into each other and one team finished super early and got impatient waiting in the car, but overall a good time.

We made teacher treats together this year and it was...a lot.  There were sprinkles and chocolate and complaining and panicking abounding.  But we ended up making 25 bags of treats and I guess that was an accomplishment.

Julia had her band concert, which was beautiful.  She was not a fan of the post-concert picture at all.  I'll just leave it at that.

Our newest tradition is the Christingle, brought to us from Constance and fam over in London.  This is our 3rd year of doing it and one of my favorites!  It really focuses us on the blessing of Christ coming into our dark world and there is candy so the kids are happy to participate!

We had a snowball fight night with the fake snowballs and then gave the kids a gift they somehow weren't expecting, though it has loomed large in our garage with a tarp over it for 2 months.  When I saw the kids enjoying Carpetball so much at Family Camp and Matt said he could make it, I thought it would be a great Christmas gift and we got to work on it during my fall break.  It wasn't super easy to make and there were oversights and mistakes and it warped wood that sort of straightened out, but in the end, we did it and the kids were very surprised.

Allie declared it her favorite game ever and then hasn't wanted to play since.  :)

The boys are still loving it and we expect it will be fun when we have friends over too.

Joshua was a little busy this month and seemed to drag out his crafting (and eating his crafting) for quite a while after the rest of us were done.  He made these Seahawks cookies (and one of Gray in a sweatshirt he always wears- not pictured) with care and attention to detail.

Our church did a Christmas party at our neighborhood clubhouse.  There was lots of great food, wine, and fun games.  It was good to get to know people better.  I did a lot of helping in the kitchen and that was fun too.

We had some downtime at home days over the break.  Sometimes the girls argue a lot but often they get along and play for hours.  Julia loves to style Allie and do a photo shoot.

They also like to do "fancy" meals.

We did a lot of watching sports and movies and playing games too.

I decided to make homemade gingerbread houses this year and they did taste much better than store bought, but due to the hours and hours of work and trouble they were, I have noted to never do that again. ;)  Really I noted to cut down the sugar traditions in general because we did soo much dessert-making and eating this year.  This one was particularly sugar-high inducing, with two kinds of icing and tons of candy and sprinkles.  

In typical Joshua fashion, he did his about a week later and super carefully and it turned out the neatest.

We had our always fun-filled China Adoption Group Christmas party at the Runkles this year.  Unfortunately we were missing Lisa (covid), but it was great to be together with everyone else.  We did a "create a nativity scene in 2 minutes with stuff I gathered from our house" game and that turned out cute.

Later we did a Christmas character "guess who" game that was fun but long and we finished with our annual White Elephant, only this year we put everyone into one exchange.  So also long.  :)  We left late, tired, and happy.  And woke the next day to more sad covid tidings that canceled Julia's sleepover and our trip to Rock Hill.

So we decided to do our Christmas at home on the 24th instead of the 26th, since Matt was working Christmas Day and we weren't traveling anymore.

We started with a cold, windy day and no power in the early morning, but thankfully that resolved and we had a big Christmas breakfast and read a Christmas story before doing stockings and gifts.

Gray surprised everyone with little gifts in their stockings.  He got Joshua a football guy they both thought was cool.

Allie's laugh is a hallmark of our family!  

Christmas gnome from Joshua.

Our budding scientist!  She tried a few of the chemistry experiments in the book and then spent a couple hours mixing everything together her own way.

I surprised Joshua with this lego car that he saw months ago when he took Allie to Walmart and had taken a picture and shown me.  He was really happy to get it and spent 3 hours putting it together, then sitting with it and watching the Seahawks game.

Allie suddenly is really into legos and loved putting together this little ice cream truck that came with the Chinese noodle shop we gave her.

Julia isn't too much of a lego person, but I thought she might like these grown up succulent ones and she really did.  She gained a lot of confidence working through these and realizing she is better at following these directions than she thought.

Christmas Day was mostly a weird day, as we just hung around without Matt, didn't do much but a little cooking and cleaning, then went to church at 4.  After that, we had Christmas dinner with Matt's side at Kim's for the first time and that was a lot of fun.

Emoni and Andre got engaged that morning and were so excited!

Matt got to come after work.  He finds toothbrushes in stockings an oddity.  :)

Barnette had just finished two days of chemo a few days prior so he has to be very careful of germs now, but we were so happy it went well and he could be with us.

The week post-Christmas, my personal Marie Kondo came over to help me de-clutter the house and I got a lot cleaned out, thrown away, reorganized, donated.  It's something I typically do when I have my breaks from work, yet it's a job that never seems to be finished!  

We celebrated Julia turning 13!

Nanny and Pa came over for lunch and cookies.

Addie came over for a redo of the sleepover plan, just the two of them this time.

We let the girls walk to Vinny's and do dinner on their own, then they went to a public skate.  The next day was the longest shopping trip ever, as I took them to the outlets and Julia painstakingly chose an outfit and spent a gift card.  We spent hours and hours shopping and then tried to finish our trip with a quick visit to Starbucks, but they were super short staffed and we ended up waiting 45 minutes for the girls' drinks.  It was a long and patience-testing day but I'm glad she got to go, as I never think I have the time to take her shopping on a typical week.  ( Though this trip kind of affirmed that thinking!;) )

Not pictured from this month:  Blessing Day (Each of us did something to bless each member of the family and then we shared at dinner what others did for us), CrabMoore or MooCrab Christmas dinner (They hosted us and did all the work!  So nice!!), the long awaited order of a Triple Treat Box (Gray was asking for this on a daily basis) and viewing of The Santa Clause with the Moores.

 

Christmastime is Here ?!?

 Yep, we are currently littered with Christmas decoration boxes that Julia and Allie have begun to pull out and place around the house.  My closet shelf is full to the ceiling of amazon boxes and other packages.  I've got a calendar full of holiday activities.  Must be Christmastime, though I feel like we just did Halloween.  In the last month, we've had less going on in some ways-- seasons ended, the "dead period" of no lacrosse happened, we had some random days off of school.  But we've had a lot going on in many other ways.

Here's our last month in pictures...

The boys had a fantastic night cheering on the Wolfpack to a nice win with GrandGene.  They even met up with Carly, who was tailgating with some friends.

Somewhere in here, we had a really unusual week.  Monday dawned eerily warm and windy and as I stood outside watching the kids at recess, it just felt like strange things were brewing.

The kids were off Tuesday and Friday, which was weird.  Matt took the boys to do an official tour of NC State Tuesday and I took Joshua on that rainy Friday to Queens in Charlotte.  We are in the thick of things with college now.  NC State is definitely Joshua's top choice, but he had a contact from a school about possible interest in him playing lacrosse there, so that made it feel a little more real that he could maybe play at a small school.  There are just a lot of choices and unknowns in this process but we are learning!

That week Julia got pretty sick and stayed the whole week at home with the flu and then Gray got sick too. I spent the week waiting for the other shoe to fall and the rest of us to get sick too.

That week we also got some surprising news that Barnette likely has cancer, which was very surreal to hear about and process, since he's been in a such great health.  Since then lymphoma has been confirmed but sounds like it's very treatable and we look forward to many more years with him, though this diagnosis is still a heavy weight when we think about it.

Another thing that week- Joshua and his longtime "friend", who have liked each other since 6th grade, finally became a couple, which happened with no warning and he didn't even tell us-- I found out from her mom the next day.  It was a lonnnng time coming in some ways but very unexpected in others.  He keeps things close to his chest for sure.

And we got the good news that week that Matt had passed his contractor's license exam with flying colors, which he had been studying for and dreading for ages, not thinking he would pass the first time, especially since he was feeling a little under the weather too. 

Gray's basketball season ended that week as well.  Last time playing rec.  They were undefeated and won the championship, which was exciting, though Gray was sick and missed one of the tournament games, then was not at his best for the last game.  We have seen a lot of basketball in that gym over the years and it's been really fun. But with the girls not interested in basketball and the boys now aged out, we must say sayonara to the good ol' Orange Co. rec league.  

All in all, just lots of unusual happenings in the midst of ordinary middle of November.

After the "dead period" of no lacrosse for a couple weeks, the boys headed to Jordan High in Durham for a Memorial tournament.  It was super cold, but I bundled up and went with them for the first day of play.  Always enjoy watching my boys, and for two of the games, we were so close to the bench that I got an inside look at the interactions of the team too.  

I was treated to a DPAC show by my teacher the weekend before Thanksgiving.  We saw Hairspray, which was silly and fun, and we went to eat in downtown Durham before.  We are in our 3rd year of working together and I think often about 4 years ago when I began subbing in the same classroom with Jen and had this feeling we'd have a bigger history together than those couple of days when her coworker was sick.  We get along super well, though we are different in some ways, and it was really nice to have hours to talk, rather than trying to squeeze all our conversation into the 2 minutes while the kids are doing a "brain break" video.

Then we had a 2 day week of school and for Allie, only a one day week, as she got to play hooky and head to the beach early with Matt for the much-anticipated Thanksgiving at the new beach house.

The new place is much like the old one-- absolutely beautiful, perfectly decorated, well-built, and comfortable.  I didn't even miss those aching calf muscles that were the trademark of a first day at the old beach house, but not here since there is only one flight of stairs!

The rest of us arrived Tuesday night after waiting for the boys to play lacrosse and Joshua to shower and pack...which put us at 10pm getting there.  We settled in for a little sleep and I woke the next morning to Allie's signature pounding feet on the floor above me.  Wednesday was spent preparing food for Thursday, some time on the beach, fixing a fence, and I don't remember what else.  

The good ol' "Passing Game" was revived and may not have ended in tears as it always used to, but did end in angry feelings.  Par for the course I guess!

We finished the night with a fun game called "Fish Bowl" that of course brought out the various personalities of the group.  

Thursday had a lot of the crew up early trying to clean and bake for the big lunch meal.  When things settled down, that morning was my favorite part of the trip...enjoying some outdoor games and beautiful weather together.

Allie was content to play in her little "beach".

Our family played croquet and then Gray and I had an epic corn hole battle.  It was so nice to relax together, listen to music and have fun.

We got in some pictures at some point, between all the eating and football.  The food was so good and it was nice to see all the family.  I particularly enjoyed individual conversation with many of the family there.  Of course when you put this many people under one roof, there will be interpersonal conflicts, frustrations, mistakes, etc, etc.  One of the biggest reasons I was excited for this trip was for the cousins to have a holiday together in which they didn't just have a meal and all of us go home. Living so near to each other, that's just the way it has worked.  When the kids were little, they loved time together so much.  They made up games like "fire patrol" and filmed their own movies.  Even recently they have enjoyed the time together playing the "Secret Hitler" board game, shooting pool, and doing activities together on the trips to the Creeper Trail and mountains this summer.  I think I expected these 3 or 4 days together to be magical, special cousin time and it just didn't work out that way.  The dynamic was a lot different and they are all growing and changing, with interests and priorities and personalities that don't always magically mesh.  They had some fun together for sure, but it wasn't like I thought.  And then the cousins unexpectedly left early, so it was quickly over.  

I've now learned, as Jeannie tried to tell me, that having "great expectations" is pretty much unavoidable, particularly in something so built up as a big family holiday.  And letting go of those when they aren't met can be pretty tough.  I saw that play out in many ways amongst many of the different people that we spent the holiday with.  It's part of being in relationship with people and I hope to learn to handle it well.  

I also was reminded of what a terrible traveler I am, because of the sleeping trouble I have.  I know that I never sleep the first night of a different place and the second night is a little better and by the third it's pretty good.  But because we had so many guests and it was brand new to me, and people were up late and up early, and I needed to switch rooms on the 3rd night, I particularly couldn't get my mind to turn off, ignore noises, and let me sleep much this trip and I awoke on day 4 feeling like the mother of a newborn...  Combine that with pouring weather and our inability to find a dogsitter for Raven that day when Matt wouldn't get home from work till 8:30, and I decided it was just best to head on back, rescue Raven from his parents' backyard, and get some rest.  I wish so much that I wasn't such a light sleeper or that I could get along fine on a few hours like some people can.  But a couple bad nights and I don't even feel like myself anymore.  So that was an unpleasant reminder and has me pondering how to do better with that.

Anyway, Julia was one with lots of unmet expectations when I told her we were heading out that morning instead of the evening or next day.  She hadn't felt much of a sense of belonging, between the teenagers doing their own thing and the adults conversing or watching football, and Allie being doted on by everyone.  She also had many things she wanted to accomplish, beach-related, like walking on the pier and seeing a sunset and no one had taken the time to do that with her yet.  Thankfully, Stacy agreed to bring her home the next day and Nanny and Pa took her to check off some of her beach goals.  This girl loves the beach so much! 

These guys came home with me and I took a nap, then slept 10 hours that night!  It was good to regroup and clean and grocery shop to get ready for our 3 weeks of school before Christmas break.  And we got to watch the exciting State/Carolina game in which Joshua made us all try to "blow" the opposing field goal attempts off course.  When the kicker attempted to send the game into a 3rd overtime with a fairly easy field goal, Gray decided to take Joshua's request seriously and ran to get his fan from his room for extra wind power.  Suffice it say, these guys' targeted efforts won the game for the Pack...and many fans expressed their gratitude when Daddy posted this pic on the football facebook page.  ;)  

And now here we are, December 1st coming our way this week.  We've got lots of fun ways to celebrate each day and I'm going to work on not holding too tightly to my expectations.  People will get sick.  We will have to say no when fun things come up and we've got plans.  I will drop the ball on daily advent devotions.  Gifts will be ordered that aren't appreciated.  Some traditions will have to be done differently.  We will let each other down.  But my hope and prayer is that our need for Jesus, his patiently and kindness to us, and his presence in the good times and disappointments will be what shines through this season.