Our Christmas Responsibility

We all know that Christmas isn't (really) about presents and Santa. As a parent, I feel like it's our (Stephen and my) responsibility to ensure Katherine knows what Christmas truly represents. Not the holiday hustle and bustle. Not presents. Not cookies or reindeer... but something more important than that. I'm sure we're not the first parents to feel this responsibility.

Most, if not all of you, know that we are Orthodox Catholic. That means, that Christmas isn't celebrated on the 25th. We celebrate on the 7th. So this last week I've wondered a lot about how to explain, to Katherine, the difference between the 25th and the 7th Christmas'. In reality there's no difference except one is on the 25th and the other is on the 7th... Difference in Gregorian versus Julian calendars. The holiday, what it represents, etc. is all the same.

I can't ignore the obvious either... Santa is out there. I see him in every mall, major store, heck, Katherine even had her picture taken with him twice this year. So how do you explain that Santa does not come on December 25th for us... and he won't!!! Santa comes on January 7th for us. And that's the way I want to keep it. There are some traditions we're not willing to give up - this is one of them.

So my pondering continues... When we're in PA for the holiday I hope to chat with some of the other parents at church and see what they say. I'm thinking of calling Fr Rebek too. He's sure to have some thoughts! :)

Santa digs Katherine

Tonight I had a Mommy moment. You know, one of those moments. Hallmark cards are written about them. Lifetime movies commemorate them... Ok. So maybe, not that dramatic but it was big for me.

Tonight I was feeding Katherine before bedtime. Normally Stephen feeds her the bedtime bottle, but tonight I got to do it. She's so snuggly, smells yummy and just so scrumptious!! We were listening to You are My Sunshine. She had her head on my shoulder and she was awake, but pretty sleepy. When the song was over she looked up at me and put her mouth to mine. She gave me a kiss..... A sweet sweet bedtime kiss. After we were singing my favorite lullaby to her. What did I do? I cried. Big Mommy tears. She's six months old today... and I can't believe it. It's been six months since she was born. It seems like yesterday.... Everyone said it would go fast, but I didn't understand it.

So what happened this week... First, Happy 6 month birthday Katherine!!! Can you believe it?!

On Friday, we had our Holiday Party for work. Nikki came over to babysit little miss. Before we left I showed Nicole where the bottles were, her (Katherine's) PJs, and showed her where all of the emergency numbers were. Then I thought... Hm. Has Nikki ever changed a diaper?? I asked. The response "I'll figure it out." Huh. So I quickly said - tabs in back / design up front and hoped I wouldn't come home to Katherine wrapped in 5 diapers. :) I'm pleased to report, Katherine had one diaper on, was dressed in her PJs and put in the baby bag blanket. She was quite content. :) Success!!! I think Aunt Nikki might even be willing to babysit again!! :)

Saturday was the work Holiday Party for the kids. (Cookies, milk and pictures with Santa) Of course we went. It was Katherine's first time seeing the big guy. We stood in line for about 20 minutes and during that time I explained to Katherine what was going to happen and who this Santa guy was. We arrived at the front of the line, removed the bib (that was protecting her clothes from the ginormous volumes of drool that she has) and put her on Santa's lap. She wasn't sure of the whole thing. Who is this guy? Why is he ho ho ho-ing? And the flashes... The paparazzi follows me everywhere!!! We bought one picture... that was enough ($10)... We have no idea what the picture looks like as we had to buy before we could see. A little odd, but alas, that's what ya gotta do apparently. We're still learning all these rules.

She had another visit with Santa on Wednesday of this week when he came to visit her at school. Ok. So he was there to see all of the children, but Katherine thinks it’s because they bonded. She even gave a bit of a smile this time – and what appears to be a tug of the beard. OH MY. We’ll need to work on that. I think we’ll stay away from mall Santas’ this year just in case!!!

Sunday was family picture day back at Portrait Innovations. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE their pictures? I do not love their waits. Especially when you have a cranky husband and baby. Baby was less cranky than husband. Eek. To start with pictures are not a favorite past time for him... let alone waiting for them. Even he was pleased with the results though! As a note to everyone… we were using photos from Sunday for our holiday cards. The cards are ordered. I hope to have a quick turn around once I get them… Translation?! Your card is going to be delivered pretty close to Christmas. Like say, Christmas Eve. And if you’re in FL it may be hand delivered. :P

We spent lots of time on Sunday getting the house ready for our holiday party. Stephen worked on the outside lights… I worked on the inside things. I decided that the live tree in the family room needed some re-doing. It had tinsel. For the last 9 years we’ve had tinsel on our Christmas trees because I was never allowed to have it growing up. Mom claimed it made too much of a mess. Ok. So I’ll give her that one. It does. And after I looked at the first set of pictures I took of the tree, it also looked like the tree was from 1932. So I decided to fix that. I took off all of the tinsel. Each strand. Plucked off of the tree. Yes, it took some time. But it looks much better.

Another thing we learned or realized this weekend is our parents fibbed a bit to us about real trees… Mom always said “they make too much of a mess with all those needles!” We will only have fake trees so we don’t have that mess… I’d like to officially disagree with that statement. The fake trees made more of a mess putting them up than the real tree did. Seriously. So much so that we discussed not having any fake trees next year. They’re just too much of a mess. Not to mention they hurt. I have all these little cuts on my hands and arms. And your hands hurt after you spend a while trying to make the fake tree look real and “fill in” the holes. There’s only so much you can do. With a real one you can always say “That’s part of its character!!!” A fake one with holes… your cheap (the tree not the person)! :P

Katherine tried peaches and squash this week. She digs both. The peaches are a HUGE hit. Go figure!! My little southern girl. The day she counts one, two, ernhart, four – I will cry. And not for sentimental reasons, I assure you. And when six comes out sex (because that’s how they say it in the south) again, tears will flow. *sigh* We need to hope our Northern “accents” rub off.
Katherine watched her first Christmas movie. It’s called “The Year Without a Santa Claus”. I know what you’re thinking. Was that really the first logical pick for her first holiday movie. I wasn’t thinking that way when we watched it. I’d never seen it before. (I know I know.. it’s a holiday classic, yes clearly I’ve been living under a rock… go ahead… mock me.) Honest to goodness I’d never heard of the Mizer brothers. I needed to get caught up since the sequel is on this weekend. (The sequel will be on Saturday night at 8pm for those that are interested as for the channel… no idea. .. Wikipedia has the network I think if you search for The Year Without a Santa Claus. That’s where I had to go to read the plot!) Katherine’s favorite character was Mrs Claus. She liked the song Mrs Claus sang about being Santa.

On our way to FL in a few weeks we will ensure we have the rest of the holiday DVDs in the car so we can catch her up. It’s a 10 hour drive afterall… We can do some serious holiday learnin’ in that time frame. By the way… pray for us. It’s going to be a long ride!!! Eeek

Pictures from the week: http://picasaweb.google.com/daleksza/FirstVisitWithSanta#

Turkey, Trees, Family & Peas

I like that title. Makes me giggle. hehehe

Starting the weekend before last Stephen started cooking and preparing some of the many Thanksgiving day dishes. He started with homemade rolls and moved on to some other dishes from our menu that could be made a few days in advance and then frozen. The rest of the week each day another dish or item was prepared. Sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, turkey brine, and the list went on. Everything was made fresh! He even made homemade mushroom soup to use in the green bean casserole. (No, I didn't try it. It had FUNGUS in it!!!)

Family members started making their trips to NC on Wednesday. Sofi was the first to arrive on Wednesday flying back from her training. Nikki picked her up from the airport and they went home for the night. The Tomanek family arrived next. They made the trek from NJ on Wednesday and arrived late that night. Jacki flew up from Florida on Thursday morning. By 3pm on Thursday the house was full of family and smells of Thanksgiving!!! Katherine was quite excited! Her cousin Tasha was there to play with her and spoil her rotten! :) Not to mention aunts a plenty! :)

Before the family all arrived on Thursday Stephen and I had gone through all of the Black Friday ads. Oh how we love Black Friday shopping. Initially Stephen had thought that we might not go. All of the Black Friday websites had posted ads and he'd been researching for the past few weeks. He hadn't seen a whole lot that he thought was a good deal. Amazing what happens when you see the actual flyers! You find stuff!!! We mapped out our "route" and Stephen put the shopping list in an Excel spreadsheet. Come on now, you're not shocked are you?

Thanksgiving dinner was awesome. Katherine had some peas for dinner and was fed by her Aunt Nikki! She even spared Aunt Nikki a total mess. Now THAT's holiday spirit! :) I even shared my revelation that when Katherine goes to sneeze, cough, etc. instead of you hiding your face you shield hers. Amazing how that cuts down on the splatter!!!

Friday morning Stephen and I got up dark and early (there was no bright about it) and went off to do our shopping. 3:30am comes WAY early. Seriously. There's only one day a year where I realize that 3:30 comes in two times AM and PM. Otherwise I believe there's only one. PM. Jacki stayed home with Katherine to have some Aunt/Niece bonding time. Stephen and I hit 14 stores in about 7 hours. By far the most painful was Kohls. The lines were ridiculous. Mind you we have a process. Kohls is a store where I typically go get the "stuff" while Stephen goes directly to stand in line. I bring him things while he stands in line and continue to shop around the store. When I'm done, he goes and walks around. We have a system. Electronics stores, it's my job to stand in line. He doesn't trust me to walk around there. :-/ I might get sucked into an impulse buy. Oops. This year we even did something crazy... we went to the mall. Stephen went to Sears while I went to Express. (Jeans sale & free lounge pants... you'd have gone too!) At around 11am we headed home quite tuckered out. Some of us (ahem) took a good nap that afternoon. (See photos)

The Tomaneks were here for dinner on Friday night and spent some more bonding time with Katherine. I believe Marek even had his first incident with some of Katherine's "special sauce". hehe Poor Marek.

Saturday was the day of sister pictures!!!! YAY!! We had a plan of wearing Christmas PJs for some photos and then jeans and red shirts for another set. I had some PJs for Katherine and a red turtleneck for her too. We figured we could do a picture of Tootsie & Pops girls!! :) We (I) had a GREAT time. The photographer I'm pretty sure found us amusing. The picture of us on our bellies in PJs... all he kept saying was "You don't pick your boogers do you? No!!! That's silly!" I couldn't stop laughing. Still. Now. Why is that SO funny? No idea. But alas, he got what he was looking for. Non-fake smiles! After pictures we all went to Maggianos for dinner. We ate family style. Oh-my-goodness. If you've never done that. You need to. AMAZING!!!! Totally decadent, but oh so yummy!!! Everyone does have to agree on food, but the end result is fantastic!!! Jacki had Tiramisu for the first time and I'm pretty sure she's a lover now. :)

Sunday was another big day. Katherine, Stephen and I headed out to Boone (bumblestuckville) for a Christmas tree. Yes, I realize they sell them at Lowes, Home Depot, Kmart, Food Lion, the street corner, gas stations, etc. But is that really an adventure? No. We wanted an adventure and a FRESH Christmas Tree. It doesn't get much fresher than a farm!!! hehe Some of you may recall our last visit to the Circle C Christmas Tree farm. Ahem. It wasn't a pretty day for me. I got my first speeding ticket (EVER) from a HORRID NC State Trooper. He was mean. Mean. And the red aurora that caused me to get the ticket... I haven't forgotten her. No ma'am. (I'm trying to get over it... but really, it's going to take some time... clearly, years!!!) Anyway, this time when we arrived it was daylight. And we could see all of the trees. The farm is massive. Christmas trees as far as you can see. Oh and lest I forget... mud. Lots of it. Did I mention it was raining? Again, folks, adventure!!! We hopped out of the car (literally) and into the mud with our jeans rolled up. I strapped Katherine to my chest, put a blanket over her and off we went to find the perfect tree.

I saw it from a distance. Perfect. Gorgeous. Tall and majestic. Also 9ft. I looked at Stephen and said OH LOOK!!! The perfect Christmas tree!!!! He took his stick, that had markings for each foot of tree so you could measure, and saw that it was 9ft and just looked, shut his eyes, and shook his head. Humpf. So we continued our quest... The next perfect tree (also referred to as our "maybe christmas tree") we saw... measured... evaluated... and decided it was quite lovely. Not as tall and majestic as my 9ft beauty... but stunning never the less. :) We walked around some more but Katherine kept coming back to that tree. She really liked it. Just wait till you see the pictures. She was really into it. :P

It was decided. We'd take THAT tree. (And besides we were getting pretty cold on our adventure. We were in the mountains afterall. Yes, we've gotten thin blooded.) The men on the little carts drove over with their chainsaw and down came the tree!! Weeeeee... It was loaded on the little cart and taken to the bottom of the hill to be bagged and strapped to the top of the mini-van. (I'm still way digging the mini-van by the way! It ROCKS.)

We then started to investigate the timeshares in Boone. So let me start off by saying fibbing is not something I excel at. At all. I crack under pressure. I'm just no good at it. So we pull into the timeshare resort and the man at the little security hut says "Hello sir, can I help you?" Stephen replies, "Yes, we're headed to the timeshares."

Security Hut Man: Do you have a reservation?

Stephen (fibber McGee): Yes. (I yelp a little... )

Security Hut Man: Name?

McGee: Aleksza

Hut Man: Hm. I don't see it here...

And so the little saga continued until he directed us to the reservation location. I was ready to blurt, "We don't have a reservation we just want to drive around and look." Yeah. I'm awesome right. It goes back to when DJ would have Cheryl and I hike to an ice cream parlor for some treats after we were supposed to be sitting on the porch or at one of the neighbors houses. He'd have a brilliant idea to just walk a few blocks for some sweets. I'd be nervous. Every time. One time we even got caught by Aunt Catherine (some of you might know her as SISTER ROSALIMA!!!!). What happened? DJ fibbed. I couldn't do it. She's a nun for petes sake!! He told her we were at the Kolisis. I assure you we were not. We were getting ice cream. And you know what? I always got blamed for being the oldest whenever we got in trouble. "You should know better." I think AC & UD and Grandmom forgot the whole peer pressure thing. DJ was good at it!! Real good. I think Cheryl would be with me on this one.

Anyway, I digress. The whole driving around the place... I was quite sure that security had been contacted and we were going to get in trouble. What trouble? I don't know, okay. I just knew trouble. Did they? Did we? No. We got lucky. :P

After we left the scene, we headed home. What should have been a 3 hour trip... 5.5 hours. Not a pretty site. Katherine wasn't so thrilled with being in the car again, and we hit upon multiple feeding times on the way back. But alas, we got home and had our maybe christmas tree with us!

Our tree is now lit and adorned with special ornaments in our family room. Katherine's getting used to the idea of a part of the forest being next to her ExerSaucer but I think she likes the lights.

It was a great week with family. We enjoyed everyone's company and were so grateful to have my sisters and Stephen's sister and family join us to celebrate Katherine's first Thanksgiving. What a blessed year we've had... From last year's Thanksgiving Day when we told everyone that I was pregnant, to this Thanksgiving Day when our baby girl celebrated with us. So grateful. So happy! :)

oxox

Weeks pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/daleksza/MyFirstThanksgiving#