An Odegaard Christmas

Only four weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas?!? With play performances dominating two of them?!? How would I manage??? Somehow we managed to cram in all the usual festivities. Amazingly, it still felt fun!

We picked out a tree while it was snowing!!! I've Christmas-tree shopped in warm, humid weather (thanks, North Carolina) and in drizzle, but rarely amid actual flakes. We chose a Black Hills spruce to commemorate our Black Hills trip, and it looked perfect the whole season. The ornaments were spread a little more evenly this year than last year (although clumps of Grandma-made ornaments still needed to be dispersed a bit after bedtime), and we added the clay elf ornaments I'd made as a teenager, which wowed the girls. Some had broken, but were fixed easily enough and they're still awesome and should totally be picked up by Hallmark.

The magnets we made, on our work-
surface tablecloth.

You've already read about Elise's performance, which rocketed us into the Christmas spirit. Additionally, we saw a nativity-themed variation on the Nutcracker ballet (and it included Irish dancing! Kalina with a dreamy sigh: "I could watch Irish dancing forever."), helped with a couple service projects, decorated gingerbread houses with neighbors, made Christmas gifts, attended a couple Christmas parties (all in the same 4-day stretch), wrote our Christmas letter and letters to Santa, read all our favorite Christmas books, played in pre-Christmas snow, sang Silent Night in church, did a few crafts, visited Santa, and so much more.

One of our favorite activities was the making of Christmas treats. Since the girls are actually real helpers, and not just preschool "helpers," we powered through five different treats in about 2 1/2 hours one afternoon, to distribute to neighbors. No vacuum required! (But we did have to sweep at least once...). We also made our usual Christmas cutouts, and lots of hot chocolate. All those long afternoons over the previous decade when I committed a full two hours to one batch of chocolate-chip cookies have really paid off, as we operate as a well-oiled, highly motivated machine. 

I was also pleased to see I'd trained the girls in proper merrymaking, such that they recognized the need for nearly constant Christmas music, plenty of decorations, and general Christmas spirit. They are so fun to celebrate with and I'm grateful for my little elves!

Nature Club held its own Christmas party, which also commemorated nearly a year of meetings! We started by making birdseed pinecone ornaments for a tree in the backyard. I'd hoped that the making and distributing of the ornaments would keep the girls out of the stream for this very cold meeting, at least, but no such luck. At least one girl fell in, but at least the rest of them didn't get too muddy. We also enjoyed snacks and a white elephant exchange, which wasn't as hilarious as I've seen in the past, and which ended on a slightly sour note. So...maybe something different next year. 

The day before the day before Christmas, we planned to view Christmas lights with Grandpa. We grabbed an early dinner, and then headed to a large display about 30 minutes away that we knew would have a long line, but would probably be worth it. Thirty minutes into the long line (so, an hour out total), we learned that we might still be in line two hours later. "Naw! We're just not that far away!" Sure enough, it wasn't two hours. A mere hour and a half later we were heading out, having been properly dazzled but mentally making plans to do things differently next year. 

Naomi made shopping easy for us this year by openly declaring, since before Thanksgiving, that she wanted a puppy for Christmas. Of course, she had a real puppy in mind, which wasn't going to happen, but there would be no question that a stuffed puppy (or more) would need to find it's way under the tree. The other girls were a little less definite, but I consider that a positive thing as well. 

The day before Christmas, Elise was up like a rocket because she remembered she had a Daddy date scheduled for a chocolate chip pancake at IHOP. Matt didn't remember, but dutifully hopped out of bed at 7:15 when she gleefully presented herself fully dressed and ready to go in our room.

The cake looks better up close, but this
is the only picture I have!

After breakfast, Christmas Eve was spent in more cooking, baking, cleaning, and sneaking around with Christmas presents (that was the girls, and was cute) than I had originally hoped for, but it was time well spent all the same, as I intended to make Christmas Day as much of a vacation for myself as I possible could (Merry Christmas to me!), and prepped several dishes ahead of time. The girls helped me with cranberries and with our super-complicated yule log cake. The cake was a bit of an adventure, with a dozen or more separate steps and a large portion of the frosting ending up on me. We'd honed our skills, however, with the piles of cookies we'd made, and I got to feel very professional ordering my capable sous chefs to "measure this" or "mix that well." Kalina in particular seemed never to tire of taking random orders from me, and letting me barge in and take over at a moment's notice. Thank goodness. At the end of it all, although covered in frosting and powdered sugar, we had a beautiful log-shaped and textured cake, complete with "toadstools," and a very tired Mommy. The hardest part of all was to put it into the refrigerator for the next day. 

Christmas Eve!

Afterward, I sat down for about 20 minutes before it was time to get ready for church. Virtually everyone griped about having to dress up (which, by the way, in our house basically means wearing slightly nicer play clothes that actually match), we took a couple pictures, and we were on our way, set to arrive with about 5 minutes to spare. That's not usually how I roll on Christmas Eve, but considering the busy day, it was the best we could do. Then we hit Christmas Eve rush-hour traffic passing the megachurch directly between our house and our own church. Matt, heroically out of character, maneuvered the car and outpaced even Google Maps' predictions, to arrive no more than a stanza or two late.

Back at home, we settled in with frozen pizza and a movie. The girls then hastily and sneakily finished wrapping a couple items, set things out for Santa and his reindeer, and went to "sleep." The Santa note, written by Elise: Dear Santa, each reindeer gets 1 (underlined twice) carrot. We sprinkled reindeer food by the smaller lights! Merry Christmas, Love, Elise Naomi Kalina

And the next morning, Elise roused her sisters at 6:45 (despite a late night waiting for Santa--aka calming down enough to sleep). She herself had woken at 5:59, but we'd cautioned her to wait a while so everyone could sleep. Good thing. 

Christmas morning sweeties!

We all stumbled downstairs and saw that Santa had indeed made it to our house! Stockings were stuffed, cookie and carrots were eaten, and there was even still a single dirty, mostly melted pile of snow in the gutter outside our house. A white Christmas!

Naomi and her "puppy
castle," as she calls it.

The girls dove in, and were instantly delighted by small calendars for the new year, plus the rest of their stocking presents. We then turned our attention to hot cocoa and apple French toast casserole before attacking the tree presents. 

Naomi wanted to open the present from Kalina first, mostly because she'd guessed (rightly, somehow) that it was a stuffed dog house. Relieved that there were puppies for her, she could relax and enjoy the rest of the gifts. Including a realistic stuffed tiger Matt found, that brought out Naomi's ultra-adorable "growly" side. She also has been digging into a baby sea turtle Lego set from Elise, some Calico Critters sets from Grandpa, and a puppy washing station from Mommy. Plus, her new flip-sequin puppy dress kind of fit, with the help of a safety pin, which is a huge rarity these days since nothing but fairly form-fitting, all-cotton dresses seem to feel comfy to our highly sensitive girl. And even then we usually require safety pins. It must have been Christmas magic.

Kalina was delighted with her Cat Stax game  from Santa, and still is. It's the little things. Like a dozen tiny cats that fit into a puzzle. She also ended up more excited than she would've predicted about Harry Potter Legos, from Elise and from Grandpa. She was so on the fence about them for so long, and yet so happy with them in front of her. And as she'd been craving Elise's latchook kit for a good month now, she was excited about the one Naomi (and I) found for her of a non-pink owl. But Kalina remained true to her minimalist self--she appreciated her gifts, but more so the people around her. Still, though, we had so much fun building Harry Potter scenes together in the evening, and cooking up toy potions in the tiny cauldron. 

Elise was hoping for a sea animal rescue Lego set, but only since after I'd already purchased all her presents. In fact, this tracked right along with the Rule of Christmas Shopping, which is that anyone who shops early to reduce holiday stress and take advantage of competitive pricing and specific item availability will live to regret it as their kids shift their interests one week before Christmas, when pretty much all items are wrapped and under the tree (or at least hiding in a closet).

Merry Christmas with
Grandpa!

Thankfully, Grandpa is a late shopper, and the Lego set was actually still available. Elise dropped not-so-subtle hints throughout the week leading up until Christmas, and I hinted right back that, "Wow, we'll have like three Christmases!" in hopes that she wouldn't get discouraged if she received oh, say, a super-cool aquaponics system for her pet betta fish as her big gift Christmas morning instead of the Lego set. True to the highly mature and super-considerate person Elise is when she's at her best, which is honestly most of the time, we witnessed only joy from Elise Christmas morning, despite the lack of Lego set. After all, she loved her climbing rope from Kalina, gumball machine from Naomi, mermaid book set, fire starter, and outfit, in addition to the betta tank (even more so after we told her that once green things started growing, she could graze to her heart's content). In fact, we nearly lost her once she opened her mermaid books, which as she described them to us, were pretty much all cliffhanger. But also true to Elise's extreme enthusiasm, the moments she saw Kalina receive a nice Lego set from Grandpa (we could literally see the hope spread across her face), and then opened one herself, were also pretty special. 

Elise's new home for her
betta fish, which also will
allow her to nibble sprouts.

Everything was exciting, but possibly the most so, to two of the kids at least, was the new zipline! Christmas weather cooperated for the three total outdoor toys we received (Naomi unwrapped a new scooter so she could finally say goodbye to our decrepit garage-sale toddler scooter that had been run over by the van), and the kids dashed outside shortly after the last wrapping was removed. Matt had the zipline and climbing rope up in no time. Naomi refused to try it, but was delighted to pull the seat back up the line every time her big sisters had finished a run. To each her own.

Christmas dinner was amazing. And the rest of Christmas was lovely, too--especially the yule log cake, which felt fancy and festive and tasted as good as it looked. The kids were equal to cereal for supper, and we all lounged around with Legos (and a mermaid book) to our hearts' content. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Cousins and jammies!

The snow people and giraffe! Or is it
a llama?

Traveling to Minnesota two days later to see extended family has become a perfect way to spend the rest of Christmas week. In fact, the trip usually tops "presents!" as the most exciting thing about Christmas, especially since the addition of cousins to the mix. When we pulled up, beautiful, fluffy snow welcomed us, but the next day, our usual snow play was in the process of getting rained out. With more rain in the forecast, however, we decided to head out anyway. What the snow was great for: packing! Finally, we could pack it to our hearts' content, making giant snowballs. What was not so great: All our winter gear soaked through. Grandma's dryer ran overtime over the weekend, even on Monday when the rain finally turned to actual fluffy snow, for a perfect ending to our trip.

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We also managed to see extended family, and enjoy shooting off a few rockets in Matt's aunt's yard. And of course, we had our own Christmas, with plenty more fun presents (including another book that captivated Elise, who's spent the last week telling us all about famous women in history), and amazing gingerbread men. And there was lots of cousin time!

On our way home, we again stopped at our friends' house in Iowa to spend New Year's Eve. This year, the resident 10-year-old (Elise's counterpart) convinced her parents to let all the older kids stay awake--which meant Matt and I had to as well! The youngers, who are also two peas in a pod, didn't mind in the least being sent to bed at 9, while the rest of us passed the time rather quickly with lots of fun games. By 11:15 we were all pretty tired, but made it until about 12:05 before turning in, popping our poppers even at the risk of waking up our 6- and 7-year-olds. The prizes in our poppers were much better this year, with the exception of the corkscrew and golf tees which for some reason the youngest girls received. 

Happy new year!