December 2016

Harry Potter
It would be hard to overstate the importance of Harry Potter, et. al., in the household right now — and it is AWESOME. Annika finished all the books and started re-reading them, and we’ve started going through the movies on family movie nights. Annika loves them but gets scared sometimes; Lukas pushes us away when we try to block him from the scary parts (he loves it all). We’ve re-watched several on the TV, as well; we’re really getting to be connoisseurs of the franchise. Annika is very hot on the idea of us going to Universal Studios to the Wizarding World amusement park, which we are all excited to maybe do sometime soon. It is a trip to hear Lukas’s commentary during the movies — e.g. “Harry’s got an invisible-bility cloak,” “Oh, now he has Hagrit for his parent!”, etc.)

Holiday potpourri
—R.’s knee surgery: Twice-rescheduled, the bursectomy finally happened on Dec. 8, hopefully making R. much more comfortable and agile in the future but for a few weeks rendering him more or less immobile. We had to cancel our attendance at a couple of social events — a holiday dinner party at some friends’ house, another friend’s 40th birthday party — but we got so much help from so many people that it made things infinitely easier (my friend Jen brought food, Fiona took the kids to school on the day of the surgery, everyone brought things and pitched in in a dozen ways large and small). And the knee is on the mend! Yay!
—Grandparents arrive: Grandma & Grandpa arrived … just in time for some doctor and financial advisor appointments! The kids immediately commenced fighting over who got to play with Grandma, per the usual, and couldn’t really split time with Grandpa because he was sick — pneumonia this time. But with the right meds and some rest, he rallied somewhat.
—Cole’s party: Lukas’s preschool friend Cole invited a large and seemingly random group of kids to his birthday party at Pump It Up, so he and I went with Lawson & his mom, and met up with Manir and his mom — another crazy time with crazy people. 

Christmas in old San Ho
Christmas, the most important event in the whole kid year … this year, we got our tree early, because R. wouldn’t be much good decorating it after his surgery. We went to four different places and found the choices lacking, but finally ended up happy with a really nice tree. I biffed the advent calendar treasure hunt a few times, mostly on account of it’s labor intensive and I didn’t have much time for the labor — but it was a highlight of the day whenever we did manage it. We went to Fantasy of Lights … well, all of us except R. and Lukas (there was a bathroom-related issue for the latter that could not be overcome in time for us to make our entry window, so the boys’ll have to make it next year). We did all the usual, wonderful things — watching A Christmas Story on family movie night, watching all the other xmas specials instead of regular kids’ TV; eating tamales on xmas eve; making a million cutout cookies; discovering that Santa had come during the night (yon wee detective grows extremely skeptical, and several times uncovered hard evidence of parental deception … oh dear); making a big meal on xmas day; having the cousin household over in the late afternoon (this year with music provided by the guitar/clarinet duo of Alyna & Uncle Paul). The big frenzy of presents earlier in the day ran very heavily to Harry Potter (the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw robes from Santa were the marquee item, but the illuminating wands, the goblet, the Marauder’s Map, and the quill pen were big hits as well). For Lukas, Santa (and R. and I) delivered on a great many requests — Lion Guard action figures, a spyglass, a big Baymax, a Minions fart gun (yay), a big Tie Fighter, and other Star Wars stuff. Annika scored some Pokemon cards & figures, and both got some new books (of course). Annika spent a lot of time hand-making bracelets for everyone with their Hogwarts House Crests; Lukas gave us ornaments made in school. A very good year indeed! 

Quotable
“On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, 7-8-9 in a pear tree!” —Lukas, not all that illogically

“You mean the North Pole has a tractor beam like the Death Star?” —Lukas, attempting to understand how Santa gets kids’ letters

“Very dark stuff in there.” —Lukas re-stating — with embellishments and whimsical additions — my explanation of how electricity gets to the outlets and thus to lamps & etc.