December 2021

Family Fun
—Christmas Tree Gettin’ Day: The first Saturday of December is blocked off on the calendar for the official start of the holidays. This year, we had a harder time than usual finding the One True Tree, and visited four lots before going back to the first one to get the one we liked there. But we got it home, and got it put up, along with all of the other stuff we’ve acquired over the years (including a long skinny plush Jack Skellington in a Santa suit, whom I dubbed “Skellf on the Shelf”) — and it *is* beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
—Lukas’s class holiday party: Mrs. Carvajal split the class into various committees to plan their own holiday party; Lukas was on the Entertainment committee (with Emmett, Manir, and a couple of other kids), and he took his commitment very seriously. They made a playlist, chose a movie (Home Alone, which required permission slips from every kid’s family), figured out games to play, and generally made sure there wouldn’t be a dull moment. Well done, kids!
—Fantasy of Lights: I bought tickets in early November for this annual event, which we went to in the week before Christmas. It was so much fun to drive through, especially the dinosaur part.
—Filoli Gardens: Ami spearheaded a trip to Filoli Gardens, an estate and extensive garden grounds in San Mateo County; she and I and all of our kids, plus Johanna and her two (Siena and Reid, of the Blade Team) met up there and spent about half the day wandering around; even in winter, the gardens were spectacular, and the kids all loved the mansion itself. 

Christmas!
“The one day around which the entire kid year revolved” was a good one for us this year. We did all the usual things: Watch every Christmas/holiday movie and special (A Christmas Story, Yo Gabba Gabba! Very Awesome Christmas!, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Pee-Wee’s Christmas Special, Elf, Merry Christmas Charlie Brown, and of course Yo Gabba Gabba!’s “Christmas” episode, to name just a few), make many dozens of several kinds of cookies, drive all over town delivering our gifts to friends, etc. The weather turned cool and rainy, which was perfect for creating a cozy xmas atmosphere. The re-ordered sofabed finally arrived, so we were able to host Grandma & Grandpa more comfortably; they arrived midday on xmas Eve and stayed till after the plettar (Swedish pancakes) breakfast I made on the 26th. The presents all around were plentiful, thoughtful and good (often hilarious, like the wine bottle Annika cleaned out, filled with dried pasta, and labeled “Fetuccine 1981” for me); the Comfy — basically an oversized plush-lined soft fuzzy hoodie with a marsupial pocket, which both kids got — was the surprise hit of the day, but everything from Zelda and Studio Ghibli merch to H&M clothes to classic rock band shirts was represented. And finally, the cousin household showed up in the late afternoon for one more round of presents and grazing to cap it all off. Ho ho ho!!!

Rounding out the year
On the 31st, we took a break from the never-ending Zelda playing to meet up with the Patels at Uvas Canyon for a hike among the rain-fed, winter-raging waterfalls; it was a really beautiful break for all of us and a great way to spend the last day of a really weird year with our best friends. That evening, the four of us had a nice cozy New Year’s Eve in, eating junk appetizers (and some delicious homemade stuffed mushrooms) and skipping around among the various NYE programming on TV. The ball dropped, we threw our homemade confetti, we got a couple of family selfies … and I started feeling not so great …[to be continued! dun dun dunnnnnn]

Quotable
“Oooh, he’s a deadeye, ain’t he?” —Lukas, getting in a good one (ref.: A Christmas Story) during an episode of Hawkeye