Christmas, 2011

By the time I reached the end of Christmas holiday break, I felt any problem I had faced juggling duties at school was solvable; I was fat and rested and full of love, and though I did a great deal of work during the holiday too, I was on a track of remembering that said maybe the pressure I'd felt in the months before was just a phase I could get over. As such, my New Year's Resolution -- not surprisingly, to regain balance -- was something I was already achieving.

Perhaps because of the verb tense in this last paragraph, you are expecting a But Now. (And I'm writing this a week after a return to school, and maybe there is one.) But I'm not going to give it in this entry.

Stephanie's parents, Mickie and Bruce came and filled our house for two weeks, easy and loving house guests. We drove to Vancouver for a night and made gingerbread houses and played floor hockey in twelve feet of space with our good friends Rachel, Isabelle, and their kids Ben, Gabi and Thomas, then returned to have lunch with Marsha, my mother's one remaining cousin. We experienced two Hanukah parties, one tree decorating party, a great Christmas morning at our house with Karen, Dan, and our niece and nephew Nate and Anna, and New Years, with Vancouver friends and my good friend Aaron and my family too. There was music and food all the time, games and hopes and walks.



Lauren and Jeff hosted a Hanukah party at their house. Some of Maude's early steps are captured here on her way to Mickie.

In Vancouver, above, Rachel and Isabelle squeeze a lot of energy from our bodies in their small den. Below, Lauren and I met with our cousin Marsha who was in town for a sixtieth wedding anniversary. See Maude wiggle.

Amelia was a delightful, confidently fearful Mr. Tumnus in a winter break Narnia production. 

And at another Hanukah party, we see that what started as a friendship between mothers in the maternity ward between my mother and Louise (foreground) has led to a giant harvest of babies in the my generation.

Christmas at our house was not lacking for music. Below see Anna with our girls, Stephanie, Karen, Dad and Wendy, and below that a picture that turns into a moving picture of an impromptu holiday concert in our living room.

Finally, the turn of the year, with more music, more games, and dancing. Aaron demonstrates grace in a failing attempt to bite the bag (no handed, one-legged jaw-grabbing bag lift), and below this, Lauren demonstrates what it means to play Trivial Pursuit without a trivia knowledge base. 

It's a great moment so I take a picture with one hand while a guitar is in the other: Aaron, Dad, Isabelle, Rachel and Jeff singing.

When midnight breaks, we are gathered around a candle-lit table with our written resolutions. Amelia wrote 26 this year, including "Stretch my imagination" and "Learn at least 1,000 new things." Maisie resolved, among other things, "To eat more things I don't like" and "To wear an actual coat more often." Aaron said he would get his cat to walk on a leash. Tommy, far left, shared some too, like "I'll play with my truck." 

And there was a dance party. The kids decorated the basement and organized the whole thing, making and posting a proliferating number of signs the longer the adults conversed without coming down.