Christmas Day

Christmas Day of 2020 was absolutely lovely! The rigors of 2020 left little energy left in my tank for grand Christmas plans. In fact, we've been home-home-home together for so MUCH of the year that I was hard pressed to feel that Christmas sparkle in my heart. Being at home together was more normal and less novel. Finding gifts for the kids was harder than usual. The weeks leading up to the big day simply didn't have any special zest to them. For as little anticipation, festive-ness, and excitement as I had leading up to December 25th, however, the day itself ended up being as sweet and happy a family day as I have ever hoped for. It just goes to show that planning and prepping only goes so far--Christmas magic (aka love) is what really makes the day special. 

Christmas Eve Week

Since Christmas was on a Friday, we got to enjoy a nice long week at home together before The Big Day. It was a whole week of Christmas Eves! Since I'm still in vacation relaxation mode, I'm taking the easy blog route by copying journal entries from the week.

The Winter Solstice called for a cozy candlelit dinner to brighten the longest night of the year. I fished around in the garden debris/compost pile and reclaimed one of the Christmas tree clippings for our centerpiece.

December-ific

The last week before Christmas break always seems to be packed with Christmas activities. Thanks to the pandemic, we definitely had less of those activities this year, but our week still felt full. The weather warmed up a little, the fog departed, and we saw the sun a couple of days during the week, and it made a difference. I helped plan and prep a drive-up Christmas activity for the women in our ward, which involved hours of ribbon-tying during the day and then standing in the cold parking lot at night. Candles and friends make darkness better. 

Sweet Sunday

After our solar Saturday, the sun may not have stuck around for Sunday, but we had a very sweet Sunday all the same. We awoke to a centimeter of snow--just enough to bleach our brown landscape mostly white. Even though the snow was shallow, the first snowfall of the winter always brings festive magic into the air. We attended church via Zoom video call, and when the organist played songs, I played along with her on our piano at home so we could sing nice and loud. It was fun! I never fully realized what a huge part of church worship singing is until we couldn't sing in church. Our ward is still meeting in person, but without singing and with the sacrament saved for the end after the Zoom feed ends, we are fine with joining from afar for now.

Solar Saturday

FOG defined most of our week. We had a brief afternoon of sun on Wednesday before the fog rolled back in, cold and gray as ever. After eight consecutive thick blurry dark foggy days (minus that one bright Wednesday afternoon), Saturday actually dawned. We had an entire fogless sunny day. I was almost giddy with the sudden influx of vitamin D! Living in fog smudges everything like sidewalk chalk in the rain. Our solar-powered sun-filled Saturday was a hard-earned reward for surviving a week of fog. 

Since the week of fog had dampened my weekly exercise, I decided to go for an extra-long bike ride under the sun on Saturday. To add distance and sun-time, I rode my bike to hand deliver three Christmas cards before heading for the hills. I had an audiobook in my ear, the sun at my back, and hills at my front. My meandering rugged ride ended up lasting 20 whole miles! That's an average sized ride for seasoned bikers, but for my beginner legs, it was a couple miles past comfy. It was so fun to explore the countryside sans-fog, when I could actually see where I was going! 

Scrambled Tuesday

It sounds like a cute Denny's menu item involving breakfast comfort food. "I'll have a Scrambled Tuesday with a side of hash browns and orange juice to drink, please." If only. We had a real-life scrambled Tuesday this week, and it was neither cute nor comforting.

Tuesday started out great! The kids ended up having in-person school after a last minute decision made on Monday night. After spending all of Monday at home without any school due to insufficient staffing, we got a phone call at 9:29pm informing us that school would be in-session in-person the next day. So all three kids plus my husband were at school on Tuesday and I had a quiet house to myself for five hours straight. 

The Cushion

We just had our second four day weekend in a row, thanks to parent teacher conferences. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday: all school-free, for all five of us. Then on Sunday night, we got a phone call informing us that in-person school for grades K-8 was cancelled for Monday due to insufficient staffing. In other words, too many teachers were either out sick or quarantined from COVID exposure. Jeff went to work and taught online from his empty classroom on Monday as usual, but the kids and I had another day with no school schedule to follow! It was weird and hard.

During this year of pandemic closures and limits, previously delightful days off of school have become less of a treat and more of the same. That sameness is numbing! Going numb is such a cozy coping mechanism. Hide. Escape. Ignore. It's easy! It's the softest cushion! The tendency to let myself go numb comes on surprisingly fast! I have been battling it all year long, sometimes gaining ground, other times sinking down, before shaking myself awake and pushing back the heavy soft soporific curtain once more. 

Canal Skating

Dreams come true! We skated on the canal after church today! Outdoor ice skating is one of my highest winter ideals. Usually there isn't much water left in the canal over winter, but we lucked out this year with 2-3 feet of water in the stretch right by our house. We had three consecutive days of a solid, thick, freezing fog this week which solidified the canal water nicely. Jeff tested the ice two days before he deemed it thick enough for skating.

After church this morning, we changed into warm clothes, walked across our yard, and climbed down the steep bank into the canal. We have three pairs of ice skates that I accumulated over the past year by watching Amazon Warehouse for deals. Jeff and I each have a pair, and we have one women's size 8 that Amber and Rose took turns using. I offered Jay a turn with my skates, but he bowed out. Ice skating is not Jay's favorite activity. 

Christmas Tree 2020

The day after Thanksgiving is no Black Friday in the White house. It's Christmas tree cutting day in the mountains! We packed turkey, rolls, a bow saw, a snow shovel, our trusty Flexible Flyer sled, and our $5 Forest Service Christmas Tree Cutting Permit, and caravanned with our friends the Kannely family to our favorite spot off of Highway 12 near White Pass. On the way we listened to an audiobook--Sammy Keyes. We did have to stop once for an anti-barf-break for Rose (and me). Thankfully, we stopped before she was carsick enough to puke, and that fresh cold mountain air revived her (and me) nicely. The Kannely family patiently pulled over and waited for us weak-stomached White women to regain our equilibrium. Ten minutes later, we were back on the road, and fifteen minutes after that, we reached our destination.

Thanksgiving

 Happy Thanksgiving! We made the difficult, heart-wrenching, offensive, thoughtful, hopeful, helpful, safe, anguishing decision to have Thanksgiving with just our household this year. Even though we have eight family members living just ten miles away, we felt best about following the guidelines set by our local leaders to do our part to slow the spread of COVID-19. I suffered much emotional distress during the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, all from being battered about by each family member holding different opinions on pandemic winter gatherings. I love people who didn't gather. I love people who had huge gatherings. We chose not to gather. Even though I write this without intending to insert any judge-y-ness or preach-y-ness into my rhetoric, I fear it may appear to be there simply due to the flaming-ness that the topic of holiday gatherings seems to have taken on in many areas. We all deserve the space and respect to make our own choices. 

November-mas

Happy November-mas! A few weeks ago when it was getting cold and sad outside, Jeff and I hatched a plan to survive wintertime during the pandemic: we decided to have Christmas every month! We figured it was bound to bring extra cheer during this dark pandemic winter. The 25th of November, December, January, and February will be Christmas in the White house. Generally I struggle to think of gifts for people, so I don't know why this spreading-of-gifting over four months seemed like a good idea, but it totally tickled our fancy, so we went for it. We had November-mas this week on the 25th, which was the day before Thanksgiving. This month, Jeff and I gave "home improvement" gifts, most of which came in excitingly large boxes. 

Home Alone

Monday, November 23rd was unreal. It was a day I have dreamed about for the past five years with varying levels of guilt and joy. It was a day that didn't seem likely to happen in the 2020/2021 school year. But IT HAPPENED! All three of my kids went to school all day long. It was their only day of in-person school all week, due to Thanksgiving break. Hybrid group A (us) went to school on Monday, and group B went to school on Tuesday. One of the challenges I'm working on is embracing the moment. So even though I knew that this much-anticipated first day as a mom home alone wasn't going to happen again for another week and that it could very well all stop completely if schools switched to all online again, I ignored those uncertainties and LIVED IT UP.