Thanksgiving into Friday!

Thanksgiving weekend was so much fun!  After cleaning up from our holiday feast, it was about 4ish.  I was supposed to go Black Friday shopping with some friends.  So I tried to nap.  I am not a good napper. I have to be utterly exhausted or very ill in order to sleep in the day time.  I was not either.  Being in social gatherings energizes me so I was still on an endorphin rush of happy feelings.  I read my book and tried to relax.  I read my Facebook and tried to relax.  Nope.  Finally got up at 5 and decided it just wasn't going to happen.  Placed my Christmas card order on line, fixed the kids some supper (they can always still eat a few hours later) and did some piece work with my wife.

At 11 I met my friends at Wal*m*rt and we stood in line until the doors opened at 1 a.m. We had a pretty good spot at the front 1/3 of the line.  We drank coffee and chatted for hours but it went by so quickly.  Basically if I have someone to chat with, I am good anywhere you plunk me down.  Once we got inside I went directly to electronics where I successfully scored the camera Lissa wants for her birthday.  (I have the double joy of 2 kids with December birthdays) I also got my wife a great TV  The one in the work room is beginning to show distinct signs of aging.  I know she will love this and the price for it was less than we paid for the smaller one we have now!  I then did other parts of the store, nabbing deals on PJs and games  By 2:30 I was home and tucked into bed.

At 6:30 I was awakened by kids who were excited to decorate for Christmas.  So was I, so fortified with several cups of tea, and later, some coffee we had breakfast and decorated for a large part of the day.  The weather was uncharacteristically warm--like in the 50s--so we had no problem hanging the outside lights.  Some years you feel like your fingers will fall off from the cold, but not this year!

I really love to decorate.  I'd miss snoozing any day to decorate and I have passed that on to my kids.  We have about 11 totes of holiday decor and we use almost everything.  The house is large and accommodates a great deal of decoration without looking over the top in the least.  This year many decor items are related to very high places and the tree is wired to the walls. Rocky the Wonder Kitten scales it routinely and thinks that all the decorations are meant as kitten toys!

When we finished decorating I made the cemetary boxes for my grandparents and my mother in law's graves.  I was super excited this year that my wife found a great supply of red berries and even some wildly growing money plant. It really jazzed up the artificial picks of flora that I use and the evergreen boughs from our yard.

By then it was about 5 and the excitement and lack of sleep was beginning to show. I was able to snooze for about 30 minutes and then had supper, more tea and got ready to go to a play.  The kids, my wife and I went to see The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  It is rare for my wife to want to go to a social thing.  She is an introvert by nature and I was stunned when she had told me that she wanted to go.  I had immediately gotten the tickets when she said she wanted to go and I am so very glad we went.  It was laugh out loud funny and very wel acted.  I knew two people who were in the cast so that was extra fun as well.  I also like exposing my kids to a variety of theater experiences.  By the time we got home though, there was no denying that the surfeit of fun was catching up with me.  I was in bed,lights out by 10:30 and slept till 7 the next morning!

Thanksgiving Photo Op

It's been a good weekend.  Busy and fun and exhausting and fun, but still, I would not really change a jot of the weekend.  The picture above was Thanksgiving morning.Fiona opted to be in the Big City this year and did well with her visit.  The rest of our kids were here though and this is the picture I snapped of them Thanksgiving morning before everyone else arrived.  I did not think much about the pictures on the wall behind them.  At that time, I had only a few seconds to snap a picture and this was the only wall available  In a minor miracle, this is the first picture I tried to take of them and it was so cute right out of the gate.  Lissa is holding her dog Luna, if anyone is wondering what the shaggy lump is in her arms. 

It was as I was looking at the picture later in the evening, when things were quieter, I got to noticing the wall.  It is the wall that usually is inhabited by our love seat.  At Thanksgiving we have to move the furniture out of the living room so that is why that space was open.  The pictures behind the kids are of years gone by when they were very young.  Fiona's are hardest to see, they are the collage of four at the top.  In the center is a pastel drawing an artist friend did of Chet and Rob years ago.  I think Rob was about 7 when that was done, Chet would have been almost 18.  There is a picture of KC as a baby and of Lissa as a baby. 

And below them stand my beautiful, but so grown, children.  Lissa and KC have years with us still--but not LOTS of years.  And since the first 10 or 13 went by in a blink the years from 10 to 18 and 13 to 18 will be like a nano second.  Rob is 21 now and alternately going to the edge of the nest and stepping back.  This time next year I will be surprised if he is still living at home.

KC is all ready looking forward to his spring birthday, which will make him old enough to get a part time job.  He is eager for increasing independance and has a road map well thought out on how to achieve it.

Lissa is always looking for new experiences and has all ready told me that she won't be here once she is 18.  I believe it.  Her drive and intensity when she finds things to be part of and experience is amazing to behold. 

My picture is a reminder of a wonderful family holiday spent together. It is also a reminder.  Reminder to hug my kids closely, listen intently, smile more and make memories together.  Those memories will be my comfort and will be their trampoline--helping them launch exuberantly and courageously into their futures.

The pause before the. .

It is Wednesday night.  The house is cleaned (relatively) the numerous pies are baked.  The shells are made. The turkey is thawed. The cranberry sauce is made.  Tomorrow there will be more to do but by 1:30 or 2:00 p.m. the living room will be full of food, family and laughter.  Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year. This year is a smaller gathering than most have been. My mom is staying in Maine; her partner is presently in the hospital and though improving, he will benefit from her presence. The kids godparents are visiting family in Texas this year and Fiona has opted to go to the Big City to have Thanksgiving with her cousin's family. So it is us and my in laws this year.  10 seems so small compared to our usual crowds, but I'll take it!

I love the way the kids pitch in. The living room has to be emptied of furniture to make room for tables.  There is vacuuming and baking and dip making and baking and flatware to polish and baking. . .  Truly we started at 8 a.m. and the last item for today was finished about 6 p.m. I don't often wish for a double oven but today it would have been pretty cool!

I love being enfolded in family.  Ironically Thanksgiving was not a favorite holiday when I was growing up.  It felt like a grownups gathering where I could not find a place for myself.  My family thought I should watch the Macy's parade, which I despised.  Ironically, KC adores the parade and that truly is his tradition of choice, every year. I love the way the things we cook remind me of experiences or people I love.  I love the way polishing my mother in laws flatware from Thailand makes me feel close to her, even though she died many years ago.  I love mixing my family's silver candlesticks into the decor and the things K and I have bought together over the years.  I love to arrange my black angel holding the harvest basket near our cornucopia.  Somehow we have quilted together an amazing tapestry of family, friends and we are held together by love.

This weekend launches the season of festive craziness.  Tomorrow night I am Black Friday shopping with friends.  We are gathering at 11 p.m. so hopefully i have time to nap for a couple hours before we head out but we shall see.  Then on Friday we decorate our house for Christmas.  Rob does not have to go into work till 2 and this is the only day we will ALL be home together until--well, probably Christmas.  So it is important to me that we decorate together that day.  Rob is the guy who always gets our tree up and put together just so.  And Chet will help decant the 11 totes of decor from the attic so we can get festive.  After that I hope to nap a bit as that evening the kids and my wife and I are going to see the play The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  My wife really wanted to see this and I love theater so I was easily talked into it. It is the only night my wife has off, so that is why this to will jam up that time period.  But Saturday I can relax a bit and there is always coffee.  And Christmas music. 

Lunch with Fiona

Fiona has been struggling the past few months.  It has been hard negotiating the ups and downs of her mood swings, but last weekend we had a good visit.  She said to me that she finds it hard to visit home right now.  She wants to live here and can't.  To her,visiting here   feels like waving this in her face.  That is of course, not my intention. The goal of coming home to visit was to have healthy loving relationships with the family.  For a long time she has bought into my very genuine belief that what we are working toward is her moving to another less restrictive level of care.  I have repeatedly talked about how as kids get older they don't live with their parents.  They get their own place, or they have a room mate and share expenses etc.  It may help when I actually have one of my kids do this so that she can see I am not making this up!  Rob is close but still in college and not quite there yet.

However, despite her not doing well visiting here I wanted to do something to maintain connections so we went to lunch at a fast food chain of her choice. The food was fairly ghastly but the time together was fun.  There were selfies and laughter -- lots of laughter.  I wish I knew a better way to help Fi.  Her mental health challenges and her cognitive delays are kind of the perfect storm for behavioral challenges.  But since I can't come up with any better model than what I am doing right now, I am  glad we had time together to laugh, love each other and reconnect. This is Fiona and Lissa at the restaurant.