Our December was a beast. I haven’t gone back to check how many posts I’ve started this way, and I’m not gonna. With our accidental stacking of birthdays, we always operate at full-tilt from around mid-October through the end of the year. This year, we decided to throw in a week-long Disney vacation just for the extra challenge.

Our first big December event was Dad’s birthday. We baked him his favorite chocolate malt cake (I asked if he’d like something different – this is what he wanted) and made use of Maya’s birthday decorations from the previous month, since we hadn’t taken them down yet. We had house-made pasta from Patrizi’s for his birthday dinner, and I think generally he was pleased. The kids had fun writing him songs and performing them for him – it was really sweet.

I had the kids work on their holiday ornaments over a couple of evenings as well. I had ordered log slices and stiff felt in a colorful variety pack. We already had most of the paint we needed, and the log slices came pre-drilled with holes for the hanging string that was included in the package. Maya and Ian chose various creatures to paint on wood and augmented with pieces of felt for a mixed media feel. I’m not sure they’re very Christmasy at all, but they turned out to be very cute, and the kids had a lot of fun making them and later giving them out.

Around mid-month, we had our big Walt Disney World trip. This is the third time Sean has planned this trip, and with the kids having received their second vaccine dose in late November, we felt we were as protected as we could possibly be. Rather than burden this post with a full week’s worth of Disney storytelling and photos, we made a post for each day, and you can click on them to read the specifics if you feel like it.

• Day 1 – It was a Great Big Beautiful Vacation
• Day 2 – Giraffe Zoomies
• Day 3 – Are We Really in Outer Space?
• Day 4 – Rise of the Resistance (to Smiling for Photos)
• Day 5 – Naughty or Nice?
• Day 6 – Christmas at the Magic Kingdom
• Day 7 – Around the World in 20,000 Steps
• Day 8 – Breakfast at Cindy’s

We got back into Austin very late on December 18th (or very early on the 19th, depending on how you look at it). But I was up on the 19th planning for a certain 7-year-old’s birthday party. Way back when I bought decorations and whatnot for his party (about 3 weeks prior), Minecraft was all Ian could talk about. By the time his actual birthday had rolled around, Minecraft played second fiddle to Pokemon, but it was too late for me to back out, and he assured me that he still liked Minecraft as well.

His cake this year was a diamond sword constructed of mini chocolate cupcakes topped with different colored icing. Though the colors wound up being a bit too dark, I think the effect was still pretty good, and the cupcakes were delicious, so I’m gonna call it a win.

We again got on a zoom call with all the grandparents, and everyone sang happy birthday and watched Ian excitedly open presents. Everyone was very, very generous and so he had a lot of lovely new things to play with and learn with.

The next day, the kids built their prefab gingerbread houses from Target. One of these years I may try making one from scratch, but this approach makes the kids awfully happy. Maya had a little gingerbread doghouse with what was meant to be a little Target dog out front. She decorated the dog to be a Nox cat instead, and I think it turned out really fun.

Ian had a pink sugar cookie house (I think they referred to it as a glitter chateau or something). He really enjoyed blinging this guy out and decorating and building it. But I think he very much preferred eating Maya’s gingerbread. I’m sad to say the pink house mostly wound up in the compost bin.

Somewhere in the middle of all this action, we eventually discovered that Maya was missing her beloved hummingbird stuffed animal. She had gone with her to Disney World and evidently did not complete the journey home. She thinks she had her in her backpack at the start of the day. She didn’t go into Magic Kingdom with us. So she was lost somewhere on the Magical Express, the Orlando airport, the airplane, the Austin airport, or the shuttle bus to our parking spot. She had taken the time while in Disney World to ensure that Hummingbird had her photo taken in front of each park’s symbolic location. In this post are the four photos: Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom, Spaceship Earth at EPCOT, Hollywood Tower Hotel at Hollywood Studios, and Cinderella’s Castle at Magic Kingdom.

We had a one-day breather before our Texas Christmas celebration on the morning of the 22nd. I think Ian woke up around 6:30 and Maya may have slept just a touch later. We checked out the things in our stockings first thing. Then we opened our gifts to each other after that. Gifts from Lolli and Pop and from Aunt Darci, Uncle Will, AP, and Steele waited till we could zoom together later in the day.

And then that night we packed for our trip to Missouri the next morning! Again at stupid o’clock! The airport was bonkers, but it was so incredibly bonkers, that they were running a sort of overflow security line and I think we may have actually gotten through faster than we had for our Orlando flight. We were able to eat some breakfast tacos before we caught our flight.

The plane trip was uneventful, luggage collection went well. And then, the car rental. First, the shuttle took a really long time to pick us up. And then, when we finally got there, we met a huge and slow-moving line and what looked like a fairly empty rental car lot. I think all told, we were at that rental car place for about 90 minutes, nearly all of which had Sean standing in line. It sounded like some people were basically waiting for their preferred size car to show up from another customer’s drop-off. It was a bit of a mess. At least we were lucky enough to get a car right away once Sean finally got to speak to someone.

We arrived at Grammy and Grandpa’s house exhausted and maybe a little deflated. But the kids finally got to move and shake and play with toys and see their Missouri grandparents. They had been as excited for the Missouri trip as they had been for the Orlando trip, if that says anything.

The next day, they mostly ran. Every morning started with a big breakfast, including bacon and fruit loops, which thrilled Ian. Then there was a big, giant yard for them to just run on. There were ball games, walks around the pond, and epic games of hide and seek. And at one point, the kids came in breathlessly giving me details of “The Bunker.” I wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but they were hoarding provisions with which to stock their aforementioned bunker.

A walk down to the shed revealed that the bunker was in fact Grammy and Grandpa’s camper. And it was pretty neat, but the kids LOVED IT. They were ready to move in and sleep there for the duration of their visit, I think. That seemed like a bad idea to us, so we suggested they wait till summer to try that out.

They filled extra time by doing art projects with Grammy and Grandpa. They both learned a good lesson in vacuuming their messes up as well, I think. I’m not sure they made it to the “an ounce of prevention is worth an hour of vacuuming” phase of their education, but I appreciate the effort regardless.

On Christmas Day, we went to a party at Aunt Sharon’s house. We haven’t attended any kind of family party in literally two years, so this was kind of a big deal. The kids had some time in the yard playing with their dog Yadi, which I think all three of them enjoyed. Then the Bachmann cousins arrived and playtime was on.

We played a a holiday game that was referred to only as “the ball game.” Maya fussed because I think we made her put up her screen to play the game with us. Apparently, Sharon had taken the time to buy half a store’s worth of inexpensive toys and fans and candy and notepads, etc and carefully wrap them, layer after layer after layer in plastic cling wrap. The object of the game is to take this giant plastic-wrapped ball in hands covered in oversized gloves, and unwrap it as quickly as you can, while the person next to you rolls a pair of dice over and over again till they get doubles. The kids were allowed to unwrap without gloves, to give them a sporting chance. Maya LOVED it. I think Ian was fond of it too. It was silly good fun and we had a giant box of assorted goodies to take home with us at the end of it.

We had actual Christmas with my sister and brother and their families on the 26th. Carol cooked up an astonishing assortment of appetizers and finger foods. Then they ordered a giant subway sandwich on top of it. It was an amazing spread.

Gift opening was exactly the kind of semi-controlled but mostly chaotic affair it always is. All the kids were clearly having a good time, and the grown-up gift exchange was a fun way to celebrate without having to kill yourself trying to figure out what six other self-sufficient adults might want. You only have to do that for one of them!

There was a lot more playtime with cousins and chit-chat time amongst grown up family members. Because it was a Sunday and several folks had a job to go to the next day, festivities wound up early and the kids relaxed and watched a movie before bed.

The next day was our travel day, but our flight was later in the evening again (it’s so hard to pass up a reasonably priced direct flight), so we had time to pack things up into suitcases and for shipping at a fairly leisurely pace. Maya and Ian had a little more grandparent time before they had to drive to St Louis to fly back to Austin. We went and took a Mule ride to the creek, where the kids collected a few rocks and Grammy and Grandpa practiced their rock skipping skills. That creek is part of their Missouri experience, just like fruit loops and bacon and art projects. It’s just something they associate with their visit and they look forward to it.

Everything went smoothly on our drive to St Louis. We had stopped at a Fedex to ship a package of gifts and things home. We filled up the rental car with gas. Rental car drop-off was pretty seamless and we boarded a shuttle to the airport right away. Luggage drop off and security weren’t even that bad.

We had left a little early so that we’d have time to just sit down and eat dinner in our terminal before our flight home. I’m not sure whether to blame supply chain issues, staffing issues, or just a perhaps surprising overabundance of holiday travelers, but the restaurants had run out of food. It wasn’t even 8 o’clock and several of the places were straight up closed. Still others had defaulted to “drinks only.” We counted ourselves lucky to find that the Pasta House was still serving salads and chicken fingers (and beer). And we weren’t seated there long before they started to announce to people that they too were completely out of food. It was surreal.

Our flight was uneventful and the house was still standing when we got home. We’d have collapsed into lifeless heaps for a few days, but Sean and I had to work the next day!

For New Year’s Eve, we agreed to let the kids stay up till midnight. Sean bought the goodies so we could have a beautifully assembled meat and cheese and fruit and crackers tray. And he had purchased our champagne a few weeks prior, so we were all ready to go. We couldn’t find a good countdown to watch, so we mostly watched movies until go time and then counted down by my iPhone clock. Ian nearly made it, choosing to pass out at 11:30. Maya held out till midnight but was out for the count shortly thereafter. We had blown up air mattresses and let them slumber party in the living room, so that’s where they ended their 2021 and started their 2022.

I captured COVID numbers last week because I didn’t want to go to wide of our once a month post cadence. The omicron variant is a mother. Case loads are worse than we’ve ever seen. Thankfully severity seems to be less, but so does vaccine effectiveness. I feel like we accidentally wedged our trips in right between kids having achieved fully vaccinated status (and us boosted besides) and the most recent COVID surge really taking off again. I also feel like we only got to enjoy about a month or so of thinking we were on the right side of this mess, our family well-protected, and now I’m right back to being concerned again. The school they go to has already doubled the quantity of COVID cases they had recorded for the entire first semester.

Anyhow, here are the stats: Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (59.9% as of 12/5, 62.4% as of 1/8). Travis County – 12/3 123,040 cases and 1194 deaths – 1/7 137,126 cases and 1221 deaths. Texas – 12/5 4,352,098 cases and 74,198 deaths – 1/8 4,949,933 cases and 76,365 deaths. United States – 12/5 49,085,361 cases and 788,363 deaths – 1/8 59,388,623 cases and 836,603 deaths. The World – 12/5 265,847,554 cases and 5,255,544 deaths – 1/8 303,306,989 cases and 5,481,521 deaths.