The same day Lolli and Pop left to head back home from their Thanksgiving visit, we went to pick out our Christmas tree. It was sweaty warm outside, but that did nothing to dampen the kids’ spirits. Maya straight up insisted that we get a 9-foot tree this year. Our house is plenty tall enough for it, and we managed to get it home tied to the roof of the Prius, so I guess it worked out okay.

Yeah, this is often appropriate winter attire for the Austin climate.

We managed to cram Sean’s birthday in a few days later. We had dinner at Jack Allen’s Kitchen, which wound up being a pretty good option for both happy parents and appeased kids. Then we came home and had birthday cake.

Here’s the thing. Everything from late October through early January happens in a catch-as-catch-can fashion. I don’t remember when I baked Sean’s cake, but I’m sure I had to shoe-horn it in between other activities (tree decorating, Ian birthday prep, sleeping). I remember carefully putting the lid on the cake container, verifying ahead of time there was space for it, and then … nearly dropping the damned thing on my way to the refrigerator. Alas, everything looked fine, so I went about my business feeling happy that I had dodged that particular bullet because I wasn’t sure I had it in me to make another cake.

At least the cake *tasted* good.

Fast-forward to the evening of Sean’s birthday. I brought out the cake and lifted the lid and could do nothing but laugh. The butter-rich icing had been pretty soft when I iced the cake. My near-cake-death episode caused the top layer to slide a bit sideways from the bottom layer. And then the buttery icing hardened up once it was cooled in the fridge. Sean’s cake resembled some sort of modern architecture, except badly frosted. Anyway, it tasted good.

Ian had his Christmas program at school. He had been singing all the songs for what felt like weeks, and so it was no surprise that he sang along like a boss during his program.

Somebody enjoyed his birthday party!

Ian had been asking to go to Catch Air for his birthday since Maya’s birthday party there last year. Its name has changed to Playmazing, but otherwise it’s the same place he has always loved (or at least it was this past December). We were sweating it a little. We sent his paper invitations to school right after Thanksgiving. By the week or so before his party, we had only a couple or three responses, so we sent a second note to school basically begging people to go. We managed to work ourselves into one of the largest party rooms they have, and seating was still tight. Thank you parents for bringing your kids to Ian’s birthday even though the holidays are SO BUSY!

Santa!

We took the kids to the fancy outdoor mall to chat with Santa. The kids both made Christmas lists to leave with him. Maya’s list reflected her love of vehicles … ALL THE VEHICLES … airplane, submarine, school bus, compost truck – you name it! Ian decided to shoot his shot, reality be damned. He dictated and I typed; all ideas on that list were 100% his own. Here’s a sample: magic wand that works, wings that can really fly, baby chick that’s in a cage so it doesn’t fly away, remote control dump truck, wind-up chick – three of them, snow globe – princesses. See what I mean?

Hand-sewn ornaments.

Maya has been a sewing fiend throughout 2019 and decided that she’d like to sew felt Christmas ornaments for gifts this year. She sewed decorations onto the felt, and then stitched together and stuffed the ornament body. I had planned to have Ian do something similar but with hot glue instead, but he insisted on trying to sew. We compromised. We glued on his decorations, but he sewed the front and back of the ornaments together. Honestly, he did pretty well, though he runs out of interest faster than Maya does.

Ian and his bicycle.

We managed to have a relaxed family Christmas in Austin before the travel craziness. We ran out of time to make Santa cookies and I didn’t realize the kids would want to leave carrots for the reindeer, so we wound up leaving a cookie-cuttered brownie and some broccoli. Maya felt bad and left Santa an apology note … which Santa responded to! The kids were thrilled.

The big deal gifts this year were: a bike for Ian (which he’s been wanting since Maya’s really started riding hers this summer) and a digital camera for our photo-crazy daughter. Because it’s Texas and hardly ever really cold, we’ve been able to take Ian out on his bike a few times, and while he’s still rocking the training wheels, he does seem very proud to ride it. Maya is a prolific photographer. There are few things that escape her interest when a camera is in her hand.

There we are.

Christmas travel was, as I recall, uneventful this year. In Missouri, we got to see all our many, many cousins and most of their parents (poor Aunt Katie was sick). As usual, we made sure we took the kids to see Great Grandma. We went to the Stueve family Christmas, where I’m pretty sure the kids had a dinner of soda, chips, and various desserts. We had a day that was warm enough that the kids got to go play at the creek.

Merry Christmas!

We went to Aunt Darci, Uncle Will, AP, and Steele’s house in northern Virginia this year for the Woods family Christmas this year. The kids got to play Mario Cart with their cousins, ride the Metro into DC, and see a bit of the Natural History museum. They had fun spotting the Washington Monument both when our flight landed and as we were traveling around. Maya tried to wear out the button on her new digital camera, so much was she happily snap-snap-snapping away.

Oreo cookie “gingerbread” house. Constructed in January, after the hubbub had died down.

Back in Austin, we let the kids stay up late enough to ring in the new year on the 31st. And since I never managed to work it in throughout the holidays, they had fun putting together a pre-packaged Oreo cookie house a few days later. We survived the holidays!