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Wigilia Preparation 2019

Monday 23 December 2019

It was a rainy day — good thing everything we had to do was indoors. K did a lot of cooking; I did a little helping and some shopping; the kids did some cleaning, some cooking, and some playing.

This year has been a little different than almost all years previous. Usually, we’ve been working on this for several days by this point. Last year, it was different due to Nana’s condition; this year, it was a family reunion and church obligations. The result: we’ve planned a very scaled back Wigilia. No mushroom soup — that will come Christmas day. A simpler meal altogether. Mass at four in the afternoon (the Girl is singing). Wigilia promises to be different tomorrow. Quieter. Simpler.

I can’t help but think that’s a good thing.

Pre-Christmas Family Reunion

Sunday 22 December 2019

Jaselka 2019

Sunday 15 December 2019

The Polish community in the area has a mass on the last Sunday of every month, but just before Christmas, there's a special mass. We've done it every year for ten years now.

So much has changed.

Families have moved into the area and out. New families have moved from Poland; old families (at least one -- perhaps more that I don't know of, but the plural sounds better) have returned to Poland. The kids to put on the Christmas pageant in those early years are now in college; many of the kids performing now weren't even born then. We parents are all a little older, slower, wiser (?); some more cynical, some more devout; some rounder, some not. The world is a different place; our city is a different place.

Yet the pre-Christmas jasełka-centered Sunday has held steady through it all.

I count myself among those in the "more cynical" list, at least about the whole Catholic/theistic enterprise. I find myself moving more and more back to my old skeptical position, the animosity I felt toward religion returning.

Yet at its best, this is what religion provides: markers by which we can measure our lives, strengthen our communities, and share with friends.

And who could deny the beauty of the opłatek tradition?

Previous Years

Jasełka 2017

Jasełka 2016

Jasełka 2015

Six and Jaselka

Jasełka 2013

Jasełka

Performance

Jasełka

Outside Lighting

Sunday 08 December 2019

K and I decided we were going to forego the usual outside decorations this year and try something new. With two trees in the front yard, there seemed to be only one thing to do: transform them into Christmas trees.

"It should be faster than putting up the icicle lighting," K said.

"Should be," I agreed.

So while K was running her first open house as a real estate agent, the kids and I set about wrapping some 344 feet of lights (8 lines of 43 feet each) around our crape myrtles.

I wasn't sure how it would turn out because of the random places we had to string a line from one branch to another, creating a strange horizontal bit in an otherwise verticle orientation.

In the end, I think it turned out fairly well.

"How long did it take?" asked K earlier this evening.

"About as long as the icicle lighting."

Maybe next year we'll do both...or neither.

Christmas Tree

Saturday 07 December 2019

Six years ago, on December 7, we put up our Christmas tree. It's a fairly early time for us to put up a tree, I think. I haven't gone back to check (i.e., look for posts here), but knowing my Polish wife and her desire to keep with the traditions of her youth as much as possible, it's probably always been later than sooner.

Of course, an odd highlight of the night was liberating the Elf from E's sleeping hold and deciding where to put him tonight...

Transformations

The Elf

Friday 06 December 2019

E's class has an Elf on the Shelf. You know the gag: every morning, when the kids come in, the elf is sitting somewhere else. The kids all have a good time looking for him.

Of course, the Boy then wanted one for our house. Fortunately for him, K is Polish, which means we celebrate St. Nicholas's Day, which is today, which meant lots of excitement in the morning when we left the elf behind, wondering when he'd start migrating through the house.

K texted Papa in the morning. "Please put Emil's elf in a different location, maybe somewhere in your room. He is supposed to migrate through the house magically. That will make him very happy." And it did.

When the Boy went with K for tennis lessons this evening, the elf took off again. This time, he headed to Papa's bathroom and perched himself high on the medicine cabinet.

"We have to be systematic in our search," I explained as we ate.

"What does that mean?"

I explained; he agreed.

"I have to go to the bathroom," he declared a few minutes later.

"Just go to Papa's," I suggested. "It's closer."

In he went; out he went -- didn't notice at all.

In our systematic search, he began going through all of Papa's drawers.

"He's an elf on a shelf, buddy, not an elf in a drawer," I reminded, but he continued. Systematically.

We moved to the bathroom and he looked about, suggesting that perhaps the elf might have sought refuge in the washer or dryer. Nope.

He'd started moving to the living room when I pointed out that he'd forgotten one item with a shelf.

Our small X100 in hand, I jumped back as quickly as I could to frame the shot and managed to catch him just at the moment of discovery.

Boxing Day 2018

Wednesday 26 December 2018

The holidays' end always brings a tinge of sadness. All the anticipation, all the preparation, all the excitement -- all behind us now, gone in a flash. Sure, there's one last hurrah with New Year's Eve coming up, but that's just one evening. For us, it's never really had any tradition behind it like Christmas.

Tomorrow, K goes back to work, M and T return to Ashville, leaving C for a couple of more days. Life slowly transformed into the holiday season, and now -- boom! -- it's back to normal. But that's probably a good thing. Living this kind of life all the time would make it the new normal. We'd struggle to get through endless parties and celebrations just as we sometimes struggle to get through seemingly-endless weeks at work and school.

Christmas 2018

Tuesday 25 December 2018

During a proper party, a proper family gathering, time seems to disappear into an eternally present "now" that blends effortlessly out of the last moment, imperceptibly into the next, a continuum of laughter. A proper Christmas day, then, should be like a proper party. And what better way to start the smiles than a pile of hot waffles.

And what better activity after breakfast than to help with the Lego set the Boy got yesterday? Truth be told, it was a challenge for me to understand those instructions at times, so it's no surprise that high on his priority list was getting some help.

We build this knowing that as soon as the snow plow is completed, it will be a focus of attention for a few days and then disappear into its constituent parts into the growing box of Legos that now must contain well over a thousand blocks, what with all the sets he's gotten and the Lego windfall he got from his sister a year or so ago when she decided she was too old for Legos. Of course, you're never too old for Legos, but there is a period called adolescence when you might think you are.

In the early afternoon, we all went to spend Christmas lunch with Nana. We ate some split pea soup and chatted while the children took turns rolling about in the wheelchair in Nana's room.

Back home for the afternoon, we passed the afternoon at the table with talking with Papa while the kids played in the backyard, E still in his nice Christmas clothes that required some work when he returned because there was no way he was going out to play and not wind up at the creek that forms our rear property line. If you're a six-year-old who has a creek in your yard, you use it.

Finally, around four-thirty, we headed to our closest friends' house, the godfather of E (and he's proud to remind us of that regularly) taking with us E's godmother -- K's sister in everything but name and DNA and so for many reasons, the closest thing we have to Polish family here.

And so the evening just began slipping away, punctuated by grand food, silly kids, discussions of camping and finding cheap flights to the Old Country, hot toddies and black coffee, jokes, singing, and just enjoying the fact that we have such good friends.

But the Boy didn't make it. He put up a fight, tried to stay awake the entire party, but there was just no way.

Santa

Sunday 23 December 2018

While waiting for breakfast -- a delicious quiche that a lovely student gave me as a Christmas gift -- the Boy asked a simple question: "Daddy, does Santa even exist?" The question took me unawares.

"Well, if he doesn't, how do you think you get those presents?" I asked in response after a pause.

"You guys do it!" he shouted with a grin.

I've always been a little reluctant about the whole Santa thing. On the one hand, it's harmless fun. On the other, it does necessitate misleading your child. I decided that this was the opportunity for which I'd been waiting to encourage critical thinking.

"Well, how could we figure it out? What kind of an experiment could we run to see?" I remembered Neil DeGrasse Tyson explaining the experiment his daughter ran with her friend to test the existence of the Tooth Fairy: they decided they simply would keep secret any lost teeth and see if the TF showed up. She didn't. Simple.

E couldn't think of anything, but we went through the logic behind the Santa story -- or rather, the lack thereof. Using a Socratic-type questioning method, reached the following conclusions:

The North Pole is real, but that doesn't prove much.
People in Brazil don't have chimneys, but they still get presents.
The size of the average chimney makes it all but impossible for a human to slide down it with a sack of toys.
The dirt in the chimney (I didn't get into soot) might make the toys dirty, but the fact that they're in a sack might keep them clean.
The dirt in the chimney would definitely pose a problem when it came to leaving without a trace -- there would be dirty footprints everywhere.
It doesn't seem possible to visit all homes in the world in a single night.
The size of the sack needed to carry all the toys is unrealistic.
Reindeer can't fly.

When L joined us at the table, the Boy relayed the whole conversation to her, and she began apologetics for Santa.

I'm still not sure where the Girl stands on Santa. Surely she doesn't believe anymore, but we've never had a conversation about it. And it's just like the Girl to play devil's advocate in such a situation.

In the end, the Boy stood more skeptical on the issue, and we decided that, even if Santa doesn't exist, it's fun to pretend he does. Perhaps that's the best stance.