One of the unexpected results of having kids in the house is the tendency I have of late to start whistling, humming, or even singing “The Wheels on the Bus” or similar songs out of the blue, walking down the hall at school, cooking lunch for the kids, driving to have my oil changed…
the boy
Cheese Cake
The Boy has discovered sernik, Polish-style cheese cake. And now we’re listening to Dexter Gordon’s “Cheese Cake” as accompaniment.
Wigilia 2013
"You girls got to play all day yesterday; today, you'll be helping out a lot." Thus began the day, and thus the girls began their day of helping, much of which was more spiritual than physical. Still, transferring the clean dishes from the dishwasher and moving the dirty breakfast dishes from the table to the dishwasher was a good start
And so for a change, every year's is not the same, at least at the start. The girls all chip in throughout the morning, taking care of the Boy as he horses about,
or cutting veggies for the Christmas morning breakfast. (How odd I used to find it that a Polish breakfast might include a salad of some sort or other; how odd I now find it that I used to find it odd.)
It's always amusing to me how a little Tom Sawyering can turn anything into a game for kids this age. At one point, one of the girls suggested they go up L's room to play. "No," the other two replied, "we want to help."
As the day turned to afternoon, though, the Girls' help became more spiritual, less physical. T took out her holiday music and began playing for the Girls as they sang carols.
They began with "Angels We Have Heard on High,"
and followed it with "Go Tell It on the Mountain," to which E added some avant garde accompaniment.
As we continued cutting, chopping, boiling, spicing, setting the table,
and whining, the girls performed "Silent Night,"
and moved quickly to a very interesting arrangement of "Jingle Bells."
Of course the girls wouldn't be The Girls if they didn't add something silly to the mix. T sat this one out, but C and L had great fun recording their version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."
By this time, though, it was time to stop with the silliness and get started on the main courses for the evening. I went out to fire up the grill and the Girls all transformed. The Boy waited though. "He's still wiping his nose on his sleeve," K explained. "We'll wait with him." And so picture-perfect girls bounded about the house while I grilled salmon, fried an improvised invention (oyster and crab cakes, which I think I'll try again), and Babcia looked on with a smile.
Once Nana and Papa arrived, the rest of the evening went by in a blur. We began as always: Papa read from the Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 2.
I scooted about, taking pictures, directing L to stop messing with E and listen to Papa, and generally worrying that the crab/oyster cakes might not be as tasty as I imagined.
The dinner itself went by in a blur, which is always the case, and I always find it somewhat tragic. So much time spent preparing barszcz z uszkami, crab/oyster cakes, mushroom soup (where did those mushrooms come from? surely not Poland!), cabbage and mushroom pierogis, salmon, potatoes, and salad, cheese cake, Polish sweets, and a million other delicacies and it's gone in about an hour. We try to slow down; we all comment on the tragedy of it all; and every single year, we all inhale it. This year was no different, which is both a complement to the chefs and a sad illustration of how quickly we all tend eat.
For the kids, though, it was normal: there was only one thing on their minds. The presents.
So we moved to the living room, listened to more caroling,
and eventually began opening presents.
We tried out some of the gifts
and lamented and celebrated that such an evening occurs only once a year.
Previous Years
Pre-Wigilia Messes
There’s a mess in the kitchen as the baking, baking, baking starts in the morning and extends into the evening.
There’s a mess in the Girl’s room as three little girls and a little boy start playing in the morning and finish up in the evening.
Eating
Birthday Party
Transformations
Today was a day of transformations. We put an entire chicken, a bit of beef with the bone, two stalks of celery, a few carrots, some fresh parsley, sage, and thyme into a pot with water and let heat and time transform it into a deceptively clear stock. It had a yellowish tint to it, and there were globules of grease floating on the time, but by the time we'd poured it through a fine sieve several times, it looked like it should have little to no taste. Warmed water. And yet...
In the afternoon, we took a plain Fraser fir and transformed it into the magic of the season. Lights, baubles, ornaments, angels.
Babcia, L, and K put on some carols -- Frank Sinatra to begin with -- and hung gingerbread houses and hearts, beads, and lights, and I piddled about the yard. Sort of sad: it's always a highlight for me to decorate the tree, and I regret missing out on it. I always feel like a kid hanging the ornaments, sipping on something warm.
And in a way, I am a kid at it: only in the last few years could I stop saying, "I've celebrated Christmas so few times I could count them on my fingers." Yet not having participated in the holiday growing up makes it all the more meaningful for me now.
Yet early celebrations with K always lacked a little something. For me as a non-believer, Christmas was a season of pleasantries and friends, but little else. "If only people would be this nice to each other throughout the entire year," I would say, and that was about the extent of the spirituality of Christmas for me: a longing for a kind of utopia that I thought briefly and imperfectly existed during the Christmas season.
Having converted to Catholicism, though, adds a new meaning to Christmas. Properly speaking and on a most basic level, it adds new vocabulary: Advent, St. Stephen's Day, Vigil Mass. Of course there's more to it than just vocabulary, but I'm still a bit ill-at-ease to discuss it further. Old faithless comforts (or in this case, lack of comfort) disappear slowly.
So that particular transformation is still incomplete. The water is still boiling around me, still drawing out the essences, purifying. It's one more thing I'm waiting on in Advent.
How Does This Work?
Christmas Tree Farm
Indoors and Out, Sort Of
The day began with Polish lessons, with Babcia taking over for this particular round. This has its advantages, to be sure, the main one being her inability to speak English. Since the Girl can't speak Russian, the only language Babcia and L have in common is Polish, so it forces the language out of L, squeezes it out of every little necessity.
Once that was out of the way, it was playtime. The Girl's favorite play location of late has been the livingroom couch, somewhat transformed.
"It's a fort! An E-proof fort!"
Something tells me that this will soon be a favorite of E, as well. He certainly stayed in the "fort" for a long time, and he seemed content the whole time, as did everyone else. The OCD version of Tata, though, was going just a little crazy with the mess. Good clean fun doesn't really exist with a six-year-old and a toddler.
In the evening, we decided it was time we finally went to Hollywild's famous Christmas light safari (their term, not mine). We'd tried some years ago, but we'd given up and turned around after wandering about in the middle seemingly of nowhere for long enough to drive me batty.
It's a strangely American concept: set up an incredible number of lights -- snow men, rocking horses, various Christmas scenes, various winter scenes -- and let people drive their cars around in the display.
"What a waste of gas!" some non-Americans (and likely some Americans as well) might suggest. "Why not get out and walk -- you missed a chance for good exercise."
And that's probably true, but this evening was particularly cold, and the Boy would not have fared well in such cold weather: he gets sick just thinking about getting sick. No, he gets sick with anyone around him thinking that he might get sick. It's suggestive illness.
And so we played along (as if we had a choice) and drive through the presentation, behaving perfectly cordially with all the other drivers (what a change) and patiently oohing and ahhing at all the right spots.
"Look at the reflection!" L pointed out, right before Babcia did the same in Polish. Or was it the reverse?
In the middle of the safari was the Enchanted Deer Forest, which was an odd term for the plot of muddied, treeless ground all the cars wandered about in as if they migrating animals, separated and lost from their herd.
The enchanted deer part, though, was easy to see. They clumped around cars and ate from people's hands, walking in front of slowly-moving cars without a care.
We tried to get a few to come to our car, but the closes we came was a short, semi-attentive stare.
To get really close to the animals, we had to get out of the car and into Santa's Village. Who knew Santa had camels and bison and strange cattle?
The Boy, though was strangely apathetic about the animals. He was much more interested in running, running, running. And falling. And running again,.
"We'll come back in a couple of years," K laughed as we headed back to the car, "When the Boy is interested in more than just running."