I’ve finally, after delay upon delay (a whole variety of delays), sorted through all 600+ photos from our Christmas trip. If you’re really curious, and you want to see the “top 200” photos, click here. And, as always, click on any of the photos posted on our blog to enlarge them.
By posting about this Christmas trip I run the risk of our Christmas coming across as bizarrely idyllic-Norman-Rockwell-ish. The truth is that our family and my extended family has all the normal disfunctions of any ‘typical’ relatively-healthy American family. We have our little dynamics and our long histories and problems and pathologies just like everyone else. But the truth also is that we’ve got it good. Really, really good. And as far as idyllic Christmases go… we’ve got it about as idyllic as it can get (at least from my perspective). This was Braydon’s 14th Christmas in New Hampshire with my family. His first Christmas with us he spent the majority of the time seriously questioning me as to whether this was “real” or not. Like we were somehow putting on some sort of elaborate show for him. He truly could not comprehend a Family Christmas this ridiculously postcard-perfect. The snow, the New England winter treats (skiing, icy bonfires, etc.), the mom who bakes a trillion cookies, the quintessential family Christmas traditions, the whole nine yards… the whole entire thing is kind of over-the-top. But I would be misrepresenting it to not call it like it is: it is unbelievably quintessential. Yes, there are moments when we’re all about to lose our minds (like this year with two bass drums booming throughout my parents’ sort of smallish house), and moments –at any given time– when any one of us are about to lose our minds (like this year when I almost had a nervous breakdown on Christmas Eve trying to get a decent photo of my three kids under the Christmas tree), and there are times when we feel like we want to crawl under a rock (like this year when, on our last day there, Kyle admitted to my mother that he had peed in the hot tub multiple times since we had arrived), and there are times when we’re overwhelmed with it all (like this year, on Christmas Day, when all I wanted to do was lie down and take a nap after getting almost no sleep the night before –nursing a needy Meera who had some sort of reaction to the smorgasbord dinner I had eaten). Yes, there are those moments. But these pictures that I’m posting here evoke the vast majority of moments. And yes, it is all-too-picture-perfect and strangely idyllic. But Braydon reminds me never to poke fun of the Norman-Rockwell-ish of it all. And he’s right: we’re all too lucky to poke fun — that would imply that we’re taking it for granted. Despite having some pretty intensely depressing stuff happening in my family these past several months, we truly did have a wonderful, wonderful 7 night/8 day Christmas in New Hampshire.
The planning and prepping and packing for this trip is always crazy, but even crazier this year with the baby in tow. The night before we left, looking at all that needed to somehow get into the car, and facing the 10 hour drive we were about to embark on, we found ourselves blurry-eyed and exhausted with Christmas still almost a full week away. We swore to ourselves that this would probably be the last year we did this crazy thing. Of course, as always, we came back home vowing that if at all possible — and as long as my parents are still willing to put up with us — we’d be back up there again next year. * Our first morning the boys — all three of them — were in the hot tub with snow falling down. The first of lots (lots, lots, lots) of time spent in the hot tub. *
In the midst of a serious Nor’easter we crazy people drove to Portland, Maine for our annual pilgrimage to Merrill Auditorium to see the Portland Symphony Orchestra’s “Magic of Christmas” concert. It was truly insane of us to drive there during this intense of a storm. But seriously, it was the best concert ever… I mean it… and I’ve been going since I was K & O’s age. This was Meera’s first year, and she could not have been a better orchestra-going-baby. We were able to keep her inside the concert hall for the entire thing because she never once made a peep! *
My mother continued her tradition of making hundreds and hundreds of Christmas cookies. *
Icicles hanging off my parents roof.
*
An afternoon in North Conway — picture perfect white mountains New England town. Meera loved the cold snuggled up in her backpack. Inside this coffee house we got treats and I had my first “gingerbread latte” — which I loved and can still taste in my mouth if I think hard enough about it. *
The boys with MorMor on the sidewalk in North Conway. So excited about these candy canes she got for them in a shop down the street. *
Ready to board The Polar Express — from left to right, back: Heather, Auntie Stina, Meera, Braydon, MorFar, MorMor. front: cousin Sadie, Sadie’s friend, Owen, Kyle. *
Polar Express ~ drinking hot cocoa “as thick and rich as melted chocolate bars.” *
Ski Bunnies!!! In the lodge, taking a mid-morning skiing break at King Pine (K on left, O on right). *
This was Kyle and Owen’s second year skiing! Last year I couldn’t go because I was pregnant. This year, my mom stayed home with Little Miss so that the four ‘elder’ Johnson-McCormicks could have a ski day together. It was awesome!!! Watching the boys gun it down the mountain you’d never in a million years have thought that it was only their second time — ever — on skis. It was so, so, so fun for the four of us to ski together. *
This ski day was probably one of the totally top top top highlights of the trip for the four of us. We loved it.
*
We arrived back to my parents’ house to find Meera inside the house, happy as could be with MorMor and Sadie… and to find MorFar outside with the earth oven getting ready to cook a turkey. Later that night, that earth-oven-turkey turned out to be the best turkey I’ve ever tasted in my entire life. *
The cousins sledding. *
Wreath on barn door at my parents’ house. *
Field at my parents’ house. *
Snow angels! *
Christmas Eve day lunch ~ homemade lentil soup & hot dogs roasted over the fire. *
Meera spent much of her time in New Hampshire as she does at home. Hanging out, lovin’ life on her play mat. This picture was taken on Christmas Eve day. She was oblivious to all the excitement. *
Christmas Eve Day ~ as tradition has it, Santa brings one gift early on Christmas Eve. As children, both of my parents opened their presents on Christmas Eve. Growing up, my sister and I got one gift on Christmas Eve from our parents. Now our children get one gift on Christmas Eve from Santa. And yes! K & O got what they asked for: BIG BASS DRUMS! (go ahead, call us crazy… I’d do it all again in a heartbeat to see the looks on those precious faces!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Here they are, wearing their “King Pine” shirts, and they COULD.-NOT.-BE.-HAPPIER. What child shouldn’t have that on Christmas??????????? Every child should be so lucky to get the special gift they’ve been hoping for and wishing for and writing letters to Santa about. This is the stuff that magic is made of. * Ky Ky was truly beyond ecstatic — walking on sunshine to the beat of a different drum — upon receiving this gift from Santa. Look at the look on his face. * Christmas Eve Day late afternoon ~ before getting changed into their dress-up-outfits the cousins take a dip (with piles of snow on their heads!) *
The fourth cousin looks on, envious. Hopefully next year she’ll be able to join them!?!!! *
Christmas Eve ~ all dressed up. The boys got a huge kick out of dressing in matching outfits with their sister for their first Christmas as a threesome as opposed to a twosome. This was the best we could get for a photo. Quickly it turned into a major meltdown. ;0 *
Swedish Smorgasbord on Christmas Eve. My mom is really, really amazing. She keeps this going year after year after year and we don’t know what we’d do without the meatballs and korv and sill and salmon and all of it. I’ve eaten this meal every Christmas Eve of my entire life… as has my mom and dad and their parents too. K, O, and M will learn to love it. *
The pageant at church on Christmas Eve. Once again, the gender bending. K & O insist on being angels. Sadie is the sheep. It was cute and nothing crazy happened with K & O like what happened two years ago when they were two (click here)… then again, they now have the baby sister, so they didn’t need to steal the baby Jesus. *
Speaking of baby sister… she sat in church, her eyes glued, as her two angelic brothers (that is sarcasm) did their thing. Seriously, this girl adores her brothers. Adores them. *
Christmas Morning! *
#1 Most Priceless Picture!!! Mid-morning Christmas Day ~ Owen was missing. Braydon and I found him, alone in the kitchen, with the Swedish Butterhorns. LOL!!!!!!!!!! Between him and Kyle they ate at least a couple dozen over the course of the day. *
We’re officially declaring 2009 the “Year of the Airplane” here in the J-M household. The boys (led by Kyle, the leader of the dynamic duo, as usual) are officially completely obsessed with all-things-airplanes. Santa (and some others — you know who you are!!!) made a significant augmentation to their Toy Airplane Collection. Which has only fueled the fire. They play with their airplanes daily (airplanes and their musical instruments are the two things they consistently play with every.-single.-day.). Airplanes airplanes airplanes. New Year’s Eve Day was no different. K & O spent the bulk of the day playing with airplanes (photo above taken 12/31/08). Meera spent the bulk of her day watching them play with airplanes. Braydon and I spent the bulk of the day doing damage control. Par for the course. When we talked about New Year’s Resolutions Kyle announced that his is to “do a good job sitting next to Mommy on airplanes” (???!?). Anyhoo…
I still haven’t posted about Christmas. Because I still haven’t had even an hour to sort through all the photos. Granted, there are 642 of them. (Yes, yes, we’re ridiculously snap happy, but to our defense: we were on our NH Christmas trip for a full 8 days and we did do a lot of camera-worthy things while we were up there). I will try to get to the Christmas post ASAP. In the meantime…
HAPPY NEW YEAR! We celebrated alone this year. Beth was supposed to come for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, but had to cancel due to the weather (understandably not wanting to drive in snow and wind all the way from Connecticut). Once we accepted our fate (Braydon kept repeating: “First and foremost we need to accept that we are not in our twenties anymore and we have three young children.”), it really wasn’t all that bad being totally alone with no plans.
This past fall, in one of many tiny but very memorable moments with Owen’s current teacher (who I believe to be an absolutely brilliant woman), she said this one thing thing that has stuck with me ever since. I was saying to her that I cannot imagine how hard it must be to teach 4 year olds (they’re so infuriating!). She was saying to me that she cannot imagine how hard it must be to teach college students (they’re so infuriating!). Then she told me that she has this perspective on teaching that is about focusing on good moments (as opposed to trying to achieve whole good days or even portions of days). She talked about how groups of four year olds can’t possibly be expected to all be even-keeled and well-behaved for whole days at a time, but if she has a moment or two in her classroom during each day that are good — truly good moments — then she considers her work day a smashing success. I loved this idea and explained right away that it is basically the same with college-age kids. Ever since our conversation I’ve been thinking a lot more about noticing (and celebrating) good moments, and — most importantly — not even expecting whole good days (or even portions of them). This has really helped me in my approach to time spent with our three kiddos.
Our New Year’s Eve 2008 and New Year’s Day 2009 were held together –loosely– by a thin string of good (actually, great) moments. With lots of regular-to-be-expected-infuriating-and-frustrating-and-about-to-make-us-go-off-the-deep-end other moments. In between the good moments we had some meltdowns and some time-outs and we each lost it at least once (keep in mind: we’ve now been together as a family, with no school and very little work and with virtually no routine whatsoever, for almost two solid weeks —- this is waaaay tooooo long for us). But the moments, the good moments, were GOOD. And ultimately, that is what we look forward to most in 2009: more good moments. All the other stuff… well, we’ll do what we gotta do: we’ll deal with it.
We had a little family New Year’s Eve Celebration (at the pathetically early hour of around 5pm) and did lots of CHEERS! to the new year. Ever since Braydon and I went to France in the spring of 2003 (and were served — much to our surprise — BBQ potato chips with a fantastic bottle of champagne in an exquisite chateau in Burgundy [they explained in very sophisticated terms how BBQ chips were the best compliment to the champagne]), we have BBQ potato chips whenever we have a good bottle of champagne. The boys had their own bottle (and grapes, since they aren’t big fans of chips). Meera had her little chewy-toy-thing with an ice cube in it (no champagne for her — not even the fake stuff). And it was a very good moment. Standing in our kitchen, music blaring, toasts rolling off each other one after another… for a moment — no matter how fleeting — the excitement of it was truly as perfect as any New Year’s Eve celebration I’ve participated in. Very soon after Meera came unglued and was too exhausted to even attempt to eat her baby-food dinner.
But everyone woke up cheery on this first morning of 2009. Our plans for going on a long walk were quickly dashed when we realized how cold the day was turning out to be (it never got above 15 degrees). But our other plans were — for the most part — realized. Today four of us never got out of our pajamas (Meera was changed, but only out of necessity due to a diaper situation). Braydon and the boys made fresh orange juice and fresh bread this morning. We had a “picnic lunch” on the floor of the family room while watching the Rose Bowl Parade. Little Miss was in bed at 6:00 and the bambinos were in bed by 6:30. Tonight Braydon and I are having take-out and watching a movie… continuing a long tradition of doing *nothing* (or at least, not much) on New Year’s Day (two years ago I posted this about our New Year’s Day tradition).
Amidst the mayhem and the madness there are moments to savor. We’re hoping for lots of little moments in 2009 —– for us and for all of you J-M Blog readers out there. Happy 2009!
Meera turns 7 months old today! This past month she’s started to sit up pretty well — she can sit on her own but still plops over after a minute or so (and then laughs at herself when she does). She’s started chewing on teething biscuits (which she loves). She experienced her first big party in her own house (the Haiti Christmas Party). And she took her fourth trip to New Hampshire… this time for her first Christmas (a beautiful white Christmas to remember). She survived the 10 hour car ride (10 hours each way) and did really well (especially for a 6 month old!) during this 7 night Christmas trip. Meera continues to be a happy, happy, happy baby who rarely fusses and rarely cries. She laughs easily and often (especially when tickled!). She’s smiling more than she’s not. And she still sleeps like a champ. Her favorite foods are “rice and beans” (! –rice cereal mixed with pureed green beans); sweet potatoes; and Yo Baby Simple Plain Yogurt. This month she spent lots of time in the baby backpack on Braydon’s back. She’s had her first taste of winter weather and tends to squeal and screech with delight when the cold winds blow on her face. Meera is a baby who loves loves loves toys. She’s entertained for hours playing by herself with all her little baby things. But by far her favorite thing to do is to watch her brothers and — even better — receive their attention and affection. Meera Grace is a miraculously ridiculously unbelievably easy happy mellow happy-go-lucky baby who delights us everyday by simply just being. We can’t believe we’ve passed the 6-month-mark with her. She’s growing so fast; we are trying to savor each and every day with this precious baby bundle.
A couple of weeks ago Braydon bought a new Christmas book for K & O. They quickly fell in love with it and have requested it to be read to them at least once a day since. It is a great book with wonderful illustrations and I want to especially highly recommend it to parents of precious little black boys out there in the blogosphere. The book is An Angel Just Like Me by Mary Hoffman, illustrated by Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu. Check it out! This year, with Kyle and Owen at age 4.5, our Christmas season has included a newly emerging sense of awareness on the part of our boys. This is an awareness that was only slightly present in previous years but is now in much fuller force. Images of white Santas, white snowmen, white angels, white nativity scenes, white snowflakes, white snowscapes, ‘white’ Christmases are everywhere. K & O (as well as –and this is an important point– all the rest of us) are being bombarded with it everyday. Braydon and I try very hard to counter-act it in our own little oasis of our home. We conscientiously and purposefully present counter-images — on our walls, on our Christmas tree, in the books that we read to them, in our own little nativity scenes, on the covers of the Christmas music CDs we’re listening to, in the decorations we put out, in the way we tell our own stories. But still, no amount of counter-action could possibly balance it out, and the effects of the ‘white’ Christmas are understandably profound. ‘Where am I in all of this?,’ they seem to be asking with their questions and statements and theories about all things Christmas. Things like An Angel Just Like Me are important for our boys during this season because these things give a strong, confident answer to their question by saying: ‘You, too, my beautiful black boy, are right here in the middle of all of this.’
Every school in the history of education has had bullies. I remember for me there was one in the 7th grade – it was a kid named Cody. At the time he was just big, a bit scary and did mean, stuff. But now that I’m an adult, I recognize that bullies are most often children who are facing some kind of difficulty and are coping with it (wrongly) through dominating others. Maybe it’s a question of the powerless making others more powerless to make them selves better off. Maybe it’s an inability to express the problem in an effective way and the problem manifests as aggressive tenancies. Whatever the (understandable) cause, bulling is never acceptable.
Even in a loving environment like the River Valley Waldorf school, there are bullies. There is one in Kyle’s class. He’s a normal sized child (smaller and lighter than K & O), but very aggressive, pushing, shoving, hitting, biting and attempting to incite other kids into doing the same. Heather often reports to me of his malfeasance on the front playground, but during morning drop off (which I do), I rarely see it. Today I saw it.
Now, it wasn’t too dramatic, and in lots of places it’s far far worse, but in principle, it’s the same where ever you are. Unprovoked, this boy raised his fist against Kyle. He held Kyle by the shirt in his left hand, and raised his right hand behind his ear to slam his fist into Kyle’s face.
Whether or not he would have done it, I don’t know. And honestly, I am not sure that the boy even knows what he was doing. My gut told me that he’d seen it as a threat, but didn’t know what the next step was. I could be wrong, but I hope not.
But here is the thing: Kyle didn’t blink, budge or attempt to fight back. In effect he turned the other cheek. I suspect he knows he would hurt this kid if he went after him). Passive strength is how both boys handle this kid on a daily basis. I am so proud of that.
Before the kid could hit Kyle, Owen came over and they stood shoulder to shoulder in front of this child, locked together without aggression, without threat, but with a clear signal that said "I wouldn’t try it if I were you."
While I was telling the kid that "we don’t hit other people", K&O went over to the window, sat on the sill, shoulder to shoulder, an immovable 100 pounds of strength.
I’ve finally, after delay upon delay (a whole variety of delays), sorted through all 600+ photos from our Christmas trip. If you’re really curious, and you want to see the “top 200” photos, click here. And, as always, click on any of the photos posted on our blog to enlarge them.
The planning and prepping and packing for this trip is always crazy, but even crazier this year with the baby in tow. The night before we left, looking at all that needed to somehow get into the car, and facing the 10 hour drive we were about to embark on, we found ourselves blurry-eyed and exhausted with Christmas still almost a full week away. We swore to ourselves that this would probably be the last year we did this crazy thing. Of course, as always, we came back home vowing that if at all possible — and as long as my parents are still willing to put up with us — we’d be back up there again next year.
Our first morning the boys — all three of them — were in the hot tub with snow falling down. The first of lots (lots, lots, lots) of time spent in the hot tub.
In the midst of a serious Nor’easter we crazy people drove to Portland, Maine for our annual pilgrimage to Merrill Auditorium to see the Portland Symphony Orchestra’s “Magic of Christmas” concert. It was truly insane of us to drive there during this intense of a storm. But seriously, it was the best concert ever… I mean it… and I’ve been going since I was K & O’s age. This was Meera’s first year, and she could not have been a better orchestra-going-baby. We were able to keep her inside the concert hall for the entire thing because she never once made a peep!
My mother continued her tradition of making hundreds and hundreds of Christmas cookies.
Icicles hanging off my parents roof.
An afternoon in North Conway — picture perfect white mountains New England town. Meera loved the cold snuggled up in her backpack. Inside this coffee house we got treats and I had my first “gingerbread latte” — which I loved and can still taste in my mouth if I think hard enough about it.
The boys with MorMor on the sidewalk in North Conway. So excited about these candy canes she got for them in a shop down the street.
Ready to board The Polar Express — from left to right, back: Heather, Auntie Stina, Meera, Braydon, MorFar, MorMor. front: cousin Sadie, Sadie’s friend, Owen, Kyle.
Polar Express ~ drinking hot cocoa “as thick and rich as melted chocolate bars.”
Polar Express ~ K & O got to carry elves’ lanterns in the snowy North Pole.
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