Kwanzaa fun

As much as I love holidays, I'm pretty clumsy with Kwanzaa.  Two reasons: I have no context for how to celebrate except for what I've read, and I put so much into Christmas that by the time the pancakes are cleaned up from Christmas breakfast, I'm ready for a few days of watching movies and eating leftovers.

We have our kinara and light the designated candle and read it's meaning each night. Usually we will make a special meal on New Years (the last day of kwanzaa).  The kids were talking about how there is so much excitement around Christmas, and when it's over there's a big let down.  So we planned some surprise fun for December 26th, which was a Christmas gift from Papa and Meemaw. 

We went to a tubing hill that is only a couple miles from our house, but we've never tried it.  We had so much fun!  Truth be told, I'm a big baby when it comes to cold weather. But if there has ever been a winter where I was determined to embrace it, it's this one.  I even finally bought myself some really good boots.  Now I just need some better mittens.

After tubing, we got hot beverages at Kwik Trip.  Only because it was MeeMaw's treat, I let the kids use the whipped topping machine. 😉  That night we went to Kwanzaa Glow Night, which was a narrated drive-thru light show at the state fair grounds.  At the end of the light show, there were drive-thru food trucks.  Reggie picked mini-donuts, Lydia got cotton candy. and Brett got cheese curds.  Bryan and I each got salted nut rolls.

Over the winter break, we have also done lots of sledding.  The kids got new sleds from Grandma and Grandpa.  One is a wooden "snurfer" that you can sled or snow board on, and the other is a set of "sled legs" that you velcro to your legs.   The pond is finally frozen, so the kids can sled on the hill in our back yard.  We've gone to some parks to sled, too.  

We also had a game day.  We played board games for six hours!   And on New Years Eve, we had a movie marathon and the kids slept in the living room.  We made hot chocolate bombs. We watched The Hunger Games, which the kids and I all read this fall.  The book is way better than the movie!

Here is a link to a portion of the variety show the kids created for the grandparents for Christmas.  They worked really hard on it! 

Tomorrow we head "back" to school.  It sounds like there will be at least one more month of distance learning.  Things have been improving in Minnesota. I've got my fingers and toes crossed that we will not see a post-holiday surge and maybe in-person school will be on the horizon.

Christmas festivities, traditional and pandemic style

In some ways, Christmas looked a little different this year, and in other ways, it was pretty much the same.

The festivities always start with putting up the tree the Saturday after Brett's birthday.  We always snack on coke from glass bottles and white chocolate covered Oreos.  Every year, we add a few special ornaments that represent significant events from the year.  But this is the first year the ornaments were handmade.  I bought a needlework kit for a "germ" ornament on Etsy, and Lydia molded each guinea pig out of clay.

I don't really care what the tree looks like so the kids decorate while I talk about and hand out the ornaments and Bryan scrolls on his phone.

We always try to do something along the lines of advent.  We have our wreath and candles we light at dinner.  This year, our church provided advent kits for families with kids that included a weekly devotion and craft.

Stillwater went all out with Christmas lights and lit up the lift bridge.  The bridge used to be for cars but now it's a walking/biking path, so we walked across it.

We made coronavirus themed ugly sweaters.

And lots of cookies of course.  Brett wanted Santa's Snicker's Surprises, Lydia wanted gingersnaps, and Reggie wanted Christmas Tree Sugar Cookie Stacks.  I also always make shortbreads.  I made meringue cookies for the first time.  They were cute, but Lydia was the only one who liked eating them.  We also made brownie bites with strawberry Santa hats.

The snow came on Christmas Eve Eve and it was a welcome sight after almost two months of almost no snow.  The boys were a little too eager to clear the driveway though, waking us up before 7:00 to shovel.

We facetimed my parents on Christmas Eve morning and the kids opened their gifts.  It sure is convenient that they could shop online and have gifts delivered to us!  Bonnie came over to "attend" the Christmas Eve service with us and we played some covid-friendly games.

After dinner, we opened presents from each other.  The kids were really into giving each other gifts this year, especially Brett.  

On Christmas morning, we checked out what Santa left us and then had our traditional Santa and reindeer pancakes!

The guinea pigs got a veggie Christmas tree.

Then we watched a lot of Christmas movies!

an almost ordinary day

When an unseasonably warm day popped into the forecast for a Wednesday in December, we decided to make the most of it. Wednesday is our most flexible day with less live online classes, so I usually take the kids out to lunch and run a couple errands.  By "out to lunch", I mean we get some fast food and eat it in the car or at home.  We haven't "dined in" since March, and the outdoors are typically not a great option in December in Minnesota.

But this day promised some enjoyable outdoor time, so we made plans to go to an art center I had read about in the newspaper, pick up Subway, and then go to a nature center.  The art center was better than expected.  There were 4 or 5 outdoor exhibits.  The kids enjoyed exploring a labyrinth.  There was a mural memorializing the death of George Floyd.  There was an interactive exhibit intended for visitor to make a collective project during this season of social isolation.  And there was an exhibit memorializing each death from Covid-19 in MN.  Each mask represented a life lost.  At the time it was installed in early November, there were around 2,500. Then we had the fall surge, and now we have surpassed 5,000 deaths in our state.

After the art center, we got Subway and went to the nature center for a picnic and some outdoor exercise.  The day almost felt normal.  The kids were doing their usual bantering back and forth, goofing off, and high-energy burn-off, and our activities felt barely restricted.  

Except it was a Wednesday and the kids should have been in school.

Except for the constant reminder of the masks around our necks ready to pull up over our noses should we need to interact with someone outside our household.

Except the Art Center's indoor spaces were closed to the public so we could only explore the outdoor exhibits.

Except I had a fleeting thought of inviting a friend and her kids to meet up with us, but under the current restrictions we weren't supposed to gather with folks outside our household.  Not even outdoors.

Except when we were ordering our food at Subway, the worker had to have people wait outside, because there was a limit of 5 customers at a time (and we were four).

Except normally the kids would join in with others in a game on the play structure, but instead they stuck to themselves.

Except once we returned to the van, we passed the bottle of hand-sanitizer around without thought.

Except we were in a hurry to get home in time for Lydia's virtual piano lesson.

Except on that day 82 more Minnesotans died from Covid-19.

Except on that day 3,159 more people died in the US.

Except on that day 12,544 people died worldwide.

sparkle on, Lydia

My girl who hates needles and has been my fiercest opposition when it comes to getting shots decided to get her ears pierced.  How sweet and nostalgic it was that Donna, the same friend who gave Lydia her first hair cut, also pierced her ears!

Sparkle on, Lydia!