Living with Strangers

I can't believe I haven't blogged since October! I wrote the one about living with my parents in November, but somehow never hit "publish." Oh well, it's a new year.

So, now I live with mini-strangers. Sometimes my sons look so different to me, it feels like they're weird wax renditions of their former selves. Sullivan has molars, dances like Elaine (Seinfeld), and tells knock knock jokes (no, he isn't talking yet). Henry is outgrowing his pants, can't get enough stories about his (or the storyteller's) babyhood, and has started to read. My first-born son is READING! That's just insane to me.


With my babies no longer babies, the holidays seem more and more significant. The closer the holidays came, the grumpier I got. Work has been challenging, but the grumps felt more connected to these weighted days coming up. It's been awhile since I looked forward to my birthday. After a couple years of wildfires breaking loose on my birthday, I think it soured me. But Christmas, I always looked forward to that. Growing up, I spent Christmas eve eve baking with my gram. I learned Special K, popcorn balls, fudge, pies, and rocky road. On Christmas eve, my mom's side of the family got together - the whole mess of us, the one time a year we were all in the same room. We attempted to catch up, but mostly just passed sarcasm around and told stories of my uncles pushing each other in tires down the steep hill from the back of Gram's house. When my grandfather was alive, he'd pretend to be crotchedy and whenever a grandchild would ask when we got to open presents, he'd shout out "Two more songs." After the turkey and sarcasm, we'd sing. I'd made booklets with red and green construction paper and printed lyrics. There were maybe 25 songs and we'd jump around the book, adding addendums like after the "en excelsis deo" adding a "Day, we say day, we say day, we say da-a-a-oh. Daylight come and me wanna go home." Then there was the frenzy of presents, as fast as they could be handed out, crumpled paper and bows. After presents, we ate the baked goods and Gram made plates for everyone to take home.

Christmas morning was for my mom, dad, brother and me. We exchanged our presents and laughed about the night before. Then we put on some recently opened article of clothing and headed to my dad's sister's to meet his whole side of the family. Everyone brought some piece of the meal and we'd serve up mimosas (when I was older, of course) and snacks. With my dad's side, we started with presents. And we took our time. There were years we just gave to the kids (years I was a kid) and years we did a gift exchange. All of those years, we went one by one, handed out by my grandfather. After, we made a huge meal and all ate too much. Grandma's gooey rolls, scrambled eggs and bacon, a breakfast casserole, We spent hours visiting, usually played a game or two, and sometimes several of us would go to the movies. This was before the grandkids started having kids.

Both sides had a thing going. A fun thing. Tradition. I haven't quite figured out our traditions here, yet. And considering both of my kids have molars (I'm not sure why this seems like a big deal to me, but it does) and one is reading, it's about time I figured those out and stopped being grumpy about the holidays. My in-laws came over for Christmas eve dinner this year and I made Special K (the favorite of the baked goods). For the second year in a row, I've gotten the boys matching pajamas that they get to open on Christmas eve. I'm not a fan of matching stuff usually, but it makes the Christmas morning pictures so darn cute. On New Year's day, we started a measuring wall in Dad's office. Both the boys have since tried to find that Sharpie again and draw on walls. We also took a New Year's day hike through Wolf's Neck State Park, but Sullivan nearly lost his fingers in the cold.

But it feels like we need more. I miss the singing. I miss the gooey rolls. I miss my grandparents. Typing that, I realized my sons don't miss their grandparents at all. They get them all the time. And we do a fair amount of singing on our own everyday. Maybe my little strangers would like some more traditions or maybe they'd just like a less grumpy-around-the-holidays mother.