Christmas at Nana and Papa’s house. Jake, Kristen, Andy, Meg, Calvin and Brooke
Again, haven’t posted much recently. I’m still on Break for another two weeks, but much of that has been taken up with various projects around the house (which I still need to take pictures of and post…) and various travels around the state for Christmas.
That, and I’m still fighting with access to this blog from within my own network at the house, as our router isn’t very happy about that…for some reason…
Anyway, Christmas has been pretty fun this year. Meg has been pretty hyper all week, so my patience has been strained recently, but we’re in Hannibal now completing our week-long Christmas celebrations, so that should subside soon. Calvin still doesn’t quite understand the concept of opening presents yet, but he certainly enjoys the new toys he’s been getting.
Regardless, this is mostly a “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” post. I’m still working on getting everything working properly with the system at home, so once that’s done, I expect to post quite a bit more often. There’s much to catch up on!
As Christmas fell in the middle of the week this year, our schedules were thrown into something of a tizzy. Christmas in Columbia with my family was the weekend before, we still traveled to Louisiana, MO to spend Christmas Eve with Brooke’s grandparents, we returned to St. Louis for Christmas morning so the kids could open presents under their own tree, and then we went to Hannibal for yet another Christmas celebration this weekend. That’s all with a second trip to Columbia for Meg and I between St. Louis and Hannibal destinations so I could see a few friends of mine from high school (good times had by all, by the way).
Needless to say, while the countless presents have been welcomed by our eldest, I’m sure the constant travel and disrupted sleep schedule has strained her. Still, in some ways, it helps us by having easy things to keep her occupied for days when she’d otherwise be making me play “sleepover” with her, or “hide and seek” (wherein she lays on the floor and considers this to be “hiding”…). It also helped all that traveling by having a new car to drive in…
Regardless, we had a pretty great trip. We received far too many presents, but that just goes to show how generous our two families are. Meg really enjoyed opening presents four times in a week, so getting to spread these things out over a longer period of time than usual was nice for her. Christmas just kept on coming!
Though I knew this phase of my life was coming, it’s starting to become even more evident that Christmas is becoming less and less “for me,” at least with regards to the “magic of Christmas.” I’m not talking about the religious aspect of the holiday, but more the shift from childhood to adulthood, where Christmas was such a big deal for a large portion of my early life. It still is, but now, it’s more of a big deal for my kids than it is for me. I still love Christmas, don’t get me wrong, but it’s beginning to take on a new meaning: where it’s now my job to make Christmas magical for my kids rather than make it enjoyable for myself. I hope that doesn’t sound “bah humbug”-ish, and maybe it’s just something I need to try and work on for next year, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about.
Still, watching Meg open her presents (and Calvin in the coming years…he was kinda useless at opening things this year…) was enough “magic” for me. It wasn’t the same, watching someone else open presents as opposed to me opening presents, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be as meaningful. It certainly was this year.
To be honest, I haven’t been posting all that much recently because I haven’t had much to say. At the same time, it’s been pretty busy, for one reason or another. With Christmas falling in the middle of the week, I feel like my schedule has been thrown radically off course for the past few weeks, and am only just now getting back in the swing of things.
Christmas was good, of course. We went to Louisiana, MO for the Baumann (extended) family Christmas on Sunday the 23rd, then continued north to Hannibal for the Baumann (immediate) family Christmas on the 24th. It was odd seeing how much snow was on the ground up there, as we really hadn’t gotten any in St. Louis beforehand. At the very least, it still felt like we got a “White Christmas” out of the deal. After that, we attended our traditional Christmas Eve service back in Louisiana before heading down to St. Louis that night, so that Meg could open her presents under her own tree on Christmas morning.
However, since we didn’t get home until 10:00 pm on Christmas Eve, Meg was quite content to stay in bed until 8:00 am the next morning, meaning we had to wake her up to get her to church on Christmas Day (thus, leaving Meg enough time to open one present before leaving). Still, it all worked out. Meg wanted to play with everything she opened immediately, rather than waiting until after everything was opened to choose something to play with. Perhaps it was better to only get one first.
“Pez? What’s a ‘Pez’?”
We typically don’t go to Christmas Day services, but as we were in town, didn’t have to go anywhere, and our new pastor wanted to have a service on that day (we usually don’t), we went along and had a good time. There were even some folks in pajamas, bringing a good “family atmosphere” to the proceedings. It was a short-ish service, but was nice to participate in.
Brooke went to work the next few days, and Meg went to school. I, being the lazy one, stayed home, getting a few things done while watching the Extended Editions of “The Lord of the Rings” (in preparation for “The Hobbit,” which I still haven’t seen!). I assembled Meg’s new “big girl bed” (which she’s now sleeping in, most nights), hung out with a few friends, kept up on laundry, etc. Overall, a good mix of productivity and laziness, so I was satisfied!
We then went to Columbia last Friday for the Linsenbardt (immediate) family Christmas. Jake and Kristen couldn’t get there around Christmas, so this is the first year I can remember where we pushed things off a few days. In the end, it was probably better this way as we didn’t feel as rushed, traveling between towns without much lag time. Still, we had a good time and got to hit up Flat Branch and Shakespeare’s while we were there (making it more than worth the trip).
Always need more Sesame Street books!
Meg stayed in Columbia with my parents while Brooke, Edie and I returned to St. Louis for New Year’s. Brooke actually went in to work for a little bit on New Year’s Eve while I took down the tree and did a few other things around the house. We hung out with Adam and Kelley that night, which was rather nice because we typically have them over to our house (as Meg is usually in bed by 7:30, and they live 20+ min away from our house, making dinner a difficult prospect). Regardless, good food and good times with friends, so it was a nice way to ring in 2013.
And now, I’m back at work. I had a good time over break, but am ready to get back to a typical routine, even if it means getting up “early” and putting clothes on instead of staying in PJs all day. We won’t have any easy weekends coming up, though, as my cousin gets married on Saturday (the bachelor party is tonight, and the rehearsal is tomorrow…I’m an usher and Meg’s flower girl-ing…), so we’ve got our work cut out for us.
But thankfully, Cabin Fever is next Saturday. Can’t wait for that one. 🙂
Now that we’re a full month out from Christmas, I thought I’d share our “homemade” Christmas gifts with you. Our house was a mess from the time we moved in in late October until… ummm, actually, there are still boxes that need to be unpacked. But, we managed to give some pretty cool and personalized gifts. In the end, I don’t think we saved very much money, but the gifts we gave were definitely worth far more than anything we would have been able to purchase for the same amount. I thrifted/repurposed/cleared out my stash for most of these projects, so not only did we end up with a fairly inexpensive gift list, but also with a very “green” holiday! Helped to offset our vapid consumerism the rest of the year, I suppose! We probably won’t go to this extreme in the future, but will definitely add homemade touches and do a few things here and there!
The list:
Handkerchiefs, both two sided with flannel and unhemmed hand dyed knit
Pocket squares
Shaving cream
Wool cooler cups/koozies (I learned how to do a blanket stitch for those!)
From the Linsenbardt family to yours, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Be safe and have a good time with family and friends this season!
It’s that time of year again. Unfortunately, we’re kind of in the middle of a move, so my typical holiday classics of “Halloween,” “Alien” and “Hocus Pocus” are packed in boxes at the moment. Therefore, I’ve got Netflix to help me out in this time of transition.
I made Brooke watch “Scream” last year, as she’d never seen it before. To be fair, I hadn’t seen it in years either, but watching it for what was probably the fourth time, it still held up and was quite good. I didn’t particularly care for “Scream 2,” and “Scream 3” was overly terrible, but the reviews for their fourth outing earlier this year were surprisingly positive. “Scream 4” came in the mail late last week, but I didn’t get a chance to watch it until Sunday night. I can safely say that “Scream 4” is right up there with the original. The question of “who the killer is” became easy to answer as the series moved forward, but this flick does a good job of drawing that final reveal out further, so while it may be obvious early on, the ending itself isn’t as certain. If you liked the original, I highly recommend this one.
Never seen it and it’s been in my Instant Queue since last year at this time, but still haven’t gotten around to watching it. It’s a remake of the 1973 George A. Romero flick of the same name about the effects of biological weapons testing near a small town in Pennsylvania. The 2010 remake is now set in Iowa and deals with a “mysterious toxin” that infects their water supply, leading to zombie-like behavior. Obviously, we wanted to watch this because it was set in Iowa. Now that we’re moving, it seems like the appropriate time to watch it.
“Red State” is fascinating to me, not because of the subject matter, but the way it even came about. In short, it’s about a group of teens doing what your typical horror movie teens do (drugs, sex and rock & roll), and how they get lured in by fundamentalists looking to make an example of them in a particularly violent and gruesome manner. Kevin Smith (of “Clerks” and “Mallrats” fame) wrote and directed the movie. He even got the movie financed and distributed himself, partially just to prove that it could even be done by a single individual or small company, without the help of a major distributor or movie production company. In many ways, it was a return to his roots in “Clerks,” famously filmed for $27,000. Regardless, I’m fascinating by this movie. It’s very existence is so odd, self-produced/marketed/written/directed by a guy that is famous for making movies about “dick and fart jokes.” Looking forward to it, for sure.
Finally, “The Thing.” I like throwing in some classic scifi/horror movie when possible, especially one I haven’t seen before (gasp!). This one’s also on Netflix Instant Queue, so you can’t argue with convenience. This one is by John Carpenter (who also did the aforementioned “Halloween”) and it’s actually a remake of 1951’s “The Thing From Another World.” Of course, now that it’s 2011, it’s time for another sequel (or prequel…) to come out, though this latest iteration isn’t getting the best reviews. Regardless, I’ve never seen it and it’s sitting in my queue, so I don’t have much of an excuse anymore.
I think that’s a reasonable list. I’m sure others will pop in there, as well. I don’t start the new job until November 1st, so that gives me some free nights to watch some scary movies over the next week.
Needless to say, this year marked quite a few changes for us. The birth of Meg and our move to Iowa have complicated Christmas travels to a greater degree than they used to be. Way back when, we would go to Hannibal/Louisiana for Christmas Eve and then rush back to Columbia/Lohman for Christmas lunch with the Plochberger side of the family. As my grandmother passed away earlier this year, we will no longer be getting together for Christmas Day in the same way that we have in the past, likely doing something like a traditional “Family Reunion” once a year at some other time. Therefore, we won’t have to rush back so quickly Christmas Day. That part is a bit easier. It’s the rest of it where things get interesting.
This year presents other issues. Firstly, my buddy Andy S. got married earlier this year. We were unable to attend any of the festivities, largely because Brooke was quite pregnant, so I didn’t really want to be out of town for an extended period. He and his wife, Rachel, are hitting Columbia (and our mutual friend, Brett), but only for the week prior to Christmas Day. Therefore, here’s how this is going to work:
Meg and I will drive down to Columbia on the 21st so we can see some folks prior to Christmas (~5 hr drive)
Meg and I will drive to Hannibal on the 23rd; Brooke and Edie will meet us there (~2 hr drive)
We spend Christmas Eve in Hannibal/Louisiana, get up Christmas morning, open presents at the Baumann house, and then head off to Columbia (~2 hr drive)
We stay in Columbia through Monday and return to Iowa by way of Hannibal, picking up Brooke’s car (~5 hr drive)
So yeah, it’s gonna get kinda crazy…at least, crazier than it’s been in previous years. It’s a good thing that we have a larger vehicle now so we can carry stuff with us between locations, but it’ll be nice having two cars in Missouri so we can load them both up to get everything back up to Iowa.
This brings us to another issue: space. As in, we have very little. Meg, for all of the 17 lbs that she weighs, comes with metric tons of stuff. As in, multiple bags of clothes, blankets, a baby cage (read: “pack ‘n play”), and toys. And we still have Edie to take along, too. And presents for 3 people for the ride home (but presents for 9 people on the way there). We’re probably going to have to pick up a car-top carrier before we even consider going on vacation next summer.
Related to all of this, we probably won’t travel much in January/February, for a few reasons. One, we live in Iowa. Iowa is cold. Really, really cold. The 3″ of snow that fell today will probably still be here in March. So yeah, we’ll probably stay bundled up and keep as warm as possible, without going anywhere besides work. The other reason (the real reason…) is that Meg hasn’t been traveling well recently. It just seems like we go places and she gets off whatever sleeping schedule we finally settled her into, then it takes at least a week to get her back to something semi-normal. She also tends to get sick, in some fashion, shortly thereafter. I’m sure a lot of this is related to the teething (that she’s finally showing some progress in!), but the constant traveling can’t help. It just seems like we make some progress at getting her to a normal routine, and then it’s dashed within a weekend! We have gone to Columbia, Hannibal and St. Louis a few times over the last few months. She generally does fine in the car, and is great for most of the day, but overnight…eeeeeeesh…
So yeah, that’s this year’s plan. Weather/sickness depending, as usual. We’re just going to make a concerted effort to get through it all mostly unscathed, survive winter, and make it to Meg’s first birthday. Mark your calendars for March 5th!
For some reason, this week marked the first time in 2010 that I heard mention of this year’s “War on Christmas,” first in church and then in the “Daily Show” clip embedded above. At church this past Sunday, it was proclaimed twice (not by the pastor) that we should all remember that “Jesus is the reason for the season” and that we should all say “Merry Christmas” rather than “Happy Holidays.” In the clip above, Jon Stewart highlights Fox News’ personality Gretchen Carlson as going off on the city of Tulsa, OK for changing the name of their 70-year-old annual “Christmas Parade” to the “Holiday Parade”…back in 2009…
Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand the frustration. Christmas is a holiday celebrating Jesus’ birth and, thus, is a Christian holiday. And this Christian holiday has been hijacked by all these other groups, including the atheists that believe in Santa Claus, or the Jews and their Hanukkah celebration. We should all stand up against this onslaught and proudly exclaim “Merry Christmas” to everyone, and help ensure that we get a “Merry Christmas” back instead of the more generic “Happy Holidays” (you know, ’cause there’s only one real holiday…so we can’t make it plural). <end sarcasm here>
As the last half of the video above suggests, this trend is hardly new. If you watch many of the old classic Christmas movies, including “Rudolph,” “A Christmas Carol,” “How The Grinch Stole Christmas,” etc., you won’t find much mention of Jesus. Only “A Charlie Brown Christmas” comes to mind in mentioning it at all, with the iconic recitation of the Christmas story by Linus, but that still only lasts a few minutes compared with the rest of the plot line. Why, exactly, these TV and radio personalities are so uppity about it in recent years is beyond me. It’s been happening for decades.
What Carlsson, and many, many others, fail to understand is that Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t actually born on December 25th, and that the date was (likely?) chosen by Rome because of other festivals occurring around the Winter Solstice; or the fact that Hanukkah predates Christmas by almost two centuries. These people miss the fact that the very idea of “Christmas” has become something more to the general population of the world.
A time of peace. A time of giving and sharing. A time of remembering and helping the less fortunate. A time for friends and family. A time to end hostilities between you and your neighbor. A time to think back on those that have gone before you, and a time to watch new lives grow.
Whether or not you ascribe the holiday to Jesus, Santa, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or someone/something else: shirleythese are tenets we can all agree on.
I’d be willing to bet that Jesus would rather you love and remember your neighbor, instead of getting caught up in saying “Merry Christmas.” He’d want you to say something. And mean it.
I must say, it’s easier to get into the Christmas Spirit when there’s snow on the ground already. It always seemed that, growing up in Missouri, we were lucky to have much or any snow on the ground in the month of December, let alone this early in the month. Of course, with the move to Iowa, we are significantly closer to the North Pole, where the snow will stay on the ground through mid-June… But yeah, it’s kinda nice driving around listening to Christmas music on the radio with the sun shining and snow on the ground, knowing that Christmas is still a few weeks away. Somehow the snow is a bit less worrysome for me knowing that it’s still December. Of course, this only foreshadows the pains we will go through in January and February, but for now, it’s pleasant.
We did have highs in the mid-teens over the weekend, and lows in the single digits. Glad we got our propane tank filled on Friday…
Regardless, we were expecting the First Big Snowfall Of The Year this past weekend (3-5 inches), but we only ended up with less than 2 in. It was enough to cover the ground and was kinda nice to wake up to on Saturday morning. We didn’t have much trouble driving around and the streets were quite clear, thanks to Iowa’s relatively decent road crew.
As a result of our busy-ness in the upcoming weeks/weekends, we also went and picked up a Christmas tree. This year marks the first time we picked up anything larger than a “Charlie Brown Tree,” as we now have a bit more space to use for one. Brooke had seen a place up near Cedar Rapids that we could go, so we headed up there on Sunday and cut one down. It ended up being a little over $20 for a 5 ft tree, so I was rather pleased. I’ll take a picture or two of it once I figure out what’s going on with the auxiliary flash for our dSLR…
On another note, the power supply went out on the web server last week, explaining the absence of the website for a few days. I was concerned that the motherboard/processor had died, which would have ended up being a more expensive fix in the same month that we bought 250 gal of propane gas and Christmas presents, but thankfully, it was just the power supply…only a $50 fix, in the end. It has gotten me thinking about the server upgrade that I’m planning, hopefully for 2011, so now I’m in the mode of searching for the best deals and “bang for your buck” on computer components. Dangerous thinking, to be sure, but at least I can put off a large purchase for a few more months.
