Happy times/Christmas Day through the ages...

Friday, Dec. 25, 1998: We got a laugh when I opened up a book that Sharon had wrapped for me, and which I’d also bought several days ago.  In fact, as it turned out, it was that very book that I’d bought, which is a pretty efficient way of getting people presents.  Sharon and Caitlin (9) go out to the street to play with the whirlybird Drew (7) bought for her.  Some guy swerved and ran over it.   

Monday, December 25, 2000: Matty (2) goes right to Spence’s (4) new Woody station wagon and snaps the top off of it.  He continues to circulate with utter confidence and a sense of entitlement.  If he has a notion to grab something, and bang it on something else, then he’ll do it.  Spencer takes that car, so nicely crafted and pleasingly designed, and hangs onto it all day.  He creates pretty comprehensive imaginative scenarios, which can go on pretty indefinitely.  If anyone wants to join in, he’s pleased to accommodate.  If anyone joins in—oh, say, two-year-old destructo fashion, he’ll request reasonable decorum, and he’ll make do. 

Drew (9) got busy.  With a purposeful look on her face she went from thing to thing, getting the measure, and then just rolling her sleeves up and having fun.  She had her telescope case around her wrist all day.  She wrestled, happily bemused, with that Hi-Q game.  She minutely arranged the boys’ explorer playmobile set.  She even more minutely arranged their new tinker toys.  (Sometimes the wrong present goes to the wrong person, with the usual result that it works out right in the end.)  It was fun to watch her. 

Caitlin (11) was nice.  It was the clothes—name brands!—that consumed her.  She eventually deigned to ride that skateboard.  Her looking outward, whether or not she knows it or we note it, is pretty constant, and childhood’s end is nigh.  Mum, always so mild, reveals herself to be a murderous checkers strategist.  Her cruel tactics pretty well force Caitlin to give up and throw board and pieces all over the room. 

The Randalls come over, then take Sarah (7) and Spence back over with them.  I pull Spence to me.  “Now Spencer, be sure you’re quiet and good.”  He looks up at me and most reasonably states the obvious.  “Dad, I’m always quiet and good.”  This little child really should be leading. 

Tuesday, December 25, 2001: An agent for her nefarious siblings, Sarah (8) keeps popping in to see if they can get up yet.  At 6 AM we roll out.  Stockings in the family room.  Caitlin’s (12) very happy about her whoopee cushion.  Spence (5) finally gets a journal.  I do my first ever spiritual thought (D&C 122, John 16: 33) for a devotional, and then we start doing damage.  We parents are pleasantly surprised.  Our too many presents are easily absorbed into the harmonious atmosphere and the feeling of commonwealth. 

Everyone gets books.  Everyone gets music.  Everyone playmobiles.  The Game Boy is heavily subscribed to, but miraculously causes no conflict.  Matt (3) rings his bicycle bell.  Sarah’s magic bank breaks.  The day brightens and we get done and everything feels pretty good.  Everyone lines up for that casserole, for fruit and muffins.  The CDs go on the changer, spirograph patterns get scored into the kitchen table, the Clue games begin, and I lose consciousness.  So it continues.  Great day! 

Oh, yes—Claire (0) gets up at about 8:30, having missed everything and not minding particularly.  She looks brightly around, beams and buries her head when you make eye contact.  Sharon and I exchange naps.  Still pj’d, we get a visit from Lance R. and boys.  Brock is mortified by that whoopee cushion.  That scaled down chicken dinner is a nice reduced change.  Time is just passing slowly and lightly and gently. 

We watch Muppets Take Manhattan.  Mum laughs very loud.  Then she starts fading out.  Everyone plays with their many things.  We talk.  We look at our new Tati discs.  Spence and Matt laugh their heads off at the Jour de Fete pre-feature.  We put them lovingly to bed.  Sarah and Drew (10) stay up with me, partly playing with that Game Boy, mostly just wanting to live the day out.   Nothing very dramatic here, and one of the best Christmases ever. 

Wednesday, December 25:, 2002 I’ve got a cold, so I sleep kind of uncomfortably.  Moreso because at some unreasonable hour the boltedly-awake chirping Spencer (6) gets into bed.  “What time is it now?”  We could both see that Sharon wasn’t planning to budge, so at 4:30 AM we got up, grabbed Pinocchio and went down to the girls’ room.  There they all were, awake and enjoying the moment.  Drew (11) was lying in Caitlin’s (13) bed.  They stayed there together for more than an hour, without complaint of contention.  Knowing that consummation was imminent, and that anticipation can be just as nice, we all enjoyed ourselves there very much, reading and listening, interjecting and digressing under the Christmas lights. 

I found the text and the context both to be quite marvelously affecting.  Perhaps they did too.  Well, maybe not poor Spence.  “Is it 6 o’clock yet?” 

Finally at 5:45 we rose up and forced Mum to get out of bed.  Matt (4) and Claire (1) were roused too.  For Matt it was as if he’d wakened up on Christmas morning.  Claire had a tough time fighting through the blear, but if the occasion didn’t mean much to her, the air of excited good will did.  There was some brief stocking lingering, and then we all went to the family room and got to it. 

A lot of stuff!  Matt was careening, and Spence kept talking about how kind Santa was.  We sent Sarah (9) to turn on the lights in the living room.  She found a drum set there.  We sent Caitlin to get the guitar.  She found a new bass.  Their unexpecteds were enjoyable.  No one seemed to notice the presents that were requested but not received (golden shoes?!).  Christmas carnage always ends quite early, but the great thing is that you’ve got all those hours to survey and play.  We shared a very long, very nice day together. 

We had our standard breakfast.  Sarah and Spence and Matt made a whole mess of Harry Potter potions.  There was much drumming.  Matt was surprisingly polyrhythmic.  Claire has quite a touch on the high hat.  We had eight new CDs, so there was a lot of music floating around.  Caitlin plugged in the bass and started picking out lines immediately.  With Sarah banging and me on the piano, the three of us had “Stand by Me” down by mid-day.  Of course parents always poop out early on.  That new Sponge Bob dvd kept everyone a little too occupied. By the end of the day it seems the girls had memorized, and were intent on reciting, the whole thing. 

Thanks to GE/Honours we had a nice turkey dinner.  We cleaned up.  We played a game of Bingo.  Everyone was kind of tired, which made for a perfect last thirty pages of our book.  Again, the theme and treatment were just right, with all the trouble and tenderness, the profound thinking about our hard and wonderful passing from childhood to knowledge, with the process beginning again. 

After having some big pieces of pie I put on a Bill Cosby CD that we’d listened to joyously in our own home, in my old days.  Bull’s eye.  They all sat there delightedly, and I doubly so.  Here were all our kids, rapturously gathering in someone’s glowing reminiscences as they, barely conscious of it, were making their own dear memories.  Again, still, we find ourselves in the best of times.

Saturday, December 25, 2004: They get us up at 6:30.  We are tired.  We go out to our presents.  There are fewer this year.  Everyone is happy with their lot, which is more than enough.  Well, everyone but poor Spence (8).  He’s really feeling poorly.  During the unwrapping he just lays languidly by the warm air.  He’s unable to generate any enthusiasm, or even nearly any sign of consciousness.  After the settling and the rising light and the breakfast the kids watch a Sponge Bob dvd, which Drew (13) has purchased for Claire (3), and which represents for them ideal holiday faire.  Does it bring them together, and affectionately?  Why not?

Sunday, December 25, 2005: 6 AM.  Straight to it.  The little ones accumulate modest, perfectly proportioned little piles of loot.  They are happy.  The three ipod—and ipods only!—girls are extremely happy.  We have plenty of pre-church time to play and relax.  Sacrament is nice.  Caitlin (16) and Kim L. sing.  Drew (14) and Sarah C. play.  We get out at 10:10, and a huge, long, great day follows…

A second last seasonal collage: the nights before Christmas...

Tuesday, Dec. 22, 1998: When Spencer (2) grows up he wants to be a lion on a boat. 

Friday, December 22, 2000: Sarah (7), who seems to be at her happiest when recreating with boys, plays with __ all morning.  He gets a bit bullheaded about their chess game.  “Yes, I did!  No, I didn’t!”  Sarah, a good hostess and general good woman, handles it all with good female aplomb and longsuffering.  She just looks at me meaningfully and continues the game. 

Sharon has an appointment with Dr. Nance.  The inevitable is confirmed, heart beating and all.  The kids look through the pregnancy literature and stop at the picture of that eleven week old fetus.  “It looks like a baby alien!” says Spence (4).   

Saturday, December 22, 2001: Matt (3) rolls out of bed and comes to sit on my lap.  “This kitty loves you.” 

We take Sadie and the kids to the BYU pool.  We’ve got the whole place to ourselves. Drew (8) keeps going up to the platform, and she keeps coming back down.  I go up too.  No wonder!  It looks awfully high from up there.  But we must be dignified.  We jump off and live to tell the tale. 

Monday, December 22, 2003: We watch The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.  There’s a film that hasn’t gotten better with the passing of years.

It’s a perilous undertaking, but I bring out some old journals and mementoes.  The kids are enthusiastic, derisive—Barbo Harbin!—affectionate.  We deliver some seasonal baking to the neighbours.  Sarah (10) lifts Claire (2) up to her shoulders.  “Merry Christmas,” she cries, to no one in particular.  “Halleyoolah!”  Is Sarah feeding her lines?  “Victory!” 

Thursday, December 22, 2005: School’s out at noon.  As it gets dark we roll out of the first those four home movie compilations from the Andersons.  The music, added by the dubbers, is awful.  We turn it down.  Grandma had warned us about and apologized for an excess of baseball footage, as well as for general amateurishness.  No need!  It’s all beautifully framed and durated.  It’s a beautiful gage too (super-8), and the pictures themselves are very moving.  So young, such tenderness and precious possibility!  We enjoy particulars—Janice’s crazy dance—and are struck by the accumulating overall.  These are the remnants and fragments of a family’s history.

Sharon is the youngest, of course, and there’s much less of her.  What’s there is intriguing.  There are hints of and precursors to the present.  I’m thinking two things.  That child will be my wife someday!  (I Wish I Was Your Mother…)  And then we look for resemblances.  Which kid does she look like?  Hardly anyone as it turns out, confoundingly enough.  There is one glancing image of a blithe, self-sufficient four year old.  Claire!  And gone. 

As these lovely documents roll forward the leaps and ellipses multiply.  Beautiful Steve becomes distant.  Mark is wearing a dress.  There’s a gentle, melancholy separation.  These miraculous movies bring everyone and everything back, temporarily.  As for reality, melancholy prevails.  Or am I thinking about my own growing and changing family?  On the other hand our present family is enjoying the same kind of kind of plenitude.

Saturday, December 23, 2000: Sharon labours lovingly over the boys’ Christmas cowboy blankets.  The kids watch the Arthur seasonal special.  The girls are feeling very excited and chummy.  We finish Dickens, stave II, with what were for me great effects.  Kindliness was not only discussed, but exhibited.  There’s a wonderful feeling of peace. 

We go bowling at BYU.  Spence (4) is banished, because you can’t go bowling when you kick people in the jaw.  Matt (2) lasts for three whole throws.  But you can never count them out.  Way later he comes back, rolls an utter split, then effortlessly gets a spare out of it.  I think he was back amidst the pinball machines before the ball even arrived at the other end.  Caitlin (11) casts the ball much like Zeus might, if he were a bowler.  Drew (9) throws her ball like Crazy Legs Hirsch.

Friday, December 23, 2005: We go skating.  Sarah (12) gets lightheaded, and then actually becomes disoriented on the way back.  She’s very sick all afternoon.  Sharon and I do some deliveries for the ward.  The lady we blessed the other night is out on her porch swearing a blue streak.  I guess she’s feeling better.  One of the families that the ward is helping has more presents than I’ve ever seen, piled beside and around and over the other high-ticket items that they obviously buy all the time.  Back home Sarah is still ailing, and she wraps everyone’s presents. 

Saturday, December 23, 2006: The Bryners stop by for a visit.  That sweet boy/suave devil Matt (8) spontaneously collects and serves a tray of drinks and a plate of goodies. 

Sunday, December 23, 2007: The little kids are very often playing very beautifully, but this isn’t a very reverent, religiously ardent family.  This shows especially on the Sabbath, and even more especially on the Sabbath before Christmas.  To my discredit, my response these days is often to withdraw, or join them in their inertia.  Today, after Drew’s three hour nap, I stirred myself slightly.  I slipped in some home movies.  Such a sarcastic bunch!  But that’s not all.  Boy, did they come, and stay, and start to notice how beautiful, and intelligent, and precious each little child was, and each other are.  I dared to give a speech after, about the length and nature of family life, and how small moments accumulate into overwhelmingness.  That’s the spirit you’re feeling, I said.  And it was.  It worked.  They listened, then stayed.  And then the girls started wrestling, and did so for quite a long time.  What does it mean that our almost grown girls (18, 16, 14) express affection like twelve year old boys?  I guess what it means is that they’re expressing affection.  Wonderful. 

What did you learn from those films, Claire (6)?  That my family loves me. 

Friday, December 24, 1999: More of that move for the Elders’ quorum.  It’s good to help.  Sharon, Caitlin (10) and Sarah (6) go off to do newspapers.  Drew (8) and I sit in the sun that’s beaming through the family room window.  We read, we nap.  By mid-afternoon everyone’s got their jobs and errands done.  It feels a bit like when you’re having a baby.  There’s now nothing left to do but to think of the joyous event.  Or take another nap. 

Sunday, December 24, 2000: The buffet’s up—egg rolls, Japanese oranges, salami and a cheese ball and assorted crackers, sausage soup, noganade and sparkling cider, jelli, chips and dip.  The girls are rather high strung, which is to say they keep clothes-lining each other.

I submit myself to a change of pace, which lands us at the Haymonds’  for much of the evening.  First, caroling, to the Warrens’ and Miners’ and Goffs’ and cousin Randy’s.  We start with a fast one and end with the classic wish-you.  Following the singing we go back to the big house.  Half-an-hour stretches to two-and-a-half, and a delightful stretch it was, too.  The kids keep playing, and the rest of us talk.   

Matty (2)  wanders around and finishes everyone’s grape juice.  Spence and Stephen (4) adjourn to the toy box and stay there.  Sarah (7) and Drew (9) kind of get away from us, though it appears that Drew was actually participating.  And she did have a Santa hat.  Caitlin (11), as usual, gets her nose right in there and stays at the centre of the action.  Ever the chameleon, she says “crap” and “shut-up” a lot, laughs loudly or protests too much.  But you know—she has fun and she does alright.  It’s time to just leave her alone.  Speaking of which, Matt finally just told us that it was time to go home. 

Monday, December 24, 2001: We have a wide, relaxed, leisurely morning.  Mum goes shopping for us.  Everyone is nice.  It feels like Christmas.  I take a deep breath and drive 1-4 over to the arena.  It’s rather too green outside, but that’s purely external.  Our skating goes very well.  It feels too expensive, but you’ve got to splurge sometimes.  Caitlin (12) and Sarah (8) get right out there and stick smilingly with it most all the way through.  Drew (10) does her best.   Ankle issues make her discouraged.  I remember feeling the same way.  Spencer (5), last year’s noodle-legged champion, makes some good progress.  His first few times (with lots of cheerful sisterly help) are pretty hand held and tentative.  He’s rather weakened by repeated outbursts of uncontrolled laughter.  We get around to working on bending the knees, centering weight and leaning over, pushing and gliding.  He’s skating.  A very little time later he’s not skating.  “Dad, can I stop now?  I’m tired.”  Drew and Spence go off and take care of each other.  There are our kids, having fun and growing up together.  I have tender feelings.  Also, we see two concussions.  While getting in the car Sarah accidentally pokes Caitlin in the eye.  Caitlin doesn’t even retaliate. 

A little reading, a little cleaning up.  Sharon gets the big spread ready: vegetables, crisps and dip, Schwans delectables, fruit, and mangoes especially, jello that Drew dragged the hairbrush through.  It’s lovely.  The boys fall asleep.  The girls all go to Caitlin’s room and arrange themselves under the Christmas lights and the strains of Bob and Doug Mackenzie.  Sharon and I square ourselves to the task of setting up.   Tons to do!  She takes care of the girls’ scooter (thanks, Bill) and Matty’s Radio Flyer bike.  I assemble those three elaborate playmobile worlds, and the boys’ new train set.   Sharon keeps finding new family presents.  Have we gone too far again?  This was fun though.  The last thing I know, Sharon is still labouring over Christmas breakfast. 

Tuesday, December 24, 2002: At 4 PM our feast is ready.  I’ll say!  Mangoes and kiwis, grape tomatoes, egg rolls, cheese and salami, chips and dip, deviled eggs, French bread, upscale wienies, sparkling cider and noganade.  (Caitlin combines them.)  Very luxurious.  We take our sweet time. 

They turn on the TV.  Spence (6) requests that they keep it at a production of the nutcracker, which he’d seen at BYU five days earlier.  His compare/contrast is very detailed.  Matt (4) is less inclined to the analytical, more to the participatory.  He gets his Hermione Granger skirt and dances all round the house.  We have another big Pinocchio read.  Then we send them to bed.  Claire (1) excepted, they go. 

Wednesday, December 24, 2003: We drive over to Seven Peaks for the annual noodle parade.  It gets me down a bit.  This is how the melting pot works—it’s all too upstream, there are everlastingly insufficient resources to access the emblems of your culture.  So skating becomes a Canadian form of lederhosen.  They’re calling it “ice-skating,” for heaven’s sake.  So there am I, melancholic and long suffering, and then suddenly Matt (5) zips by.  Counter clockwise?  Every which way!  Somehow a light bulb has gone on.  Even Spence (7)  bucks up a bit.  Caitlin (14) and Sarah (10) and Sadie are doing fine, helping the little ones.  Drew ambles along, ankularly and with reasonable good humour.  By the end there’s been pleasure, both associative and actual.   

We put the kids in charge of the nativity play, given that parental pushing just seems to lead to smarmy sanctimoniousness.  Our production isn’t quite packaged or presentable, but they do enjoy the artisan’s satisfaction of thinking it all up and making it all on their own.  Claire (2) baas.  Drew moos absently while playing solitaire.  Caitlin and Sarah seem fascinated by the violence of childbirth.  They contrive a special effect that causes baby to pop out kind of apocalyptically.  There’s a paper star taped to the ceiling.  Two boys are impervious to their sisters’ cheerful crassness.  “We’ve come to see the baby.”  “We’ve come to give our treasures.”

Saturday, December 24, 2005: After the food we sit in a circle listening to Garrison Keillor.  We move on to the family room.  We attempt Matthew 28.  Bad children!  The usual sabotage rises up into something special.  Caitlin (16) is manhandling Claire (4).  She dislocates her elbow!  Then, drawing upon some anatomy class instruction, she relocates it!  And feels justified! 

Kids’ companionably watch the ’84 Christmas Carol together.  They retire.  The big girls have their yearly, anomalous sleepover.  When everything seems settled I get the stockings all stuffed and distributed.   Last I go to Spencer (9), who didn’t go down so easily this year.  Just as I’ve placed the stocking between his mattress and the bed frame I look up.  A bright pair of blue eyes peeps back at me.  I am at a loss...

Monday, December 24, 2007: They go to bed, more or less.  Quite a bit later we’re in the family room arranging something.  We hear a voice from behind us.  “I can’t sleep.”  Claire (6)!  A witness to the primal Christmas scene!  Did it register?  I whistle her away and lay with her and never say anything.  Neither does she. 

Wednesday, December 24, 2008: Things are sure different around here without Caitlin (19, in Ecuador).  Quieter, for instance, and a little less complicated.  We eat and interact and be.  Caitlin calls while we’re watching SCTV.  On the other hand.  There’s a sensation that bypasses thought and all.  I miss her!  As we talk I realize that we are, of course, doing fine without her.  But she’s a big part of us, and we’re more with her.  She seems transformed.  She takes a moment to talk about missing home, and then proceeds with unforced enthusiasm and even moral weight to discuss a number of really substantial events and associations.  Underneath the specifics I sense prioritizing, a reduction of self, a maturing.  A great Christmas moment.

las flores

 

Archives/the third week of December, and some tree decorating photos

(Drew is taking a final exam...)

Saturday, December 15, 2001: The department has a dinner up Sundance canyon.  When we get back, Caitlin (12) is wailing.  “You said you’d be back in three hours, and it’s been nearly four!”  We’re glad that she cares about us. 

Monday, December 15, 2003: Drew’s (12) nose starts gushing, for no discernable reason.  “Too much blood!” says Claire (2), over and over.

Sharon and I prepare to go to a movie.  Spencer (7) is distraught.  “You went last week!” 

Saturday, December 15, 2007: We go to the museum to look at the kids’ Christmas art.  When we get home the youngsters get out all the paraphernalia and do some great pictures.  Spence is a natural.  Matt is an expressionist.  Claire learns from the boys, and adds her own Fauvist sensibility.  I could have done something, but am fairly hopeless as a designer, or even a director.  What do I draw, and from what angle, and in what proportion?  What detail, or not?  Fun anyway.

Monday, December 16, 2002: Caitlin (13) invites me attend her orchestra concert, which is a nice friendly change.  The high school is an oppressive mausoleum.  Mr. __ is unfunny, and a pip-squeak.  I enjoy myself.  Caitlin is up there, doing well and enjoying herself too.  There’s Brandenburg #5, and the-go-up-and-shoot-your-kid tradition is really nice.  

http://abouthomemovies.org/2011/10/04/concert-renoir-2/

Jessica, Kathryn and James are at the house, having some Christmas pizza.  “Quinta Quanto,” says Matt (4), waving his wand at James, who commences to do a very silly dance.  “No—open your body!”  James’ splayed limbs are unacceptable.  Matt shakes his head wearily.  “Like a door!”  James finally gets the hinge concept.  A relief.

Saturday, December 16, 2006: Drew (15) went to Mary’s to go 4-wheel tubing.  I get a call from her.  “Dad.  I think I hurt my arm.”  Your heart stops.  It’s not regret that you feel—you gotta live—but there is a little pain.  I drive over, and she skips out of the house, humourous and all right.  “Alyssa fell on me.”  “What did you say to her?”  (Like my dad, righteously and to a fault, I’m always thinking about justice.)  “Nothing,” replies my even more righteous daughter.  “She didn’t do it on purpose.” 

Thursday, Dec. 17, 1998: Drew (7) and Sarah (5) are taken by the Christmas spirit.  Drew decides to go beyond the single name draw, and carefully chooses presents for everyone.  Sarah starts writing more of her really spectacular letters.  “Der Caitlin I hop yor praset is god  I lic haw you piy wif mi I love you  Fum Sarah to Caitlin.”  And to Drew (with an unrepeatable picture): “Der Drew I Love you  I love haw you be mi frend you oir mi fifre frind frum Sarah to Drew.” 

Friday, December 17, 1999: Spencer (3) explains.  “I wasn’t getting mad at you.  I was just frustrated.”  And later, “when you get mad, you need your tiny blanky.”  

While I’m on the phone Sharon and Drew (7) decorate the tree.  While everyone else is asleep.  I condemn them.  They sheepishly dismantle it all.

Monday, December 17, 2001: Each new Christmas song becomes another one of Spence’s (5) favourites.  He goes around singing them in a very sweet, clean and accurate voice.  “Joy to the world, na-na-na-na.” 

Friday, December 17, 2004: Lunch duty at Brookside, and a revelation.  We find the allegedly excessively circumspect Spencer (8) actually goes howling around in full joy and fellowship with a whole horde of clamouring kids.  He sees us, and greets us, and doesn’t need us. 

Monday, December 17, 2007: There’s a farewell for the Finlaysons, at the Taylors’.  I see Sharon from across the room, living her worst nightmare.  Talking and smiling and laughing with all and sundry, with a big piece of cilantro stuck in her teeth. 

Wednesday, December 17, 2008: Matt (10) and Mum have made a cool model of George Washington crossing the Delaware.  Somehow, wonderfully, George Washington has a number of Celtic warriors along with him, their braided hair blowing in the breeze.

Friday, Dec. 18, 1998: Sarah (5) and I went to her kindergarten program.  Afterward a Mom tells us that her son comes home from school everyday and plays Sarah Duncan.  He even calls his brother Sarah.  Another kid, who walks with her at dismissal, gives a daily Sarah report.  

Don't ask; you are texting...

Spence (2) was playing with the kitchen toys in the classroom, and was taking rather too long to finish.  Fortunately—this time—I didn’t push, and so got to watch him patiently, methodically, exactly put every dish, every article of food, every single object in the exact cupboard, on the exact shelf or hook from which it had come.  Then he looked up.  “ready, Dad.”  

 I didn’t get it on our new camera, which Caitlin had just made off with.

Saturday, December 18, 1999: I try to engage Spencer (3) in conversation.  “I’m cleaning the house.  I can’t talk to you right now.  After I’m done cleaning I can talk to you.” 

Saturday, December 18, 2004: Sharon and Drew (13) go to a swim meet.  They sit there chatting and miss the big race.  Elsewhere, she’s still knocking seconds and half seconds off her times.  At the end, Sharon feels, there’s always gas in the tank.  Will she ever push herself to or find her limits?  Does that matter as much as the sportsmen claim?

http://abouthomemovies.org/2011/12/08/drew-films-spence-3/ 

Drew turns on the Simpsons.  Claire watches attentively, then suddenly pipes up.  “I like to kiss my own butt!” 

Wednesday, December 19, 2001: The Lord of the Rings opens.  We were all excited last night, and are full of anticipation all morning.  We pull C and D from school, because sometimes it’s good to make an event out of things. 

Three hours of straight enraptured beaming.  Films aren’t books, and so there were obviously gaps and decisions.  But for me there was nothing worth quibbling about.  There were two girls, both enmeshed and immersed in their own ways.  Caitlin (12) was uninhibited in her enthusiasm, and Drew (10) tried not to show it.  We had a great time together.  And on the screen, stupendous envisioning, superb spectacle built always on intimate observation and humane detail, unsuspected insights about the preciousness of the world’s children, about addiction and sinning and repenting.  We managed to discuss it all, and since they want to go again with Mum maybe they’ll discuss it again.  

The Hagues come over.  Matty (3) has some trouble with poor little Neal.  “That baby is bugging me!” 

Wednesday, December 19, 2007: Sarah (14)  is invited to babysit at the Stuart’s.  She declines.  Drew (160 goes in her stead, reluctantly.  She comes back with $60.  Sarah feels some regret.

Wednesday, December 20, 1995: The kids watch the ’39 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  Sarah (2) likes Quasimodo, or Foto, as she calls him.  She goes around, intoning plummily.  “Sanctuary!  Sanctuary…”

Wednesday, December 20, 2000: Caitlin has her volleyball finals.  She proves to be a very interesting spectator sport.  She’s quite good, although they girls are mostly playing ping pong.  She’s outlandishly short.  And she—how can I say it most tactfully?  She yaps.  Constantly.  Mind you, everyone had a good time.  Me too.    

Friday, December 20, 2002: The kids get out at noon.  When I get home Drew (11) greets me and shows me some precious new trophies, presents and tokens from Sydney and Heather and Kenzie and a few other girls I don’t know.  She’s extremely pleased, as of course she should be.  There’s nothing like knowing that someone cares for you.  Later when I’m in her room I notice that she’s put them all up like trophies in various places of honour.  Nice. 

Thursday, December 21, 2000: Spencer (4) decides that it’s time to sleep on the top bunk.  With a sense of purpose, and a faraway look in his eyes, he does so.

Sunday, December 21, 2003: Us in church.  Sarah (10) plays with me while the primary sings Silent Night.  Caitlin (14) and Sarah Clarke play Angels We have Heard on their violins.  Caitlin is poised to the point of effortlessness.  Then our Pachelbel.  Drew’s (12) fingers are marvelously firm and sure.  She never wavers.  Caitlin has no music to look at.  Memory, or made up?  I put neither past her.  My misstep comes when I misread Drew’s signal and end the piece three separate times. 

That was kind of thrilling!  On our bench Caitlin laughingly shows us her trembling hand.  We don’t think the less of her when she admits her mortality.

http://abouthomemovies.org/2011/11/07/caitlin-close-up/ 

Two Christmas concerts

Spence's, at the high school:

Two recruits, and their mother

"Gloo-..."

Savannah Skinner, credit-hog

Is that all there is?

Formalism:

Mingling (siblings, cousins, etc.) ...

Matt, Junior High:

This man is bald/ing

No photos of the rest of the concert; for footage, inquire within...

Matt, grappling with his tie

Matt, struggling with his tie

Matt

S/w/ingers (...that tie...)

More in honour of Caitlin's and Colton's wedding: the shape of things to come?

Caitlin's Cookies, March 22, 2000:

http://abouthomemovies.org/2011/12/19/caitlins-cookies-2/

Yesterday his sister got married...

Archives/the second week of December

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Saturday, December 8, 2001: Sharon and I go to an early temple session.  We have a nice time.  Caitlin (11) and I have a nice breakfast at the Marriott in Provo.  We come back and sit beneath the sun as it comes through the family room window.  We read kids’ books.  We fall asleep.  We do activities from Spence’s new Christmas kids’ magazine.  The kids play together.  We watch Inspector Clouseau clips, then successfully read and discuss some Dickens.  I’m writing up all of these journal notes.  A parallel suggests itself to me.  I’m James Boswell, and they’re Samuel Johnson!  Less portentous, but more appropriate.  This is satisfying, and a good thing to be doing.

Sunday, December 8, 2002: These horrible children say “Peekaboo—I see you—hiding in my poo.”  Repeatedly.  Sarah (9) draws an amazing thunder-browed gorgon picture during sacrament.  She captions it.  “Drew when we ask her to come for family prayer.”  

Saturday, December 9, 2000: Department Christmas party.  We have some Christmas roast beast, which we eat with Megan Sanborn and Tom and Angie Russell.  It’s a pretty uproarious meal, actually.  Broken forks fly, and there’s some vivid remembrance of things past.  We get a funny story about a Quebecer mowing his lawn in a speedo, and then a real gut-buster about a tight-slacked lady at a Rose Bowl dance off who shouted “Shut up!” while her buttocks flexed in fervent unison.  

Monday, December 9, 2002: Caitlin (13) shares her fries with Claire (1.5).  Claire holds one out to Caitlin, who says “can I have one?”  Claire reaches over, and then just as she’s ready to take a bite, she yanks it away and laughs.  We practice our Christmas songs.  Matt (4) gets the violin out every time, and carefully plays right along.  It’s the same note, but the rhythm is just right.  A pretty sight.  

Claire has another trick.  She walks by, waves, and keeps looking back at you as she does so.  Unfortunately she walks right into the door frame and gives herself a big knot in the forehead. 

Saturday, December 9, 2006: Sharon and I go to the temple.  I find myself thinking of these kids, and how the endowment relates to or can help us with them.  Is this the way?  We’re given a space, and some dominion over it.  We’re to dress and tend it.  A caring, overseeing presence watches us closely, ready to give more, or withhold, according to compliance and performance.  It seems simple, and right, and it’s so complicated in the applying.  

Friday, December 10, 1999: Errands and shopping with Sharon and boys.  We go to the Red Balloon, where Sharon buys a novelty poop. 

Sunday, December 10, 2006: Claire (5) is distressed.  “I’ve got toast in my eye!”  Sharon and Caitlin (17) go to a great stake Christmas party.  We watch the Matthew Broderick version of The Music Man.  How or why do some of our standard works become standard works?  Spencer (11) and Claire (5) sing all pipingly.  Matt (8) does too, but all his tunes keep turning into Star Wars themes.  Drew (15) and Sarah (13) play that Pachelbel piece, on cello and vibes.  Beautiful! 

Tuesday, December 11, 2001: Sharon and the little guys come for lunch.  Spence (5) is sick.  Matt (3) has to go to the bathroom, and I hold him up to the urinal.  He goes for so long, and is so heavy that I almost die. 

Drew (12), who is kind of grumpy and rude these days, is consigned to outer darkness for telling Spence (5) that there’s no Santa Claus.  “Yes there is,” says Spence, and continues on about his business.  Later we have an excellent stretch.  We have some carols.  Mum even stops singing silly for a moment.  Caitlin (12) and I play a few seasonal duets.  We read a long chapter from Dickens’ Life of Christ on parables, and discuss the principles that inform them.  We’re pleased to note, again, that the kids right on down to Spencer know these principles pretty well.   

And we’re further pleased to note and to feel that we believe and finally love them too.  The boys drop off on the couch.  The girls won’t go to bed.  They’re enjoying the company too much, and altogether it feels rather a lot like Christmas Eve.

Sunday, December 11, 2005: Claire (4) and I take a long nap.  We go to the Hagues’ house.  We all play Apples to Apples.  Drew (14) cheats, barefacedly.  Caitlin (16) won’t stop talking about it.  Spencer (9) and Grace (8), gentle folks both, pair up.  Claire and Neal (3), little folks both, pair up.  Matt (7) partners with everyone. 

Sunday, December 12, 1999: Spencer (3) calls from the bathroom.  “My bum fell in the toilet!”

Saturday, Dec. 12, 1998: Drew (7) goes to Joy Prior’s b-day party.  She got her a cloth monkey, then wrapped it in tin foil, so Joy would think it was a baked potato.

Tuesday, December 12, 2000: Matty (2) opens the fridge and sees a Christmas beverage that strikes his fancy.  “I want a noganade!”   

Thursday, December 12, 2002: There’s Sarah (9), faithfully reading Harry Potter to the quietly grateful Spencer (6).  He looks like he should be smoking a pipe as he sits there so reflectively.

Monday, December 13, 1999: Sarah (6) takes me to her art teacher’s to show me her/my Christmas present.  It’s a hockey painting!  Delightful.  After dinner we gather around and finish reading The Bronze Bow.  

Wednesday, December 13, 2000:  I go to the mall.  It’s kind fun looking for things while thinking, fondly, of each kid.  Only Drew (9) remains on my list.  She needs a big present.  Eyeglass?  Deluxe Swiss army knife?  Half guitar?  Back home I mark papers on the bunk bed.  It’s pleasant to recline there, play rustles and kidsong rising softly from below. 

Later Drew and I have an accident.  She won’t stop some repeated, aggravant action.  I push her foot, which is connected to the knee bone, which then connects, rather sharply, with her chin bone.  She stands and stamps, in full inarticulate splutter.  “Dad, I—you…!”  Later, with some bemused good humour she goes around saying, “Dad kicked me in the head!”

Monday, Dec. 14, 1998: We go to the Robbins’ for a very nice Christmas party.  The Davis family is there too.  We read the Grinch, and sing some songs, enact a lovely nativity.  Drew (7) is a very reluctant angel.  Spence (2) wields his shepherd’s staff with considerable panache.   

Thursday, December 14, 2000: I’m home with the boys.  I’m getting to spend lots of time with them, and I’m very happy about it.  I suddenly notice that I’ve less and less time to spend with these big girls, what with their increasing involvements and my own occasional occupations.  I need to calendar out some more one-on-ones. 

Later, Drew (9) and Sarah (7) were horse-playing.  Sarah comes up yowling, with a bit of a bleeding nose.  “What happened Drew?”  “Well, I moved my foot…”  Sniffling Sarah goes to her mother.  “Don’t do it, Carter!” says Sharon, comfortingly, pushing Sarah out of the way of her favourite TV show.  

  

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Thursday, December 14, 2006:  We go back to Brookside/Cherry Creek, for Matt (8) and Claire’s (5) Christmas program.  I teach Spencer (10) a few camera principles—selection, duration, accepting partiality.  I look over at him while I’m playing the piano, or while I’m not.  There he is, doing a great job.  Back home I discover that I neglected to tell him about the on and off button.  Well, they didn’t make videos in the old days either.  We watched the thing, and we can remember.  It seems that girls really are way more advanced than boys.  Cute!

Friday, December 14, 2007: Sarah (14) finally draws our family Christmas card.  It’s made up of mild caricatures of family members doing typical things.  Caitlin (18) is wearing a knee brace, leaning on crutches.  Drew (16) is in a bathing suit and playing the cello.  She has herself, undistorted and unexaggerated as usual, playing soccer.  Spence (11) stands at an easel.  (“Why does she always draw my face like that?”)  Matt (9) has flowing robes and a light sabre.  Claire (6) stands at the drums with a cat eating face on.  Phoebe’s face is even more cat eating than Claire’s.  That’s the itinerary, as it were.  But the account doesn’t hint at the spirit of the thing, so to speak.  I’m actually fairly dumbfounded.  There’s genius here, but even more, there’s wholeness.  Heaven help her!   

 

Sunday, December 14, 2008: We have that Pandora Christmas station running all morning.  I haven’t much Christmas in me, I’m afraid.  But that was nice.  Sweet Drew (17) plays her Bach minuet in sacrament meeting.  I love her!  She said her palms were sweating, but I though it just sounded really good.  More performance expressionism?  What’s inside comes out, and is visible, readable.   She calmly considers the piece, and takes special and infectious care with interesting sequences and modulations.  It’s like she takes each note and looks and looks at it closely, with an interest that is both deeply intellectual, and marked by full and simple feeling.  And I saw an amazing thing. 

Everyone craned and attended, and a few even gaped.  Yes, it’s because our daughter is amazing, and/or because nice people were interested in the preparations of their young sister.  But it’s also more general, and needful.  An instrument being played is like proximity to a wild animal, or a new baby.  Our lives are canned and staid and isolated, but not when things like this are happening.   Liveness, nowness, presence—an organism operates, and a hush falls upon us.  When Drew was done she went back to the front pew on the side there, and smiled at me. 

In the back, Sarah (15) has sculpted a bust of her brother Spencer (12), out of his eraser.  She’s not an expressionist now, but a savage satirist.  Sunken eyes, knife nose, jumbled teeth, a practically dislocated jaw.  And what exquisite execution! 

We have a very nice lesson, or discussion, or few moments of shared time.  We pass through a bit of alienation and ennui, then settle for a long and voluntary time on the subject of family memories, family incidents and anecdotes and feelings.  The formula, it ends up, is pretty simple.  "Remember when …”  Laughter.  So nice.  When the moment seems right we bring in the Christmas tree.  After enjoying it for a while the kids go to bed, and the girls watch a movie, and I read a bit, or go around looking at everyone appreciatively.