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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.
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.
