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.
