Snowy Without, Warm Within

Remember Frosty? This is him, Wednesday night.

Well, the snow began on Wednesday night, the 27th of December, and it continued through most of Thursday. It was an earnest, purposeful snow, and gorgeous.

We spent the morning inside, introducing Miles to his first board game playing experience: Candyland. It was a Christmas gift.

 

These are from Wednesday night and Thursday morning. On Thursday I made the rest of the sugar cookies; I had only baked about half of that batter! I always conveniently forget that Jon doesn't like sugar cookies. Poor me; I still have a couple dozen to finish. Mmm, and a can of frosting in the fridge... Hello breakfast.

Anyway, what I love about Rochester is that while late Wednesday night was a bit tricky to drive, and Thursday morning was rather dangerous, by mid-day on Thursday most roads were absolutely fine, despite that the snow continued. So I didn't think anything of putting the family in the car in the late morning on Thursday and driving to the Nicoloff's house. It was the second of our three visits there. We played and enjoyed each other and didn't bother with cameras, and then we all drove to her Dad's, my Uncle Doug's, house.

We stopped on the way to pay a visit to my grandparents, "Great-Grandpa Ben and Great-Grandma Peg" to Miles. We were pleased to see each other again!

Both are in their mid-80s and are fairly healthy, thank God! Grandma was as spunky and Grandpa as sweet and kind as ever. Love them both.

At Uncle Doug's, my Dad joined us and we had a play-in with Doug, Lynda, Rebekah, Matthew, Leah, Jon, Lissa, Tai-Tai, Abby, Adele and Miles. There was a lot of laughter and good conversation and vigorous play and okay, a couple of falls for the littlest, but it was all in all a lovely reunion.

And the trip to Rochester contained one more bonus: Dad stayed home with the kids so that Jon and I could pay our third visit to the Nicoloff's. All our kids miraculously were asleep at the same times for around 2.5 hours! I will treasure that time around the table with them, our good friends who are also family. We are going through so much that is the same; it was God-blessed to just laugh and have wine and feel the companionship. The memories from this trip are really candles in my heart.

Still, we were cheerful as we left at 11:00 the next morning for Maryland.

One more shot of Frosty: Thursday night, storm over.

I can't believe we have so few shots of Dad.... I wonder if anyone else can contribute some?

St. Stephen's Day Sledding

Saint Stephen's day dawned, overcast and cold, with the promise of a snowstorm that evening. However, with no fresh snow the night before and with the Christmas day sledders so very active, we were sledding down muddy trails. To clarify, it was *not* thawing. The damage was due only to lots and lots of sledding. Which made it a happy sight, really.

Miles had never been sledding downhill before, and he was confusing sledding with skating with skiing. This had to be rectified.

My good friend Allison Brown joined us. How I have missed her! She is a first-rate sledding companion. All Browns are. 

WHOOOSH!

Checking in with Miles.

This wasn't his favorite run. But he didn't cry, an improvement over last year.

Boy did he feel like a big shot pulling Allison's sled.

He ranged from laughing to cringing at the snow in his face.

Our trip down the hill was too rapid to be caught on camera

I am cheerful because I have plastic bags in my boots.

I love that Miles wanted to be like King Wenceslas' page and walk in our footprints! That was the favorite bedtime story that week.

Adele spent most of the sledding session sleeping in the car, with one of us on rotation checking on her. This turned out to be for the best, however. One trip down the hill was quite enough for Miss Adele. She was pretty mad about that one.

Can you see how happy I am? I hadn't been proper sledding in a disgracefully long time.

After sledding we warmed up at the Browns' house. They always treat us like family! They made us lunch and entertained our Smalls with their awesome vintage toys. Home comfort, it was. The whole day was like an embroidered wall hanging.

"Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!" (Stave 5)

 The quotation above, of course, is from the last "stave" of A Christmas Carol. The words of those opening paragraphs are with me every year on Christmas morning, in a kind of literary soundtrack. Something of their spirit woke me at 7 sharp, before the kids, before Jon, before Dad. Most days of the year, if this happens I say to myself, Sleep, fool! But this morning I did not say it or I did not hear it, I do not know, I bounded out of bed. It was Christmas morning, the room was full of presents I could not wait for my kids to open, and there was SNOW!

God added yet more snow to my Christmas gift overnight. No one but God could have given it, after all.

The the muted power of a winter morning... it is mysterious and thrilling and serene at the same time and it does so much for me to look at it and listen to the nothing and the everything. I love the pre-dawn snow, the Christmas lights and the listening trees.
 
Silent, waiting Christmas trees are *almost* as lovely.


The quiet alone time lasted just long enough, and then first Adele, and then Jon, then Dad woke up. We had some fun watching Adele's happy face as she signed "tree!" and made some strong coffee. And suddenly, Miles came stumbling in, in his new jammies.

Opening his stocking... it's a Charlie Brown coloring book!

He can't believe the pile of presents! 

Adele figured out unwrapping very quickly.

           

It was a new set of stacking rings, by the way.

Making sense of her new wood blocks.

Do you love the squat?  

     Miles adores his new Hess helicopter

I got some of the books I've been wanting. Revelations of Divine Love, A Year of Biblical Womanhood and a book of prayers by Henri Nouwen are among my haul this year.

                        

I asked for necklaces and got FOUR. So gorgeous! This one's got an elephant charm and Miles picked it out.

The kids gave Jon new slippers

Dad gave him this all-purpose tool; I gave him the sharp new backpack.

We spent a joyful morning playing with all our new toys. Particularly fun was unwrapping Adele's new musical instruments and beginning an enthusiastic and loud marching band performance around the house. When things quieted during Adele's nap and after, Jon and I and Dad (and sometimes Miles) enjoyed the Dr. Who Christmas special marathon that was airing on BBC America (gotta hand it to real cable, it does have its uses). We even got to catch the new episode when it aired. For the first time. 

Later that day, the time was fully ripe for a second trip into the snow. Adele was napping, so Miles and I went as a team. I was the contracted labor, and he was the creative director for this snowman, which he's named Frosty. Well, it's not cliche if you just learned that song for the first time.

 

Grandpa Jim loaned a hat, Jon cut some felt eyes and Miles loaned his spare gloves. Art, I tell you.

Dad made us a simple meal that we all enjoyed and for dessert, there was Wegman's pie. That's right, I didn't bake or cook. And I have no regrets about it.  All in all, this day was peaceful and joyful and stress was utterly absent. It was a day that was both an offering-- and a gift.

 

Keep an eye on this guy. We are going to use him as a snow gauge later on.

Christmas Eve Glow

Christmas Eve this year was dreamy, beautiful, and right. 

We had been to Niagara Falls the day before to eat a meal with my paternal Grandma, the kids' Great-Grandma Dorothy. All went smoothly and the time was precious, but it was also tiring. We rested on Monday morning at Dad's snow-covered little house. Miles and I made cookies and Adele took her naps in peace. Jon made one last run for stocking stuffers and I got the kids ready for the evening.

At 3:30 in the afternoon, we all bundled into the car and drove to Leah and Matthew's new house in the city. They live just one block from their new start-up church, the South Wedge Mission, which shares a building with Peace Lutheran. That evening, the two congregations were having a joint service.

Before going to church, however, we began the evening with a funny, disorganized and short Christmas pageant of our own. Miles had to miss our Blacksburg's church's pageant, and he had a great desire to be a donkey, so Leah and I cobbled together a little production for the assembled cousins and grandparents. 

I got a bit carried away taking pictures of Adele, who played Gabriel:

Miles' donkey hood needed a button in front. He didn't seem to mind, though.

He particularly loved his tail

Miles' enthusiasm for his role as Donkey went as far as singing the "I, said the Donkey" verse of The Friendly Beasts, but not far enough to give Mary the required ride to Bethlehem town. Abby's Daddy took some time off of sermon prep to step in and help create the pageant.

Tai-tai's Christmas skunk outfit didn't seem to last long. Perhaps he is a traditionalist? Art critic?

After the pageant, we had a rowdy carol and de-costumed the tinies. We enjoyed a lovely dinner and a lot of partially and un-supervised play for the tinies (Miles and Abby kind of disappeared into Abby's room for a long time and came out with...well... different clothing on), they got their Act Two costumes on for the Christmas Eve service. 

Abby was rocking the sweetest outfit and a new dress coat (not pictured)

Adele was wearing a dress that Abby wore three years ago	.	I hadn't realized this when I packed it.

Miles stuck with a traditional Christmas sweater.

The pictures below are not of the Christmas Eve service but of the evening service from Sunday, December 23rd. You can get a glimpse here of how they use their space for South Wedge Mission services and of the participatory nature of the service. 

Prayer Table. Miles draws his prayers.

We write our own prayers of the people during a quiet reflection time in the middle of the service. At a different station, attendees could write captions for an icon depicting the day's gospel reading, and at another could write in a gratitude book. It was a very soul soothing time for us! 

I look forward to walking back into this church someday.

After church, we got home quite late, as is traditional, I believe. Miles had already helped me to write his letter to Santa. This year, he not only wrote his own name, but Santa's. He's also recently been writing "Adele" and "cat." Obviously a genius. :-)

What I love about having a 3 year old at Christmas, is that this is all he wanted and all he really expected to get: a flashlight of his very own, and a big etch-a-sketch. We got him rather more than that, but it all went beyond his expectations. How beautiful and fleeting a time this is!

Bedtime. He fell asleep determined to be asleep when Santa arrived, because he really still finds Santa unsettling. Adele fell asleep as she always does. Unsuspecting.