Holiday Highlights and all that jazz…

Good riddance 2012.

 Maybe there will soon be a year I stop saying that, but at the rate we’re going 2013 very likely will be bring upon a zombie apocalypse. Or perhaps the Obabacaypse will be as bad as predicted by several folks… 2012 had moments of peace and toddler joy but I’m pretty happy to see it go.

Christmas came and went with our 3 year olds understanding more of what the fuss is about. They thought we should celebrate both Jesus’s and Nana’s birthdays with daily cake and finally regarded the jolly guy in red as more friend than foe. We got to see him  twice at Crown Center and then a very special breakfast with Parenting Children with Special Needs group, a highlight of the season the past 3 years. They traded off being more cautious with Santa and letting the sibling go first to see if the lap was safe or not.

As close as Ava with get with the Crown Center SC.

Wyatt was a bit more worried with SC#2. Pretty sure one of them was the real guy. (Red nose dots from face painting, not small pox)

Ava after being mauled by either an Italian Flag or a Christmas partridge.

Prancer and Dancer likely plotting something…

Christmas Day was neither as white as hoped nor blue as imagined. The funny thing about dates and grief is the ones you are prepared for being bad come and go without as much torture . It’s the ones leading up you don’t necessarily suspect. We did a holiday decoration overhaul this year getting a new 9 foot tree (yea Hillcrest thrift store for the deal!) and replacing the red and gold with purple and silver and adding more birds and angels to our collection of 1970/80s ornaments. Still looking for the perfect little girl angel tree topper but for now my 1992 lady angel with Princess Diana hair will have to do. Maybe she’ll get an accessory upgrade next year.  Wyatt and Ava got a little purple tree for their room and liked relocating it all the house. I doubt they will ever remember their one and only Christmas spent with their sister at home but hopefully they will remember why they had a little purple tree with angel in their room every year.

The kids made out pretty well from Santa and all the relatives.  Highlights from Santa include a new police blue truck, Thomas the Train tricycle (or motorcycle  to them) Baby Aywiel (the Little Mehmaid princess baby and not the harlot my mom said she looked like ) and Santa’s best gift of a pink cat with microphone named Nuni.  Ava’s big into naming her babies with names that sound like they came from Ikea. She wanted to name it “Collic, or Carlick, or Kahlick, or Garlic or something that I never did pronounce right. “No Mommy, it’s CAAAHLIC” after my 5th pronunciation attempt. I told her she was like the SNL skit and we should just name it Nuni. Fortunately she agreed and Nuni is her current number 1 buddy.

Here’s a 1 minute clip of the lovely duet of her and Nuni singing “Jingle Bells.” This went on for a couple of hours without the chorus ever coming to a slower one…horse…open….sleigh. It just kept ending with another “hey! Jingle bells” Sadly we did not video capture Ava and Nuni’s  30 minute Christmas meltdown into the microphone complete with her now usage of “Wah, Wah!” when fake crying. As precious as toddler tantrums can be, they’re brought to a whole new level of enjoyment when being amplified and echoed by a cat repeating the demands of the mutiny a couple of octaves higher. I also wonder if Santa thought he should pull over his sleigh as many times as we did whenever Wyatt pushed the police button during our Christmas Day drive. Santa might just be bringing pillow pets next year…

We all spent some time strengthening our immune s systems as various plagues hit the house this past month and caught up on the entire series of Yo Gabba Gabba during our recoveries. I’m  pretty sure I’ve also watched Mistah Gwinch more this year than my past 32 years combined. We also got a fun little surprise with the Netflix Christmas Classics Cartoons  we stumbled upon. Netflix has some random stuff but Clay and I were pretty surprised at the 1940s charmingly creepy and racist Christmas cartoons. There was the one where children from all over the world got into Santa’s sleigh to do something nice for him with each culture being represented by the 1940s looks and view of that said culture. Or the one where all the orphans toys broke that left Ava crying at bed time “The bear’s head fell off!”  Good one Netflix! In all my 33 years, I’ve yet to see a black faced cartoon character and this year was my first.

A 23 moment of peace and harmony brought to you by Yo Gabba Gabba.

Other season highlights included not one but two holiday programs at the church that I had to carry Wyatt into crying where they occasionally remembered the lyrics while looking ahead. Id be more sentimental about their first program if they were a bit better. I think Clay and I need to lower our expectations of 3 year old performers and accept their Methodist preschool program is not Julliard.

We’ve now packed away all our tree and festive wear and are ready to bring on 2013. No Mayan end of the world claims to look forward to this year but as we say every year – bring it 2013.

• Posted in: Uncategorized