Super Gavin

"Mom, I'm not cute anymore. I'm cool and awesome."

Everybody got that?

Christmas Days

Gavin put on his new pajamas from Gram on Christmas Eve, and has taken them off, briefly, only twice since then: once Christmas Day to go to dinner at some friends', and again Sunday for church. Though the rest of us have actually put on clothes for the past few days, it's not because we had lots of things to do and places to go. That's my favorite part about Christmas, just hanging out, watching videos, reading books, and no to-do lists. Pajamas all day, every day, if you feel like it!

Gripped in Gavin's hand above are the tags from said pajamas -- both his and his sister's. Gavin has decided these are "sports tickets." He's been taking good care of them so he can use them to get into a basketball game sometime soon. The rest of his gifts kind of paled in comparison with new pajamas and pretend sports tickets -- but he was satisfied with Santa's offering of Batman and Superman figures, the Kung-fu Panda movie, a Transformer truck from his cousin Collin, and new outfits for his bear Max from Mom and Grandma.

Santa brought Lucy matching pajamas for Lucy and her doll Kirsten, and an ice-cream maker, but her favorite gift by far has been a collection of I Love Lucy episodes on DVD. The TV Lucy and our Lucy have the same sense of humor. It doesn't seem to matter that these shows were made 50 years ago in black and white, she'll watch them over and over and laugh and laugh.

We've been out playing in the snow every day . . .

And working on art projects . . .

And watching for wildlife out the windows . . .

And just enjoying being together, warm and cozy at home.

And yes, I did have a lovely birthday. Thanks for the phone calls. Austin got me an iPod for my birthday. It's been fun listening to my favorite songs on it, when I can wrestle it away from Lucy.

Traditions

Family traditions are my favorite thing about Christmas! Last week we celebrated St. Lucia Day by taking ginger cookies to Lucy's first grade class and to our neighbors and friends. Gavin's job is to be St. Lucia's starboy, which he's okay with because he gets to wear a "wizard hat."


Last night was our Bethlehem Dinner, in which we feast on foods Jesus might have eaten 2,000 years ago in Israel. It's a bit more challenging to find the ingredients in Central Vermont -- we miss our little Turkish market and the fresh seafood at H-Mart! But Michelle Bedell came up big with a delicious recipe for Baklava and we managed pretty well. After dinner, the kids dressed up and re-enacted the Nativity story for us . . . Lucy wanted to be the angel, which left only 6-month-old Addison to be Mary, but all the kids did great, even our little Mary. Lucy was a glorious and enthusiastic angel, and Gavin made a wonderful wise guy.

We are looking forward to more exciting events and traditions in the next two days! Gavin is rather concerned about Santa coming down our chimney, since it leads to the wood furnace in the basement, and he's a little leery of Austin's explanations about Santa's fireproof suit. But the proof's in the figgy pudding, and I'm sure he'll be quite satisfied when he discovers that Santa made it just fine on Christmas morning. (Though I don' t think Santa's going to manage to fill Gavin's Christmas request for a parachute and a wind-up lobster toy -- I don't think they make those in the old North Pole workshop. Hopefully a surprise substitute gift will do. If you happen to come across a wind-up lobster toy, Santa would appreciate the help.)

We wish you a Merry Christmas and look forward to reading your blog to hear about your traditions and celebrations!

O Holy Night -- Liz Lemon Swindle

Snow much fun

Meet Frosty the Family Snowman, without a hat (lest he come to life.)

We took the kids to Sugarbush for their first big ski day of the season on Saturday. Austin was ski instructor, I was the treat holder / camera person /positive karma at the bottom of the hill. Instead of a chair lift, the bunny hill has a kind of moving sidewalk to the top (the kids called it the "magic carpet").

We brought all our equipment except for Lucy's coat -- oops -- so she had to ski in a couple layers of loaner jackets courtesy of Guest Services. She had a great attitude and looked awesome zooming down the hill, even though her fashion was a bit suspect.

Gavin skiied great too. He loved it. This is probably Gavin's ideal sport, since he doesn't ever seem to get cold. (He howls if his bathwater is above freezing temperature, and right now he's running around the house in his swim trunks.)

His big day of skiing wore him out -- he fell asleep before we could even get his coat off him!

You know you're a Vermonter if . . .

• The cars are covered with more than a foot of snow and there's a raging blizzard forecast for most of the day, but you have gnarly Hakkapellita snow tires on your Corolla so you see no reason to cancel your roadtrip. (We finally did cancel our plans to go to Philly this weekend, not because of the snow in Vermont, but because of an ice storm in Massachusetts.)
• A flock of wild turkeys walks by the house and the first thing you think is, "too bad we don't have a shotgun!" (This is seriously the first time I've ever had this thought and I immediately suppressed it and grabbed the camera. Unfortunately we didn't get a good shot -- with the camera -- the turkeys were great big toms the size of peacocks at the zoo! We'll know we're real Vermonters when we not only have a shotgun, it's loaded and sitting by the door, with an extra in the passenger's seat of the truck.)
• Your butcher calls and says your pig is done. Looks like we'll be spending the winter feasting on organic pork to go with all the applesauce we canned from our apple tree.
• Your wood furnace cranks the heat up to 80 degrees inside, making the prospect of going out in the snow to build a snowman or sled or snowshoe or cross-country ski in the front yard even more inviting. . .