2021 Faves

A few days ago, Gerald posted on FB his favorites of 2021 in several categories. I decided that was a decent way to blog the conclusion of the year. I'll begin now, as I sit in our Airbnb in St. George this New Year's Eve. 

Favorite vacation: Cartagena, Colombia, where Gerald, Isaiah, and I spent a week in August. I was apprehensive as my prior travels in Latin America have been challenging, but Colombia was wonderful. Here's the link if you'd like to know more.

Favorite book: This is a hard choice because I read many lovely books this year, but I think Anxious People gets the nod. It's hilariously quirky and filled with delightful, relatable characters and a crazy plot that weaves itself perfectly through their lives. The unexpected twist near the end adds the proverbial icing on the cake.

Favorite movie: This is easier because I didn't see many movies. Not to focus on this stupid virus, but yeah, it seriously damaged both movie-making and movie-viewing this year. I did enjoy Dear Evan Hansen, a musical drama about a teenage boy with social anxiety, who suddenly finds himself the center of attention at his high school because of a letter that falls into the wrong hands. 

Favorite live theatre production: Les Miserables at Hale Center Theatre. Grateful to Eli and Amanda for accompanying me to see my favorite musical of all time performed so beautifully. Hale does not disappoint.

Favorite meal: I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant, but it was our fanciest meal in Cartagena. On a warm evening just after sunset, we sat at an outside table with white linens and dined by candlelight. I don't remember what Gerald and Isaiah ate, but I feasted on delicious codfish smothered in rich crab sauce, with coconut rice, a staple in Colombia and so, so good.

Favorite luxury: A professional massage, a birthday gift from my family. I don't get massages nearly often enough, which is probably what makes them so enjoyable when I do.

Favorite day: October 29th, attending the birth of Eli and Amanda's firstborn child. Probably enough said, but if you'd like to read more about this, here's the link. 

Favorite podcast: "In the Dark, Season 2," which investigates the case of Curtis Flowers, a Black man from Winona, Mississippi, who was tried six times for the same crime. I was shocked by the egregious behavior of the District Attorney and saddened by the blatant racism that defined this case. Highly recommend.

Favorite TV show: This is the only category on which I'll concur with Gerald's choice. Other than the grammatical error in its title, This is Us remains strong as the best TV drama around. I wonder if that's why the upcoming season will be the finale; they want to quit while they're ahead. Rumors are we'll get to witness Rebecca and Jack's wedding. I hope so!

Favorite blog post: No, it's not the post that got the most page views, but I think my favorite post of 2021 is "What is Labor Day," my personal take on this often undervalued holiday. Check it out if you missed it the first time.

Favorite Crumbl cookie: Pecan pie: shortbread crust, ooey gooey filling, covered in pecans!

Favorite new product: Jojoba oil. Truly the best stuff I've ever put on my face. Mmmmmm, you should probably stop what you're doing right now (even if it's reading my blog) and order this stuff.

Favorite medical moment: As most of you know, I avoid doctors like the plague. My dumb anxiety disorder triggers the worst response whenever I'm forced to deal with anything medical. But what if there's an actual plague? Yep, that changes everything. My favorite medical moment of 2021 was standing in line in a large high school gymnasium with hundreds of other teachers, all waiting to receive the first dose of the COVID vaccine. We felt such hope. Thank you, science! Thank you, scientists! 

Favorite party: My annual Christmas cookie exchange. After zooming it in 2020, we were all so grateful to be together again. Some friendships come and go; others last. These dear ones are forever, and they are the coolest. I love them.

Happy New Year, everyone. Wishing you a year of favorites! 

--Terrianne

Christmas 2021: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

It's 8:44 a.m., Tuesday, December 28 2021. I sit in my bed, sipping Diet Coke from my brand new Stanley Cup (thanks, Shulamith and Seth), eating apple pie, cream puffs, and a gingerbread cookie, while watching an episode of 911. This is only a slight shift from my normal morning routine, which includes a walk first thing and no food until noon (intermittent fasting). 

It's the day after Christmas, and every mom deserves a break the day after Christmas; am I right? So rather than restoring order to my post-Christmas disaster house, I'll happily continue my self-indulgence by telling you the story of Christmas 2021: the Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful:

The Good.

1. A finished basement, allowing us all enough room to sleep downstairs overnight on Christmas Eve. (Last year, we had to cram all of us into our bedroom upstairs, lined up wall to wall on air mattresses in sleeping bags.) This was a definite improvement. 

2. Matching Christmas pajamas. Years ago when this tradition began, only Shulamith and I participated. We'd buy each other matching pajamas for Christmas Eve, and they weren't even Christmas themed. In recent years, the tradition has grown into a family affair, with everyone participating except Isaiah and Shulamith's husband, Matt. Isaiah hates matching Christmas pajamas. No, really. The words "creepy" and "cultish" may have been spoken, but this item still belongs on the "good" list, because Isaiah is outvoted! Only because he loves me, did he agree to put on a black shirt and stand in the back for the picture. Mathew doesn't enjoy much of anything about Christmas, so no surprise he would opt out of pajamas. That said, he was kind enough to set up the timer on his phone to take the photo.

3. Spending December 25th with Eli and Amanda. On the years we need to move our Christmas to a different day in order to accommodate everyone's schedule, I usually stay home on the 25th and try to convince myself that it's not really Christmas and I can be perfectly happy relaxing alone, reading, and watching shows. However, there is always a tinge of melancholy, just a tinge, even though I know our joyous celebration is still to come... just not today. But this year, I was blessed to spend the 25the with Eli and Amanda, as they celebrated their first Christmas with their new baby. It was the loveliest! I spent most of the day snuggling a "Jane-in-a-gown," so Eli and Amanda could open their gifts to each other, along with ones they received from Amanda's relatives. Babies in gowns are my absolute favorite. My five wore them pretty much every day of their lives until they no longer fit in them. Thank you, Eli and Amanda, for inviting me; this could for real be my Dec. 25th tradition forever. 

4. Simple food. Years ago, after preparing a giant Christmas feast, Shulamith and I remarked to each other that "we are the only ones doing all the work, and we are exhausted, and it's not the way we want to spend Christmas." From that point on, we simplified. We eat yummy Chinese food from Fortune Cookie Christmas Eve. We have our trusted prep-the-day-before egg casserole for Christmas breakfast, then snack on copious amounts of cookies, candy, cream puffs, Hickory Farms treats (sent from my mom in Portland) throughout the day, followed by chicken pot pie and apple pie, both courtesy of Costco. This year we added some chocolate fondue at the very end, and all was perfection.

5. The blessings of a large family. In the early days, when I was crazy busy with five bickering children, debilitating anxiety, sleepless nights, so much to do and so little time for myself, I questioned my sanity. I still sometimes question my sanity, as we all do, but I am profoundly grateful we had our five incredible kids. It was worth any sacrifice we might have made to experience the love we felt yesterday. Only our oldest son and his daughter, who live in Maryland, were missing.

The Bad.

1. Waffles, trapped in his kennel all day. He actually loves his kennel, but he's usually only in it at night. I bought him a brand new bone to keep him happy and occupied and away from the Christmas chaos. 

2. Ruined surprises. There are 12 of us, and Shulamith and I handle all the details of selecting, ordering, purchasing, wrapping, and organizing gifts. We make lists. We check off items as we wrap them. We do all the things. And still, I always make at least one mistake. Sometimes it involves putting the wrong code on someone's gift. "Wait! No! That's not for you; that's for ___________." Gratefully, that didn't happen this year. Instead, I messed up and gave Mathew the tool for his Ooni backyard pizza oven before I gave him the actual oven. Oooops! I told him this was intended to build the suspense. I'm sure he believed me.

The Beautiful. 

1. This present. I know, I know, it's not about the presents. But you guys: just look at this glorious picture that will soon hang in the entryway of our home! It's called "Peace in Christ," and it's even more beautiful in person. Thank you Gerald, Shulamith, Eli, and Amanda, for this surprise. I am overwhelmed.

2. Eli, in animation. Our gift opening is a bit of a marathon. There are 12 of us, and we open presents one at a time, slowly, in order of age, youngest to oldest. It takes a minute. At one point, Shulamith was holding Jane, so Eli took over her picture-taking duty. He was taking tons of pics of Shulamith's kids, so I politely inquired, "Are you taking any pictures of MY kids, you know, for MY blog post?" So he took 14. They all look like this:

Beautiful for sure, but I wonder if he thinks he's an only child?

3. More pictures from our celebration yesterday:

Merry Christmas, everyone! Our love to all.

Violet and Jeannie for the win!

When I mentioned in this post that I sure wish someone had saved my past Christmas letters, I had zero expectation that anyone actually did. I mean why would others save my letters when I didn't even save them? That said, I am the least sentimental person alive. I hate clutter! Barely anything is more satisfying to me than filling a big bag with crap to get rid of. That's why these biannual curbside pickups were so gratifying, another thing I miss about living in Sandy. So far no curbside pickups here in the Bluffdale wilderness. 

I save almost nothing. I have one small, square file box, and in it, each of my kids has a single file folder. If they make something or give me something that fits in that file, awesome! If not, it can't be that important. The upside to this is my house is always neat and organized. The downside? Many times I throw stuff away that I actually need later. Important stuff. It might have looked like clutter a week ago, but now? Ugh! So yeah, as I lamented in the earlier post, I desperately wish I'd saved our Christmas letters through the years. 

So you can imagine my joy when I received not one, but two manilla envelopes in the mail this past week, one from Gerald's mom and one from my friend Jeannie. Each contained several of our past letters. I now have our letters from 1994, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. I can't even believe it! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Vi And Jeannie. Now, of course, I have this glimmer of hope that maybe someone has some of the earlier letters, but even if that's not the case, I'm grateful to have at least these.

Wrap. Unwrap. Rewrap. Rinse and Repeat.

"Why does Theodore have an extra present? Wait...no. Theodore has one, two, three, four, five, six. But Kennedy only has one, two, three, four, five. Let me check my list. Did I not write down his Paw Patrol pajamas? Oh yeah, I did. But why does he have two squishy packages that seem like clothes? WHAT IS THIS ONE? Ugh! I think I'm gonna have to unwrap it. Wait, why is Kennedy's name on this present? I feel like this was supposed to be for Swen? Or Theodore? Oh, I don't know. I'm just gonna have to unwrap both of them to make sure."

Laughing hysterically, I watched Shulamith go through this turmoil yesterday. The mental gymnastics a mom navigates at Christmastime is no joke. I go through it every year, and I have five kids, so two more than Shulamith. We want our kids to have the same number of gifts to open. We make lists. We check off each item when we wrap it. We double check. We do all the things.

And yet...

In our brave attempt to be perfectly organized, sometimes it all still crashes. 

I'm happy to report that she figured it out. She had to unwrap four gifts to do it, but it's all good now. 

She unwrapped.  I rewrapped. 

Now I need to cowboy up and count my own presents, check my lists, double check, and (hopefully) not need to unwrap and rewrap anything.

Regrets, I've had a few...

 ...but then again, too few to mention.

Except this one.

Saturday evening, Shulamith's 7-year-old daughter helped me assemble my 2021 Christmas cards. I addressed them and stuffed the envelopes with our photo card and letter. Kennedy added the Christmas sticker seal and the stamp. (She is also the artist for the manger scene on the card.) It took us nearly two hours, working side by side, but we finished all 50 cards! 

Kennedy: Her, why do you send out so many cards? 

Me: Well, I'm blessed to have many friends.

Kennedy: Do they all live around here?

Me: No, I've lived in five states: Oregon, California, Washington, Montana, and Utah, and I have friends from all of them. That's the best thing about moving to different places.

At that point, Kennedy wanted to know something about each person or family on every envelope. That way she could choose the best sticker for everyone. Describing my friends to her, their spouses and kids, their careers, their personalities, their likes and dislikes, was far more meaningful to me than it was to Kennedy, whose only goal was to select the right sticker. Pausing to reflect on each person who would receive our family's Christmas card filled me with gratitude and joy; Thank you, Kennedy, for asking!

Kennedy: Do you write one of these long letters every year?

Me: I do. 

And that's when it hit me. Immediate regret. 

Yes, I write some sort of letter every year to include with our Christmas card, and I've done this since the first year Gerald and I were married. The earlier ones are more typical, with reports on each family member; in recent years, I've tried to find creative ways to tell our stories; several ideas I've stolen from my friend Trudy. My all-time favorite is from 2014, when I revised the poem "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" to reflect the events of our year.

Why the regret, though? Because I was too stupid to save these letters. You heard right. I don't have them, other than the one from 1996, which I happened to find last year as we were packing to move. Imagine the family history recorded in those letters, and now lost. Imagine how fun it would be for all of us to go back and read them. But no. Prior to 2009, when this blog originated, I have nothing.

Of course this is not the end of the world. It's not a tragedy. But I would dearly love to have those letters, and I feel so silly for not saving them. I mean, how hard would it have been to throw one in a file folder each year? Blah.

Regrets, I've had a few.

Turkey/Black

As child, I woke before dawn on Thanksgiving morning to the sound and smell of onions and celery sizzling in butter on the stove. My mom always bought a giant turkey, so it needed to cook all day in order to be done by mid-late afternoon. She'd get up at 5:30 a.m. to begin the process of getting the thing in the oven, and a process it was! First she made stuffing, starting with the sizzling onion and celery, to which she added seasoned bread cubes and french onion soup. Then she stuffed both the neck and breast cavities, then sewed them closed with skewers and string. Next, she tied a big piece of string around the whole turkey to keep the wings tucked in tight, placed the bird breast down on the roasting rack, and poured three cubes of melted butter over the top. In the oven it would go, and she would baste it hourly throughout the day.

Now I'm the mom, and I make the Thanksgiving dinner, and I have dumbed down her process significantly. I do not get up at 5:30 a.m. I do make her stuffing recipe (there is none better), but I don't actually stuff it inside the turkey. It's so much easier not to. Still, those early memories of waking to sizzling onions and celery, announcing to the whole house that it was Thanksgiving, are forever etched in my mind. Another Thanksgiving memory is from when I was in college. Tom was dating a girl, who invited all of us to Thanksgiving dinner with her family. That would have been fine except my grandma didn't want to go. She had zero desire to spend Thanksgiving with a bunch of people she didn't know, and honestly, I felt pretty much the same. So while my mom and Tom accepted that kind invitation, Grandma and I went to a lovely restaurant at a hotel in downtown Portland for Thanksgiving dinner, again, one of those delightful memories to be cherished.

Thanksgiving 2021 is now a new memory, hopefully cherish-worthy. Our four kids who live here in the valley, along with their spouses and kids (the two who have those), gathered at our home for the traditional dinner, followed by games, and ending with multiple desserts. We ate lots, played hard, ate more, and it was all good.

But honestly, my friends, Thanksgiving doesn't compare to the following day: BLACK FRIDAY!!! After last year, when COVID kept us inside, Shulamith and I were beyond ready to hit the stores and spend our hard-earned cash, which we saved in envelopes in my hidden filing cabinet throughout the year. We left at 7:00 a.m., so not as early as some people, but good for us because we left well-rested and ready to shop. 'Til we dropped. Almost literally. We were out for a full 11 hours, and I'm still shocked by how much we accomplished. I have five kids, and Shulamith has three, and by the end of Black Friday, other than the gifts we will buy for each other, we were nearly done. Wow! Finished shopping a whole month before Christmas, including stockings? That is a record, even for Black Friday veterans like us.

We hit Target, where we drank our traditional Black Friday Starbuck's hot chocolate; then Walmart; followed by Costco and Best Buy; then lunch break at Spaghetti Factory, where we ordered all our online gifts; and finally South Towne Mall. Then we came home, slept, and spent most of Saturday afternoon in wrapping heaven. I love to wrap presents way more than Shulamith does, and (shhhh!) she's not that good at it, but she helped me anyway, and she's definitely improving.

I am now in full-on Christmas mode; all I need is the semester to be over. 

Turkey/Black: What a wonderful weekend!

We need a little Christmas, now!

Shulamith loves to prove me wrong. I think if you asked her to name her top 10 favorite things to do, proving me wrong would be near the top of that list. So a week ago we began to discuss when we would decorate our houses for Christmas. I mentioned that, although I start listening to Christmas music on November 1st, I never decorate until after Thanksgiving. She was certain that was not case, that at least once, I had decorated for Christmas prior to Thanksgiving. I didn't believe her.

That night she was up at midnight giving Swen either sugar or insulin, depending on whether he was low or high, then waiting for his numbers to correct before going back to sleep. So what did she do while she waited? Search my blog to find evidence to prove me wrong. And of course she found it: right here! I can't even imagine her joy, in the wee hours of the morning, knowing she had proved me wrong yet again. Eli and Amanda and I all awoke the next day to a link to this post.

What prompted this discussion originally were the many decorated homes we see throughout our neighborhood on our multiple daily walks: Trees in windows, lights on houses, spotlights creating shining snowflakes on garage doors. It's all quite beautiful, so it didn't take much to persuade me to decorate last weekend, rather than waiting 'til after Thanksgiving. Because really...

We need a little Christmas, now!

Shulamith's daughter Kennedy helped me with both nativity scenes. She is so talented artistically! She even drew the manger scene that will appear on the front of my Christmas card this year; you can be excited for that. She also likes to make silly faces in pictures.

Eli loved showing his baby daughter, Jane, her first Christmas tree. She was dang impressed too!

Shulamith's son Swen helped hang ornaments, both upstairs and down, not to mention cleaning my house from top to bottom before we decorated.

My history with Christmas trees is long and troublesome. There was this one that was seriously possessed! I ultimately donated it to Amanda and Eli; they can deal with a Christmas tree that hates Christmas. I'm done! Then there was last year's tree. This one wasn't willfully belligerent, but it was covered in glitter, which meant my house was also covered in glitter. Ugh! It's sort of like with Waffles. It's not his fault he sheds all over the place, but he still sheds all over the place. As we decorated last year and I tirelessly vacuumed and swept, vacuumed and swept a million specks of glitter, Mathew mentioned that I would "never get it all." Challenge accepted! It took a while, but the glitter is gone. And it's not coming back. Because you see, this year, I'm donating this lovely glitter-covered tree to the Webster-Monson Family. Bahahaha, Matt is gonna be so grateful. 

As for me, I bought two new trees this year, one for upstairs and one for the basement. I'm thrilled with both of them and delighted with how all the decorating efforts turned out. As for Shulamith, good thing she's the best friend a girl could ever have (even though she loves to prove me wrong). Just look at her here twisting and tying ribbon on my tree, something she learned to do from an instagram influencer. 

Okay, here are the finished products. You ready???

I've grown a little leaner,

Grown a little colder, 

Grown a little sadder,

(This next line: Not a chance!)

We need a little Christmas, right this very minute.

We need a little Christmas, now!