Merry Christmas blogger friends! This is our Christmas card. I mailed out loads of them and still discovered people I missed! I hope no one will feel slighted and understand how imperfect I am at tying up all the loose ends. So I post this as my final greeting and hope that your Christmas was magical and wonderful. Now I'll go take a long winter's nap.

A Tribute to the Sneaky Christmas Parent

The "Bubbies" -- Cody and Jonah age 5

Christmas has me thinking about how hard it is to keep secrets in a house full of little people. It’s like trying to keep a dozen doughnuts from disappearing when I’m alone with them and suffering from PMS! It doesn’t happen! Over the years I’ve gone to great lengths trying to keep little ears and eyes in the dark and my favorite experience bears mentioning as a tribute to the ingenuity and creativity of parents everywhere as this Christmas season draws to a close.

One year when my twins were 4, I spied in a Christmas Target ad a great sale on the behemoth Dino-Mountain toy the bubbies were hoping and praying for that Christmas. They were old enough to know that whatever went into my cart, didn’t just magically disappear after we left the store; but too young to be in school or any place convenient (meaning not with ME) while I did Christmas shopping. At that point in my life, I didn’t yet have the luxury of so many older children that could watch little ones while my hubby and I gallivanted around town together. (See, there are perks of having seven kids.) So, I took them with me, racking my overtaxed brain for ideas on how to select the toy, make it to the front of the store with the huge box hidden, purchase the monstrosity and get it home and wrapped without them catching on to my Christmas scheme. (I should have asked Santa for superpowers and/or many free babysitters that year, instead I prayed.) As we headed back to the toy aisles, we passed the luggage section and I felt the magical tingle of inspiration filling my being. I’m sure it was a merciful God answering the desperate prayer of a mother of four year-old twins. I grabbed a GIANT suitcase and put it into my cart. Then when we got to the dinosaur section, with the boys distracted by T-rexes and Triceratopses, I slyly pushed the big box off the bottom shelf and around the corner to my waiting cart with my foot, heaved it up and stuffed it into the suitcase! It felt spectacularly invigorating to hatch a secret plan and have it come off without a hitch. Little did I know that my brilliant mission would be nearly thwarted by the cashier: a cranky old lady who had no business wearing the perky, red Target shirt and khakis.

When I got to the register I tried to explain to her in hushed tones why I had the suitcase; hence, why I wasn’t actually purchasing the suitcase. At first she couldn’t hear me. So I repeated myself in a stage whisper, praying the boys wouldn’t hear. When she finally figured out what I was saying, her demeanor changed to one of extreme annoyance. “You don’t want the suitcase?!” she asked incredulously. “Well no,” I replied a bit sheepishly, “and could you please ring up the Dino Mountain in a sneaky way and quickly stuff it into a non-see through bag so my boys who are now running amok in the front of the store, searching the quarter vending machines for stray skittles won’t know what I’m purchasing?” I smiled sweetly at her as her frown lines threatened a cave-in in the middle of her face. Lucky for me (or maybe her) she did do just that and I emerged from Target, triumphant!

I guess it just proves that even as our brain cells are dying a slow, painful death during the evolution of our children’s lives, we parents are forging new pathways in our brains as we employ creativity, ingenuity and yes, even sneakiness, in our quest to do the Christmas shopping! My Christmas wish for you is that your shopping is done and that you get more than 2 hours sleep tonight! It won’t come true for me, but there’s always next year.

My Son the Studly Composer

Recently, my son Zach and a group of kids from church put on a benefit concert for the family of Shelly Conway, a woman at church who was suffering from terminal cancer. They practiced for several weeks in the basement of our house (even getting Zach's messy room featured on the video announcements at their high school!) They did many different kinds of numbers (vocal, piano, ensemble -- original pieces and popular favorites). Zach performed three of his original compositions and I recently discovered they have been posted to YouTube so I get to share them!

This first one he wrote for his sister Hannah who is crazy/fun and loves penguins. He wanted it to capture the fun-loving nature of his sister and first titled it "Hermana Caliente!" Hannah rejected the "Hot Sister" title and suggested "El Penguino Latino" (the latin penguin) and it stuck.  Here it is:

 

This is the first song Zach wrote, titled "Boardwalk".



Finally, this song Zach wrote as a result of my asking him to write a soft and flowy song in the style of music I like to play. After he wrote it and was searching for a name, I suggested that songs like this should be named for a girl that was important to you. He did NOT name it after me, but he did name it "Jessica's Song" for a good friendgirl of his from Murrieta.



Thanks for letting me brag!

Over-Achiever

My happy, Christmas Kitchen table.

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My friend the laundry queen told me I was an over-achiever when I happened to mention on facebook that I had just finished putting up my seventh Christmas tree. Now, I do not usually consider myself to be ambitious, but somehow this year is the year of the Christmas decorating bonanza and I have been going crazy! I think it's because of the vision I have in my head of my mom and dad's beautiful home at Christmas time growing up. We always had a nice, big kid-friendly tree with bright colored lights, icicles, and garlands which was covered in all the quirky ornaments we kids had collected or made over the years. Then, in the living room was a gorgeous flocked tree bedecked with white twinkly lights and covered in red velvet ornaments, roses and ribbon.  I loved to sit and gaze at that tree or see it shining magically through the living room window from outside. As fate would have it, this is the first house we've ever lived in that had a front living room window, so I've never been able to complete my vision. There's also been the little matter of lacking money, time or energy for a second tree -- so we always had one tree that combined a mish-mash of crazy kid ornaments and with a sprinkling of artistically inclined "Jen" collectibles. We had colored lights on it until they died a few years ago and I bought white lights to replace them -- much to the chagrin of my children! I've felt bad about it ever since. (I guess not bad enough to buy more colored lights.)

Fast forward to this year -- I didn't have the money for a new tree still, but I did find one while shopping on Black Friday at Wal-mart that was on sale for $25; a six-and-a-half foot tree with colored lights that would be a little small, but might fit the bill for the kid tree. I proposed we put it in the basement family room and have that be the tree with the presents on Christmas morning, freeing me to have my tree in the living room, decorated elegantly by me and only me.

The plan was accepted, but as my hubby Ren and daughter Hannah pulled the tree out of the box, I heard groans and exclamations of "Oh no! It's a Charlie Brown Christmas tree!" Apparently 6 1/2 feet meant 5 feet of scrawny tree and a foot-and-a-half of ugly trunk. (Though some children thought that meant room for more presents and was a bonus!) I put the best face I could on it, reminding them of the lesson from Charlie Brown -- that it would look great once we decorated it. It did turn out pretty cute, but as the symbol of hope and excitement for Christmas morning, it fell far short. I lamented the fact as I chatted with my parents that afternoon on the phone and later in the week, they called to tell me they wanted to buy us a big tree with colored lights for the kids as their Christmas present to the family. I love it when they swoop in and save me, I don't think I'll ever get too old for it! They were at Costco in Oregon and wanted to know if we had the same tree they had just found. We did and I went and bagged it within the hour. We put it up that weekend and laughed to see how puny the other tree looked next to it. And we Christmased happily ever after.

But still, how does one arrive at seven trees in this little tale? Well, here's the list: 1) The ill-conceived Wal-mart tree; 2) My tree in the living room (Curty wanted to know if my presents needed to go under my tree); 3, 4, 5) Three lodge pole pine trees that I decorated and put on the sofa table in the upstairs famly room; 6) Our original Christmas tree from our first year of marriage -- a 2 foot high midget tree I put on a table on the stair landing; and 7) the new gargantuan Costco tree with the super-cool lights and foot pedal for turning them on and off (Eli loves this feature and turns the lights on and off a million times a day!) I have spent lots of time decorating and it has turned out nice, so I had to take some pictures. These were mostly for my parents benefit, so suffer through my happy pride in displaying the fruits of my labors or move on to the next blog if you must.

Here's my tree:

(Mom, notice my new, velvet Christmas tree skirt)

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and my favorite Willow Tree nativity set (my parents gave it to me for Christmas, Thanks Mom and Dad.)

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Here's the upstairs family room and the three little trees.

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All the stockings, hand made by me, except for the last two for children who were born too close together. They might get their stockings made this year, who knows?

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Here's our fireplace (which we do actually use for 3 months in the morning when it hits a frigid 50 degrees! See my new Santa on the mantel, I love him!

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I love this comical shot of all my children trying to lay underneath the sad, little Christmas tree and gaze at the lights.

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Ah, that's much better. We love the lush, bright tree that actually reaches the ceiling and is strong enough to hold the kid-star. (I banished that star from the tree a few years ago and replaced it with a crafty wooden one, that is now happily on top of my tree.

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There's me on the momentous occasion of assembling my seventh tree!

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And Curty enjoying the BIG box from the BIG tree!

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And now for random decorating the tree shots. I think I'm too lazy to label these with names, but the grandparents will know who they are and the rest of you probably don't care overly much.

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The "Love Trip"**

Ren and I just got back from spending two days of happy, carefree, kid-free time together at the Ritz Carlton in Phoenix. I had never stayed at a Ritz Carlton before, but Ren stayed at one on a consulting trip in Naples, FL and he teaches a business case on the Ritz Carlton in his Service Ops class, so he knew exactly what to expect. I felt so pampered by the doorman opening my car door for me and by having each employee greet us with a warm and friendly smile and ask us how we were doing, though it got to be a bit comical after the sixth person asked us. We encountered more perky Ritzy people in the hallways and on the elevator and outside the elevator which made me wonder if all this attention was a bit much. But finally one of them told us that a "team" was arriving and they had lots of extra people on hand to help get them situated. Ren quickly looked up the NFL game for the weekend and discovered that the Cardinals were playing the Rams on Sunday -- mystery solved. I felt a bit low-brow in my jeans and t-shirt (cute, but low-brow) but they treated me like I had money anyway. The hotel was DECKED out in Christmas garlands, twinkly lights and many different themed trees -- BEAUTIFUL! (here's a bad picture of me in my jeans in the hallway to show the gorgeous decorations).

I even discovered a Steinway grand piano sitting alone in a hallway by a banquet room that a played a little. It was an incredible experience to see how the other half lives, but I probably shouldn't get too used to it. 

Ren and I discovered a restaurant across the street called True Foods which is owned and run by Dr. Andrew Weil (a healthy-eating guru with books on the best-seller lists.) The food was amazing and super healthy too (I'm sure Ren will blog about the specifics, he always gives eating tours of his trips). Suffice it to say that carmelized onion tarts, warm whole grain pitas and hummus, and butternut squash ravioli were amongst some of the tasty dishes we had when we had dinner there last night and lunch there again today (because we just had to go back!) My favorite part were the planters outside the restaurant filled with basil, thyme, mint and rosemary.  I spent several happy moments fondling the leaves of the plants and smelling my fingers -- it gives a whole new meaning to the word "aromatherapy". Yum! 

After we checked out, we headed over to Tempe to the Mill Street Art Festival. I tell you, it's a rare treat to be able to stroll along, hand-in-hand with my sweetie looking at lots of expensive, arty things and to not be yelling, "Don't touch that!" every half second. Mmmmmmm....paradise. I found this darling booth with whimsical santas that looked carved but were really formed from a paper mache clay wrapped around bottles and lightbulbs. I just had to get one for my mantel, which was sadly lacking in whimsical santas this year. Here's a picture of one similar to mine from the artist's website: ejhicks.com. 

The work of the featured artist of the festival (it would be nice if I could remember his name) was incredibly cool with large metal sculptures that spun and twisted on large lamp-post like bases. They had a myriad of multi-colored shapes on them, twisting, turning and glinting in the sun...so fun! (I wanted one that was only $5600, what a bargain!) I didn't have my camera, but here are a couple of lousy pictures I took with Ren's iphone.)

When we were all "art"ed out, we headed towards home, stopped and did a little Christmas shopping and finally reentered the reality of a messy house and hungry kids waiting for dinner. Someday, we'll just live the carefree life all the time, right? But for now, the "love trips" will get us through.

**Note: my friend Tracie Sutton is the one who taught me the term "love trips" so she gets a footnote here.

I'm getting better!

Hey, it only took me three tries to get my newly designed blog background to post correctly and I am stoked! (that is such an 80's word -- blame it on my finding so many high school friends on Facebook lately) The purple is a bit of a departure for me, but I have had this digital scrapbooking kit sitting on my hard drive for 2 years and I've never used it, so I finally found an opportunity to have a little fun with it. To give credit where credit is due, the kit is called Sugarplum Fairy and was designed by Dani Mogstad at designbydani.com.  Strike one more thing off of my list of things to do before Christmas!

Ode to the Multi-Tasker

I'm looking at my sad, neglected blog still sitting around in it's old Thanksgiving finery, just waiting for someone to come and update it with Christmas cheer and wishing I had a thousand hours in the day for the month of December! I just can't seem to keep up with the messes of nine people, homeschool Curtis, fix real food for dinner, read books for class and write papers on them and then add to that list decorate, shop, write Christmas cards and update my blog. We women are incredible multi-taskers, but I am just not that good. It was while pondering this multi-tasking myth that I came up with the following poem (because I didn't have anything else to do, RIGHT!) And as for updating the look of the blog, well you all know, it takes me forever to get my new backgrounds right, for no forseeable reasons other than photobucket upload quirkiness, so I'm going to try to do a quick one, but I've said that before. So here's my Ode to the Multi-Tasker, it may be the only post before Christmas.

Ode to the Multi-Tasker

I'm on top of the laundry.
I'm a reader of books.
I'm a cleaner of toilets
and crannies and nooks.

I'm a mopper of floors.
I'm the most patient Mom.
I take artsy pictures.
My cooking's da bomb!

I spend time with my hubby.
I keep up with my blog.
I balance the budget.
I lift weights and I jog.

I condition and shave,
moisturize and tan,
polish and pluck
the places I can.

I help with the homework,
the projects, the papers,
fundraisers, costumes,
crises and capers.

I'm doing it all,
but when I focus on one,
a mob of crazed children
makes the rest come undone!

Oh why does chaos
take over my life?
There is never is peace,
only messes and strife!

On closer inspection
the answer's no crime:
I can do all these things,
but only one at a time!

Have a peace-filled Christmas season and may you multi-task better than I do!