It's a Holly Jolly Quarentine Christmas!!!!! I mean, not really... I guess kinda. It was a weird Christmas and Christmas season. I missed doing all the normal fun stuff we usually do... the Fantasy Trail, seeing Santa, the Santa parade with firetrucks, etc. None of that happened in 2020. Le sigh.
I'm glad the kids are young and probably won't remember much, if anything, from 2020. I don't remember much from 3rd grade, and really nothing from 1st grade so hopefully the boys won't really have a lot of memories. Or if they do... I hope they remember things still being fun.
A few years ago we switched to putting up a fake tree #WeAreTerribleOregonians because.. well, it's just easier. It doesn' make a mess and we can put the tree up earlier and leave it up later. The boys did a thorough inspection of the tree as it was being put together.
Not much to add here... other than Henry knows he is a gift to us all. :-) He really liked laying under the tree and he never has before. Maybe he thought it was a good place to hide from the kids and Cubbie.
Oh Cubbie.. still the most patient and sweet dog. The boys hold him all the time and he just goes with it. He's so good with them and never gets annoyed.
December was a rough month of work for me... add in the holidays and so much to do, and some other added stress and I was just not having a great month. The boys set up a "special chair" for me one night when I got home. They had my coloring and my book all ready for me. Neal said they decided to do it all on their own too, which made it that much sweeter. Sometimes they really surprise me with how thoughtful they are.
Snowflake making... turned into a huge mess, and Transformer masks. My kids never play with anything as it should be played it.. it always becomes something else. I love that they are creative like that, but sometimes the mess it creates makes me twitch a little bit.
We had a bonfire in early December on a dry night. It felt weird not going to Zoo Lights, or the Fantasy Trail, or any of those other holiday events. A bonfire wasn't quite the same, but it was the first one in this new house and the boys always think its fun to make a fire and stay up a bit later. The pups just wanted blankets and warm bodies.
We added an office to our house! The front area was just one big open area and we wanted to use the area back by the kitchen for our living space, so Neal had the good idea of building in an office! It took about 2 weeks (the guy only came every few days) to get it put up! Now we can feel so professional while working from home and yelling at the kids to be quiet because I have a meeting!
Candy Canes at 7am? Sure why not! Yet again, the Magic Santa Mailboxes made their appearance in our house. If the boys are relatively good (I mean, no one is perfect, right??) they wake up to a little surprise in their mailboxes. Every year I grumble a bit about this (ugh, I have to figure out mailbox toys and treats) but every year they are DELIGHTED by the mailboxes and I love how magical they think they are. So it's (mostly) worth it.
Sigh. Annoying things seem to happen at the worst times. While Neal was off for Christmas break, he decided to put in new toilets and the pipe to ours was so old and corroded it just snapped off and water started shooting out of it! He had to turn the water off, and since this happened on a Saturday.... we couldn't get a plumber. And we couldn't get one for several more days. So we had one toilet that worked, but still had the water turned off so we couldn't flush it. Awesome.
(thankfully Neal figured out how to cap the broken pipe so we could turn the water back on after a day)
He's just so dang cute... look at that little face!!! Trying to be a very good boy for Santa.
After initially being really attached to me... Cubbie quickly turned all his affection over to Neal. Neal is his PERSON. He will not be persuaded otherwise, either. After a few weeks of bad sleep because Cubbie wanted to be in weird positions on our bed and moved around a lot... he somehow ended up on a pillow under Neal's pillow at the top of his head. And there he will stay. He doesn't get tangled in our legs now, and for the most part doesn't bother Neal at night. And Cubbie gets to lay on his very favorite person.
Another fun treat from the magic mailboxes! Suckers with Santa mustaches attached!
We found a cool channel on YouTube of this guy who does step-by-step drawings for kids and parents to follow along with. We spent a night doing Christmas themed drawings. Austin's is on top, and he's a pretty good artist! Mine is bottom right and apparently I draw things very tiny... and Neal's is next to mine and the absolute closest to the real artists. He wins all the prizes.
Oh hi, Henry! We got our dining table and chairs just in time for the holidays and Henry was giving them a test drive!
Christmas Eve.... it wasn't what we were hoping for the holiday at all, but we tried to make the best of it..
We baked cookies... and the boys over-enthusiastically stirred the mixing bowl and down went the bowl and all the flour. Neal pain-stakenly picked up as much as he could.
We had cocktails and played cards with Christmas movies playing and the boys opening some gifts and playing with their new toys....
We left cookies for Santa, and some carrots for the reindeer too!
There were new costumes (who ya gonna call???) and messes, and opened boxes and packages and things strewn about everywhere and general chaos.
Owen sweetly writing Santa a note before heading up to bed to try and get some sleep....
Oh, and there were baby Yodas too!!! More stuffy babies to add to the ever-growing family.
So... Christmas Eve was the way it was because I was exposed to Covid about two weeks before Christmas. I was SURE I had it, but one day after I found out I was exposed, I woke up with a fever, body aches and a slight sore throat. I was STRESSED OUT TO THE MAX and felt so guilty about getting exposed and possibly ruining Christmas plans. I ended up getting tested 3 times: 1 lab test at my Doctor, 1 rapid test at my Doctor, and 1 mail-in lab test. I kept to my bedroom as much as I could, and wore a mask in the house and tried to stay away from Neal and the boys.
One day after my testing my fever was gone, and I felt pretty normal. Each day after that I felt fine as well, and never felt ill again, and I never lost my smell/taste. Still, we told our families we'd have to "cancel" Christmas.
On Christmas Eve, I finally got the test results back and all 3 tests I took were negative.
I still was a bit freaked out, but Neal assured me that 3 negative tests meant I was ok and we could go have Christmas with my family. So down to Springfield we went.
The boys matched Uncle Brian with their aprons! If only they would take up cooking all the family meals now...
Of course the new babies had to come down to Christmas with us...
Not the best picture (I was still running on a very high stress level since I wasn't conviced I didn't have Covid, and I barely slept and was worried and emotional and tired) but I'm glad we got this 4-Generations picture
Owen got a loom set and got REALLY in to making pot holders. This kept him busy for hours and he made everybody several pot holders.
Cubbie enjoyed his 1st Christmas as a Glynn! Other than he peed on his sweater since he doesn't know how to lift his leg up properly when he pees. So he always kinda sorta smells like pee.
Well that was our weird Christmas of 2020. Usually I savor the holidays but I just wanted them over. It was stressful and weird and different and it was a sigh of relief when we were past Christmas.
And then we rang in 2021 with maybe a little bit of hope.. but still some apprehension (and hate of taking selfies) haha.
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