Christmas

Most of December is a blur but I am fairly confident that, somewhere in there, we spent about 5 days in NJ for Christmas.

This has been an annual trip since before Natalia and I were married. It was an easy commute when we both lived in Delaware, and even when we moved up to Massachusetts, heading down for a few days was no big deal--we would drive down and back whenever we wanted, and we used a lot of that time to visit PA and DE friends that we had left behind. Soon a lot of those friends started having kids and it was fun to spend some time, each year, seeing how much they had grown.

Then we started having kids and the trip itself became more complicated. Driving at night to maximize sleep/minimize crying; packing for four instead of for two, and then, once we actually arrived at Natalia's parents' house, finding room for all of our stuff and our two kids and ourselves. We make it work though--we are treated like royalty when we arrive in NJ (more due to the presence of Celia and Andres than of Natalia and me) and Natalia's parents take care of most of the cleaning/feeding/bathing duties while we are there. Having cute kids does have its perks.

Christmas itself has always been an odd holiday for me. Growing up Jewish, I obviously did not celebrate Christmas, but most of my friends/classmates did--so December was usually a time when I felt like everyone was having a party to which I was not invited. This usually did not bother me too much. I embraced the fact that my family lit a menorah instead of trimmed a tree and, in truth, I think I took a lot of pride in the fact that we were different from most people on the block.

As I grew older, though, I began to take more umbrage in the crush of red and green advertising that was everywhere during the last month of the year. It felt like the purpose of Christmas was to spend the most money buying the most amount of presents for your loved ones, and that if you were not part of this spending spree, then you were certainly missing out. (And to some extent I still feel that way, although I am better able to separate the actual family/religious holiday of Christmas from the consumer spend-a-thon of Xmas. And yes, sometimes they overlap a bit.)

Now, though, I find myself in an odd position with respect to Christmas. Natalia is Catholic, and Christmas has always been a big deal for her family--it is the highlight of the year. So when we visit, I end up celebrating/observing Christmas alongside them. We all go to church, then have a family dinner, and then open presents the next morning (it used to be at midnight, but they have gladly changed this family custom as to accommodate our little ones!). It is also worth noting that they have always rewarded  me quite handsomely during the gift-giving segment of the holiday, even when I was celebrating with them for the first time.

The first few years I felt quite divided about Christmas. Here I was, raised a Jew, celebrating (and benefiting from) the holiday that had made me feel like such an outsider for so long. I had a hard time wrapping my head around what it meant for me to "celebrate" Christmas...but at the same time, I didn't know why I held so much antipathy towards the holiday in the first place. Was it the holiday itself? The commercialization? The feeling of being left out? Perhaps it was a little of all of that.

But after a few years with her family my feelings began to soften. Setting aside my own interpretations about what Christmas was, I saw what the holiday meant to them--it was about giving thanks for family, celebrating the year just passed, and hoping (and, yes, praying) for a better year to come. It was also about letting loose the purse strings after a whole year of scrimping and saving. These feelings were not so foreign to me, although I expressed them differently. I started to become more comfortable with the holiday. And perhaps most importantly, I began to differentiate between the holiday and the sales.

Along came Andres, and then Celia, and now Christmas feels more like a standard-issue one; toys being unwrapped at a furious pace by a toddler, while the baby decides that wrapping paper is the best toy ever invented.

This was the first year that Andres really understood some of the traditions/stories/personalities associated with Christmas. He was pretty into Santa Claus (he asked the big man for a fire engine, and also ordered a dump truck for his sister), and would point out different Santa Clauses when we saw the at different malls ("Mama, that Santa had white gloves but the other Santa didn't have gloves."). He also fell in love with "The Polar Express" movie (a far better book than movie, if you ask me, which you probably didn't) and watched it far too many times during our visit. He behaved well at Christmas Eve mass (he loves to hear people sing, religious or not, so the choir kept him interested) and obviously had a blast on Christmas morning. Celia, meanwhile, charmed everybody at church, and then delighted in trying to steal her brother's new toys on Christmas. (Andres was not amused.)

Some photos:

Christmas dinner.

Legos!

Sadly, the hands-free bluetooth device did not come standard with this phone.

Here comes double trouble.

Playing a game of pantless volleyball, with a rapt audience.

This trip coincided with toilet-training Andres, which explains why he is without pants in this last photo. (Incidentally, he did a great job and is almost all the way towards being a fully-toilet trained boy, which is fabulous.) More photos of him in various states of dress are here.

We also managed to get out a bit and catch up with some people we had not seen in a year. There's never enough time to see everyone, or even to spend as much time as we would like with the people we do see...but we did pretty well this year, seeing a variety of friends and family despite the blizzard that hit us on the 26th.

Watching Woody and Buzz perform at Disney On Ice.

Hanging out with Adam and Sue.

Playing games with Stephen, Luke, and Liam.

Piano time.

Two guys who just love their milk: Judah and Andres.