Saturday Morning Dispatch No.2
Because I anticipate a days-long food coma and also I want to fully plug in to family time, I’m writing this newsletter on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. But you’re reading this on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so let me say: I hope it was delicious! Did you play backyard football? Jump in leaf piles? Do you live somewhere cold enough to use the garage as a giant extra refrigerator for all the foodstuffs? Was there enough pie leftover for breakfast?
A poem for the season.
Red Berries in Winter (maybe by Kojiro Funasaki? let me know if you know!)
I love reading poems out loud to my girls. Once in awhile we have poetry tea parties (this has followed us from our homeschooling days), where I put out fancy tea cups and all the poetry books and they look at pictures and point to pages they want me to read. Sometimes I’ll just read a poem out loud any old time, no tea party required. Even if they aren’t paying attention, I love doing it, and I like to think it registers with them on some level. Here’s a seasonally-appropriate poem to share with your own kiddos, whether they’re listening or not.
November
November comes
And November goes,
With the last red berries
And the first white snows.
With night coming early,
And dawn coming late,
And ice in the bucket
And frost by the gate.
The fires burn
And the kettles sing,
And earth sinks to rest
Until next spring.
by Elizabeth Coatsworth (1893-1986)Two things that work for us that might work for you too.
Last weekend, two-thirds of our kids were being pretty much the worst. Not even a little bit fun to be around. I mean, they can be salty sometimes but not usually to this degree. What was going on? No mystery here: We’d gone to a backyard bonfire the night before and our kids didn’t get to bed until after 9PM. Did we pay for it all weekend? Yep. Did we have a super fun time and would I do it again? Absolutely. In like three months. Would probably get a babysitter.
Except then I remembered that the next 6 weeks or so will be full of late nights and wonky routines (not to mention the endless sugar buffet and general overstimulation of crowded parties and events). And while I expect to have some totally off-kilter days during this season, I thought I’d share two of the things Ryan and I do to mitigate the insanity (these are all-the-time strategies, but they come in especially handy this time of year):
#1. Feed them before the party. If there’s a party that happens during mealtime, whether at our house or elsewhere, I try to feed my kids beforehand. If I can get them to eat a normal meal (PB&J counts), I don’t worry as much if they only eat sugar at the party.
#2. Pack the pajamas. It worked when they were babies and it works even better now. Anytime we’ll be more than 30 minutes away from home and driving back after dinnertime, we pack a bag with pajamas and toothbrushes so we can get our kids ready for bed before we leave. This signals to them that it’s time to say goodbye to friends/cousins/whoever, and it means they can go straight to bed when we get home (especially helpful if anyone falls asleep in the car).
That’s it. Those are my tips. Good luck and Godspeed! Oh, and please share your own tips or tricks for minimizing holiday chaos with kids - I need all the help I can get.
Saint Nicholas Day.
Do you follow The Lazy Genius? I love her idea of “Seasonal Ceremonies” which she describes as “an intentional marker of something that you’re opening and welcoming or closing and saying goodbye to, and they’re usually easily repeated the next season.” Listening to her podcast episode about Seasonal Ceremonies, I realized that our family has a sort of opening ceremony for the Christmas season: We celebrate Saint Nicholas Day on December 6th. The night of the 5th, my girls write their letters to Santa, tuck them into a boot, and put their boots by the door. Saint Nicholas comes while they’re asleep, leaves some goodies, and takes the letters (this makes sense because he and Santa are cousins, obviously).
Saint Nicholas goodies circa 2017.
Saint Nicholas brings each girl Christmas jammies, an ornament, chocolate coins, and a gigantic cookie of himself. Sometimes he brings a Christmas book and, when he remembers, nuts-in-the-shell (for the nutcracker!) and a satsuma. And then I listen to David Sedaris talk about the Dutch tradition of Saint Nicholas Day and I don’t care how many times I’ve heard it, I laugh every time (probably don’t share it with your kids, but you should definitely listen to it).
How do you kickoff the holiday season? What are some of your favorite traditions?
“And now,” cried Max. “Let the wild rumpus start!” —Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
Have a wonderful weekend, friends!
Love, Kathryn