Let the holiday madness begin

December is always the craziest month of the year, and every year it creeps up on us like we didn't expect it. The gateway to the December madness is, of course, Thanksgiving weekend. This year John and I took the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off (so he could bake pies and I could attempt to clean the house), so that meant we had an unprecedented 5-day weekend! Thanksgiving day started with our traditional girls' beach walk, with Naomi and Milo, and Paula and Rhea, while John, Bert, Ken, Nellie and Keeeth went on their bike ride to the Marin Headlands.




Then the big feast at Paula and Bert's place, with the usual suspects and the usual excessive, delicious food... This is the reason that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. We get together with our good friends and just enjoy each other's company and the food, without all of the stress of Christmas shopping and travelling. It's the quiet before the storm...




And then the traditional Christmas tree hunt the day after Thanksgiving, in the Santa Cruz mountains... this year, with Paula/Bert/Rhea, Ken/Naomi/Milo, and Jamie & Samy for the first time. We're getting better and better at this. I remember years ago when we went up to the mountains, going from tree farm to tree farm hunting for the "perfect" tree with no provisions, and my blood sugar level going so low that all I could do was lie back in the car seat and keep my eyes shut til we made it out of the mountains and into a burrito place. I call it going into standby mode. This time, we were stocked with freshly made turkey sandwiches (with stuffing, mashed potatoes, onions, and cranberry sauce, Barbara-style), delicious leftover lemon tartelettes from Samy, and all sorts of other goodies.

We skipped the tree last year, a decision that I regretted the second we left the Santa Cruz mountains with Paula and Bert, and we wouldn't make that mistake again. Especially not this year when Evelyn is so aware of what's happening. She surprises me with the things she can remember, trivial things that happened months ago (for instance, we were at the pediatrician's recently because of her horrible cough, and as we were checking out, she kept saying "woks! woks!" and I was like, "what?" Then I finally remembered that they let her choose from a basket of smooth colorful rocks, in lieu of a lollipop, 4 months ago for her 2 year checkup, and she was asking for her rock for this visit). Anyway, I think she'll have some pretty clear memories, for a while at least, of this Christmas. The tree hunt, putting up the tree and lights and ornaments, and of course the presents. She's already very interested in that, saying "Christmas present?" or "Happy birthday present?" (the two seem interchangeable) when she sees a gift-wrapped box.

And then there are the December birthdays... Rhea turned 2 just a few days ago (Happy Birthday Rhea! What a fun birthday party), John turns 40 in 2 days (!!) with the party at our place this coming Saturday. (I mentioned to Evelyn once a few weeks ago that Papa's birthday is coming, and ever since then, she's been saying "Papa's happy birthday's coming.") Then we'll have our Fake Christmas on Haight St. the weekend after that, followed by Paula's birthday on the 23rd, and Christmas immediately after that. And we're not even flying to MA this year, for once (boo for that but Yay for Christmas in SF for once!). It's a hectic time of year but we are so lucky to have it be this way.