Resist My Charm

The title of this post refers to one of the many anagrams formed with the "Merry Christmas" letter blocks that have graced our kitchen window sill this holiday season. Here's another:

Forrest wants me to point out an anagram he's particularly proud of, one that uses every single "Merry Christmas" letter block (and is therefore, in his words, a "bingo"): "Cram it, Ms. Sherry." Not particularly Christmassy, but the phrase has a certain je ne sais quoi. There are many many others, as the Christmas blocks are rearranged at least a couple of times a day during the month of December, but this post is not about anagrams of Merry Christmas, but of an actual Merry Christmas. The one at our house!

(Ethan just said to me: "Hey Mom, when are you going to write the blog post about Christmas that makes you sound a little more enthusiastic about everything than you actually are?" Ah, my son.)

So here we go! Enthusiastically!

The family, gathered around ye old dinner table, ready to partake of our traditional Christmas Eve meal, one taken from my childhood and slightly altered: breaded shrimp (popcorn for the little kids, big guys for the big ones), macaroni and cheese, and -- the Hallstrom family addition -- scones with butter and honey. Mmmmm. We had pineapple too, and a couple bottles of Martinelli's. Mui delicioso!

Then we had our Christmas eve program:

Elise, strumming away

Jonas whistling (he left his trumpet at school -- ahem) and Wyatt clicking. They're talented kids, I tell you. I'm thinking of enrolling Wyatt in a Suzuki-method school for prodigy clickers.

Wyatt singing a Christmas song from his preschool program

Ethan reading the Christmas story from Luke.

The kids in front of the "family presents," the ones they get to open on Christmas Eve.

 Speaking of opening "family presents" on Christmas Eve: I remember being so excited/anxious about opening those presents that I could barely contain myself during the obligatory Christmas Eve Program portion of the evening. Oh, the exquisite torture of waiting!

And now, two pictures of Ethan opening up the aforementioned family presents, mostly because they're kind of hilarious:

Thanks for the scarf, Mindy!

And Grandma! Subway AND iTunes? What 15 year old boy could ask for anything more?

Then we shooed the kids off to bed and finished wrapping presents and arranging them under the tree. I love (love love love) looking at a tree with presents piled underneath, everything dark except for the glow of Christmas lights. Oh, it's my favorite!

We got to bed at a reasonable hour, but then at 4:45 we heard trampling in the hall -- the kids going to check out the tree, of course. Didn't you guys do that when you were young too? (I think I even did it when I was 17.) But I could still hear them talking and shuffling around in their room at 5:15 and had to go in and lay down the law (and make Wyatt get in his own bed) so everybody could get at least a little sleep. Then, at 6:45, our bedroom door opened and Wyatt said, "Hey Mom? I don't mean to bother you, but . . . I don't know if it's seven o'clock?"

We gave the kid a break and got up fifteen minutes early.

The obligatory "Top of the Stairs" photo. Everyone always looks a little pale and stunned in this picture. It's a tradition.

Wyatt, holding up a new Wii game

Ethan, enjoying the dulcet tones as Elise tries out her new guitar.

Imaginext! Created by people who know how to get 4 year olds to persuade their parents that they reaaally need one more plastic castle-type play thingie. A new one every year!

Jonas's remote control helicopter. A big hit with all the men in the house.

Forrest, demonstrating a proper bow hunting stance, as well as proper bow hunting crazy eyes.

And more weaponry. This gun was a $14.99 impulse buy the day before Christmas, and I think it's been Wyatt's favorite gift.

Elise, modeling a new Christmas sweater.

Although part of me was dreading getting ready for church at 10 a.m., it turned out to be really nice. Since we didn't have any family to visit (or visit us), it gave us a reason to get dressed and head out and mingle with humanity. And there was some beautiful Christmas music on the program too.

We were running five minutes late, as usual, but I still made everybody pose for a picture before we left. Here's Forrest's attempt:

Then I came downstairs and made them do it right:

Wyatt hated his sweater. Hated the argyle, hated the itchiness, hated how high his pants were. He humored me, though, and wore it to church at least once. Look how nicely they all match! Ethan told me I should just use this picture for next year's Christmas card. Ha. How little the boy knows me.

We came home from church, changed into our comfy (non-matchy) clothes, and hung out, ate, played games, etc. etc., long into the evening. A little after 9:00 p.m. we found Wyatt on the couch:

A satisfying end to a satisfying day.

We had a lovely Christmas, but missed seeing all of you. Maybe next year somebody will come see us! (You know you want to travel to Minnesota in the dead of winter! C'mon!)

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas as well. Here's to one more week of sleeping in! Happy Holidays!

Oh, The Concerts!

Christmastime is a time of concerts. Always has been, always should be. I think my very best high school memories were of skidding along I-15 in a rattletrap car stuffed to the brim with Madrigals, racing through a snow storm to make it to our next Christmas concert on time. It's amazing we survived (truly), but man, I loved singing Christmas carols. And now I get to enjoy listening to my kids sing Christmas carols, which is wonderful in its own way too.

Here are a few highlights from the past few weeks:

The best closeup I could get at Wyatt's Preschool program

Wyatt and the gang at Salem Lutheran Church

Here's a video clip of Wyatt singing away. (All video clips are mostly for Grandmas :-).

Wyatt ends this particular performance with some excellent preschool-grade nose-picking, doesn't he? Ah, to be at the age when nose picking is still cute.

Here are some of Jonas's performances. First, band. He just started the trumpet this year and is doing a great job. (I'm glad somebody in the house decided to pick it up after Ethan unceremoniously dropped the instrument last year.)

No video of the band concert (so sorry Grandmas!). But we do have video Jonas's choir concert. I thought this song was a lot of fun:

And it's always nice to hear kids singing in a foreign language:

And here's s a nice photo as well, to compensate for the kinda icky grainy video taken with my cell phone:

My two favorite things about this picture: Jonas's smile, and the hair on the kid two to his right.

I've been so happy with the opportunities Jonas has had with music at his school. His school has TWO music teachers (band and chorus), and I've been so impressed with the great job both have done. The kids are really learning a lot, and Jonas is starting to like singing more and more. It helps that his good friend Jack (he's the kid in the bottom right in the orange) is an excellent singer. The two of them sang a version of Linkin Park's "In the End" for their school's talent show. (Jonas sang the "It starts with . . ." part, while Jack did the rapping, then they came together for the chorus. Wish I could have seen it.)

Here are some pics and videos from Elise's last few weeks:

First she participated in the District Honor Choir for her school district and spent the day with other good singers from middle schools in the area:

Elise is on the far right . . . somewhere.

Elise and her friend Preeta.

 She's also had fun performing with her middle school's extra curricular choir, Vocal Jazz. It's quite a sacrifice for our Lou to go to her Vocal Jazz rehearsals, since they take place at 7:00 a.m. one or two times a week, and our Lou is not a 7:00 a.m. girl. But she's happy to go because she loves to sing:

Elise is on the right, in the back (as always -- the right where the altos stand, the back is where the tall girls stand)

After her concert at the middle school

 She's also been able to perform at the Mall of America, at an old folks home (there's nothing like performing at old folks homes when you're a choral singer -- they're always willing to host a bunch of warbly teenagers), and at our local library. Our local library also has a cool indoor park area with an amphitheater, so it's more like a community center than simple library. She always comments on how much she likes its smell. Something about the indoor waterfall and trees? Hmmm. Anyway, here's Elise singing, along with the combined choirs of East Ridge and Woodbury high schools:

Wyatt has spent some time listening to all of these concerts. Here's his take on the experience:

Finally . . . what about Ethan? I know you were wondering how I would work him into this post. It's true that we no longer attend any Ethan concerts since he's not in a choir or a band anymore, and we're in between the musical and the play at school, but he's been keeping busy. He finished out his first trimester with a flourish, earning a 4.05 GPA (the .05 is possible because AP classes get extra weight). And he's been spending every Mon, Tues, and Thurs from 6-9 at drivers ed. He finished this Thursday and got his "blue card," which earns him the right to take his permit exam, which, if he passes, will earn him the right to drive with a parent in the car. AHH! Seriously? Seriously. I made him back the car out this morning so I could take his picture. He was happy about the backing out part, not so happy about the picture taking part:

Oh, and one quick thing from me. I'm the new Literature and Fiction Editor at BYU Studies, which is pretty cool. It's another volunteer gig, but I look forward to getting to know the people on staff and to the opportunity to promote good Mormon lit in another venue. Should be fun.

And that's it from here. Christmas is coming! Hooray hooray hooray! And it's been so much fun to get everybody's Christmas cards in the mail -- thank you. If you haven't sent yours, I'll be haunting my mailbox until it arrives.

Real and Imaginary Friends and the People of Wal-Mart

First, the imaginary friends. Wyatt has three of them: Ron, Rich, and Teebow. ("Teebow is easy to spell," Wyatt told me. "'T' and then 'bow' . . . wait . . . 'B' . . . wait . . ."). Wyatt is my first child to have an imaginary friend (and my only child, hopefully, seeing as how the other children are at ages when imaginary friends would be, um, troubling) and it's been kind of cute to see how he talks about them. A few days ago he was heading down in the basement and I asked him, "Hey, bud, where you going?" "Oh, just going to hang out with my imaginary friends," he said. He's fully aware that they're imaginary, but he also has a lot of information to share about them. They're on a basketball team. Teebow wears a yellow shirt and jeans and used to be "very silly" but apparently isn't anymore. Rich "looks like this" [Wyatt narrows his eyes in a suspicious manner]. "Is Rich mean, then?" I asked. "No," Wyatt said. "Just confident."

Love that kid.

Oh, and speaking of loving that cute kid, as well as his cute brother almost six years his senior, here's a video we shot of the song they sang for our ward's Primary sacrament meeting program, mainly so my mom could hear it. And to save their cuteness for posterity:

And now, on to the "real friends" in the blog post title. We spent Thanksgiving with some great MN friends. I was so happy to get an invite, since Thanksgiving makes me feel funky (sad inside funky, not "get down and boogie" funky) if it's just me and Forrest making lots of food that mostly the two of us eat, with a little help from Ethan -- the other three are pretty much useless as far as eating anything yummy is concerned. We spent the day with the Amezcuas and the Harrises and had a great time. I have two photos taken on my cell phone camera that will have to do:

Not Really Kids Anymore + Wyatt Table

Cute girls + Forrest in the Kitchen

 We had a really wonderful day, even though still I pined inside for my Utah family.

That night I decided I would head out for the New! Improved! Black Friday craziness. (I say both "new" and "improved" ironically, of course, if you couldn't tell by the capitalizations and exclamation points). I've always enjoyed Black Friday in a strange kind of group-consumerism-as-entertainment + getting-a-good-deal-high sort of way, but this year Wal-Mart and Target and lots of other retailers decided in all their wisdom to open their doors at midnight. Actually, Wal-Mart never even closed their doors, and their sales started at 10:00 p.m. So I thought "what the hey," and headed over to our local Wal-Mart at 10:30. It was so packed that the entire parking lot, plus the lot of the adjacent mini mall, was completely full, and I had to park at a Gander Mountain behind the Wal-Mart and hike up a small hill to even get inside the store, already thinking "Hmmm. Wonder if this is going to be worth it?"

Did I mention that I really really don't like Wal-Mart?

Did I mention that I like Wal-Mart much, much less when thousands of people decide, "I had no intention of doing Black Friday shopping, but I'm already awake and I need to get a cart full of $5 DVDs. Let's go to Wal-Mart and shove people around!" It was pure insanity inside the store, so crowded that I started to get a little worried people might get trampled if somebody yelled Discounted iPods in the back! I started making my way toward the electronics section, but it seriously looked like a mosh pit, so I decided to cut my losses and leave. I was going to go check out Target, too, but their doors didn't open until midnight and I wasn't about to wait.

Funny thing was, I got up early on Saturday morning, headed to Target and Best Buy, got all the stuff I wanted to get anyway and had virtually no crowds to contend with. I really didn't have any big ticket items this year, though. But part of me is a little sad; I liked Black Friday when it was reserved for the hard core shoppers who were willing to get themselves out of bed at 5 a.m. I have no interest in sharing my shopping with the yahoos who've just finished their pie and thought they'd mosey over to the mini mall.

So now that Thanksgiving is over, we're ramping up for Christmas concerts and recitals and all that good stuff. Two choir concerts, a band concert, a Preschool program, etc. Pictures and recaps to come.  Let the Christmas season commence! Hooray!