Christmas 2020

Our Christmas festivities started on December 23 and continued non-stop through Christmas day. We had a wonderful Christmas this year, full of time spent with family, the enjoyment of delicious food, and many memorable moments. 

As afternoon turned into evening on Christmas day we decided to watch the new Pixar movie Soul with Kristin, Holly and Skylee. It is another fantastic Pixar film combining beautiful and elegant animation with masterful story telling and a poignant commentary on the human condition. It certainly got me to pause and reflect upon my own life. There is a four-minute sequence near the end of the film where the protagonist, in a moment of real profundity, realizes there is value in existence beyond achieving his wildest hopes and dreams. That it is the thousands of small and seemingly insignificant moments that add up to build a deeply meaningful life. 

Here are the moments I want to remember from Christmas this year:

It is tradition for Skylee to sleep over at our house on December 23, aka Christmas Adam. Alison and I planned to pick Skylee up after work, sometime between 4-5pm. At 4:01pm Kristin texted Alison to say Skylee was wondering where were were because it was 4:01. We had a good laugh at her impatience and quickly headed out the door. 

Alison continued her pie making adventures this year. She made 4 pies for Christmas eve dinner - chocolate cream, coconut cream, lemon meringue, and pumpkin. Skylee's favorite part of helping out was eating the leftover scraps of the pie dough. 

While Alison finished the pies Skylee and I watched The Polar Express. The Polar Express is one of my favorite Christmas movies because it has such a great messages about the importance of believing, the value of friendship, respect for leadership and courage, and the beauty of being kind to others.

Before we tucked Skylee into bed I read her the editorial - Yes, Virginia: There is a Santa Claus and then we read the Poky Little Puppies Christmas because Skylee is still a kid and that is what she wanted to read before bed. 

This year for Christmas eve I wanted to make macarons. I ambitiously planned to make 3 different Christmas flavors. I made the first batch and they looked like they were going too be great. I put them into the oven and they exploded outward into a jumbled mess on the sheet pan. I was disappointed and frustrated. I did some research which told me I likely stirred them too much on the final step. I tried another batch and these ones turned out better, but still were not great. I made one final batch. the third time was the charm. This batch worked. I felt elated. I made one excellent batch of peppermint macarons for Christmas. Side note - Holly loved the macarons. 

Alison was excited about creating a charcuterie board for her family. We went to Caputo's Market and Deli and picked out some of our favorite cheese, chocolate, and salami. Alison also bought some fruit, nuts, and crackers. This all came together to create a delicious appetizer for one and all to enjoy. 

Dinner was truly a feast. Blake and Debbie smoked a prime rib and baked beans (which made fantastic leftovers). There was also an assortment of potatoes, veggies, salads, rolls, etc. It was a rich and delicious spread. After the food we sat around the table and came up with an impromptu game of trying to guess the top ten movies in various categories (sports, rom com, etc.) put together by the American Film Institute. It was incredibly random, but also incredibly entertaining. 

Later in the evening we had our traditional Christmas Eve talent show. Skylee played one of her more difficult piano songs. Jake regaled us with a spirited rendition of the Mission Impossible theme (from memory). Alison showcased a version of Sleigh Ride she has been practicing for weeks. Aleene didn't bring her music, but still played a beautiful Christmas hymn. Then Jake broke out his electric guitar and Anna Holly really got into head banging to his heavy metal. 

Our Christmas Eve festivities end with Blake reading Twas the Night Before Christmas with Skylee listening intently. 

A little Christmas Eve humor

We reconvened at Kristin and Dan's house around 8am on Christmas morning. Skylee was ecstatic over the gifts Santa brought for her. Her big gift from Santa was a Barbie Dream House - all of her Christmas dreams came true. Holly was a little less sure about all of the presents. She seemed a little overwhelmed with all of the stuff and people. Eventually she seemed to settle on a few of the presents and played with those. 

Skylee showing Bret the Barbie Dream House

This year we ate breakfast before opening presents. It is tradition to eat Aebleskivers with breakfast. It one small piece of Alison's family heritage. We also ate breakfast casserole. While we ate Bret, who was joining us from Chicago via Zoom, opened his presents. 

After breakfast we opened the rest of our presents. This year I got a small pile of puzzles and we got many thoughtful gifts. I got Alison a Christmas dress, sheet music for songs from Hamilton, an immersion blender, and a winter beanie hat. Alison got me a hover board, a lego set of "the Child" from the Mandalorian, and some stance socks. 

We received a couple of particularly meaningful gifts. The first was the legacy gift. Each year (for about the past three years) Blake and Debbie give each of their kids a gift based on one of their ancestors. This years gift was a piece of a tea set owned by Alison's great-grandmother, Afton Nielson. Along with the tea set Blake wrote a two page summary of her life and some of his memories of Afton. Kristin, Alison, and Jake took turns reading this summary. It was a touching tribute and tears were shed as Afton's legacy was recounted. The second particularly meaningful gift we received came from Alison's grandmother, Aleene. Aleene wrote a personalized letter to each of her grandchildren sharing her thoughts for them in 2020. It was a simple and deeply personal gift given with love. 

We had an enjoyable, if somewhat lazy, afternoon sleeping and playing with our nieces. Holly was particularly taken with our gift of 24 colors of play-doh. Holly is very proficient at opening them up with her teeth.  

After we watched Soul together, we began to debate which Pixar movie was the best. Naturally we printed out a bracket and seeded all 23 Pixar movies based on their box office results. This lead to some spirited debate where we eventually crowned Monster's Inc. as the top Pixar movie. It narrowly beat out Coco, which is my favorite Pixar film. 

We ended the evening playing some of the new games people received for Christmas. We played Skylee's new Uno Showdown. It adds a little jolt of adrenaline to the traditional Uno. After a few rounds of Uno we tried out the Oregon Trail card game that Alison got for Christmas. It was a fun team game and we ended up winning two rounds, although the first round only Skylee survived to make it to Oregon. My favorite part of the game was when Skylee would write tombstones when a player would die. The best tombstone caption, "Dan died when she (she being Kristin) said a bad word". That kid cracks me up.

What a Christmas it was this year. It was a little different. We didn't see my family this year because we are trying to limit our exposure and potential spread of Covid-19. Bret made the safe, but difficult choice, to stay in Chicago. We missed spending time in person with all of our family, but we look forward to being together next year. We are grateful this year for the time we were able to spend with our family. It truly is the memories we make together that makes Christmas such a special time of year.