A Merry Christmas

We spent the night on the floor next to the Christmas tree last night. While it was a great idea in theory, Ryan and I didn’t end up sleeping very well. :-)  He was on the couch, and Ryley and I shared the air mattress. But it was fun.

It will be just the three of us for Christmas this year. But it’s actually going to be quite nice after a busy holiday season thus far…

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Ryley’s school Christmas concert was pretty cute; her 3rd grade class sang Jingle Bell Rock and Sleigh Ride.

 

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Ryley’s best friend has been spending a lot of time with us recently because of her mom’s work schedule. One Saturday, we went to our local nursery to see Santa and the reindeer…

Ryley was rather unimpressed by the reindeer. She said they weren’t the real ones.

“If they were really Santa’s reindeer, they would just fly right out of that pen,” she stated, so matter-of-factly.

We waited 30 minutes to see Santa, but the girls were hungry and decided they’d rather go eat lunch than meet Santa, so we left.

Ryley didn’t think he was the real Santa anyway. She was unimpressed that he was asking the kids their names .

“If he were the real Santa, he would KNOW your name. He wouldn’t have to ask.”

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The next weekend I held my annual piano recital for my students. Our house has certainly become “the little house that could.” We have asked a lot of it in the last few months! We had 27 people squeezed into our tiny living room for the recital.

As we were waiting for students, parents, and guests to arrive, there was a knock on the door. I answered it and invited the two well-dressed ladies inside, thinking they were there for the recital. They seemed bewildered by my welcome, and as they crossed the threshold, one of them said, “Thank you for inviting us in, but I don’t think you were expecting us. We’re here to see Ryan.” And that’s when it dawned on me. They were Jehovah’s Witnesses – the very ones we’ve been hiding from for years! Ryan was friendly to them once and promised to read their literature (all with the intent of sharing Jesus eventually), but ever since, they’ve always come when Ryley and I are home alone or none of us are dressed, etc., and we’ve been dodging their attempts to contact us. So, Ryan came downstairs and talked to them, and they were so gracious and agreed to come back at a better time. Ha ha!!!! It was quite funny in retrospect. :-)

This is me giving my students a pep talk before the performance:

“If you mess up, just keep going,” I’m saying.

 

Each student played two songs.

As you can tell from my face, I was just as nervous as the kids!!!

Then Ryley and I played a duet later in the recital. We had literally decided to do it just a week before, and we didn’t tell anyone, in case it didn’t work out. But we practiced hard, and it went well! I personally hate performing, so I was nervous and shaky and sooooo glad when it was over!!! :-)

Don’t the kids all look so beautiful??? I love this picture!!

They all played so wonderfully, and I am really, really proud of all of them.

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That evening, in keeping with our “clean the house once; have two parties in one day” tradition, we recovered our house from the recital and had 32 people at our Class of 1996 Christmas Party/15-Year-Reunion. It was a great get-together; lots of laughter ensued.

This is my bestie Danielle; she was maid of honor in our wedding.

All of our kids (the ones who came anyway) got along so well….just like we all did, back in the day. :-)

The boys make small-talk.

And of course, new baby Macy made her debut among our group of friends….

I don’t think we’ve changed all that much. The biggest difference is that we wear less flannel and don’t sit in corners playing the guitar and singing anymore. Ah, the good ol’ nineties.

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We had a lot of snow this week, and Ryley and Ryan had fun playing in it! I think there were 10 inches at our house, with drifts up to 18 inches in the backyard. We let Ryley open her present of new snow pants early. She wears a size 10 now and has been squeezing into her size 6x snow pants for the last three years!

Then yesterday we went sledding. I think it was the first time in five years. Last year we didn’t really get enough snow to sled. Some years the conditions are hit or miss. But the snow was perfect this time, and she had a blast!

She’s getting a new coat for Christmas. This one has seen better days. :-)

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I have so many more thoughts that I’ve formulated over the last few weeks, and I’m sure I will blog again soon. But here are a few Ryley Stories to leave you with…

1. A couple of weeks ago, Ryan and Ryley went to the Zoo Lights for Girl Scout Night. There was a large light display of a “whale,” and Ryan was curious if Ryley knew that it was specifically a blue whale. Science and animals are not my strong point, so I think this whole story is funny as it backfired on Ryan.

Ryan: “Ryley, do you know what that is?”

Ryley: “Yes, balaena.”

Ryan: “What?”

Ryley: “That’s whale in Latin.”

Ryan was taken aback. It certainly wasn’t the answer he was expecting! Ha ha! Ryley’s school has been teaching Latin this year, and it’s actually been interesting to see how quickly all the kids have picked it up. I wish she could take Spanish or something!

 

2. The other day, as we passed Toys R Us, Ryley asked why the R was backwards in the store name.

“Well, I think it’s because they think it’s silly…like how a kid might write it,” I answered.

Later, she brought it up again.

“I just don’t understand why they write the R backwards. Do they really think that kids don’t know how to write an R?”

I could tell that she had been thinking about it, and she was so offended!

“Maybe they meant younger kids,” I responded.

“Maybe. But I still don’t think it’s nice.”

 

3. Ryley auditioned for the school play (a funny Cinderella spoof) a few weeks ago. She worked really hard on her monologue, and Ryan and I thought she was well-prepared, but we didn’t want her to get her hopes up either. I told her that if she didn’t get a part, it was okay because God must have something else in store. It was hard for her to fathom anything better than being in the play:

“If I’m not in the play, then God must have some really big plans for me!”

The day she was going to find out if she got a part, I was just as nervous as she was. It’s that fine line where you want your child to succeed, but you also want what’s best for her growth and development as a person.

So as I drove up to her class in the pick-up line after school, Ryley had the biggest smile on her face. It was not a smile of “I got a part.” It was not a smile of “I got the role of fairy godmother.” It was the widest, toothiest grin I’ve ever seen; even before she spoke, I knew it. “Mom, you’ll never believe it: I got the role of Cinderella!”  :-)

We have a lot of lines to memorize over break, but it will be fun. We are thankful that she gets the opportunity and experience.

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In some ways it feels like Christmas Eve, and in other ways it doesn’t. These last few months, God has been doing a lot in my heart, and Jesus is becoming so much more real to me. He’s changing my mindset about a lot of things, and it’s really, really good. Those are thoughts for another time though.

May you have the merriest of Christmases, remembering that it’s Jesus’ birthday and not our own. :-) That, to me, is the biggest lesson of all.

Grace, peace, and joy to you.