Christmas Stories

This is one of our family's favourite Christmas anecdotes.

When Mars was small I bought a sturdy wooden nativity set. I wanted something solid so that he could play with it. When his sister got big enough they started to play with it together. Their favourite character was baby Jesus. 

The Christmas when she was three and he was six we got out the nativity set and put it all together on a small table in front of a window. Baby Jesus didn't stay there for long. Every day I'd find him in a different place somewhere else in the house. He'd be in the dolls' house,  or in with the lego, or stashed in the toy kitchen. That baby Jesus, he got around.

Supernerd's parents and sister were coming over to watch Carols by Candlelight on television on Christmas Eve, so I encouraged the children to help me tidy up by sorting out the nativity set. It was all beautifully arranged with the star stuck on the stable roof with blu-tack by the time our guests arrived.

At some point during the evening the sun was streaming in through that window so Supernerd's Dad reached over to put the blind down. He let the cord slip through his fingers a bit too fast so the blind rushed down and hit the stable at the back of our nativity scene. The stable hit the shepherds, the shepherds hit Mary and Joseph, and the baby Jesus was knocked to the floor. 

Venus, who'd seen the whole thing happen right in front of her, yelled out "Oh, Jesus!" and we laughed until we cried, because it was just so funny to see a tiny little girl inadvertently blaspheming at the top of her voice.

Nativity scene, with dinosaurs

This year, I have new Christmas story to add to our collection. This one comes from a boy in Mars' class at school. I was helping in the classroom this week and the kids were working on an activity they'd started the week before. They had a picture of Santa striding along holding a rope over his shoulder, and they had to colour it, paste it onto a larger piece of paper, draw something on the end of the rope, and then write a story to go with their drawing.

This boy, let's call him Andrew, wasn't sure what to draw. I gave him some suggestions and when I later checked on his progress he had drawn a Minecraft dog. Now, I know a little bit about Minecraft, having watched Supernerd and the kids play it together a few times.

I asked Andrew what his story would be about, but he said he didn't know. I asked him whether the dog had a name. He told me its name was Bob. I asked whether Bob, being a minecraft dog, would do 8-bit poo all over the place. Andrew laughed and said no, but the girl sitting next to him got the giggles big time. I'm not sure whether it was funny because she thought I was being clever, or whether she was just laughing because I said "poo".

When I next checked on Andrew his story was done. It went roughly like this:

Santa has a pet dog. His name is Bob. Bob is a good dog. He kills zombies and creepers and skeletons. So Santa got another dog and those two dogs bred. Now Santa has a herd of zombie-killing dogs. The End.

I don't know about you but I'm so relieved to know that, in the world of Minecraft at least, Christmas is now safe from zombies, creepers, and skeletons thanks to Bob, the 8-bit dog.

The First Christmas

This is going to be our first Christmas without Dad, and it's not going to be easy. In fact I'm dreading it, but I'm trying to stay focused on making it a special time for our children and my nephews.

I normally love Christmas. It has deep spiritual meaning for me, and while I realise that's not how everyone feels, I also love that Christmas sometimes brings out the best in people who otherwise can't be bothered. People send cards, and make phone calls, and bake for one another. They feel closer together and that's a good thing.

But like anyone, there are things about Christmas that drive me crazy.

I object to what I call "Christmas tat". Cheap and nasty decorations and gifts that are badly made, unwanted and unwelcome. The shops are full of Christmas tat at the moment and to me it's just a symbol of how commercial Christmas has become. I hate the fact that people refer to it as Xmas, and just remove Christ completely. 

I also find that I can't stand some of our modern Christmas carols. I adore music, I do, but some carols drive me crazy, and I was astonished to find myself in a shop being subjected to terrible versions of lovely Christmas songs in the month of October. It's October, people. It's too early for Christmas music in shops.

But those things aren't the point. The point is, I'm rather like Douglas Adams' electric monk just at the moment. I am simultaneously holding two contradictory beliefs. The first is that Christmas will be fine. We are all organised. The meals with our respective families are sorted. The presents are all bought and mostly wrapped. It will be fine.

The second is that if I just close my eyes and block my ears and pretend it's not happening, that Christmas will just go away and I won't have to face it.

At some point, I know, I'm going to have to face the fact that neither of these things are actually the truth. It won't be fine, and it won't go away.

But, as Ms Awesome pointed out to me the other day, we only have to get through this first Christmas once. It's just one day. Even if it hurts like hell, it's just one day.

The Star Wars Party

I promised my son a Star Wars party and I promised you a cardboard box creation. 

This time the boxes all came from Auntie Leanne, who moved house recently and brought home boxes from her workplace. This worked out really well for me, as I then had three boxes the same size and I used another single box which was kind of short and stocky.

The great thing about three boxes the same size is that you can stack them to make something tall. See if you can guess what they turned into.

To give credit where credit is due, I need to tell you that my inspiration came from these pictures.

These are templates for small paper toys. You cut them out, fold along the folds apply glue to the tabs and then you have little droids. They come from this great blog and there are lots to choose from. All I've done is adapt the pictures for my purpose.

I turned my boxes inside out, stacked the three matching boxes and stuck them together, shaped the top front flaps and painted them. Then I drew and painted the illustrations on the front and sides of the boxes. The whole thing was done in about seven hours.

The children were very impressed. Mars wanted to be Yoda and Venus was Ahsoka, a Jedi padawan who is a character from The Clone Wars series.

The droids were so popular that the children lined up to have photographs with them!

We also hosted the world's cutest Darth Vadar. That's Bumblebee, who is two and a bit now.

And this is Wicket, my new nephew. At twelve weeks old he is the most adorable Ewok ever seen.

 There's just no denying it. We are a Star Wars family, through and through.

Cardboard Boxes

People say that cats love cardboard boxes but let me tell you, cats hate cardboard boxes compared to how much I love them.

I collect them, I store things in them, I never want to throw them out just in case they might be useful for something.

My favourite thing to do with cardboard boxes is to build with them.

Earlier this year the X-Man had a pirate birthday party. So I got myself a couple of big boxes and spent about nine hours transforming them into something awesome.

Here they are, the Jellyguts and the Squidbones, pirate vessels ready to set sail. That's Venus poking her head out of the front of the Jellyguts.

One of the boxes was from Nana's new heater. The other was a fridge box salvaged from the skip out the back of a local whitegoods shop. I cut them open, turned them inside out and taped them back up, making a long point at one end. Then I cut portholes and flaps for extra fun, and drew all the details on with a couple of big black markers. The flags are made from long cardboard tubes and large sheets of black paper. If you look very closely you'll see one of those skulls is missing a tooth, the same tooth that Venus was missing at the time.

At the time I thought they were a bit small and that really only two or maybe three kids at a time would fit in each one. I forgot to factor in the size of your average three to five year old. When the pirate ships came out to play the Jellyguts was immediately occupied by three mermaids, and Squidbones, the bigger boat, managed to hold no less than five boys at any one time. In fact, the hatch that I had cut into the top of the ship which was 30cm square (the one Venus is standing in) had two small boys sticking out of it most of the time.

There were black balloons which quickly became cannon balls and there was an awful lot of swashbuckling going on. 

I think the best thing about building things out of cardboard boxes is that they are easily transformed, and when the kids first clapped eyes on them, they all started to shout "Pirate ships! Pirate ships!" None of them looked and saw cardboard boxes.

Then when Venus decided to have a witches and wizards birthday party, and by "decided to" I mean Ms Awesome and I suggested it to her and she said "Yes! Yes! Yes!", I got a bit ambitious. I'd seen some fairly impressive pictures on the internet and I became convinced I could build my little girl a witch's castle. Out of cardboard boxes. Of course. Doesn't everyone?

In the end I used three dishwasher boxes, two fridge boxes, one cot box (thanks, Auntie Marvellous) and one TV cabinet box (thanks, Auntie Leanne), and I produced a castle that exceeded my expectations.

Here are the raw cardboard boxes. I cut them all open and turned them inside out, so I could paint on the plain side and not have to worry about painting over text.

Here are some of the boxes in progress. You can see one of the turrets and one of the smaller buildings. I worked out that with the boxes I had I could manage two turrets with an arch, and two smaller individual buildings. I wanted to paint stones on all of them but just ran out of time, so the smaller buildings have their stones drawn on instead.

The finished turrets and archway. I knew they'd look good, but I never expected them to look as good as this. I added a string of artificial roses across the archway to soften it a bit. I cut plenty of peekholes in all the buildings. One of the turrets has a "secret tunnel" and the two smaller buildings have doors.

I rearranged my loungeroom so that the pieces of the castle formed a rough square inside the room. I can't tell you what the guests all said when they first saw it, but I know my kids were impressed when we installed it the day before the party. I can also tell you that those two little buildings were extremely popular. At the time Grandpa told me that all the kids were climbing in and out of those things constantly, playing peekaboo with each other and their parents and generally having a whale of a time. Again, that little house on the left had five kids crammed in it at one point, and they were all having a blast.

This project took about twenty four hours to complete over the space of five days. I learned a lot in that time. I learned that painting takes a lot longer than you think it will, and that you really really really need to think about the size of your work before you build it downstairs in the rumpus room. The large turret on the left was too tall to stand up in the room where I was secretly working away, so it had to be partially disassembled, moved, rebuilt, and then the painting had to be finished upstairs. In addition to that the small building on the left was just wider than our doorways, as it turned out. So getting the whole thing upstairs was quite an adventure.

Having all these experiences behind me, I'm beginning to think I can make just about anything out of cardboard boxes. Mars is having a Star Wars party in about three weeks. I wonder what I can build between now and then... I'll let you know.

Dad

My Dad is gone. Just like that. 

One big heart attack, and several smaller ones while the lovely firemen and ambulance officers tried to keep his heart going, and then thirty six hours later in hospital the machines were all turned off and he slipped away. He was only 62 years old.

That was about two weeks ago and I can only now start talking about it, or thinking about it, without crying. Although, if I'm honest, I'm still crying.

Today I had a breakthrough. We are spending a long weekend down on the coast. I took the car to a remote lookout and I sat there on my own, but not really on my own, looking out over the ocean on this overcast gloomy day. I had a long chat with my Dad and I screamed at the sky and I cried. I cried a lot. I tried to get it all out. All my anger and all my sorrow.

My heart feels like it broke into a thousand pieces and they'll never go back to the way they were.

We gave Dad the most beautiful funeral service. He was a high school teacher and then a university lecturer, and he was also a member (and president at one time or another) of several clubs. So there were hundreds of people at the church and about a hundred and fifty at the afternoon tea that followed.

It was amazing to see so many family members and friends, so many people I hadn't seen for years and so many people who loved my Dad.

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do without him.

While all this was going on, something else was happening too. 

In the space of five days Venus lost both of her front teeth. Guess who's rocking the world's cutest lisp?

I guess life really does just keep going on. 

Time

Okay, let's skip the part where I feel guilty about blogging so infrequently and get right down to business.

I heard two stories this week that reminded me about the funny ways in which children view time. A week is an eternity when you're waiting for your birthday to roll around, and nobody could be expected to wait another three months for Christmas to come, but several hours spent playing with your friends seems like five minutes and there are always tears when it's time to go home.

My parents, Nana and Grandpa, live next door to two small boys aged about five and three. Let's call them Thomas and Gus.

Nana was talking to their Dad over the side fence while Thomas played in the trampoline. It's an above ground model with netting around the sides to minimise the risk of falling off. Thomas was quite happy until Gus started to hassle him. He wanted to get into the trampoline too, but Thomas wasn't having it. The conversation went something like this.

"Dad, Gus won't leave me alone!"

"Thomas, let him in to play with you for a while."

"No."

"Oh go on, let him in."

"No!"

"Thomas..."

"I'm not ever going to play with him again for the rest of my life!"

So it looks like Gus has a long lonely childhood ahead of him.

On the other hand, Nana made the X-Man a pirate quilt this year. Quite simply, he loves it. It lives on his bed and is not to be moved. He recently told his mother, Ms Awesome, that he is "going to keep it forever, even until I'm twenty-one".

Needless to say, Nana was a bit chuffed. 

All of this has just reminded me of something that Mars used to say when he was small. When he was waiting for one of us to finish something so he could have our attention, he would complain "this is taking for ages!"

It's a phrase we still use. I guess it's a way of hanging on to those memories of when he was small. Nobody can mangle language like a little kid.

Vegetarian

We chat over dinner every night. Sometimes we listen to music. Sometimes we don't. But we always chat.

Venus can be a bit minimalist about her food at times. Tonight while she was tucking into her naked pasta with cheese she asked us what a vegetarian is.

We explained that a vegetarian is someone who doesn't eat meat. We talked about vegetarians, carnivores and omnivores. We listed all the foods that vegetarians like to avoid. She listened carefully and nodded in all the right places.

And then she said "I don't eat soup. I must be a soupatarian."

So it seems we have a soupatarian in the family. I should have asked her what the word is for someone who will eat anything as long as it's smothered in sauce. Then I'd know how to refer to her big brother.

The cryptic world of the X-Man

Today I picked up Mars, Venus and X-Man from school. X-Man was very excited.

"Alison, Alison, guess where I'm going tonight!"

"Where are you going, X-Man?"

"After Mummy picks me up, I'm going to conganboscos."

"I see. Do you mean taekwando?"

"No." he replies insistently. "Conganboscos. I'm going to do karate."

He is actually going to do taekwando tonight, but somehow in his little world it's really called conganboscos. But then, this is the kid who insisted for the first two weeks of school that the best part of assembly is singing "the magical lantern song", and it turned out he was referring to the National Anthem.

Then as we walked out of the school grounds X-Man explained to me that we need to stop at the edge of the road to check for cars, and that he is so good at stopping to check for cars that he is a stopping mathematician.

I'm pretty sure he meant magician, but then, it's hard to say.

Important

Yesterday I had lunch at a local cafe with a dear friend of ours, Auntie Marvellous. That's not her real name of course, and strictly speaking she's not Mars and Venus' Auntie, but she really is marvellous.

Anyway this cafe, it's nice, but it's not super nice. Main courses range in price from $15ish to $30ish, and it's been recently renovated, so it looks swanky and new.

As we were chatting and waiting for our food I observed over Auntie Marvellous' shoulder a couple eating their lunch. They were well dressed but not overdressed, chatting and eating quietly. Unremarkable.

Unremarkable until they had finished their glasses of wine. One would think that one or the other of them would pick up the half full wine bottle sitting on their table and refill their glasses. But no.

The man picked up the wine bottle and waved it at a waiter who was heading to the kitchen, and then he put it back on the table. The waiter came over and refilled their glasses, and left the bottle on the table.

Auntie Marvellous saw the somewhat horrified expression on my face, but couldn't see what was going on behind her. 

I thought it was just me thinking that the man was being quite rude. Surely your average person would fill their own glass in a cafe. I apologised to Auntie Marvellous for being so distracted and filled her in on what was going on. 

She agreed that it was kind of rude, considering where we were. In a posh restaurant where there are no prices on the menu I'd expect to see that kind of behaviour, but not there. It seemed especially rude given that he'd actually picked up the bottle to get someone's attention. It would have been faster just to pour his own drink while he had the bottle in his hand. 

Minutes later when those glasses were drained again the staff were all avoiding eye contact with this guy (or so I'm sure it seemed to him), so with a grumpy expression he picked that bottle up for the last time and drained what was left into their glasses. They finished their lunch, paid and left.

I'm no good at remembering clever quotes and things like that, but one thing I do remember is this: it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice.

That man is probably lucky he didn't order a dessert, his waiter might have been tempted to spit in it.

Venus and the Tooth Fairy

During her second week of school Venus lost her first tooth. It had been wobbly for at least a week, and we knew it was just a matter of time before it was ready to come out.

As you would expect her teacher, obviously very experienced at dealing with a child who has just lost their first tooth without their parents in sight, did everything right. She gave Venus a tissue to bite on, as there was a small amount of blood on her gum. She took possession of the tooth and placed it in the centre of several tissues. She gathered the tissues up and bound them together with string to make the shape of a ghost with the tooth secured safely in the head. Then she drew a face on the ghost and gave it to Venus to give to us. I was most impressed.

Venus was already familiar with the idea of the Tooth Fairy, as she has seen Mars lose many teeth and receive money under his pillow in exchange for the tooth every time. That is to say, every time except once when Mars apparently swallowed the tooth (which, needless to say, was very traumatic), and the Tooth Fairy felt very sorry for him and left him money, even though he failed to produce the tooth.

So we carefully placed her toothy ghost under her pillow that night, and in the morning when she woke up the first thing she said was "Mum, can I look under my pillow?" I told her she could, and when she looked there was a shiny gold coin where her tooth had been.

She picked it up. 

"Look Mum! I've got some money!"

She was so excited. Then she took a closer look at it.

"Oh" she said in a slightly disappointed tone. "It's not made of chocolate."

The first thing that stupidly popped into my head was an image of Homer Simpson's brain explaining to Homer that "money can be exchanged for goods and services", but I didn't go there. I said nothing, because there's something precious about a time in your life when a chocolate coin is more exciting than a real one. Even if it is a whole two dollars.

What you missed

I'm sure I'm not the world's least reliable blogger, but allow me to reassure you of the rising levels of guilt I've been experiencing lately over the fact that my most recent blog post was published in November of last year. Oh, and don't look over to the left of screen and notice that I published half the number of posts last year as the year before. I just did, and I wish I hadn't. 

So, briefly, here's what you missed.

Venus and X-Man on their first day of Orientation for primary school. Where did the last five years go?

Mighty Mouse on his second birthday. We weren't there when he turned one, as he was still living interstate, but we're doing our best to make up for that now that they've moved back home. How much does he love that birthday present? Lots. That's how much.

Then there was Christmas. Mars, aged eight, and Venus, aged five.

During the school holidays we spent a great day down on the coast, catching up with a dear friend who lives very near this beach.

All these things were great, but there is one glaring omission in my short list. There was a wedding. An absolutely beautiful and joyous wedding. Ms Awesome and Captain Spreadsheet (X-Man and Bumblebee's parents, for those of you not following along) were married on a cold windy day in January, and our whole family was honoured to be involved.

There are lots of wonderful pictures to show and stories to tell, so the wedding will get its own post. Soon.

And by soon I don't mean next November. I mean soon.