It's Spring and the Rush is On (Hockey, Lacrosse, Soccer, School Projects, Concerts, Easter & Passover)

It used to be that the month of December -- when the Picket Fence Post family celebrates both Christmas and Hanukkah -- seemed like my most tension-filled time of the year. My "To Do" lists were gigantic and the pressure to get everything right -- gifts, holiday cards, "big" meals, decorations -- could be intense. But as my kids have gotten older, I've come to believe that the spring has actually supplanted Christmas/Hanukkah time as one of the more intense time of the year? Why? Let me count the ways:

Hockey is still on-going in its pop-up-out-of-nowhere practices and games, wreaking havoc on my family calendar.

Lacrosse has begun (this is our first foray into youth lacrosse) and the sport has an extremely intense practice schedule (three practices a week and one game on the weekends . . . and The Spouse volunteered to assistant coach, after he head-coached two basketball team and assisted on another this winter). One of my children, who shall not be named, plays on both hockey and lacrosse teams, whose practices and games overlap until hockey concludes next month, ending the August to April season. (Yes, August to April. For grade schoolers.)

My e-mail box is getting deluged with missives from coaches/league organizers for the Picket Fence Post kids' travel soccer teams, establishing practice times and locations, then changing said times and locations at the last minute. (I now only pencil in these dates.) I currently am unclear as to where and when the games and practices will be for those teams and how they'll fit fit into the hockey/lacrosse picture.

The Girl has also become an official soccer referee (she had to take a long class to become certified) and is supposed to be officiating youth soccer games for the first time this spring. I've got no clue as to how this is going to work. I'm also hoping no lunatic sports parents give her a hard time.

School bands are suddenly switching into high gear with band competitions and performances cropping up all over the place like weeds. I just found out from a fellow band mom that after last week's jazz band performance, a week after a jazz band's talent show performance, a week after an out-of-state band competition, that there's another concert this week AND a competition on Saturday (but I knew about Saturday's, and it's local, yippee). That unanticipated concert happens to be at the same time as a hockey practice AND a book club meeting for a group I really want to join. (I missed the last meeting because of kid-related stuff.) The Spouse has a work engagement that night as well. Don't yet know what that night's going to look like.

Spring class projects. When the flowering trees start to blossom, we know that the smell of drying glue and a forest of tri-fold boards are bound to be taking over our dining room, because if it's spring, it's time for at-home school projects. This usually leads to 11th-hour pleadings from The Ungratefuls for me to rush out and get supplies that they "didn't know" they needed, despite the detailed supplies list their teachers gave them weeks ago.

Then there are the twin religious holidays which require that I temporarily re-locate those school projects from the dining room (usually they're shoved into my horrifically disorganized closet like everything else) in order to prepare for Passover and Easter. We typically host Passover dinner for The Spouse's family and then share Easter Sunday with my family. But before that occurs, I've got to buy lots of matzo (The Spouse and The Girl are the only ones to eat matzo for the Passover week, unlike the rest of us bread-eaters who only indulge in matzo during our formal Passover dinner) and other Passover accoutrements. Plus, I've got to buy tons of eggs (need 'em for both holidays) and an egg dying kit and Easter candy, actually remember to dye the Easter eggs with the kids and make whatever it is I'm going to bring to Easter dinner, provided we're not hosting.

*deep, cleansing breath*

It's all good, I keep telling myself. It'll be fine. We'll figure out a way to handle all of this and, in the meantime, I'll just have to color my hair more frequently to keep stress-induced gray hair at bay.

Get Me . . . I'm Gonna Be All Positive & Valentine-y

My normal, modus operandi is to mock Valentine's Day as a commercial venture ginned up by card companies, chocolatiers, florists, restaurateurs, lingerie manufacturers, jewelers and other assorted retailers in order to yield one big infusion of cash to tide them over until the next big, gift-giving national holiday.

"Why do we need a special holiday to celebrate love?" I'd ask. "Isn't that what your anniversary is for? And the birthdays of the ones you love?"

The Spouse also subscribes to this way of thinking, resentful at being told that he must demonstrate his love and affection by presenting me with something tangible every February 14, something that wasn't picked up at the convenience store on the way home from work.

But, as I seem to be doing a lot lately (see my previous blog entry), I've been rethinking this attitude. What if, instead of resenting the hearts and flowers and chocolates being shoved in my face by the onslaught of Valentine's ads, I embrace the sentiment instead? Hence, I've decided that. like with my refusal to allow stress and pressure to wreck Christmas, I'm not going to permit my rampant cynicism to put the kibosh on February 14. No, I'm not going to go all crazy and spend days baking all things heart-shaped and chocolate. I'm not planning on slaving away to make a grand, gourmet meal. I'm not making candies for all the children the Picket Fence Post kids hang out with (nor am I buying candies for dozens of children either.)

Instead, I'm going to aim for simple. Simple can be good, enjoyable even. I've purchased The Spouse one gift as well as some sweet tokens for the Picket Fence Post kiddos. Whatever we wind up having for dinner on February 14 -- whether it's frozen pizza, pasta or something easy to prepare -- the whole family can eat in the dining room at a candlelit table (we always have candles in the house) with some Sinatra playing in the background. All I'll do is pick up some kind of chocolaty dessert someplace on that day. That will be perfect.

In my new found spirit of mirth, I even picked up a box of Hello Kitty Valentines and will give them out, just because. (Now that the kids no longer have Valentine's Day parties at school where they distribute Valentines to all their classmates, I kind of miss the little Valentines with cartoon characters on them.) Filling them out makes me feel Lorelai Gilmore-esque. With all this cheerful, pro-Valentine's Day spirit, the Picket Fence Post kids and The Spouse will demand to know whether I've been sipping one too many gin and tonics.

Decorating the Tree: 'This is Your Life' in a Couple of Red & Green Bins

Keeping in line with the Picket Fence Post family’s fa-la-la-la-la 2011 Christmas  -- wherein I try to maintain a happy, cheerful Yuletide facade -- we’ve finally decorated the family Christmas tree after it sat in its tree stand, stark naked in the family room for several days.

I always marvel, every single year, at the memories I inevitably unwrap when I remove the ornaments from their plastic bins. (This year I had to keep vigil over the ornaments because Max the dog kept slyly grabbing them and scampering away in a joyous game of chase . . . joyous on his part. It was an unfortunate time for Max to suddenly become mischievous and charge around the room.)

It was hard not to smile when we looked at all the “Baby’s First Christmas” ornaments, the here’s-my-handprint-when-I’m-7-years-old ornaments which always evokes melancholy about how fast time is passing. There are the ornaments from vacation destinations, like the Grinch and Max one we got at Universal Studios this summer, the pewter sand dollar from Cape Cod, the trolley car from San Francisco and the Chateau Frontenac ornament from our Quebec odyssey last year. There are the ones my grandmothers made me or gave me when I was a teen, in preparation for the day when I’d eventually have my own tree. I fondly look upon the Lenox one my mother gave The Spouse and I for our first Christmas in our first house. We annually re-tell the anecdote about the cloth snowman ornament onto which a 2-year-old Eldest Boy wiped his chocolate-covered face one Christmas at my parents' house.

It’s like This-Is-Your-Life contained in a couple of red and green bins. And the tree really reflects much of what we love, from the kids' ornaments of ballet dancers (when The Girl used to take dance) and the soccer and hockey ornaments, to the Harry Potter and Star Wars themed ones they've coveted. In addition to the Red Sox and Patriots ornaments on our tree, I added a new one this year to honor my caffeine addiction: A tiny Starbucks coffee cup ornament at which The Girl rolled her eyes when I showed it to her.

“Are we putting all of these on the tree?” The Spouse asked incredulously as if he’s forgotten that we somehow always manage to fit them onto the tree quite nicely, with the exception of the glass balls we bought when we shared our first tree together (back in 1991!) in order to take up all the empty space that’s now consumed by 20 years worth of ornament collecting.

Surprisingly, there was no bickering about the lights – which The Spouse and The Eldest Boy calmly placed on the tree – and no fighting over who got to put which ornament onto the tree.

Only one ornament was broken and it was my fault. I accidentally knocked the Rudolph and Hermie the elf ornament (where Rudolph’s nose lights up if you press a button) onto the floor, decapitating Hermie and knocking off his left hand, onto which the string to hang it was attached. I was able to pop Hermie’s head back into place pretty easily, but his hand is unfixable. Now that ornament is sitting on the mantle, a testament to my clumsiness.

After the decorating, we shut off all the lights, grabbed candy canes and sacked out on the sofa for several minutes to admire our handiwork. Not bad, not bad at all.

Christmas Card Photos . . . DONE!

We had a not-too-stressful photo session with the Picket Fence Post trio and Max the dog yesterday. I dressed them all in red T-shirts that read "Thing" and then a number on it.

The dog got "Thing 1," because the kids were uber-sensitive as to which one of them would be perceived as the literal "number one" offspring and get to lord his or her supremacy over the other, lowly siblings. The Eldest Boy had "Thing 2," his brother got "Thing 3" and The Girl, obviously, got "Thing 4." (There was some minor drama before the session started because I couldn't find the "Thing 4" shirt. I had to search through everyone's dressers, closets and beneath beds, though everyone, including The Spouse, swore they did not have it. After about 45 minutes of harried hunting around I found it stuffed in the back of The Eldest Boy's pajama drawer.)

The kids were, ultimately, cooperative (as long as I didn't ask them to locate any missing item in the house) and the photos looked cute, not of the Awkward Family Photo variety.

But as for Max, he refused to look at the camera when he was seated with the kids. Every time I brought the camera up to my face, he turned his head to the side as though he was some camera-averse celebrity who couldn't deign to look my way because I was lowly paparazzi. Either that or he thinks he looks best in profile. The only time he did look at me when I had the camera in front of my face was after the group had broken up and the kids were all standing around me, as in the first photo above.

I've ordered the photo cards through an online service, so I'm waaaay ahead of last year when I didn't get my act together on the Christmas card front until late December and was sweating over whether the box of cards would be delivered to my house in time for me to address them all and mail 'em before Christmas.

As for my Christmas shopping . . . well, it hasn't even begun. But I've thought about the gifts at least.

*reminding myself that this is going to be a STRESS-FREE December, no matter what*

This Year I’ve Decided, No More Grinch (Seriously)

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I broke out the Christmas decorations. On my own. No one was bugging me to do it. It was my idea.

This is earlier than I’ve ever pulled out the festive Yuletide décor and placed it around my domicile. (Typically, per my anal retentive must-wait-until-December-1-to-deck-the-halls belief, I wait until the 12th month of the year.) I was singing Christmas carols. I was even smiling. I didn’t have to hassle any of the kids to try to help me out because I didn’t ask for their help. I didn’t want any. I did it myself and actually enjoyed the experience.

This year, I resolved, the Grinch is dead.

The Grinch, normally, is me . . . well, me ever since I had the audacity to try to combine three active children, a career, Christmas and Hanukkah together into one little month. My Grinchiness was compounded by the exponentially exploding school, youth sports and extracurricular activities schedules kept by the Picket Fence Post kids, the responsibility for trucking said kids around to practices falls mainly to work-from-home me. (I coordinate with The Spouse over the nightmare of an overloaded calendar on getting them to games, etc.) I also have the responsibility for sending out Christmas and Hanukkah greeting cards (including the requisite photo), doing the bulk of the holiday shopping, making Christmas cookies with the kids, making latkes on the first night of Hanukkah, buying advent candy for the ginormous Advent elf we have on a kitchen door (which sometimes scares me when I enter the kitchen in the middle of the night and forget he's there), buying the Hanukkah gelt (traditional chocolate coins) and wrapping the gifts.

In past years, Christmas time hasn’t gone all that smoothly. In the mid-1990s one of my grandfathers died on Christmas, his favorite holiday. A few years ago the Picket Fence Post family had to have our cat put to sleep the day after we put up our Christmas tree. (She was having full-body seizures as we decorated said tree with the children, and The Spouse and I tried to act all cheery.) Last year I came down with the swine flu on Christmas Eve, missed seeing The Girl play Mary in the Christmas Eve church service and spent eight hours alone in my house on Christmas Day feeling absolutely miserable while The Spouse and the Picket Fence Post kids went to my brother’s house. Bah freakin' humbug.

But it will be different this year.

I’m shaking off the stress, the melancholy, the feeling of tremendous burdens from Christmases past and starting anew. As I made this vow to myself on Saturday while decorating the mantel with a Santa Claus, an angel and various stuffed characters from the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer TV special, I learned that a beloved senior member of The Spouse’s family passed away. While the family mourns and remembers her – The Girl’s middle name is the same as the now-deceased relative’s daughter – we are making an effort to be light of heart and respect what she meant to us. (This was NOT some omen or sign indicating that the Christmas season is forever doomed in my house, I repeated vigorously to superstitious self.)

This year, despite the fact that we’re heartbroken upon losing a member of the family, I’ve told the Picket Fence Post kids that they’re going to see a different mom this holiday season, one that’s not all clenched and jaded, dark and twisty. As much as it goes against every fiber in my body to do so, I’m going to try to just go with the flow this year. If things don’t work out exactly as planned, that’s okay. If things get missed, well, I’m only human. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect, especially not all at the same time. Things don’t even have to be super-organized (that’s always my undoing, I try to be super-organized then get crushed by my "To Do" list and miss stuff anyway). I’m going to be of the moment this December. I’m going to listen to Christmas music and try to reclaim the spirit I once had. It’s worth a try isn’t it?

Who’s with me? Who’s up for de-stressing Christmas and throwing onerous "To Do" lists out the window, or better, yet, into a roaring fireplace while you sip a mug of hot cocoa?

“How do you spell ‘sword?’ Is it s-w-o-r-d?” The Youngest Boy asked me this afternoon while he was writing his Christmas wish list . . . We might need to swap that hot cocoa with something stronger if a “sword” is on the list.