Christmas 2023

We switched gears very quickly this year: in order to have at least one daughter available for our annual trip to the Christmas tree farm, we got our tree on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

It was bit of a rough time this year. We arrived at Bob’s Trees and immediately saw a gorgeous tree directly in front of us. We should have been suspicious: it was just way too beautiful not to have been snapped up already. And then we realized that it was actually two trees growing very close together. It just wasn’t going to work.

Then we looked, and looked, and looked. There was another area with trees that was far enough away that parking was separate, and we probably should have given up and gotten into the car to drive to the new location — or maybe even to Ellms instead — but we didn’t. We picked a tree, then took advantage of some photo opps with G.

But when we got home with the tree, after shaking it out, well, it was clear that the tree was pretty tragically uneven.

I mean, ugh. Not the very cutest. There was some cosmetic surgery in terms of fastening a couple of spare boughs to the very worst gap on the left, and luckily we have approximately a gajillion ornaments (this is just a sampling):

So we were able to spiff it up enough that, even if it isn’t our Best Tree Ever, it’s pretty respectable, at least.

Also on that Thanksgiving weekend, I tasked J with picking up an adopt-a-child tag for Things of My Very Own at the Niskayuna Town Hall and doing a preliminary shopping trip. Between her trip to Target and a fabulous Black Friday deal on toys, we put together a pretty good package for an infant.

The following weekend, G went on a Rotary trip to New York City, so she got to see the city all dressed up for the holidays and meet a bunch of kids from all over, while Cute W and I enjoyed not doing much at all.

For the second weekend in December, we took advantage of an almost complete lack of plans to fit in some more fun for G, who’s going to moving to a new host family after Christmas. I scored us tickets to see The Nutcracker at The Egg. She was entirely unfamiliar with the show, so that was fun. You know, my girls went on Niskayuna Moms’ Group outings to see The Nutcracker at Proctors as preschoolers, so sure, they think it’s really nice, but G is surprised and delighted. Which is fabulous. She was particularly a huge fan of the littles serving as reindeer to pull Clara’s sled.

It was also a chance for her to get a look at the tree in downtown Albany as well as the ice ink. I’d timed it for when they were planning some ice sculptures by the rink, too, but then the temperature in the forties meant that the sculptures were sweating themselves into oblivion, which was a little sad.

The following day, G helped Cute W make homemade ravioli, a family recipe. I believe his roast, which is part of the meal and stuffed in the pasta, was the best version I’ve ever tasted. Thanks to G’s meticulous pasta-pinching, not a single one of the raviolis fell apart, which might be a new record for Cute W. And I think it was pretty enough for a food magazine.

And that almost catches us up to the present day. M’s arrived home for the holidays and J will be home soon. Over the weekend we had a few people over and I may or may not have had so much to drink that I fell down. So far, it’s been a lovely holiday season. All we need is some real snow for our Brazilian!