Christmas Cards

Instead of one ribbon festooned photo card, this year you're likely to get a bunch from us online.

Here are two from Big Brother.  He can march to his own drummer sometimes and be blissfully oblivious to the pressures of time (particularly on mornings when we are hurrying to get to school it seems) but he is also probably our cuddliest of children (which is saying a lot - they are often draped in piles on us) and incredibly sweet and affectionate.  He is also the reason I once slammed a door so hard the glass panes broke.  In my defense, the glass was single paned from 1924 and our handyman said it was only a matter of time.

Big Brother is also a quick wit and is happy for an audience.  I cannot even explain the costume here, 3D glasses without the lenses, my bathrobe and the Sunday paper, but it cracked us all up which meant he kept it on long enough for me to get the shot.  He might still be wandering around the flat in it now and I took this weeks ago.

About those glasses. Biggest Brother got them on a school field trip (to see a movie based on a book they'd read in class.  You know I was glad about that given my usual dislike of kids' flicks.)  Anyway, maybe picking up on timeless nerdy glasses appeal, Biggest Brother started wearing them around without the lenses.  Just the GI-issue, Buddy Holly look only giant, black and lens-less.  If only you could have seen his Head Teacher's face one afternoon when he slipped them out of his backpack and popped them on as we walked away from school.  I'm telling you, it is not possible to be meek when mothering my smalls.  Fortunately, I've had 10 years OJT for this though.  The boys would wear underpants on their heads with their fireman costumes to replicate the stretchy hood firemen wear.  Their little faces peeked out the waistband and their helmets went on top. Think about it.  It really completed the look.

But it is so like Big Brother to make me the Christmas tree card.  In our old house I taped their cards and notes and scribbles on the inside of kitchen cabinet doors as a reminder of their sweetness. The London one thrills me, too.  He probably won't write "Mary Crismis" next year.  That the Big Ben is saying "dong" and that the double decker bus "crsismis" (sort of reads like "crisis-mis" -- probably some shoppers would agree this week!).  And that it is snowing but not enough to cover the city.  His new friends don't believe him about all the snow in our last town.  (I'm fairly sure he did not tell them that he walked miles through it in his bare feet, but can imagine children who've only ever seen a few wet inches think he's full of hooey for telling him about Mom-sized drifts!).  He is eager to see some snow this year here.  I hope one day we live where we play on a beach instead of a playground.

I love what they already know about London and Europe and history and geography.  I might be a bit jealous of their worldliness, too.  Big Brother crafted a spelling sentence last week about Queen Victoria. At 7 and likely even more than a decade later I wasn't conversant about Victorian times.  They all have enviable passport stamps and visits to US landmarks.  I hope they'll keep that up.  And stay in close touch with their London friends who are from all over the world.  Oh, the places they will all go.  As our world gets smaller, I'm so convinced they will be tripping over each other in decades to come.  Maybe while my smalls are travelling together.  We can only hope.

He asked for plane tickets to Chicago for Christmas and his gang of boys from First Grade, too.  Do you know that in our old school the children could come home for lunch?  One of his friend's mothers (also mother of 4) would regularly host a giggly brood of boys mid-day for a lunch party.  Those remain among his favorite memories from our town.  The wistfulness of Christmas makes us unpack those memories.  I hope they're ones he'll always treasure just as I'll always treasure these cards from him.

So Merry Crismis from Big Brother and all of us, too.

Baby Sister says, "Happy Christmas" this year. Where does she pick it all up?  She puts nappies on her dolls and pushes a buggy up the lift!