Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family.
Yesterday and today were quite eventful. The festivities start at Silvana's moms on Christmas eve and then usually spill over to my parents house on Christmas day. This year we spent Christmas day at my sisters. The good thing about our parents is we already had this set up from years gone by. We always had a restaurant so we did not do stuff on Christmas eve. Even though we closed early we were usually quite tired so we did our stuff on Christmas day. At Silvana's mom they always did Christmas eve. Traditional fish dinner including lobster tails at the end of the meal.
We also get away with separate Easters given the Greek Orthodox/ Catholic differences. Every few years they are the same so there is a bit of conflict. I know many families have this conflict of who's house to go to for such events but we have had it pretty easy. Not to mention that we are quite flexible in terms of time and dates. I can remember having events three weeks after they actually occurred in order to get everyone to attend.

What you can't see in the Christmas Chaos in the photo above is the socks that were thrown over their shoulders ala Christmas Story. One of the kids favorite Christmas movies and that scene in specific where the brothers throw the socks over their shoulders is now a tradition.

Games with the kids

All of us have played board games and in most board games there is inevitably a part where if you land on a specific spot you have to move back a few spaces or even worse start from the beginning. Just this week we were playing MouseTrap with the kids. We don' play it by the rules as we build the trap right at the beginning and then just roll the dice to move our mice along. At one point in the game I landed on a go back to the beginning spot and the kids felt sorry for me but I explained to them that it's a part of the game and I could still catch up if I got some high numbers on my next few rolls. I kind of hate these games and I know you developmental types will tell me it's a good learning experience for them to understand winning and losing and... but when you want to sit down and get some fun time in on a rainy day there is nothing worse than someone whining about the game not being fair or that someone cheated. Stomping off and then coming back to try to destroy the evil game and those that are playing it.
As they get closer to that spot I see them counting to see what they have to roll to avoid the spot. Brian is one spot away and knows he should not get a 1. He says out loud "Jesus, please help me not get a 1, please Jesus."
At this point I start laughing and knowing that he was not trying to be funny I knew he would also be angry that I was laughing. He doesn't like getting laughs unless he is trying to get them. I know we don't usually ask for help from Jesus out loud at home so I assume the influence came from school and given we are close to His birthday I know they must be talking about it alot. The anger didn't last long and now that he knows he can get a laugh out of it he's asking for Jesus' help more and more.
Losing is a difficult thing for kids to accept and although you may want to paint it as a learning experience it seems they already have their minds made up that its not as good as winning. It's not our influence but rather a genetic thing. A desire to be first to win to do better than someone else. Probably a good thing to have as they move ahead in life.

Almost Christmas

Those days leading up to Christmas are ones that are always filled with events. My previous post spoke about the Kids Christmas concert and this weekend was the weekend for get togethers as well. On Friday we went to Barb's and had a Cousins get together. We haven't had one in a while and it was good to see everyone at the same time. We will get to do it again next month at Nicole's baptism. It would be nice to get together more often but the we each have our own things to do these days. Gone are those days when we would all get together Sunday night and get subs. Speaking of other things we also got together with Anita and Jerry and Linda and Mark, they came over to our place and it was alot easier to entertain with the extra room the new house has to offer. The kids all behaved quite well which made it even easier. BTW, fingers foods is the way to go for these things as even though the kids were good it still takes some effort to keep an eye on them.

There is nothing like getting together with friends and family at this time of the year. Going through the years events and looking forward to what may be happening in the coming year.

The heart club members I spoke of in this post.

Do you remember a night when..

Those nights where you had something important or special the next day. A meeting, wedding, presentation, speech, exam. You know you have to go to sleep because the next day will be full but the excitement or anxiety just won't let you get to sleep. Your mind goes through the event over and over. You check your clock every few minutes and calculate how much sleep you will be getting or not getting before the next days event arrives. You make sure the alarm is set and working properly, you even set the backup alarm just in case. At some point you forget everything you need to know for the event, you even have a hard time remembering your own name. We've all experienced these nights but do you remember the first one, the one that started you down the path to obsession. You may have and idea but I've got some good examples over the last few years that may trigger your memory.
Last night was such a night at our place. A few things were happening. The days leading up to this might have been an indication now that I look back but lets just go with what transpired last night.

Both kids could not get to sleep.
Angela has a tooth that is about to fall out, probably her 5th or 6th. Each one is a bit different but most involve some sort of anxiety. In this case the concern is that it may fall out during the night. You can imagine the scenarios that may go through your head. If you were anything like me as a kid, that tooth would be hanging on at a molecular level before it fell out on it's own due to a strong breeze.
Brian although concerned about his sister had his own anxiety. Today is his first Christmas concert. He's playing one of the wise men and has to remember the words to the song as well as some actions. As he was drifting off to sleep he hit that point I mention above and could not remember anything he had to do the next day. Calming him down took some effort. A few jokes about when I was a kid and some comforting words and sleep came quite quickly.

I'm not sure if this would have been my first anxious experience as well but I do see some things that happen at this early stage that probably shape each of us. For example I think the concert is Brian's concern but even bigger is keeping the song and his role a secret. Once he got that off his chest he seemed releaved and could move on. I too have a hard time with secrets and need to tell someone something. Usually that someone is who the surprise is for and that something is the actual surprise. In Angela's case although the tooth is the concern the things that might happen are what worry her more. The what if scenarios that race through our heads.

So am I worried about this? Not really, I think it's stuff that we all have to go through.
Is there something I should do to make it better for them? Probably, but what is that? I can't take away the feelings and I don't think I should. Trying to get them to understand and how to deal with it is probably a good place to start but they are small and my our grown up logic is not something that really works for the small ones.
Therefore I guess we just have to be there and encourage.


Update:
They did very well and afterwards wanted some sort of release. Brian asked for a donut and Angela wanted something sweet as well. When we got home they ate like they had never eaten before.

How far back do we go?

There is a National Georgraphic project out there called the Genographic Project that traces back our DNA to see where we came from. As you can see from the site it says we all started in Africa. My question about how far back do we go relates to meeting people and their expression of their background.

Now I'm the first one to tell you that I am of Greek descent and not that I have proof but I would say that Alexander the Great was in my family tree (don't get me started on the Greek / Macedonian thing) but I think we pick a group of people we want to be associated with and make sure we can justify it. In some cases it's easy. Parents were from a Cornico so you have ancestors from there that go back a few generations and presto you are Cornicopian. For the last century the Cornicopians have been a bad bunch doing evil deads around the world or maybe they have been given a bad name by some questionable press so you want to disassociate yourself from them. You go back a few years before the Cornico Empire and call yourself a Precornis. Ah, those were the days, the Precornis were such a nice bunch, philanthropic, masters of art and medicine.
Is this allowed? How far back can I go or do I wait for the Cornicopians to make a comeback on the good side and refer to myself a Cornicopian again?

I'm not saying we should give up our culture or not look at the past but does it really matter where you are from or does it matter where you are today and why are you there? Oh yes we can use the past to prevent mistakes in the future but I don't see many people at an individual level doing this. Use of things like the Genographic project for benefits in health or advancement of science is great. Our background is important as there are ties to what we are and how we became who we are but lets not use this to claim we are better than others due to our ancestry. Maybe we have to prove our worth today so that future generations will want to call themselves decendents of Canadians or maybe we just say we are all the same as the Genographic project is concluding and work towards making everyone better.

Silvana's 29th

Yes, 29 again!!
We had a busy few months and truthfully we don't go overboard on Birthday's. No need to get gifts for eachother as we get things when we need them rather than for an occasion. As my Brother in law says. "It's Christmas every day" Eg. Need new shoes you get them, no waiting for Christmas or birthday. We are spoiled that way but we at least we know it. Not sure the kids get it. I'm sure our parents said the same thing but we truly didn't know what they were talking about. Imagine having meat only a few times a year or not knowing what a banana is until your teens.

On Silvana's Birthday we went to her moms and had a nice lunch. We all ate well and had a cake as well. Much to my surprise the cake had some candles on it for me as well.

A Real Christmas Tree

Silvana always said if we ever moved to a new house with some more room she would like to get a real Christmas Tree. Well this is the year!!Our old fake tree has been relegated to it's box in the basement and a fresh new Fraser Fir has a prominent spot in the Front room by the window. We got it early, Dec 1st and hope to keep it to at least Christmas and maybe even the New Year. The Fraser fir is soft yet sturdy and was easier to put up than the fake tree. We don't have that many decorations on it but the tree is a decoration in itself.


Ignore the Home depot blinds. By next year these should be gone.