Christmas in Massachusetts

We had a wonderful Christmas with Tim's side of the family in Massachusetts. I flew with Thomas, while Tim and the other kids drove. It was a very easy day for me; I had no trouble making the dash from the B to E concourse in Charlotte, and liked having no wait for boarding the next flight. Thomas was a good little passenger, and the sweet flight attendant on the New Bern to Charlotte flight gave him wings before we got off. Tim and the kids on the other hand... it was a bit of a longer day for them with traffic. I am very spoiled by comparison. One day we will have to suck it up and do the drive all together in the Subaru. Just not ready for it yet. (Not ready by this summer either--already booked a flight for the end of June!)

While we were in line to board the flight to Boston, Tim called to say his mom was on her way to the hospital for a possible stroke. That was scary! She ended up having to spend a few days there for testing and observation, but fortunately it turned out not to have been a stroke. She was released on Christmas Eve if I remember correctly. What a relief to know Grandma would not be spending Christmas in the hospital. That would have been sad.

I don't know if anyone will ever forget any time soon what a COLD Christmas it was. Cold everywhere except for California, I think. I had to try hard not to worry too much about how my open pool was faring in the extreme weather, and focus on enjoying the festivities. We, for sure Thomas and I, didn't venture outside for a few days unless we had to. On Christmas Eve we had to -- we wouldn't have wanted to miss out on that. We went to Mass and then Aunt Jayne's, and got to see a lot of relatives we hadn't seen in a long time.

I'm going to get a little honest and vulnerable here, and tell you about the hiccup that happened as we were getting ready for Mass. I think I feel a need as a mom of five, to prove to myself and others that I can keep it together and manage details for my kids the way I (mostly) always did. I also just really want us to represent large families well, so that maybe a young person sees us and thinks, ok, having a bunch of kids doesn't have to mean your life turns to chaos. But I don't have it all together, and if I ever appear to, you can be assured I've dropped a ball somewhere. So what happened this time was, when I went to lay the outfits out, it turned out I had not packed anything besides sweatpants for Joey. No jeans, no pants, no nothing. Sweatpants. 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve. I could have sworn I'd packed all that, or at least laid it on the bed to be packed. After all the weeks of list-making and organizing for a Christmas away, somehow both khaki pants and even jeans for Joey had slipped through the cracks. I couldn't believe it. My head just about exploded. Tim offered to run to a store for me, but I had to admit that to send him into a store at this point of the day on Christmas Eve was not going to be worth it. So he went to Mass and Aunt Jayne's in sweatpants, and fortunately they were solid black, not anything bright or striped or shiny or whatever. He had a nice sweater at least. Parenthood can be so humbling.

Here's a nicely cropped photo of everyone's top half, so we don't have to worry about what is on the bottom. You can see Timmy's orange shirt that's kind of like the security blanket of collared shirts for him. He is so sad that he's going to outgrow it one day soon, and that Gap has never made another boy's polo shirt in that burnt orange shade since. He has another shirt just like it but with gray and navy blue stripes, but it's like that shirt is dead to him. The orange shirt has holes. Will it make it another year? For months I was like, not the orange shirt again, but it does go nicely under his sweaters. 

Santa found us at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I will never forget Joey's reaction when he opened those Nikes. My parents might remember me with my first Cabbage Patch Kid. That was Joey with those shoes--elated. Over the moon. Going around the room to show them to everybody. Trying them on and posing for pictures. It almost brought a tear to my eye. When he said, "I must have been really good to get these!" it really did bring a tear to my eye. Tim and I kept looking at each other like, 'Aww..' Nikes run a little large, I guess, so they were too big, but we didn't dare discuss an exchange. His feet will have to grow.

Delaney got tickets to see the Bruins play in Raleigh next weekend!

The Brady men made Christmas dinner while everyone else played games or hung out. It's amazing they managed to get anything done with all the arguing😆, but everything was delicious and we were all very appreciative.

Juliana and Alexa are all grown up. Alexa took a trip by herself with just the dog, to Canada recently, and we heard she got a grilling at the border. The agent, a woman, was very concerned about a young woman traveling to Canada alone. "Do your parents know you're here, honey?" "Where are you headed?" "Did you meet someone on the Internet?" 

After dinner we took some more pictures, the kids opened a LOT of presents because Grandma is way too generous, and played another game. It was a great night. There are no pictures from the game that most of us played, but it was something like "Kids vs. Parents," and it was pretty funny. At one point the adults were given the first line of a song, and we had to come up with the title. The lyrics immediately rang a bell in some distant, cobwebbed corner deep in the recesses of my brain. But I was going to go crazy trying to remember. Then Karen sang one line, and I sang the next, and each part of the song got me to remember the next. But we had to go through the entire first verse, bridge and even into the chorus, as everyone else watched our duet in fascination, until Karen blurted out the song title and artist. It was "Wonderwall" by Oasis. (Back in the day my friends and I substituted "Wonderbra" as we drove around in my '87 Volkswagen Jetta 😆). 

First Christmas all together in 10 years

All the grandkids, aged 20 years to 7 months

We went to Karen's the next day for a party with the extended Brady family. Karen tried once again to win the affections of Thomas. Maybe next time.

The day before we left the temperature finally made it over 30, and compared to the last few days, it felt balmy. We got out and did a little shopping. Joey went with his daddy and grandpa to use his Cabela's gift card and get some more fishing stuff for his nice new tackle box. Later, Tim, myself, Carolyn, the girls, and Thomas went to the Blackstone Shoppes to look at clothes. I was happy just to enjoy the fresh air -- cabin fever had been setting in. It was a fun last day.

It might have taken me almost till February, but the Christmas post is done. Going through the pictures and reliving the memories has made me very, very grateful.