Christmas 2020

All things Christmas 2020:

Merry Christmas 2020. We were at the park for the night of the tree lighting. Usually there is a big festival and the kids line up for Santa after he lights the tree. This year, there were just movies in the park and they lit the tree between movies. At least we could take as many pictures as we wanted in front of the tree. 

Some nice arts and crafts. He put the foam stickers together by himself. 

Christmas Lights!

I put lights up. Honestly, other years have been better. We have bigger plans for next year. 

The front porch decorations are new and make a nice scene. 

Year of the drive throughs. Like Halloween, we found a drive through for Christmas. It was very popular this year had the park was full of lights. 

Christmas in Florida. The holiday shark. Of course there were also light displays of palm trees, alligators, and flamingos. 

Singing light bulbs. 

Also, the park had a local broadcast of modern Christmas music to listen to.

Christmas confections. After taking some time off, Ethan is becoming more independent so we can do things like cook without having to watch him constantly.

I rolled out lots of Christmas sugar cookies instead of gingerbread this year. I wasn't too aggressive trying to make lots of gingerbread cookies to give away to the extended family. It wasn't stressful. I got the baking done and Ethan likes the cookies. We never got around to decorating them but that's Ok. We made progress by decorating the house and making cookies again. Christmas is getting back to normal. 

How about this shot for presentation? Yeah, not the best photo. I only have so much time for shots. At least you get the idea. This was version three of the cake. The other two were test cakes. After Christmas, I ended up destroying the already cut up test cakes and turned them into cake pops. 

We can't bake for Christmas without gingerbread. This is homemade all the way, not from a kit. My contribution was playing with Ethan during the construction of the house, giving the baker room to work.

Christmas Day:

Before the rest of the family woke up, I made waffles. Then I sat down to relax and drink a cup of hot tea. About a minute after I sat down to relax, I heard you-know-who wake up. 

Christmas morning with holiday music and the yule log burning on TV. South Florida's version of a fireplace. 

Everyone is excited for presents. 

Of course he got clothes, but look at all those toys behind him.

We did a gift swap and I got the cake pop cook book. The baker in the house makes the cakes, and I make the cake pops. 

Finally, we took advantage of the nice decorations and had some family photos. Here is one of my test shots. Yes, Toby and I are in matching shirts. 

Toddler House Bed

So the little one needed a new place to sleep. Why not get something that will last years to come? A twin size bed? That would work, I mean, I slept on the same twin mattress from the crib through college (only to sleep on an even smaller mattress in the Navy). But this is Ethan and he likes his space. We got the full size version which should last a long time while he grows up. 

The finished bed frame. Let's see how we got here. 

He never slept on the toddler bed. Even when I put him to sleep on it after much work, he would always climb down at night to sleep on the floor. We gave in and turned the floor into a bed. That was not a permanent solution so time to moved on and we give him a proper bed now that he was ready. Also of concern was that he rarely used the door to get in. He preferred climbing the wall, standing on top, and then jumping off like a pro-wrestler climbing the ropes in the WWE. Usually, he did this a few times before settling in. It was no longer suitable for time-out either, he could escape too easily. 

Bye-bye play area turned sleeping area. 

Here we are. The instructions said it was a two hour job. It took me six hours. And that was without interference from the dog or the little one. 

Here he is first exploring once it was complete. 

He liked it. He liked it so much, he shook our hands saying "Thank you!" over and over. 

A week later the linens finally arrived so I could take a finished picture. He still has all of his blankets, pillows, bumpers, and stuffed toys. I can even crawl in there and read a story at night with him. 

There was about a week or so of off-gassing where the room smelled like fake wood. That settled and we aired out the room until the smell was gone. Since then we also put up a string of lights for fun which are turned on occasionally as decoration. I'm not sure how long he'll use this bed but there is no way it is leaving the house (or room) in one piece. It will have to be disassembled to move. I'm not concerned because this will be with him for years to come. 

His, Hers, & His Matching Shoes

 Around the birthday season, I looked for matching gifts and decided on shoes.

I thought it would be cool to the family matching sneakers. That is about where this blogpost topic ends and a new one begins. 

Now let's move to the blogging picture fails. The above picture is pretty vanilla but all I could get done in 20 seconds. Next, let's see what happened over the next three minutes of photo attempts before I gave up.

Maybe I could set them up in a special arrangement for photos? This is as far as I got before being accosted. 

I got swarmed. It was more than just a photobomb.

Now we can't even see all of the shoes in the same picture.

Well, I tried. Even when I bought them, I thought it would make a cool blog post. Maybe it did after all. 

December Audiobook: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

 To begin December, I chose a short but powerful book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki.

This year has been harder on many people than most years. From the pandemic to politics and all that has effected us from these converging circumstances. We can lose our focus and really let the negativity of the world take over. It is during these times, when I feel discouraged, I like to listen to the positive, healing videos on YouTube to get rid of the negative thoughts and accompanying negative energy. Sometimes there is so much negativity built up, that I need more than just one or two videos to clear my mind. Besides the many uplifting books by authors I have blogged about here, the principles of Zen really bring me peace. 

This book is short and straight forward, just as you would expect from teachings of Zen. It was written by one of the first Zen masters in the United States, an immigrant from Japan. As such, it is written with a western audience in mind which helps explain the practice better to those of us from the West.

Though associated with Buddhism, the author explains that Zen practice is for those of any religious belief because Zen focuses internally, not in service to external force. There is no dogma to serve. The prevailing theme of this book is there in the title, the beginner's mind. By coming to a situation with the beginner's mind, we remain at peace. Our mind is empty of conflict and free to accept what is without judgement. Zen is about being and practicing. 

I have been hesitant to accept teachings that stress meditation. I am such an active person, it almost hurts to sit still. Nevertheless, I came in with an open mind and listened to what the author had to say about Zazen, the strict meditative practice of Zen Buddhists. Though I am not ready to perform such an act for great lengths of time, I'm willing to try for a period of a few minutes...eventually.

By the end of the book, I was in a state of calm once more. The craziness of the outside world subsided; that is, I gave it less attention. The year 2020 has been more taxing than most years, but if we look inside ourselves, nothing is all that different.