November and December 2024

As I write this now, looking back, it's already January 2025, but the last couple months of 2024 were exciting, family-filled fimes of music and holidays and so much more. Highlights follow.

 

Ufot Family Cycle, by Mfoniso Udofia

Wellesley alum playwright Mfoniso came to my class at BU, after we read, discussed, and attended her play, Sojourners, and students had a really great interactive Q&A with her. The following week, I took family and friends from Samantha's Girl Scout troop to the free pop-up performance at Roxbury Community College and also had a Q&A with the actors.

 

Family visit/Richard's 83rd birthday

We had a fabulous time hosting Amanda, Frank, and no-longer-"Baby" Katy, and we all gathered downtown with Tia, Richard, and Bri to celebrate Grandpa Richard's birthday and wish him many more.

 

Family visit/Pre-Thanksgiving gathering

Judy and Jennifer came out to stay with us for a few days, and John joined us for dinner one night. Board games were played, dim sum and all-you-can-eat sushi were consumed, and much fun was had.

 

Thanksgiving 2024

We were a small group this year, 17 people, with some folks out of town and my mother opting to stay at Goddard House with her friends (though we visited her in the evening). Robert and Helen brought in and scrubbed the extra tables in the morning (wearing, respectively, regular clothes and an old hip-hop costume), a couple of my students attended (Fan and Laura), Howard and Gustavo and Samantha took the lead with crafts for little girls, and we ended by playing some Skull and Telestrations.

 

Thanksgiving Weekend Fun

The day after Thanksgiving, Samantha saw a movie with friends ("Wicked") and Marcus and Helen came with us to the Harry Potter exhibit behind the mall at Lechmere. We also checked out the new food hall (no longer a mere pedestrian food "court") and the mall Chanukah decorations.

On Saturday we went to the kids' Home Depot craft with Sarah, Sean, and Evie, and bought a couple little Christmas presents and also helped Sarah and Sean pick out a tree. We rounded out the day with a stop at Popeye's for not-popcorn popcorn chicken, a trip to the library, a playdate with Evie, and a few minutes dropping in on Marcus's frisbee tournament.

The rest of Thanksgiving weekend was largely spent baking, observing, and eating chocolate chip cookies for Samantha's science project. She was investigating the effects of lower fat (applesauce substitute for butter) and higher protein (oat flour in place of all-purpose) in cookies, and recruited 20 raters (some pictured) to rate the cookies on appearance and texture. Everyone took their rating jobs very seriously, and, yes, many chocolate chip cookies were appreciated (even the oat flour ones, to Samantha's surprise).

 

Friend Birthday Parties

First there was Evie's "Moana 2" 7th birthday party, at the new-ish Alamo fancy theatre in the Seaport--the girls loved the heated seats and the food, and of course the movie and the stop at Martin's Park to play on the way there by commuter rail.

Then a week later there was Rian's 9th birthday party at the Museum of Science on one of their free BPS Sundays. After the party, we went out to lunch at a new and fun ramen/okonmiyaki place in Brookline with Ashlynn and her mother.

 

Kid Activities

Samantha finished up another semester at the MassArt Saturday Studios program, this time doing landscape art, and brought home some great pieces.

Her Girl Scout troop donated and sorted clothes at a foster child clothing "pantry" in Dorchester, and then the Cadettes started working toward their Silver Award together and also celebrated the holidays a little early.

Marcus has been playing more frisbee, of course. Thanksgiving weekend was Throwsies for Rosie's, a personal care items donation drive tournament open to anyone (teens/adult) right here at English High. The following weekend was Get Ho Ho Ho down in Falmouth, where his combined team of teens and a couple parents beat a couple college teams. Marcus played at least one game in an elf suit, as one does at these things. Then he and his best frisbee friend Caleb started in the U20 winter indoor league up in Bedford on Saturday evenings (thankfully he can get a ride with someone for most of the weeks, as that is a hike)--Marcus really loves these games as there are some excellent players there and he's learning and improving a lot by being in a higher level of competition.

He had his winter concert in school, where he's first cello this year, and then went out with friends for food after the concert.

Helen's chorus had an exciting collaboration with the actor who played the Grinch in the Wang Theatre production of the Grinch musical; he came to their rehearsal, they sang with him and mugged for photos, and then the Wang gave everyone in the chorus free tickets for themselves and their families for opening night at the theatre. Helen, Samantha, Clare, and I went and enjoyed ourselves (though part of our enjoyment also came from the shock of seeing quite so many people quite so into the Grinch--and also from the fake snow, of course).

Helen also had her winter concert in orchestra.

Ice skating lessons are starting up in January for Helen (level 3), Robert (maybe level 4?), and Marcus (level 2) at Kelly Rink. Helen upgraded to figure skates ("toepick!") and Marcus also got a new pair of skates--his first since he outgrew the orange and black hockey skates Helen was just wearing. Happy skating, and no injuries, anyone!

 

Urban Nutcracker 2024

The biggest, and to my surprise the most enjoyable, kid activity of the fall and early winter was the Tony Williams Urban Nutcracker, which Helen had a tiny part in the second act in. Helen was a dragon, which is a 50-second number that is basically their entry-level ballet part. Rehearsals started out, in October, once a week for an hour on either Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and then became both days for an hour, then both days for 90 or 120 minutes, all right here in JP a short walk from the house, and then in December there was a week with long run-throughs and dress/technical rehearsals downtown at the Shubert Theatre (thankfully very accessible by T for us, about 20 minutes door-to-door, and also only a block from her school).

Above: Watching a group of professional dancers in the studio just before the dragons went in, one November day; trying on the dragon headpiece for the first time, just to figure out what we needed to do with her bangs underneath it.

I was a little skeptical of all of this at first, and I would not by any means categorize myself as a "dance mom," but I think I've become something of a believer. Helen learned so much from this experience--it truly the importance of teamwork, and the idea of having a role and a responsibility in something much greater than yourself. I think it also emphasized the many different ways of learning--learning by doing, in practices, and by receiving explicit feedback from teachers, but also learning by observation, when you (she was the Yellow cast) are just sitting on the side watching the Green or Red cast practice and get their feedback in turn. Helen was, of course, very focused and responsible about it: we'd review the schedule that was posted each week on Monday and plan the weekend around her rehearsal times, and we checked the notes posted after the different dress/tech rehearsals and talked about them (exercising those metacognitive powers too). By the end of the run of ten shows (only three of which she was in), Helen was able to do most of the kid dance numbers, and even to teach some of them to Samantha. Talk about self-efficacy! Helen was extremely proud of herself and her hard work, and I think justafiably so.

Above: Practicing her make-up at home a few days before the dress rehearsals started; waiting outside the stage door; heading home proudly after the first dress rehearsal.

I also found being backstage a fascinating experience, all at once an entirely new area for me to learn about anthropologically (for example--I didn't know there were unionized "dressers" who worked at the theatre, and officially only they were supposed to handle the costumes from the moment they went into the theatre until the moment the show completed its runs. They did an amazing job of whisking away tights and leotards to be washed after each performance, with two washing machines going before we'd even headed upstairs to the stagedoor), and also something that was very much akin to volunteering in the church nursery or serving at a soup pantry in the way there are a thousand small, repetitious, unglamorous tasks that need to get done.

I volunteered in the kid dressing room during the first two of Helen's shows, and then attended the third show sitting in the audience with Robert, Marcus, Samantha, and my mother. Helen was very serious about removing all her make-up herself before exiting ("Mom, it's unprofessional to wear make-up past the stage door," she said, perfectly parroting the many instructions to this effect that had gone out from the dance school). She definitely wants to try out again next year, and perhaps have an additional role beyond a dragon as well.

 

Samantha's 13th birthday

The night before her birthday, Robert took Samantha out for all-you-can-eat sushi at the kid price (through age 12). On her actual birthday, which happened to be a Sunday, she opened presents in the morning (including a mini donut maker from Helen, a giant fluffy fake-fur blanket from us, and a sticker and patch from her favorite online comic, Nevermore, from Marcus) and then had cake and treats with a couple friends, Clare and Kayla, in the afternoon.

 

Christmas Treats

Since we were so busy with other activities, holiday baking was a little scaled-back this year, but we still had time to make handmade chocolates for teachers, Christmas tree rice krispy treats for friends, and lots of cookies to be packaged up individually and gifted to the Pine Street Inn building on the corner (with some brand-new heavy-weight socks). Helen also made beautiful cards for each of her teachers and also helped with the stamping and addressing of our family Christmas cards.

 

Holiday Decorations

We've been alternating real tree/rainbow tree, and even years have been the rainbow tree. The kids helped me set it up and decorate it, and then Samantha set up the Lego Winter Village display and train tracks to run around it. We also got into the spirit of the season by wearing Christmas accessories, admiring the awesome/terrifying giant animal nutcrackers downtown, making Saturnalia decorations for Latin class parties, and having a Christmas pavlova wreath with friends.

 

Snow!

The Friday before Christmas, which was also the kids' last day of school, we got 4" of snow that hadn't quite been part of the predictions. It was fine, though--it snowed steadily throughout the afternoon, and both Marcus and Samantha were out with friends and had fun throwing snowballs and hanging out. That evening we had an early Christmas celebration with Sarah and Sean, so Evie and Helen went out and played in the snow in the dark and built a tiny snowman in the driveway. I gave them a carrot for the nose and chocolates for the eyes. Somehow they kept losing the eyes! Huh, weird. The next day the snow was still perfect and glittering, and we walked around in it in the neighborhood and downtown to go see "A Christmas Carol." In the evening, while Marcus played frisbee, the girls and Robert got in a bit of time for sledding and making snow angels, which completely tuckered them out. Here's to more snow the rest of this winter!

 

Early Family Christmas

Since we'd be away at Christmas, we set aside the morning of the Sunday before Christmas to open presents and have some relaxing time together with our tree. Snow on the ground outside helped contribute to the perfect cozy feeling.

 

Small Moments

Playing video games with friends, doing small chores for Grandma, making Korean pancakes, reading, cuddling, and playing dress-up (that Little House on the Prairie dress from 1979 is going strong, now in use as a Little Women dress)..just a few of the many small happy moments of life.

 

Bathroom Renovations

Our new basement bathroom made a lot of progress, but is not yet quite done. Stay tuned!

 

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Created: 1/6/25. Last Modified: 1/6/25.