Working on enjoying the holidays

Holidays

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The holiest of all holidays are those

Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;

The secret anniversaries of the heart,

When the full river of feeling overflows;

The happy days unclouded to their close;

The sudden joys that out of darkness start

As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart

Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!

White as the gleam of a receding sail,

White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,

White as the whitest lily on a stream,

These tender memories are;--a fairy tale

Of some enchanted land we know not where,

But lovely as a landscape in a dream.

It's beginning to feel a {bit} like Christmas.  I have a pudding to make, gifts to finalise and a road trip to plan and pack for, as well as playdates and birthday parties and family parties to attend.  I like the story of Penelope who forestalled her many suitors during Odysseus' long absence with a classic ruse.  She told them that she could not choose between them until she had finished work on a tapestry which she wove by day and unravelled by night.  That is precisely how I feel; in limbo, with the best laid plans unravelled by distractions and where each day seems to have as many jobs to do as the previous one. It helps to pause and remember that holidays are about making memories and savouring more intense moments of togetherness than we enjoy during the rest of the year.  If only there were more hours in the day to get the essentials done as well, and have a bit of a lie in.  Ah well, must away to soak fruit and sort laundry.

Image: Bronze sculpture, Penelope, by Emile Bourdelle, 1912. National Gallery of Australia.

Miss Piggy meets Yogi Bear

It's been the wardrobe department at central casting round here lately. What with Charly's fabulous Movie Star party on the week-end and the Book Week parade this week. In dress rehearsals last week we had a ball trying on different outfits, racing to the mirror or looking at our reflections in the windows or the oven door, anywhere!  For the creatively challenged, I recommend the two dollar pack of animal snouts with hat elastic straps from The Reject Shop.  Best fun ever.

Preparing for Winter: Ugg!

It's stripey tights and pink ugg boot weather.  However, the children are still content to wear short sleeved uniforms and summer PJs most of the time. It is unlikely there will be any stylish layering of clothes under puffy, hooded parkas accessorised with a jaunty scarf and gloves for my offspring even at the peak of winter. They run around so much and get so hot and bothered, that they simply start peeling clothes off and dumping them in stray puddles for 'some-one' to pick-up later.  

Little Wanna still wanders from the car park to the swimming pool in her swimmers and thongs, I'm abashed to say. It is undoubtedly starting to dawn on them that it's getting a trifle chilly outside on these late autumn evenings, especially with damp hair and no jacket, but they scoot fast and know that the car is warm inside. Off they race like mad things on a survivor challenge, with bare limbs waving about, and leap into their seats, buckle up and settle in for a toasty reading of Adults Only by Morris Glietzman or Beware of the Storybook Wolf read by Hugh Laurie, during the half-hour drive home.

It will officially be winter next week and the start of the birthday bonanza period in our house punctuated by Term 2 holidays.  This means we will have to wrangle with the idea of a home party or two or three.  This does not come naturally to me.  I am, sadly, not a capable party planner mother who can assemble immaculate table spreads, with crafty banners and pom-pom balls suspended from the ceiling, nor can I devise clever, thematic games which keep every child completely entranced and well-behaved.  It invariably ends up a schmozzle.

 

The "Children's Birthday Party" as a Western social construct is interesting phenomena loaded with emotion, driven by commercial interests and replete with complex protocols.  It induces in me a state of high anxiety.  Like pink ugg boots and swimmers in winter, I expect we will find our own style and work out some sort of celebration which will leave happy memories without having to resort to a fun parlour or other effortless, but slightly impersonal, outsourced party service. This is my June challenge.

Party Preparations

Children's Party

May I join you in the doghouse, Rover?
I wish to retire till the party's over.
Since three o'clock I've done my best
To entertain each tiny guest.
My conscience now I've left behind me,
And if they want me, let them find me.
I blew their bubbles, I sailed their boats,
I kept them from each other's throats.
I told them tales of magic lands,
I took them out to wash their hands.
I sorted their rubbers and tied their laces,
I wiped their noses and dried their faces.
Of similarities there's lots
Twixt tiny tots and Hottentots.
I've earned repose to heal the ravages
Of these angelic-looking savages.
Oh, progeny playing by itself
Is a lonely little elf,
But progeny in roistering batches
Would drive St. Francis from here to Natchez.
Shunned are the games a parent proposes,
They prefer to squirt each other with hoses,
Their playmates are their natural foemen
And they like to poke each other's abdomen.
Their joy needs another woe's to cushion it,
Say a puddle, and someone littler to push in it.
They observe with glee the ballistic results
Of ice cream with spoons for catapults,
And inform the assembly with tears and glares
That everyone's presents are better than theirs.
Oh, little women and little men,
Someday I hope to love you again,
But not till after the party's over,
So give me the key to the doghouse, Rover

Ogden Nash

Illustration by Amy Luhrman

Preparations are underway for Charly's ninth birthday party next weekend. Much to do to organise THE cake, music, games, eats, room decoration and party bags. We are working on a disco theme - girls only - with a turquoise colour code. Trying to keep it simple without succumbing to the temptation to imitate a Donna Hay/Martha Stewart feature spread. A lot of effort for two hours of entertainment, but also years of enduring memories. Let's press on.