12.26.2009

Family Time

Well, hello again everyone and Merry Christmas, Happy Boxing Day to you (today) and Happy New Year! We have been having a wonderful time with family, specifically my (Jenny's) family here in St. Louis. I guess we've been here for 2 weeks on and off. We've taken several "Christmas Lights" tours about town and even checked out the zoo lights and Botanical gardens displays, even got to catch up with old friends and their growing families and reconnect with folks from the past.

Attended mass with mom and dad last sunday at St. Stanislaus, which was followed by a bigos dinner accompanied by wine and screwdrivers (the drink, not the tool.) Ahh..the catholic church. What is bigos? A traditional polish stew made with meat and cabbage (of course) in a tomato-y broth. Very yummy. Sometime during my post meal stupor I agreed to help create scenery and props for their upcoming Christmas pagent of sorts. Luckily, we only had to construct two lambs. Unfortunately, Uncle Frank had to do much of the constructing as I spent my time tearing up boxes, creating a mess of paint with the boys and covered, well, mostly ourselves in glue and cottonballs. It was a lot of fun, but the sheep the boys and I created looked more like a puffy white cloud than an animal, so thank goodness for Uncle Frank to the rescue! As Frank repaired our damaged the boys got to work running around and being silly, and I made 70 or so pierogis for the upcoming Polish Christmas Dinner at mom's house. Before we knew it, it was Christmas eve, with lots of cleaning, cooking, preparing and excitement about Santa. Henry set out the cookies for santa and made sure to include a note for santa stating that the cookies and carrots were in the kitchen so Tillie ( my parents' dog) didn't eat them for him.

We all attempted to attend midnight (this really means 10 p.m.) mass on Christmas eve, despite the time and the yucky rain, but the boys fell asleep on the way, so Bryce dropped me off to attend church with my parents and Frank. I sat down in the pew only to realize a minute later that I had the key to the Czyzewski abode. Oops! I removed myself from the sanctuary and desperately tried to reach Bryce to warn him to turn around, but alas, his phone was trapped in the house. I tried telepathy for a few minutes, with no results and finally, Dad volunteered to drive back home to let them in, where he found them asleep in the blue VW sleigh. Dad then returned to church to join us in time to turn around and walk back out. Thanks dad! morale of the story : If you marry a forgetful spouse, be prepared to sleep in the driveway.

Christmas morning came too quickly and was everything that children and parents want it to be...full of joyful surprises of all sorts. Wynne was so overwhelmed with the display that it wasn't until he tripped over his gift, that he realized what was happening. He simply declared, " A loop-de-loop track - hey,I wanted that!" It took a minute for it all to sink in. The boys even surprised me with gifts they saved for, and dad took them out to buy. A box of chocolate truffles from Henry, and the movie "Tale of Desperaux" from Wynne because, as he says,"mom, you are princess and I am desperaux, a brave little mouse." It was too sweet and thoughtful. We all had a great time opening gifts and all until we had to prepare for the onslaught of visitors for lunch.

Christmas dinner was successful with all sorts of polish fixins and wonderful company until late into the night. I could go on, but we have more christmas tomorrow...if we can make it, as we are headed to Adrian and the Oates side of the family, which is covered in a frosty white blanket as we speak.

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