The in-between days

The time in between Christmas and New Year is one of my favorite times of the year. It is a time of no expectations, no deadlines, no pressure. Of course that is not entirely true, there are naturally certain things that need to happen before the end of the year, certain bills to be paid, things that have to be turned in. Of course Peter and I have both been working this week, but working during these "in-between" days at least feels voluntary, a matter of choice, even if it is really a necessity.

Fortunately, Christopher has been feeling better since Christmas, and it is a pleasure to see both of the boys enjoying themselves, relieved from the pressure of school work to devote their attention entirely to their own interests, and I enjoy spending this time with them. I have enjoyed reading this week too, which has always been my favorite part of Christmas.


Thank you to everyone who responded – whether in comments, emails or phone calls – to my question about who is reading this blog! Writing mostly trivial descriptions of our everyday life, it is very reassuring to hear that there are people who actually care enough about us to read it – from the Mühlviertel to London to Albuquerque and all the way to Japan.
Happy New Year to all of you with love from all of us.

Christmas 2006 in Linz

Since it is only just noon in Albuquerque now, it is too early to call and talk to everyone there, so it seemed like a good time to write a blog post about Christmas in Linz.

In many ways it feels as though we have been quite self-centered and more or less oblivious to everyone else around us this year. Until last week it really felt as though Christmas just wasn't going to happen at our house this year. We didn't even manage to send the one, single Christmas card that we try to send every year (to Jean and Will), although I did manage to get a few little packages together for Peter to mail to Albuquerque from San Francisco, and last week Christopher and I attempted to mail a small parcel to Kemble. However, since I found myself at the post office with only email addresses and telephone numbers in my palm, which Christopher used to call Jack at least three times without being able to exactly remember the post code in the end, that parcel may or may not eventually find its way to Kemble. I have yet to encounter a single person from London (and I have met quite a number of people from London this year), who could even begin to imagine approximately where my brother lives from my description, and since a parcel that Sara sent to us one year, which was clearly and correctly addressed, arrived at our house from Cirencester via Sydney, I don't really have very much hope that the parcel will actually reach its intended destination.

Nevertheless, a few days ago we started collectively thinking about Christmas, and it started to be fun. The boys did a fantastic job of picking out presents, and I was reminded again that I am fortunate enough to be married to the most generous man in the world. Yesterday evening we went to Peter's parents' house for our Austrian Christmas celebration with Peter's parents and his sister and her family, which was quite nice. Before we left, Christopher said he wasn't feeling well, but I thought he was joking about wanting to stay home and work on his music rather than go to a family celebration. Unfortunately, he wasn't joking. When he curled up on a little sofa on the corner, I thought he seemed too warm and started getting nervous. When he jumped up and ran to throw up, we all started getting nervous. After we got him home and into bed, and the slightly less than usually disorganized elves managed to get the rest of the presents under the tree (remembering just at the last minute to fetch Patrick's newly refurbished chair from the cellar) and the stockings filled (hint: mousepads are not ideal stocking presents, especially not in combination with a warm scarf), Peter and I enjoyed a glass of whiskey together and went to bed feeling some relief that we would probably not be woken up in only a few hours by our excited children telling us that Santa had come. They were very sweet when they were that little, but I'm glad it doesn't last forever. Instead, we were woken up at 2 am by Christopher running to throw up again. At that point we were very worried and very wide awake. I definitely prefer being woken up at 3 am by a 4-year-old helpfully trying to make coffee.

Last year I was constantly prepared with a Plan B in the back of my mind for every occasion. I remember shopping for Christmas presents while mentally rehearsing what plans we had made with Peter's family and with friends and how we could rearrange all those plans if we had to take Christopher to the hospital. Until two o'clock this morning, I wasn't even consciously aware of having fallen out of the habit of always having a "Plan B" ready in the back of my mind, but I suddenly realized I didn't have one. Christopher quickly went into a deep sleep on the couch, and Peter and I agreed that if he wasn't up to opening presents in the morning, we would simply wait until he was, however long that might take, and that we would all be able to cope with whatever came next.

In fact, Christopher did feel better in the morning – he even made coffee for us at 8.30, so we all got up then. He still isn't feeling very well, but he says it is only his stomach that bothers him, not his head, and his temperature has generally stayed at just a low fever all day, so we are hoping that he has really just picked up some kind of a stomach bug.

Although it feels a bit odd and selfish to have concentrated mainly on presents for one another only among the four of us, sitting there with my three men this morning, I just kept thinking what wonderful people they all are. The actual contents of the presents would not have been so meaningful without the accompanying stories of the choosing of them, and it was good to enjoy this time together. I think Peter and I are very lucky to have two such wonderful sons.

Christmas starts to be fun

I think I've figured out the trick: let all the organized people who take this whole Christmas thing very seriously get finished with their shopping early, then only the disorganized people not too bothered with tradition and consume and doing everything right are left over on the last few shopping days. I have been meeting a lot of friends in town in the past few days, and since none of us are expecting to be able to be efficient, we are all having a good time. I hope the mood has changed for the people in the shops as well, but that generally seems to be the case. Most of the people I have encountered seem to be quite relaxed and having a good time. I'm glad the shops are closed on Sunday too, so that people don't have to work until the last minute.

At the start of the month no one in my household seemed to feel much interest in Christmas. I had the impression the boys felt that a Christmas without cousins just isn't worth the effort. While Peter was in San Francisco, though, the boys and I went to pick out a Christmas tree to get it set up and decorated before Peter came home – to surprise him and to spare him the moving of furniture and the mess involved. Rather to our own surprise, we actually managed to agree on the tree we wanted relatively quickly, although it might not have been a great idea that the boys started out by admiring the biggest Christmas trees and thinking about how big the Christmas tree at Uncle Dan's house might be and which tree we might choose if we had a higher ceiling ... Within about twelve hours of having our tree up in the living room, I was rapidly coming to appreciate the advantages of having a small tree. Ours might be a small tree by Uncle Dan's standards, but it is certainly occupying a substantial portion of the living space in our European-sized living room. Nevertheless, we are quite pleased with it.



Getting it to stand up proved to be a bit more complicated than we had expected. First of all, the trunk was too thick to fit into our Christmas tree stand. Paddy and I tried whittling it down a bit with an ominous-looking hunting knife that I found in the tool drawer (I have no idea how this object came to reside in my household), but apart from making an impressive mess on the balcony, this wasn't very effective, so I started making phone calls. The next day our wonderful neighbor Richard came down with his son, our part-time adopted son Gerhard, and a whole collection of saws, and through our combined efforts we managed to carve the trunk down to the right size to fit into our Christmas tree stand. Unfortunately, the stand was too small to hold the tree upright then, which presented us with the choice of leaving Christopher and Gerhard to stand there holding it up until January or finding a possibility for acquiring – at least temporarily – a more substantial Christmas tree stand. Fortunately for us, Richard had a stand at home that worked for us, although this may mean that Gerhard is now left standing in the living room holding up the tree at home, since I'm not sure what else they might be using for their tree.



Reaching the point where the tree was actually standing securely, not in danger of toppling over and reasonably straight (depending on where you are standing in the room and/or whose opinion you ask) proved to be quite a production involving chopping off some branches and attempting to prop up the stand at the bottom with screw drivers, bits of wood, paper handkerchiefs, etc. Putting up a Christmas tree is clearly not a job for a highly skilled professional craftsman, which is why we had to get it finished before Peter came home. He would not have wanted to see this.

In the afternoon, while Christopher and I went to a Christmas party, Paddy did a brilliant job of cleaning up the mess, so we decorated the tree in the evening. Our Christmas tree decorations are hardly elegant, but every one has a story to go with it, so we told each other these stories as we put the things on the tree and shared memories of other Christmases. When we finished we just sat in the living room together sharing stories all evening. When the boys were little, they used to love to have me tell them "Grandpa stories", starting with stories I had heard about Dad and his brothers and progressing on to all kinds of family stories, some that were told to me as a child, some that I remember from my childhood. Christopher says that since they have meanwhile had respectively six and seven years of secondary education, we can call the stories "family anecdotes" now instead of "Grandpa stories". I think it doesn't matter what we call them, telling them is important, and I enjoyed the evening with the boys very much.



(Note on the pictures: Since the phone that Peter persuaded me to get in the summer has a camera function, I have started attempting to use it. I don't really see the point of a phone pretending to be a camera, and I don't find the results particularly convincing, but I'm working on it.)

Why don't my children listen to me?

When Christopher came home last night, I was happy to see him, because I didn't really feel like waiting up for him any longer. I didn't really feel like sharing a pizza with him at two in the morning either, but before I went to bed, when I saw him looking very much like his father getting very comfortable on the couch, I told him to be careful not to go to sleep and let the pizza burn. He said he heard me, but did he actually listen to me?

Of course not.

This morning I woke up hearing the phone ring, but even though I couldn't be bothered to get up and answer it, I couldn't go back to sleep then because somehow there seemed to be a funny smell. When I gave up and got out of bed and went into the kitchen, I realized that we had been lucky not to have to wake up to the arrival of the fire department before dawn. Even though Christopher had left the windows and the balcony door open, the burnt smell was still very strong, but it was also very cold. Did I not tell my beloved elder son not to fall asleep in front of the television and let the pizza burn?

Next unpleasant surprise: no coffee. Exactly one coffee bean left in the tin. Have I not told my beloved elder son over and over and over again that he must tell me when we start running out of coffee?

Since we only buy Fair Trade coffee from a nearby health food shop that keeps sensible and humane opening hours (i.e. they close for lunch for several hours during the week and close for the weekend at noon on Saturdays), I had no time for a shower, I had to get dressed and run to get coffee before they closed. Since I was out, I decided to be nice and go to the supermarket as well for more frozen pizza and milk and bread for the weekend. And cookies. And a few more cups of yoghurt. And a little more chocolate.... But when I ended up with more than I could easily carry by myself, my sons did not come to my rescue.

When I finally got home, it did not take them long to figure out that I was quite justifiably not in a good mood, so they quickly went to work to try to mollify me. I have to admit, my sons are clearly well acquainted with my moods, so they did that well.

Now if they would just listen to me ...

My talented sons

Last week I was seriously annoyed with the boys, because they were always so busy and always making plans and never had time for anything I wanted them for. Then last Thursday they spent the afternoon in the cellar with two of Christopher's friends making a music video for some competition that Christopher and his friend wanted to enter. When they finally reemerged in the evening and showed me the results, I had to admit that it was far more entertaining than anything I would have had them doing.

Of course, that was only one part of the process. Actually turning all this filmed material into something that looked like a real music video was left up to Patrick. This is the down side of being talented: people start coming up with more and more expectations and things for you to do, just because you can and they can't. Luckily for Christopher and his friends, Patrick was able to edit this film material into a music video for them and it was duly sent off today. In the meantime Patrick also managed to put it online. The first few seconds of the introduction are unfortunately missing (I especially liked that part), but most of it can be viewed here:



The song is called "Writer's Block" and Christopher and his friend Basti sing about all the frustration of not being able to get the words in their heads onto paper. Maybe someday Patrick can make a "blooper reel" to go with it, because there were several good ones – like the one where they were using our old little red wagon to do a tracking shot and the wheel got stuck, tipping the wagon over and dumping cameraman Paddy on the cellar floor with a loud squawk, or when Christopher got stuck under the desk and bumped his head, or when they had to negotiate how to spell "Schreibsperre" ("writer's block" in German) ... All in all, I think they did a good job, though, and I enjoyed watching the whole process.