Johnny Prynce, our rock star tenant, has been traveling on tour all month and is breezin’ back into town today for a concert in downtown Santa Cruz at the Catalyst. Woo hoo!! We’re all going. The opening act is a band called Radid Fire whom I have mentioned before. Rapid Fire consists of three teenage boys around 13 years old, two of whom are the twin sons of my friend Kathryn, who is a frequent commenter here. I just talked to Kathryn and we plan to meet up and agreed to wear our ear plugs and to keep our phones on vibrate. The video above is of Johnny’s band, Dirty Penny singing “Vendetta”. Enjoy.

Photo of a natural bridge along West Cliff

The kids all have off from school today in honor of President’s Day and they are all at their other parents’ houses. I was working in my home office when Sophia called me to ask if I would like to go for a walk with her on West Cliff Drive. How sweet to be asked. I said, “Sure.” Now that she’s got wheels she drove over to pick me up and we headed down to the beach for a power walk along the ocean. I always enjoy time alone with each of  my kids. And I’m delighted they still want to have anything to do with me.

The best part of the homemade dollhouse  project was that it was made in our art studio. Paul built it for me when we got married. It was a place for me to do my writing and seaweed art, but also a free space for the children to invent, create and make messes. We work on art projects, make candles, sew, have my Just Imaginate craft classes. It’s a fun room. When we lived at our old house, my girls had a play house that their father had built for them. They missed it terribly. This special room is for all of us and I love enjoying it with them. The photos below are of our studio.

art studio entrance

art studio interior

another view

Last week the kids had a four day weekend because of the semester break. Sophia had her wisdom teeth out on Friday, but was feeling well enough by Saturday to spend the rest of the weekend working on a homemade dollhouse. She came out to my studio (where I write this blog, among many other things) and told me that since she didn’t have any homework, she wanted to tackle a project she always wanted to do and that was to make a dollhouse out of card board boxes. She worked on it the rest of the weekend, enlisting the aid of her two sisters to help her. It was amazing what they came up with. They built, decorated and furnished the entire house all with found objects. The made bookcases filled with books, lampshades out of sewing thimbles and shower curtain rods out of bead wire. Everything was in miniature and it was a masterpiece. Here are some photos of their homemade doll house.

Now that I have officially started grad school I am much busier with my academics and classes and have less time for domestic chores around the house. Paul and I had a discussion with the kids and  told them everyone has to pitch in. From now on they have to do their own laundry, which they agreed to do (as long as I do the sorting). Since I have classes a few nights a week, the kids will need to cook a few dinners. The latter they are very excited about doing.  Our routine is that we decide together on a recipe, which I leave out on the kitchen counter along with all the ingredients.  While I am in my office on-line with one of my classes, they cook dinner. So far so good. Last night Eva made Pasta Puttanesca and it was delicious. She was very proud of herself. Sophia did the dishes. It is her turn to make dinner on Thursday. She plans to make quiche. Here is the link for the Pasta Puttanesca  recipe if you would like to try it. Some of the  ingredients she used were  products from Coeur d’Olives, my friend Les’ company that I am doing some marketing for right now.

In spite of my trepidations that things would go awry based on the pre-Christmas angst all the kids were experiencing, we ended up having a wonderful Christmas after all. Sophia and Eva woke up Christmas morning around 8:30 and I made breakfast for all of us.  Afterward Paul  lit a fire in the front room while we waited for his kids to return from their mother’s. The girls were a bit mellow and kind of funky, the excitement of “Let’s go open our presents!!!” was definitely not there. In a way they seemed kind of sad, but once their stepsibs arrived the mood elevated to joyous excitement. We all settled in the great room under the big tree and Cheryl was the self-appointed mistress of ceremonies and handed out the presents. Everyone took his or her turn in a very civilized fashion as we all savored the moment of giving and receiving. I especially liked watching the children open the gifts they bought for each other.  They have developed a genuine fondness and affection for each other and truly enjoyed sharing the excitement of the day.

I kept hoping this year’s Christmas would go off without a hitch. I really thought that we had finally worked out all the kinks. But no. There always seems to be something or someone who screws up the works.

As you might expect, blended family holidays, particularly Christmas, can be fraught with thwarted expectations and nostalgic remembrances of how things used to be when mom and dad were still married. Every family has its own traditions and blending them and finding a common ground is the hardest to do this time of year.

When I was a single mom my two girls always spent Christmas eve and woke up Christmas morning at my house. My ex would come over in time to watch them open their presents and we would all have breakfast and play with the new toys. There was no stress or drama and everyone was happy.

Things were a little different for Paul. When he was a single dad his kids spent Christmas eve at their mom’s and woke up Christmas morning at her house and he stayed at home alone. He didn’t get invited to go over to her house and he did not get to share in the joy of Christmas morning with his children. They would come to his house later in the afternoon, but it just wasn’t the same. Two years ago Paul decided he wanted this to change and told his ex he wanted his turn having the kids wake up Christmas morning with him. She was not happy about it, but went along with it when they decided they would alternate the holiday every year. I, in turn, made the same arrangement with my ex giving him his turn to have the kids on Christmas morning. (Are you keeping up? I know, it’s exhausting keeping track.)

This year was supposed to be our turn to have the kids wake up here on Christmas morning, but apparently Paul’s ex “forgot” and went ahead and make plans (without consulting us)  to go out of town on Christmas day with her boyfriend so she has to have the kids on Christmas eve and Christmas morning. She promised that next year we could have the kids. We went along with her request seein’s how she was going to bring the kids over at 10am on Christmas morning anyway, but here’s the wrinkle. My kids are still waking up here with us and when they get up they want to go to the tree and open their presents right away. They don’t want to have to wait until 10am when Paul’s kids come over, which is what Cheryl is insisting that we do. She accused Sophia of being rude for not waiting for them to come over so they can open presents as a family. While I appreciate Cheryl’s logic, I don’t think she is looking at the big picture. When she wakes up at her mom’s is she going to have to wait to open her presents? No. She was very insistent and would not listen to reason. This made all three girls cry. Sophia resented being called rude as well as the demands dictating how she spend her Christmas morning. Eva, who is very self-sacrificing and is  willing to wait until Paul’s kids came over, was upset that there was a conflict and said, “Why does everything have to be so hard?”  My sentiments exactly. Why does it have to be so hard? I’m weary. I’m weary of having to constantly negotiate, mediate and compromise. Dealing with the kids is one thing, but having to also accomodate  the demands of the ex-spouse is  frustrating and exhausting.

I tried to smooth things over the best I could and promised my girls I would talk to Paul when he came home to explain the situation so he could reason with Cheryl. I also suggested a compromise, “How about you open just a few presents” but neither side would budge. When I told Paul the whole story he backed me up and said he would talk to Cheryl.  (He hasn’t had a chance to do this yet because the kids went to their other parents’ on Friday.) Knowing this made my girls feel better. Still, I am dreading another confrontation. It makes me very sad.  I hope we can get past this and still enjoy our Christmas.

In the meantime, I did try to get Sophia to put things in perspective. Waiting to have to open your presents is better than not having presents to open. And Cheryl’s demands that she wait are borne of her own need to feel included and to not be left out.  After all, we are a family and families open their presents together. A conundrum that will take the wisdom of Solomon to solve. If you readers have any suggestions, thoughts or comments  I would love to hear them.

We had all the kids this past weekend and whenever we do, we always invite Paul’s dad, Pop Pop,  for Sunday dinner. I usually make a roast pork loin,  lasagna or some big feast-like family dinner. No buffet or eating in front of the TV. Everyone has to sit at the table. No one can eat until everyone is served and no one can be excused until everyone is finished eating. Afterward we sit and talk. Since we so enjoyed Pop Pop’s friend Lotus when she came for Thanksgiving, we asked him to bring her again. As I mentioned before, Lotus has had a rich and full life. She was once an actress in New York City and Hollywood and was married to Robert Altman, (director of M.A.S.H and Gosford Park) before he was famous. This past Sunday we learned more about her.

After dinner Sophia was sitting with us and had her American History book on the dining room table. Lotus asked her what she was studying and she replied, “Fat Man and Little Boy.” (These were the code names for the first atomic weapons developed during WWII.) “Oh,” she replied, “I dated the physicist who came up with the idea  to have the bombs implode rather than explode. He took me for a tour of his lab and he showed me some of the technology they were working on. Not the top secret stuff, but what he could show me.”  She went on to explain that he left on a secret mission and she never heard from him again. She told us his name, which we later Googled, but nothing turned up. Sophia was astonished. “You knew someone who worked on the Manhattan Project?” she asked in amazement. Lotus and Pop Pop, who is a veteran of both WWII and The Korean War, then went on to talk about the horrors of war. They gave Sophia their first hand experience of what they had lived through. It was a great opportunity for Sophia to learn “history” from those who experienced it when it was current events.

We got our Christmas tree on Saturday. The kids had been looking forward to it all week. We had such a wonderful time picking it out.  This is our fourth Christmas together as a blended family. It has really become quite a joy to watch the children cherish their new family traditions. We went to our usual cut-it-yourself tree farm, but they did not have the size of tree we wanted. Apparently we got the biggest tree last year. Instead we went to another tree farm and in spite of the rain,  had a blast finding just the right tree. We got a cypress. No needles. Full and thick with lots of stiff branches to hang our combined collection of ornaments. When we got home, Paul and the boys put it in the stand and anchored it to the wall (a necessary precaution  here in earthquake country) and we all decorated it. Sophia and Mark thought the tree needed more lights so they made  a run to the store to get some more. Everyone had their input, particularly me who went through all the boxes of decorations to make sure all the important ones got on the tree. Each ornament has a story and a sentimental memory. The cinnamon dough ornaments my girls made in kindergarten, the painted ceramic ones Cheryl made in preschool and the “Baby’s first Christmas” ornaments that were gifts from friends and relatives. I even have decorations I made with my mother when I was a child. All those memories,  past, present and future, are on that tree. It is that one constant that makes every Christmas “The best Christmas ever!”

The next day the children went Christmas shopping together to buy presents for each other. This is another blended family tradition we started. Rather than Paul and I shopping for all the kids’ gifts, we give them money and let them do it themselves. They really get into the spirit of giving and this year was especially poignant because somehow Cheryl lost a big portion of her money and was quite upset. The other children all chipped in to give her what they had left over so she could finish her shopping and Sophia consoled her by saying, “Let’s just imagine that the person who found it was someone who really needed it.” I think having the love and support of your family is the greatest Christmas gift of all.”

Today is December 1st and in our collection of family traditions this begins the season of advent calendars. Years ago my two girls, Eva and Sophia, received as gifts cross stitched advent calendars from a friend in Germany. Each day, beginning on the first of December and ending on the 24th, Christmas eve, I would always tie a small gift on to the little rings attached to the calendars. The girls always looked forward to it and it helped to prolong and build up the excitement leading to  Christmas. When I married Paul 3 1/2 years ago, (this is our 4th Christmas together) I didn’t want his kids, Cheryl, Mark and Sam to feel left out, but I didn’t have the time to whip up three more cross stitched calendars and I couldn’t find where to buy them, so I made up my own version. I took a long piece of ribbon and sewed 24 rings to it. It is not as elaborate as the ones my girls received, but it serves the same purpose and my stepchildren appreciated the effort and welcomed the new tradition.