When the Christmas season rolled around this year, I was rather slow to embrace it. I'm sure it had something to do with the sunshiny weather (though we have had some cooler days and even a good bit of rain), not to mention my shocking lack of preparation--I didn't have a secret treasure-trove of presents stashed anywhere this time around. But luckily we have a Santa-in-training at our house! Emerson led the charge this year, assembling the fake tree Aaron ordered for us (I can't justify a real tree when they aren't native to the area and are ridiculously expensive besides), digging through the Christmas boxes for decorations, and generally ushering in the Christmas spirit all on his own. I have to say that Christmas--holidays in general, probably--are far more fantastic when I don't have to be the sole human preparing and dispensing all the cheer! I
love the way Emerson decorated the tree. While I would probably have used white lights, he picked the colored ones, and it reminded me that when I was a kid I really preferred a little more fairy in my fairy tales too. Since I got rid of all the really tacky ornaments, it turned out rather pretty, and over the next few days, the kids dragged out other stuff too, from our little nativity set to the singing snowmen to advent calendars to outdoor lights--so much festivity, so much less work for me! There are some fantastic advantages to having older kids.
It was a good thing too, because Christmas music and performances really did clog up almost all our evenings and weekends. Aaron and I calculated it out, and between Children's Choir performances, Christmas programs at two churches, Aaron's school music concerts, kids' holiday concerts, and
Annie performances, our family was involved in a total of 23 concerts and performances in December! So much fun, so much potential for fatigue! There was a lot less baking (we went with several batches of peppermint Rice Krispie treats instead of more elaborate fare) and virtually zero crafts (I helped Emerson and Sera fold a couple of snowflakes properly, but they were on their own for the rest), but as I said a couple of years ago, you really can't do everything every single year, so picking a few and going all out on those seems to be a great alternative for our family. Being involved with
Annie was so fun for the three younger kids and especially for me--I enjoy singing, and being on stage again for the first time in I don't know how many years was great fun. The Christmas Pops performances at Copley Symphony Hall downtown were just delightful. Addy got to sing with the Children's Choir this year, and did a great job in the performances. The highlight was the closing number,
Let it Snow, when the conductor, decked out in holiday plaid, blew "snow" from his tuba onto the children. The other concerts were all lovely as well, and we enjoyed the chance to attend a Christmas Eve service at Calvary Lutheran Church, where Aaron directs music. Afterward, we enjoyed an invitation to spend the evening with a number of Aaron's friends from the church at a party where all our kids were invited to perform on the piano and where they and we each received a special gift from the hosts, in addition to delicious food and good company (and did I mention that I got out of planning special events for Christmas Eve entirely?).
Once we got through all of that good stuff (that yes, was also somewhat stressful at times), we made it through to Christmas morning. Though there weren't quite as many actual packages under the tree this year, there were a couple of really special things for our family this year. Though we've talked for years about switching out some of the
stuff that goes along with Christmas for a special family vacation, this was the year it finally happened. In addition to a trip up the coast to see Hearst Castle and visit San Francisco for a few days, we also got passes to Universal Studios Hollywood, which we hope to make good use of in the upcoming year. But the real icing on the cake was the last gift the kids opened, all together. They were initially a little confused when they held up the little tiny outfits--how out of touch do parents have to be to buy their children baby clothes . . . unless . . .
That's right! The Mitchell family is growing again! Believe me, nobody is more surprised about this development than we are, but the glittery explosion of joy and disbelief in these kids' eyes when they put it all together was totally worth it. So now you know. We're expecting a little caboose to arrive sometime in late May.
As for our trip, we left a couple of days later. Though I campaigned hard for a train trip, the super-low cost of gas was just too appealing. We packed our bags and headed up to San Luis Obispo where we stayed one night before heading to Hearst Castle the next day. What a magnificent place! Although I had carried around the image of the crotchety old man depicted so tenderly (not really) in
Citizen Kane and
Newsies, we learned from an awesome IMAX film that the real William Randolph Hearst was quite a lot more complex than that. The film took us through his childhood, spent on the shores of central California beaches, a life-altering tour of Europe with his parents when he was only ten years old, his rise in the newspaper industry, and his final dream to build a castle that would bring to the United States a few of the amazing treasures he had encountered during that childhood trip to Europe. His partnership with Julia Morgan, a phenomenal architect and designer in her own right, was the linchpin to making the entire enterprise work, through decades of design and building, to numerous changes to the plans along the way, to the selection of priceless artifacts and artworks that were added one by one as Hearst Castle grew.
The Castle itself was astonishing. From choir stalls imported from France to tapestries from Belgium to ceilings from Spain to Egyptian and Roman sculptures, no detail was overlooked or neglected. Gold tiles graced the stunning pool house, art by Canova and Rubens was splayed across the walls and hidden in the corners of rooms . . . I was in my own personal heaven telling everybody backstory on as many pieces as I could identify (a fair proportion, actually). There was an additional film of collected home movies from Hearst's days at the Castle near the end of the tour, shown in Hearst's own private, red velvet draped, personal theatre, and it was exciting to think back on the glory days of Hollywood when an invitation to the Castle was one of the higher honors even the Hollywood royalty aspired to. On the way back down the winding road, we kept our eyes peeled for the many exotic animals that still roam the grounds, descended from the fantastic zoo Hearst collected during his lifetime.
Afterward we completed the rest of our journey up the Pacific Coast Highway, taking in breathtaking views (some of them rather scary as the winding road ventured to the very edge of sheer cliffs and bluffs) and listening to great music. Though we got rather backed up at one point (something that happens on one-lane roads, apparently), we eventually made it to our hotel for the night, ready to take in San Francisco for a few days.
And San Francisco did not disappoint! We tried to fit it all in--rides on trolleys and streetcars, ferry rides, trips to the pier, sourdough bread, Chinatown, Alcatraz Island . . . well, about that last one. Just know that if you go to San Francisco and it's anytime remotely near any holidays, a) you can reserve tickets online, but you're going to need them about 3 months in advance, and b) if you want to get the few remaining "non-reserved" tickets right on the pier, you're going to have to get there at an insanely ridiculous hour. We got there at about 6:30 am and didn't get tickets. The people who got there at 5 am didn't get tickets. The people who got there at 4 am did. It didn't take us long to realize that as fascinating as it is to look at a prison, it wasn't actually worth lining up at 4 am for. Anyway, the other activities kept us well-occupied. We loved our afternoon on the pier, visiting shops and stopping at the Boudain bakery for soup in sourdough breadbowls for lunch, watching sea lions sun themselves on the rocks, and wearing actual coats and scarves for the first time in ages to ward off the wind. By a stroke of luck, we were able to meet my fantastic aunt and uncle, along with a pretty wide assortment of their children and grandchildren late in the afternoon and spend a bit of time catching up. The very best thing about great relatives is that so little changes between visits no matter how much time elapses between them. It was lovely to get to chat up my cousins, who I love dearly, and to see how their kids have grown (predictably even taller than ours, given the utter lack of any relation measuring less than six feet tall). Though we parted ways after some sight-seeing, after hitting up Ghiradelli Square for some ice cream, we drove back to their house in Fremont to visit some more, an activity that would have been immeasurably better if we had left even thirty minutes before we did. As it was, even taking advantage of all the suggestions offered by Aaron's genius app "Waze," we spent well over an hour getting through a handful of blocks leading to the Bay Bridge, plus a fair amount of slow and go after that. Luckily we had
Frozen on hand, and nothing keeps you sane quite like singing along to Disney movies, right? Once we got through all of that it was fairly smooth sailing, and though we arrived well after dark, they had some amazing pizza waiting for us, and a lovely evening of visiting for the adults and a fair bit of partying and shooting hoops in the on-site indoor gym for the kids--built from what used to be a winery on the property. Afterward, our kids wanted to know if/when we would ever get a gym like that, a prospect that we told them not to hold their breath for.
Our remaining days were filled with Chinatown fortune cookies and coconut candies, freshly sliced octopus (which I couldn't talk any of the kids into ordering with me) and a bit of shopping, fish and chips on pier, a drive to Sausalito and ferry under the Golden Gate bridge. Our kids haven't gotten too old to appreciate the joys of a hotel hot breakfast replete with Belgian waffles, and we were lucky to have a nice pool and hot tub to enjoy in the chilly evenings. On our way back from our trip, I asked the kids if they missed having so much
stuff under the tree (although even at our most generous we've tried to limit the proliferation of gifts at Christmas), and to a person they all proclaimed this the best Christmas ever. Maybe we're somehow managing to pass some of our values down to these darling kids of ours? For my part, I'd take the experience over the present any day, and I'm glad to see that the kids didn't seem to mind joining in on that philosophy at all. Who knows? Maybe next year we'll do away with a Christmas tree altogether. I suppose that's not very likely, though, especially as long as we have Emerson training to be a future Santa Claus at our house. Now if only he'd be as enthusiastic about getting the tree and decorations down as he was about putting them up!
-Blue
