Christmas

My journal of the Christmas season-

Wednesday, Dec. 18

Monday- Our friends Aaron and Shannon, who own the gym/community center here in Paradise, wanted some of our church people to come up for an evening of singing and socializing, so he asked Princeton youth if they would want to bring their Christmas program up here. They agreed to do so! Aaron had invited around 30 people from the area and told all of them to bring whatever food they wanted! It appeared that they all did bring something, there were lots of little crockpots and pans and plates filled with everything from quinoa salad to meatballs to Christmas goodies. The youth had brought grilled chicken and caesar salad, we brought bread from our house…so we had a real smorgasbord! Started out the evening with mingling, then eating, then the youth gave their program. Their program this year is the one that Dawna Wedel wrote for UC youth a couple years ago when we were youth leaders so I enjoyed hearing and helping with that again. The community people seemed to enjoy the singing and the socializing and it seemed to me that the evening turned out a success!

Tuesday was a beautiful day. I would miss having a true winter if I lived here year after year. But for this year you definitely won’t hear me complaining about wearing short sleeves on sunny December days:) Guys went to the youth Christmas party at Glenn in the evening, but we opted to stay home and have a relaxing evening instead of doing the almost hour drive to the valley with the small members of the household.

Wednesday- another lovely day. Max, George, and I hung out outside this afternoon trying to stock up on vitamin D for all the rainy days forecasted in the next couple weeks. I got a dress cut out today. Shelby is talented at making up poems and limericks very quickly and spur of the moment, and he made up this one for me while I was unhappily rethreading my serger. I felt like he successfully captured the feelings of all seamstresses trying to get last minute Christmas sewing done.

“A sewer who set out to sew, sewed slower than molasses can flow. She said with a shout, My patience is out! And smashed her machine with a blow.”

Tonight is Trevor’s last evening at home at the unit so we are having his “farewell”. He chose to keep it quite low key which was fine with everyone with all the Christmas busy-ness. Matt came for supper and the guys made white bbq chicken, macaroni salad and lettuce salad with toppings. Also it is Logan’s birthday today! I asked his mom what his favorite dessert is and she said oreo dessert so that is what we had. The guys wondered if I was going to put their supper conversation in my blog. Wish I could but probably hardly appropriate. At the moment they are all singing, “The Great Gilded Hall”, it’s beautiful but I’m having a hard time concentrating!

Thursday- The highlight of this day was going to Glenn in the evening for their school program! I enjoyed it, seeing the kids do their program and their enthusiastic singing! We stayed for snacks and socializing later and Max and George got to play with the kids. I was happy when we left to hear the kids hollering “Bye Max! Bye George!” I’m thankful they have made friends here!:) The guys stayed for caroling with the youth!

Friday- Trevor’s last day in Paradise. I absolutely hate it when we have boys leave, as I have said before. Today the guys had lunch at Fiesta Taco (our favorite taco truck, owned by a man who knows the unit and he always gives us free chips n salsa on the house) anyway Max and George and I met them since it was Trevor’s last day. Trevor came home after lunch and packed up. He wanted to fly on the late night flight so we had an early supper and then headed to Sacramento to drop him off at the airport. I think he was very enthused to be heading back to Oklahoma and in time for Christmas at that..but we were certainly sad to see him go. He was such a comfortable presence around here and the last guy to leave that was here when we arrived! Hard to believe. We cheered ourselves up with hot chocolate from Dutch Bros on the way home. The new guy doesn’t come until next week.

Saturday- perhaps this day needs the curtain of charity drawn over it. Jake and one of the guys were hit with an extremely miserable flu bug so nothing much happened. I did the mom thing and made chicken noodle soup for supper and did a run to the grocery store for fizzy drinks to try to help everyone feel better.

Sunday- Everyone was still in recovery so no going down to the valley for church as we had originally planned. I called in United Center, we all called in the end of Dallas’s Christmas program, and then in the end randomly listened in to Tonasket, Washington. We went to Chico in the afternoon to get out of the house for a while. Walked around downtown, it was raining and the Christmas lights were sparkly. Grabbed some supper in town and headed back up the hill to Paradise. I baked peppernuts that were a bit disappointing. Not sure what I did wrong.

Monday- Guys worked. In the evening we did some caroling here in Paradise. Alan and Joyce, Matt and David and Bryce and Sarah came and helped us! Such a fun evening! Went to a bunch of our acquaintances around here and came back to our house for supper. I made Hopes Table beef veggie soup and chicken corn chowder and Joyce brought yummy cinnamon rolls and sourdough bread.

Tuesday- Christmas eve! I’m so thankful to be in California for Christmas this year! Trying to really take it in. Never again will we get to spend Christmas with these 3 guys in a little house in Paradise. Never again will we get to carol to Aaron and Shannon and Freda and Brandon and Paul. (these names are for those of you who have been here in Paradise:) Presumably I will never again see so much fog and rain in the month of December either. Lol. It rained again today. And yesterday, and the day before and I think the day before that too. Not all day, but off and on and just kinda dreary weather. Good thing I find rain and dreary weather cozy! The guys did not work today. Everyone slept in absolutely as late as they pleased. I told someone this morning that if they peeked in our house they would see one guy cooking up a gourmet breakfast in the kitchen, one sprawled on the couch reading his Bible, Jake sprawled on the other couch reading Shelby’s book, M & G on the floor doing puzzles, one guy not around as he was still in bed, the fire burning in the woodstove. It was all quite cheery and cozy at that moment! Also wish you could have seen the picturesque breakfast Logan cooked up. Perfectly crisp bacon, 2 perfectly fried eggs, an english muffin toasted just right and an avocado sliced and fanned artfully on the plate, a half on each side. The rest of us stood around and marveled at it, wishing it was ours. We chilled around the house and then after a while headed to Oroville to do some last minute Christmas shopping, the guys hit pawn shops and even Goodwill to peruse the books. Oroville has a splendid Goodwill. One other thing about today..our sweet neighbor Freda gave us the best Christmas candy last night when we caroled for her. The guys loved it so I messaged her today and asked if she would share the recipe. She said she would drop the recipe by and proceeded to show up at our house this afternoon with a box full of all the ingredients to make the candy and told me just how to do it… I was touched at her kindness. She is prob in her early 60s and just lost her husband a year ago this December.

Friday, December 27

Well Christmas day didn’t go quite as we had planned. It was my turn for the flu. I won’t expound on the bleakness I felt, but it was unfortunate because it seemed everyone was already a little melancholy about being away from home on Christmas day and we had planned to make a good brunch, drive up in the mountains and find snow, and then the plan for supper was smoked ribs, sweet potatoes, salad, sourdough bread and cheesecake. Also open gifts & just have a special day! But obviously the cook was down and there was no possible way I was leaving the house to drive up in the mountains and Jake didn’t leave either because our boys were acting half sick as well. I think a couple of the guys hiked down in the canyon in the afternoon and Logan smoked the ribs (they were delicious I heard) Jake finished my sourdough bread & Shelby made a salad. Oh and we did do our gifts in the evening which I managed to be present for. Truly that pun was not intended. We had all drawn names so that was fun to see what everyone came up with! I got a really pretty stone cutting board and a bar of delicious chocolate (made in Chico) from Landon. Part of our gift to the guys was wrapping their phones and giving them to them for a day of use. Lol. They were quite delighted!

Thursday was a huge improvement on the day before! The guys went to Mount Shasta with Matt and had a grand time from the sound of it! Our little fam was still in recovery mode so we stayed home. Which was relaxing, I did some cleaning and organizing. Seriously organizing and cleaning is ongoing if you want to stay ahead in this house! 4 big boys who all have differing levels of tidy-ness, 2 messy imaginative little boys, lots of rain and red dirt= lots of red mud, a rather naturally unorganized house mom and 1 organized house pop. That’s what we have going on around here and it will probably explain why it’s hard to keep the house clean. Thankfully no one but me probably cares or even notices if it is dirty ha.

And today it rained again. Guys worked around here actually. Recaulking a shower, fixing ceiling fans, putting door pulls on kitchen cupboards, doing their weekend chores etc. etc. We went to the little coffee shop cafe here in Paradise for a yummy lunch, I made fried chicken strips for supper. Now everyone is just hanging out. And tomorrow we head to Sacramento to pick up the new guy, Ryan Goossen from Pine River, Manitoba! Yay! Shelby happened to find a label maker in the desk drawer today and I guess inspiration hit and he has been making lots of labels that say “Ryan Goossen” and posting them around the house, like on Ryan’s bed and his place at the table. Also on the hanging lamp in the living room and myriad other places. They have other “plans” to welcome him as well. Wonder if he knows what he is getting into.

Thanks so very much to everyone who messaged & sent cards, etc over Christmas. It truly meant a lot. It was a delight to run to the mailbox and find a christmas card from Kansas or get a message from one of you letting us know you were thinking of us.

Love from all of us… Jake, Chels, Max, and George