Bearshorty's musings

For the last month, since Thanksgiving, I keep planning to write a blog but keep putting it off. I have a list of notes of all I wanted to write about. But with a lot to do at work and with very little time in the evening I just kept postponing writing. I really need to stop that. So I'm going to try to post something every day for the remainder of this year and try to catch up on all my bullet points.

December has been very festive. Right after Thanksgiving I came back to work to find the building decorated in Christmas trees and lots of lights. Many people decorated their desks too. And since Bear was watching the girls that Monday after Thanksgiving and needed to keep Tanya busy, they decorated too. He strung colorful lights along our bookshelves, put up our little fiber optic tree, and put blue garland on the piano. When I got home I put out our minorah, and Tanya wanted to put all the candles in there right away. So it was on the window still for decoration, along with a toy Christmas train.

For Hanukkah, as I was coming home from work, there were religious orthodox Jews by the train station giving out candles and basic minorahs. So I took a set and we lit that until my parents bought me an electric one half way through the holiday. We threw out my old electric one in February during the move since some lights were going and with real candles and small kids there is a bit of a fire hazard, so I like the electric ones.

It was a good Hanukkah. I grated potatoes and my Mom made draniki (latkes), my Dad got Tanya a Dr Seuss book for the 1st night and puzzle book for the second, we lit the minorah and listened to Hanukkah songs. Tanya loved the songs. And played with my little baggie of dreidels (she can't quite spin them yet). But most of all she was excited about chocolate coins and eating them. She and I went to CVS a week before Hanukkah to buy tissues, but I saw the coins and we bought them. Tanya was happy to finally eat them. She is still not a big fan of cakes, but cookies or a little bit of chocolate are yummy.

In our family we celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, and, most importantly for me, New Year, so we are in full holiday swing. Plus today is my Mom's birthday. She doesn't like anyone buying her stuff she doesn't need or really want, so I baked her some muffins last night. I will make cream cheese frosting this morning. Tanya drew her a card.

Another festive occasion was on Sunday, December 10 when Tanya's dance studio had their Holiday dance show. It was held at a local junior high (where Marianna and Yeva went, actually). Tanya's group was performing Frosty the Snowman. Her class has about 5-6 girls but only 3 did the show. Tanya wore a white dance outfit with black buttons sewn on, a top hat and a black scarf. Her group was second. My parents took her to the 2pm call time and then Bear, Olivia and I came at 2:30 for a 3pm show. I switched with my Mom backstage and stayed with Tanya until it was her turn, but then I was able to sneak into auditorium to watch her (and record her on my camera). It was super cute. These three little tiny 3 year olds. Tanya did all her moves and it was just adorable. I was so very happy just watching her, much more than I was expecting. After her number, we went into the audience to watch the whole show.

Bear and Olivia stayed for the first half and then Bear took Olivia out for her nap while we watched the show. It was an amateur show and the best part, other than Tanyax was the DJ showing off his awesome hip hop moves, but the music was nice and Christmasy and we had a good time. It was a little long at almost 3 hours. Tanya skipped her nap so she was a little loopy by the end. It was the first time Olivia went anywhere so public, and she did pretty well. It was a bit too loud so a nap was right in time.