A surprise awaited me when opening this Christmas card...

We made the trip for the Christmas tree short this time.

The last week of school began with a field trip of the second grade (Tom) to the theatre, where I volunteered in some momentary lapse of reason as a chaperone. After a skiing weekend I was totally exhausted and so my morning spent riding school buses and sitting in a theatre, disappears in a fog. Tom, however, enjoyed the show quite a bit; at least someone did, then.

Tom has lost another tooth — slowly we had lost count how many are out now. He pulls them by himself and without much drama, and so we treat it as a common occurrence. The Tooth Fairy also seems to keep losing track of it, for on that morning Tom had waken up and his tooth was still stowed under his pillow and no present in sight. Besides complaining to parents, he decided to address it directly with the fairy, and so the next night under his pillow, there was besides the tooth this letter:


The fairy must have taken the complaint to heart and made everything good that night. I am, though, a bit worried that the school teaches kids to write complaints at this early age — who knows, where they'll send their grievance next time?!?

Lisa took the Christmas card manufacture firmly in her own hands at school. They were making a reindeer from brown paper, glued on a red nose, and by tracing the outlines of their hands, they made horns. I assume they were supposed to write a nice greeting inside. Lisa wrote hers in Czech:
Now I don't know what's better; complaints or planning a marriage at six years of age...

Lise liked decorating the ginger breads, and she was good at it.

The Tech: a museum in San Jose.

Kids' vacations started on the weekend before Christmas. First it seemed to me like a pretty badly planned time off — it meant that I would have to have everything prepared ahead of time (mostly things that don't go together well with kids being around), but in the end it was not as bad. I did not have to shop at the peak of the rush. I could go with kids to places where we don't get all through the school year. We could mix doughs and glazings and not watch too closely whether it's time to go to bed. We did not have to get up early in the morning and catch the school schedule by the minute.

Right on Saturday, we went to fetch our tree. We need a strong Hippo along, and it's a nice little walk. This year we were quickly done — we spotted a nice tree right on the edge of the farm grove, and although we stumbled around little more, we got back to it. By the evening I began with decorating gingerbreads that were meant to beautify the tree. To my surprise, Lisa hurried to tried it as well. And she liked it a lot, saying it was fancy, and really tried hard and did not get upset when not always succeeding. Decorating gingerbreads is quite difficult and not always turns out the way out mean it — Lisa's patience and endurance got certainly tested. Tom had a look at it and declared that he did not want to do it — and so I did not push him. Tom has got less patience, and is not very attracted to "girls'" activities.

Thus on Sunday we could decorate our tree, after it had acclimatized in the garage, lessening the shock of going from frosty mountains into the warmth of a house. And since I am an old hand, I TESTED the electric lights before putting them on the tree. But when I was finally done and Sid took on a role of furniture mover, rearranging our bookcase and cabinets, I plugged the lights' cord into an outlet and discovered that the bottom half DID NOT LIGHT UP. I felt like having a stroke on the spot.

On Monday I had a nine o'clock appointment for the kids with an optometrist, who resides in Palo Alto, relatively far from our home, but not too far from a climbing gym in Belmont, which is only a stone's throw to Rýzls. And so, after the eye check-up, we got together with Míša and her girls at the gym. I think the children were glad to form a pack again, as they got very mischievous and obnoxious. Still we found some time for climbing and running. There's a Thai restaurant right across the street from the gym, which is ideal. The owner said that he would cook for us anything we want. And so I ordered, just from memory, some things they did not have on the menu. Míša and I had a soup and eggplant with garlicky pork, kids ate three orders of chicken satay with rice.

Lisa driving a submarine.

A programmable virtual roller-coaster became the highpoint of our visit.

On the way home we stopped at a grocery store — and also at a drug store for new Christmas lights. Passing Walgreen's, Tom recalled our neighbor Nicholas bought a cap gun there and that he (Tom) would like to have such gun very much and that he would be willing to spend on it his remaining money from his birthday. And so our kids opened the Holidays in peace and quiet by shooting from their cap guns in front of our house. Hippo rolled his eyes, but eventually admitted that he had longed for such a toy when he was a kid — and, honestly, so did I.

On Tuesday it was necessary to take our bus for oil change and buy stuff at Costco — and drive in the afternoon to Belmont for a change, where we had arranged ice skating with Nejedlys and Rýzls. There was some tension there — Lisa was bothering the other girls that they must not be friends with boys, while monopolizing Jack for herself. Tom and Annie would spit at each other at some phase, and we had to introduce the institution of Penalty Box. And I don't really want to mention that Blanka came late because she got hit by some other driver (fortunately it was just a fender-bender). Apparently that day there were some sun-spots going on.

On Wednesday I refused to go anywhere far, and so we only went to YMCA and filled our afternoon by Christmas cookie baking. This year it really shows that the kids had grown bigger and more reasonable, and their help is often a real one, not just another form of torture for me. For example, before I finished fiddling with coconut puffs, Tom and Lisa glued Linz cookies together with jam. The board was all sticky from it, and the kids too, but it was nothing that could not be fixed with some water and soap. And they ENJOYED it. Tom also helped me count and weigh ingredients, and I keep telling myself that this has been good education for them.

On Thursday Hippo was off work already and Martin Rýzl was instructed to take his kids out somewhere, so we joined forces and formed a pack at the Technical Museum of San Jose. Thanks to various mishaps (Rýzl's car having an oil change) we met just before noon, buying ticket to the museum and IMAX (a combined ticket was cheaper than each separate entry fee) and releasing the kids for mere fifteen minutes to one section (earthquake), before it was time for a lunch. We took Rýzls to a Vietnamese eatery in the downtown, but the service was lax this time and the kids fretted over the food. At least it was not expensive.

Lisa on Foxy.

Lisa and Cody.

IMAX came next (a forty minute interpretive movie about apes and elephants), followed by a free run of the museum. The kids lasted probably the longest at a programmable, virtual roller-coaster — you can play with programming the tracks, loading it to your ticket's code, and then play it in a virtual world projected in front of a real (bolted-down) roller-coaster car. Somewhere there Martin declared that he would have welcomed the museum offering a parents' corner — when they have kids' corner at IKEA, where you can leave your offspring and shop in peace. It would be very humane, he said, arranging a shelter for the parents while their kids have fun in the museum. I must say that it seems to me an incredibly attractive idea — me, sitting those three hours in some cozy bar, while my juniors realize themselves with interactive displays. Alas, we were to trundle through said displays with them — and by four o'clock my head felt like a meteorological probe balloon. I took advantage of Lisa and Andrejka fading, and I lured them out of the museum, where they'd installed a huge glazed box with a maze being run and fallen through by billiard balls.

Eventually all the other members of the expedition joined us there; Rýzl's girls began to ask for rides on a nearby merry-go-round (there was some Christmas fair going on in the downtown), and so we retreated cowardly, before our children get the same idea from Martin's haste refusal. We quickly bought a whole grilled chicken at Costco — and I just changed at home and sped off to my climbing gym. And I had planned to relax during the Christmas break, and just lay around.

On Friday I left my whole family at home and ventured to our nearest shopping mall. It was not that I so much desired to be trampled down under the feet of frantic shopping crowds, but my discount coupon to Victoria Secret was about to expire, and I needed a black bra. Fortunately very few people knew they open already at eight a.m., and I caught a moment without a pushy crowd there. It looked similar at the grocery store — not that it would contain few people, but with all registers open I was out in almost record time. Hippo was left with a combat assignment to scare together some meat for our favorite breaded cutlets — and we could then go to Mountain View to buy calendars. Kids each have a relevant calendar hanging over their respective bed, mine adorns the wall over my tea kettle. There I can try focusing on my notes with our schedule, and possibly start panicking already before breakfast. Given the fact that January is already filling with chores (doctors, picking up Vendula from the airport, training, work), and given that I am afraid of the German attack over the Holidays, I was wise to furnish ourselves with an external memory for the upcoming year.

Christmas get-together at the stables.

Santa has visited!

Our calendar expedition was successful, for we had been knowing for a while where to go — and Lisa had obtained her special calendar with pictures of donkeys; Tom found his hamsters, and I got horses. Then we headed to Shana for lunch, followed by taking our kids out on their bikes to Shoreline Park, to get out as well. In the afternoon our friend Janna called us and invited us to a Saturday visit of horse stables, with a picnic. We decided this would not affect our Christmas Eve program and agreed.

And so, on Saturday noon, we found ourselves on a Russian-Jewish outing. For me it was a kind of interpretive trip. First I had no idea that we have horse stables ten minutes from our house, stables that are neither posh nor exclusive, but rather normal. Then I discovered that I UNDERSTAND spoken Russian. Which did not mean I could utter a word myself. It was a bit schizophrenic, listening to a conversation that flows naturally and in the moment you want to join it, you just grasp for words and open your mouth like a fish out of water, never finding what to say.

But all in right order. We loaded Janna and Alex, who navigated us to hills over Los Gatos. There we found Zoya with Sergei, and their horse Foxy. Sergei, who's fifteen, took us on a tour around the stables — he recovered after a first shock and eventually he conversed with our children about individual animals. We saw the youngest, a nine months old horse, and a thirty five years old grandpa horse, with no teeth. Ponies and racing horse, George Clooney (the horse made incredible faces) and a horse in a rehab. Needless to say, most racing horses had long since quit racing, usually recovering from sustained injuries. An owner of one such mare told us that her horse did not even know how to eat grass for she grew up eating pellets. She had to teach her how to walk up and downhill, for the racing track is always flat. As I have written above — no glossy luxury, but the fact that someone takes care of the old and injure veterans, is very impressive.

Tom and his book.

Lisa wanted to start learning to play right away.

Before we handed our carrots to all present horses and heard out their various stories, Tom began to feel hungry. Also Zoya returned with Foxy, and Janna finished heating up cottage cheese pirog, and time had come for a picnic. There the talking was being done mostly in Russian, and I felt like crazy. Then Sergei took Foxy and led her around with Lisa and Tom around the stables. I think that until Lisa smoothly and without help jumped off the big horse, no one believed us that our kids KNOW how to ride — I hope that next time (if there is some NEXT time) they would be somewhat less worried about our children near the horses. We know that they are being careful and that Lisa, very much into horses, watches carefully whether each particular one is friendly and good natured, avoiding the mean ones or those that seem frightened. She had found her horse friend name Cody here, who paid back her friendship in full.

The sun began to turn down to the hills and temperature started to drop — and our time to Santa's arrival shortened as well. We had to say good-bye and head back home, clean up room around our tree (to prevent Santa from stumbling), fry our cutlets, change from horse clothes to something less filthy and threadbare — and look forward.

Our Christmas Eve took place according to established script, the only innovation being pork cutlets in stead of fish. We lured reindeer on oat(meal), Santa Claus delivered a heap of presents, even managed to bring an owl that comes out of an egg for Lisa — only instead of an egg he used a metal ball that opens, but Lisa coped well with that.

As an experiment, two recorders showed up under the tree. Tom said that it was hard and he won't play, but Lisa was really happy and started trying to learn. She made her mom happy, only we shall see how it goes — after all I don't know how reasonable it is to try teaching my child myself.

On Sunday morning we were "loafing" around. Kids were playing with their presents and Lisa did not remember even once throughout the morning that she could watch TV. We finished our leftover cutlets for lunch and headed to Suchýš's place for Christmas photographing — adding an unplanned, but fun visit with Nejedlýs and Rýzls. And as the very last deed that day we dropped off a preset to my climbing buddy Rob, picking up his climbing guide book to Red Rock Canyon, Nevada. A few details remained — doing laundry, packing, reserving our first hotel, arranging our visit with the Hobbits — and we could drive out on our holiday trip.