Dazzle

Hello and Happy New Year on the first Saturday of 2025 here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is January 4th.

It's been a most blessed whirlwind of family togetherness this past two weeks, and, now, the exodus is in full swing. College Kid 2.0 was the first to leave, having taken up seasonal employment elsewhere before making his 3rd annual January trip to the Czech Republic. College Kid 3.0 leaves tomorrow (weather pending) to pick up his life in his second quarter of college, where, I imagine, the novelty of college will begin to wear off and be replaced by an increasing feeling of normalcy which both comforts and, to an extent, disappoints. College Kid 1.0 leaves Tuesday morning -and this will be the most bittersweet parting of them all. The Oldest has been a tremendous help around the house, but more than that, she has been a tremendous presence of love for her siblings. She introduced Stardew Valley, Neko Atsume: Kitty Collectors, and Castle Crashers to the still homebound kid crew. She balanced the binge of video games with household chores and holiday homework, which the younger ones were only happy to do for their big sister.

It's also been an amazing season of holiday wins.

Big Bunny - The Fourth Grader faced, and conquered, his biggest fear: the Big Bunny run at Lutsen where he broke his leg in December 2023. The psychological breakthrough paved the way to many blue squares of Eagle Mountain and the reward of smashing the runs on Moose Mountain with his older sibs.

O Christmas Tree - The double whammy of the closing of Espe's Tree Farm and my husband's impromptu trip to CZ landed us firmly in the procrastinator's lane of having NO Christmas tree mere days before Christmas. On the last day of our ski trip on December 23rd, CK 2.0 and I headed out on a North Shore adventure in search of a Christmas tree which yielded getting our Outback shoveled out of a ditch by a local "Jesus Bob" who saved the day. We located the Christmas tree farm we'd found via Google. We also found it to be closed. But no matter; we had a Plan B to nab one of the last two remaining Christmas trees we saw at Isak Hansen's Home and Hardware Store right on Hwy 61. All was well when we learned that these trees came from said Christmas tree farm. I splurged on a little bucket of Christmas greenery to celebrate our win.

O Christmas Tree, Part 2 - Baby Jesus (the boss of Santa Claus) solved all of our future Christmas tree problems by gifting our family a Christmas tree Lego set. With the live tree up and holding down the holiday fort, we finally built the Lego tree on January 2nd.

A Sweet Pace - Instead of an avalanche of cookies and treats on Christmas Eve, we had a sweet rollout of holiday treats throughout the season. Friends gifted us a Christmas cookie tin in time for our ski trip. We did some pre-holiday baking - tiger butter, Christmas crack, almond bark-covered pretzels, chocolate mint cookies - which we set out on Christmas Eve. The kids prepared the traditional Christmas cut-out cookies in time for New Year's Eve and I tried a new recipe Gingerbread-Chocolate Chunk No-Churn Ice Cream for our last-last night all together post-New Year's that was an absolute hit. It was a marathon pace that left me feeling fueled with love, light, and joy instead of beached, bloated and exhausted on the couch.

Couch Time - We DID binge on something that was episodes of The Middle our TV family favorite.

Dishcloths - During couch time, I picked up my needles and finished, not one, but two dishcloths from my favorite go-to pattern I'd casted on years ago. I also resumed stitches on my Out-of-Line neck cowl. CK 1 & 3 pulled out the unfinished Creeper Minecraft mittens I felted and almost finished. If you know how to make the thumbs smaller without felting the rest of the mittens, comment below and I will get these babies done too!

CrunchLabs - The Fourth Grader was thrilled to receive a CrunchLabs builder kit for Christmas. Unbeknownst to him, another box is on its way in January and every month for the rest of 2025! We don't always line up the cherries of the Christmas slot machine, but this year we seemed to have hit the jackpot of getting the gift-giving right.

Surprise Visitors - We enjoyed not one, but two visits from the older kids' friends. These twenty-somethings were a blast of warmth and cheer. My husband came out the winningest winner of them all as the beer, cider, honey wine, and kombucha flowed freely from the man cave.

No Frazzle, More Dazzle - I've written about our Advent-inspired putting-on-of-the-holiday brakes in past posts, and this year underscored the wisdom of this practice. Less frazzle yields more dazzle.

I can't think of a better way to start a new year.

Happy 2025!