Christmas vacation doings

We're deep in vacation mode here at the squibix household. Not that everyone could really tell the difference: this afternoon I asked Harvey how he'd liked the vacation week and he asked, "what vacation?". You know, how we didn't do any school work? How Mama and Dada didn't go to work, except that one day when we wanted to give you an excuse to spend the day at Grandma's house with your cousin? Clearly we're not very driven, achievement-oriented people in our workaday lives. Still, to the extent that we have a regular schedule—and we've been working on it lately!—we've abandoned in the past week. Which is both lovely and exhausting.

As is often the case, the flood of new possessions into our house after Christmas and Hanukah has spurred Leah and I to desperate cleaning efforts. The basement is the main target, and we're making some progress. The boys' cousin Nisia is in town and we've been spending a lot of time with her. They hadn't seen her in a year and a half, but they picked up right where they left off in their play. We're looking forward to celebrating the end of this tumultuous year here tomorrow evening, then we have more relatives coming for brunch on Monday—relatives with very high standards when it comes to cleaning and decorating. And we still haven't made gingerbread houses yet! All of which is to say: vacation is tiring!

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