do you believe in fairies?

Or are you a fairy killer?

This is the question I'm asking myself this Christmas. In Ally's Christmas card to Santa, painstakingly printed and illustrated, she asks for two specific gifts, in this order:

1. "To see a real fairy, please"
2. A trampoline (for the third year in a row)

I'm hoping there's another option for me: cool mom who tells the truth. Because no matter how many interesting ways I dream up to trick her, I just don't want to trick her.

Santa seems to be in good standing with her still, and for whatever reason, that one seems breezy. I've always imagined that when she comes to me, as I went to my mother, and asks me to give it to her straight, I will. She'll trade in a little of that delightful, childlike credulity for some bonafide grown-up knowledge.

But fairies, man. Innocent belief seems really, really precious right now. So hard to let it go.

POST-CHRISTMAS UPDATE: "Santa" left a book on building fairy houses. Questions asked, questions answered. As Ally says, "easy, peasy lemon-squeezy."

and then she was SIX

It's almost time for the Big Party!

Friends gotta snack.

Treasure Hunt

Decorating treasure boxes

Karaoke

Opening presents! Ally requested a Barbie birthday. 

At Home: The Before Party

At Home: The After Party. Squashed cake on the left is a sad, failed attempt at the classic Barbie cake. Liv threw it on the ground.

Reluctance

by Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
   And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
   And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
   And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
   Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
   And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
   When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
   No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
   The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
   But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
   Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
   To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
   Of a love or a season?

everybody dies

Holidays are subjective, classified by religion and relevance and interest. They're pushed, prodded and shaped by PR and PC. It's by no means safe to assume your neighbor will light up a Christmas tree or a menorah, or even a festive yard-Snoopy.

But Americans love Halloween.

I have wondered why this is true. Do we want to be someone else? Many of us, young and old, do seem to repress a desire to dress up and wear someone else's hair...why else go crazy on the one day it's approved?

But no, I think it's something more fascinating, more darkly compelling, more universal: everybody dies. Believe what you will, pray how you wish, expect the worst or the best...still, death will come to you. Why not celebrate, or at least commemorate, what we all share? Around here it's a community affair; there is an unspoken agreement that we'll all participate to some degree. The decorations start appearing early, the neighborhood glows orange by degrees, and the mood is infectious.

One night in early October when we were out for a walk, Ally was so taken with the decorations at one house that she insisted we stop and tell them. She marched up to the door, knocked, and introduced herself to the woman who answered the door (whom we now know as Lisa). 'Nice decorations!' Ally said. Lisa came outside and sat on the porch to chat for a minute. Let me be accurate: Ally did most of the chatting. She made Lisa go inside for paper and pen to write down what she and Liv were going to be for Halloween. This turned out to be excellent planning on Ally's part, because three weeks later on Halloween night, Lisa spotted our peacock and bunny/lamb and brought out gifts she had made especially for them.

Maybe the yards where you live weren't lit up like the ones here. Maybe you live in a high-rise and saw no special change on Halloween night besides an increase in the numbers of apparent lunatics and strumpets on the streets below. Maybe the night passed uneventfully and you didn't give or receive a single fun-size piece of chocolate. It's a free country. But i'll bet you know lots of people who did.

he cut off their tails with a carving knife

skyping with Grandpa Tom

And while we're on the subject of candy, let's talk about a trick-or-treating legend: the myth of the full-size candy bar. You've heard about it every year since you were old enough to carry a plastic pumpkin bucket. Maybe you're one of the lucky few who have actually seen one. Not I. 

Go to the mall! they said. JCPenney is giving out full size Snickers bars! But by the time you get there--if your parents will consent to drive you--it's closed. 

Hurry! Go to the third house on the second block! All you find is an empty bowl on a dark porch. 

This year I came as close as I've ever come to seeing it in real life. The couple at the end of our block had a stash of giant Kit-Kats they were clearly saving for the neighbor kids they know. As Ally and Liv approached, I saw one of them reach behind a pumpkin on his porch and get the big ones. They put them in the buckets. It was happening. It was really happening! I couldn't have been more transfixed if I'd seen The Great Pumpkin himself rising up out of the pumpkin patch to bring treats to all the good little boys and girls.

Fast forward about an hour (the girls didn't trick-or-treat for very long this year--they were too excited to get home and drink milk (Liv) and sort their candy (Ally)). Halfway through the inventory I remembered the giant Kit-Kats. We emptied the buckets feverishly and combed through the loot.

But, alas. They weren't there. And that, friends, is a true ghost story.

waiting for 'customers'

try to remember that kind of november

Quoth Ally, at the bakery, munching on her croissant: "Mom, are there people in the world who let their children have what they want?"

::          ::           ::

Ally, while doing homework, distractedly:

"oh, mom! i forgot not to be silly!"

"no! mrs. s doesn't like us to do that!"

"this is like a design. i call it an elf swirl because it kind of looks like an elf and it's stuck in a stocking so it's an elf swirl. and you never stop making cool designs. See that one? It's called a Flower L. And this one is called a hearted E. That's the Swirly B."

                                                           ::          ::           ::

Liv, spontaneously, from the back seat of the car yesterday: "America! Oba-Obama! I cheer for dose two fings!"

this i think she learned from Big Sister, whose reaction to the election results Wednesday morning is captured in the picture below. no doubt we are all influenced one way or the other by our parents, but no, I did not indoctrinate--nor even educate--her about the candidates this year. i like to see what she comes up with on her own.



We spent the last hours of daylight on election day here. It was quiet. It was peaceful. It was Liv's idea.

Happy "America's Choosing Day"

voting at Liv's preschool

Election Day, November, 1884 

by Walt Whitman

If I should need to name, O Western World, your 

   powerfulest scene and show,
'Twould not be you, Niagara--nor you, ye limitless 

   prairies--nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite--nor Yellowstone, with all its 

   spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, 

   appearing and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones--nor Huron's belt of mighty 

   lakes--nor Mississippi's stream:
--This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, 

   I'd name--the still small voice vibrating--America's 

   choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen--the act itself the 

   main, the quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd--sea-board 

   and inland--Texas to Maine--the Prairie States--

   Vermont, Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West--the 

   paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling--(a swordless 

   conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern 

   Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity--welcoming the darker 

   odds, the dross:
--Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to

 purify--while the heart pants, life glows:

These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,

Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.

halloween by day

'I know you're really Mrs. Schack!'

the evil eye

super-duper evil (and sparkly and pink and fluffy)

'it must have been cold there in my shadow...'

of late...

Ally is caught up in the romance of it all. the romance of what, you ask? of it all. she walks around the house singing, babe-ah, babe-ah, babe-ah... and thereby proving that teeny-bopperism can be an inborn as well as a learned trait.

Liv is full of affection for...wait for it...ME! consequently i earn the privilege to be sole tooth brusher, bum wiper, milk pourer and general caretaker. Bim still gets to play castle with her, but i get all the smooches (often bestowed on my knees or shoulders as i help get her dressed), all the thanks and all the tearful farewells. She kisses my legs and says she loves her mom about one billion times a day. usually right before she asks for candy.

we had tomato soup for dinner last night. Liv declared that i "make the greatest food ever," and Ally said dreamily, "Mom, it's filling up my soul! ...kind of."

in other news, Ally had her first piano recital and we joined the Diaz Trio for our fourth annual pilgrimage to Riley Family Farms to pick pumpkins and press cider. I'll dedicate another post to that. Then we hosted a party for Ally's first grade class. it was a little too busy to take good pictures, but here are a few anyway.

note the cute little police officer next to her. she's in love
and would like him to be the honorary boy at her barbie birthday party. 

first piano recital. just thought i'd throw it in here.