As I hinted in our last update, having a working camera at Christmas allowed us more latitude in terms of taking pictures than we were accustomed to. The end result was hundreds of pictures—most of them not especially good: having a camera is hardly the same thing as knowing how to use one, and our new camera is a fair bit more complicated than the one we had before—to sort through, evaluate, and try to make presentable. Finally, nearly a month later, we’ve uploaded our Christmas album.

The season kicked off with the winter band concert at Booksin. After a year or so of learning the trumpet, things are starting to click for Julia. It helps that we belatedly realized that she has a secret weapon in the form of her mother: not many of her bandmates are lucky enough to have someone who played the same instrument for years and years at home. Rather than having Julia head off to her room to practice on her own, which was never very effective, we’ve taken to having her work one-on-one with Julie for fifteen minutes in the evening, so she’s getting expert, real-time feedback on how she’s doing. She’s showing real improvement, and she seems to be enjoying playing more as a result. She did a great job at the concert, even if she’s a little tough to make out in the photos, hidden behind her friend Zoe’s music stand and a giant saxophonist. The shots in which she’s front and center were taken after the show, when the band director let each group of kids come to the front of the stage for a photo opportunity—he certainly knows his audience.

For the second consecutive year, Joe’s YMCA Adventure Guides circle did an evening trip to Downtown Ice. Joe won’t be competing in short track any time soon, but he had a good time. Unlike last year, we actually met up with the group: I worked from home that afternoon rather than try to fight traffic down from Palo Alto during rush hour. My biggest takeaway by far was that ice skating is really, really painful; my feet are cramping up just thinking about it.

We spent the holidays at Grandma Flack’s house in Nebraska, and we were lucky to be able to see all of Julie’s brothers on Christmas day in Norfolk and later, at David’s place in Malcolm. Julia and Joe eagerly anticipated seeing their cousins, and they didn’t disappoint; Greg was especially patient with them.

One of the other things the kids were looking forward to—perhaps more than anything else—was Grandma Flack’s electric typewriter. They spent some time banging out notes on it the last time we spent Christmas in Nebraska (two years ago for those of you keeping track at home), and it was still fresh in their minds this time around. This year, in addition to assembling personalized missives for each of the adults in the house, they wrote notes for Santa, which we left out on Christmas Eve along with the traditional milk and cookies. Naturally, Santa took a few moments out from his busy night to leave them handwritten replies.

In contrast to the typewriter, one of the kids’ other thrills this year was watching the Doctor Who Christmas special, streamed over the Internet to my iPad, since Grandma Flack’s cable company doesn’t offer BBC America. Interestingly, they didn’t make much of a distinction between these two technologies, separated as they are by a more than a half-century of progress. To them, they were just ordinary things that worked and could more or less be taken for granted; if anything, the fact that the typewriter produced tangible, solid artifices they could hold in their hands made it more interesting than the purely virtual reality of the iPad.¹

Of course, It was William’s very first Christmas, though he seemed a bit nonplussed by all the festivities. He spent a significant portion of our stay napping with Aunt Julie, who worked assiduously to find positions for him that might relieve gas pains. Grandma Flack was able to turn up a crib, swing, bouncy seat, and a playmat that was nearly identical to the one we have here in San José, so William felt right at home, as evidenced by the fact, he felt comfortable enough to maintain his policy of not sleeping for more than two hours straight.

He even did reasonably well on the flights to and from Nebraska. We didn’t have a seat for him, so he spent the entirety of his time on the plane on our laps, but he didn’t fuss much at all in the grand scheme of things. We flew Southwest, which doesn’t have assigned seats, so he actually served as an effective good-luck charm on the way out to Nebraska: I held him on my lap throughout the boarding process, and no one elected to sit next to me.

Flying Southwest had one other benefit: unlike most other airlines, they still don’t charge for your first checked bag, and we were able to take advantage of that policy to help us get the kids’ gifts (of which there were many: every year, we vow not to let things get too out of hand, and every year, we fail) back to California without having to spend too much on shipping. This year, we got away with just sending one large box via FedEx; everything else came on the plane with us.

While we were in Nebraska, Julia also started work on her very first science fair project. She did an experiment judging the effectiveness of different types of detergent in removing oil from feathers, chamois, and rabbit fur (being in the Midwest, rather than California, ensured that we wouldn’t have any problem acquiring whatever animal products we needed to conduct the experiments). Julia didn’t have to present her work or be judged this time around, but she enjoyed putting together her poster—which was covered in stickers, naturally—and testing her hypothesis. Going down to Champaign for the state science fair in the seventh grade is one of my favorite childhood memories, so I’m looking forward to even more exciting projects down the road.

Seating aside, the actual travel portion of the trip was more eventful than usual this year. I had forgotten how much fun it is to get through airport security with a stroller and an infant. Luckily, Julia and Joseph are both old enough to get through the process more or less independently, but I pity the poor, unfortunate souls who ended up behind us in the security line, especially now that the slower, hold-your-hands-in-the-air naked-picture machines have largely replaced metal detectors in the airports we travel through.

Making things even more exciting was the fact that Mother Nature was being extremely uncooperative while we were trying to get from place to place. While we were actually in Nebraska, the weather was fairly pleasant: a couple of times, it even got up into the 50s and 60s, warm enough for the kids to go outside and play with some of their new toys. But the visit was bookended by some absolutely brutal weather. Our outbound flight was delayed by almost three hours due to precipitation elsewhere in the country, long enough that we had to call ahead to make special arrangements with the rental car company so that we would have a way to get to Norfolk upon our arrival.

On the day we headed back to California, the temperature dropped to around zero, and the wind chill was unspeakably low. Our flight to Denver was delayed by more than four hours, and we missed our connection to San José completely. Fortunately, Julie was able to make last-minute hotel arrangements while we waited, and we spent the night in a cozy little room close to the airport. The kids (other than William, who didn’t seem to have an opinion) thought it was a grand adventure, while I was mostly worried about missing a day of work.

Gallery: Christmas 2013