Our family has had a tough run of illnesses this season, and things continued right through Christmas. Our trip to Atlanta ended with Jocelyn throwing up six times on the flight home, and then we brought home some head lice from our Thanksgiving adventures. Then, Jocelyn was sick a few weeks into December, followed by Felicia (with both a cold and then the stomach flu). And on Christmas Eve … Karen, David, and Vince all drank from a bad bottle of red wine, and are recovering from a hefty bout of food poisoning.

For the last few weeks, if you’d asked Felicia how she was feeling, she’d tell you she was “still a little bit sick.” I guess this applies to the whole family, too.

The Martin-Keller Family holiday tradition of giving Mommy a Christmas Carol continues this year, with a more modern spin on the Holidays: “Let It Snow.” Perhaps you’ve debated whether or not it’s really a Christmas Carol, but the argument is now over. It is.

Written in 1945, “Let It Snow” has been covered by more than 25 different contemporary artists. Now add Jocelyn’s second grade class to the list. She performed the song as part of the seasonal celebration musical put on by the entire Booksin second grade back in November.

As a sub-plot, we are spending this Christmas in Milwaukee, where one can usually expect snow this time of year. While waiting to take a picture of the girls playing in snow seemed like a good idea at the time, Mother Nature had other plans.

We are still waiting for it to snow, but we are having a great Christmas anyway. We love you, Mommy!

… by the downstairs Grandaughters Arts & Crafts Christmas Tree, which Nana & Papa have for displaying their creative works of art.

That’s Jocelyn after completing and hanging hand-sewn and decorated stockings for herself and each of her Martin cousins. She did 98% of the project herself, with only a little help on the sewing machine from Mommy.

Our photo set from our 2006 Milwaukee Christmas is in progress, so check it out.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!

We are still not sure that Felicia has any idea what’s about to happen on Monday. She knows this Christmas thing is a big deal, but she can’t even fathom the depth of the chaos about to unfold … especially here in Milwaukee.

But she has definitely become attached to the festivities. A few times over the past few days, she’s asked me “What are we doing for Christmas today?” She’s also really enjoyed a few Christmas books, including Santa Mouse (who she calls Mickey Mouse), The Night Before Christmas, and her personal favorite Froggy’s Best Christmas.

Oh, and she loves the songs … with some special toddler twists. Here are the ones she seems to enjoy the most, as judged by her sing-along ability:

Jingle Bells: At first, all Christmas carols were Jingle Bells, but now she can identify the tune and even sing along a little bit. If you are going to join her, just know that she prefers riding in a “one-horse open saddle.”

Oh Christmas Tree: Because she still can’t pronounce the hard-c sound at the beginning of a word, this song is also called Oh Tistmas Tree. Our current favortie version of this song is performed half in German, which surely must be confusing for … It’s actually sung by John Denver and The Muppets, so don’t think we’re going all high-brow on her.

She also likes the Beggar’s Rhyme (also as sung by The Muppets) “Christmas is Coming,” which includes the line “Please to Put a Penny in the Old Man’s Hat,” which she can sing and say quite clearly.

As mentioned before, her favorite Christmas carol may not be a “carol” at all … The Polar Express.

She has also categorized a lot of the carols by their “nap time” or “wake up time” status. Her favorite “nap time” song is “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” and any other song that her Mommy sings at bedtime. Of course, anything up-tempo qualifies as a “wake up time” song.

And, her favorite tune of the season might just be the KBAY jingle, which she has sung a few times, even when we are out of the car NOT listening to the radio station that calls itself the “South Bay’s Home for the Holidays.”

David, Jocelyn & Felicia are here for a visit. Felicia wasn’t feeling well and had a rough night. At one point she was leaning her head against my chest while we rocked in my chair. She lifted her head up and said “You make sounds like my mommy.” We talked about it for a few minutes. Turns out she was hearing/feeling my heartbeat. She settled down and eventually went to sleep. It made me feel good to know she liked the sounds I made!

Jocelyn’s second-grade class has been working all year to collect cans and bottles as a fuindraiser. With the proceeds, they have donated turkeys and hams to local community kitchens.

On Friday, her class delivered their latest care package to Loaves & Fishes. They also decorated the agency’s Christmas Tree, which will brighten-up the dining hall during the holidays. After the hard work, they took a walking tour of Downtown San Jose, with stops at City Hall, the San Jose Downtown Association (and the roof of its building), and Christmas in the Park.

If you have Flickr privileges, you can enjoy the whole photoset.

Long story made short: Jocelyn I took our flat cousin Flat Aspen to a hockey game last night. Unfortunately, the San Jose Sharks came out flat, played a terrible game, and lost 4-2 to the LA Kings.

Flat Aspen is a smooshed version of our cousin (of the Nashville Martins) who, like her Flat Stanley namesake, is traveling the country in a suitcase. We’ve been showing her around our part of California. We had originally planned to take Flat Aspen to the Sharks game versus the Nashville Predators last week (which the Sharks won 3-1) but Jocelyn was unable to attend the game. It’s not clear whether we’ll take Flat Aspen to another hockey game again.

On a more interesting note, I am very proud of my sportsfan daughter, who would not leave early, even though the Sharks clearly weren’t playing well, losing 4-0 at one time. Against my nature, I offered several opportunities to head for the doors with all of the other patrons, but she refused. At the end of the game, after the Sharks had scored twice, she pointed out that we would have missed those goals had we left early.

As my good friend Richard would point out a few days later, she’s a “stayer, not a leaver.” Yay!

The 2006 traditional Raking of the Ginko leaves has been a big part of our activities this week, and this time we included our Booksin second grade carpool buddy Kai (and his brothers) in the fun!

Kai had actually been at our house last week, when the leaves had begun to fall, but weren’t really falling (if you know what I mean). Since he left, of course, the tree has dropped more than half of its leaves. So he was very excited to rake on Wednesday, and by Thursday morning we had a brand new blanket of new-fallen yellow. I’m trying to get him to come back to help. Maybe on Sunday?

It’s possible that some of these stories are more entertaining in juxtaposition to standard gender stereotypes, especially related to childrearing. I certainly wouldn’t want to suggest anything …

Felicia has been talking a lot recently … narrating, singing, testing, arguing, everything … If I choose not to do (or allow) something she wants to do, she talks through it, trying to understand what’s going on and how she can influence it. Sometimes, the results are amusing:

When told she couldn’t bounce on the bed, she argued that she wasn’t bouncing, “I hopping.” and then “I not on bed; I over there.”

After we were done reading the book, and it was time for nap, I told her she couldn’t help me put Santa Mouse away (the now-ragged 30+ year-old doll lives on a top shelf for safety), she said, “Mommy is strong. She can put it up there.”

When I tried to explain that a thin plastic peg could not be repaired adequately with tape, she said, “Mommy can to fix it.”