Holidays in In the Meadow

The holidays went fairly well. We got a Christmas tree from a nursery. Kayla and Timmy were having online finals. We didn’t want to interfere with that so we got the tree fairly late. We still got a nice tree. It had a lot of branches. We were still decorating it on Christmas Eve. I remember in sixth grade my teacher said there were some people who put up their trees on Christmas Eve. For some reason I found this fascinating. When I started college and was not getting home until right before Christmas, we would decorate the tree on Christmas Eve.

The twins weren’t sure how they did on their finals at first. When they got their grades, they found out they had done quite well. They each went to several tutoring sessions which seemed to have helped a lot. Being their first semester of college, being online, and the unusual circumstances of the present moment it was even more confusing than usual.

They wanted to hang out with friends, so we set some ground rules. If they or another young person were driving, they had to be home by 10 pm. Timmy and Kayla did not have cars at college, and most of their friends did not either. Everyone is out of practice with driving. The twins only had three months of driving with their adult licenses before they left for college. Their nighttime driving experience is very limited. Since they are under the legal drinking age, we discouraged drinking. Certainly, there was to be no drinking if they were driving. They did have some sleepovers with friends and they did do some drinking. The rule was they had to do it in moderation and make sure it did not affect Aaron.

Aaron had a vacation from school over the holidays. We got him a tablet for Christmas since his was really slowing down. We got it a few years ago and I don’t think it would have lasted much longer. He was doing in-person school up until the holiday break. He has been doing school remotely this past week. The plan is that they will go back to in person school on Monday. He has been doing indoor track.

Kayla and Timmy are scheduled to go back to college at the end of January. They are starting a week later than they originally were. There is no spring break, and they will finish in early May.

For New Years’ Eve the twins went out early in the evening. We stayed home later at night and watched the ball drop in Times Square.

The events of this week have been very shocking. On Wednesday we were all glued to the tv for most of the afternoon and evening. We were all working earlier in the day (except Aaron) and I had turned on the tv to see the electoral college vote certification. I couldn’t believe how everything disintegrated. Looking at the information that has emerged since then, it was even worse than it originally seemed. I got pregnant with the twins shortly after 9/11. In some ways it felt similar to 9/11. I understand that people have a right to their own opinions and that’s one of the best parts of our democracy. But people don’t have a right to start an insurrection and harm people because they don’t think and look like you. The events were very scary.