Ups and Downs

We're more than a third of the way to Christmas and things are continuing to be a little on the challenging side.  More positives in Craig's family, and they've felt like garbage, but nothing serious at this point.  We all seem to be fine, thankfully, as the two week window ended today.  But cases continue to rise all over and I feel like any extended Christmas gatherings are looking very unlikely.  I just can't believe we're facing down another year of this.  The key now is keeping ourselves healthy so we can at least have immediate family gatherings, even if the extended family ones don't work out.  Carter got his first shot today, so at least he'll have some protection by then.

On the basketball front, Jacob got some bad news this week that all of the 8th graders got moved down to the modified team from the JV team.  They had a rough scrimmage on Sunday against a really good team, which wasn't unexpected but still prompted his coach to say there were going to be cuts coming.  Tuesday was the JV opener, and sure enough, on Monday they were all sent down.  Never mind that Jacob is definitely more skilled than some of the older kids that remain on the team.  I guess this coach has a thing about kids "doing their time" and not wanting them to take the place of older kids, but that's rather short-sighted when your team is already pretty terrible.  Why give up talent if they could help your team, or even just provide motivation for the starters to get better lest they lose their spot to an up-and-comer?  We heard today that it also had something to do with the arrival of a couple international students, but there are some possibilities when they leave at the end of January.  It all just seems odd to us, and obviously disappointing.  The good news is that the varsity coach is still very high on Jacob so we're hoping his influence will help down the road.  In the meantime, hopefully the modified team will stack up better against other teams and Jacob should have an opportunity to shine.  There's still some concern about what position they'll have him playing, since he's currently one of the taller kids but does not play "big" roles since he won't be the tallest for long.  It's not that he can't try, but it won't help his development the way it should.  Beyond that, these changes create all sorts of upheaval again that could eventually lead to a school change and/or Jacob reclassifying, which would mean he'd repeat 8th grade.  Not because of academics, of course--he made high honor roll this quarter--but rather to give him more time to develop as a player.  It's pretty common in basketball, but I can't say I'm a fan of the practice.  I just don't know if his skills are so full of potential that this level of disruption in his schooling would be warranted.  He may be able to make a D-II or D-III team, and maybe it could help in the scholarship department (which is important if we're paying an extra year of private school tuition), but it all feels extreme when the potential his trainer and a few others see hasn't really borne out on the court with any regularity.  That's not all his fault, mind you--iffy coaching, COVID, the "big" position issue, and a host of other factors have all contributed.  We know he has talent, and when he's on he's amazing.  But the inconsistency makes it hard to judge what's real and what's possible, so that's a really big decision.  And we only have a couple more months to make it before the school starts bugging us to sign a contract for next year.  Ugh.

On the bright side, I finally finished the rest of my Christmas decorating last week, namely the window clings I always seem to put off and FINALLY, at long last, outdoor lights!  We've never managed any sort of outdoor lights at either house we've owned.  At our first house, I just never got around to figuring it out.  We had an outlet but I guess I wasn't that aware of outdoor timers, and the bushes closest to the outlet were prickly holly bushes, so it would have involved hanging from the gutters, which never really interested us or motivated us to figure it out.  I always wanted to do more here, especially as the kids would ask once in a while, but our front porch outlet is in the worst possible spot.  It's smack in the middle of the porch, and any cord would either turn into a trip wire across the porch or have to be elaborately threaded up and around the big front window, across the porch ceiling, and out to the front of the house.  Last year I saw some siding clips on Amazon, and that got me thinking.  Maybe I could buy one of those pre-lit shapes, like a Santa or a tree or something, and hang it on the siding at the top of the porch steps.  Since it would be flat, it would stay out of the way of the door to the garage, and the cord could run along the wall.  But this year when I finally got to Lowe's and looked, anything like that was prohibitively expensive.  So, I bought four strands of lights at Target and took a page from my parents' book.  My parents used to string lights from their plant hooks down to a long piece of wood on the ground, creating a tree.  I found some scrap wood in our garage, put up a siding hook, and gave it a try when the weather was oddly warm and windy last week.  My first attempt was decent but I felt like it needed more help--a wider base and better spacing.  I grabbed a slightly longer piece of wood, screwed six metal hooks into it, and restrung everything.  I think it definitely made a difference, and I sort of love it!

Before

After!

My only issue is whether I might need to cover the outlet if we get a round of blowing snow.  The outlet doesn't (and can't) have a cover, so I might need to rig up a bag and electrical tape, just in case.  But so far, it's been good.  

I mentioned in my last post my quest for the last glass tree at Target.  Here is my final mantle setup.

From L to R: A dollar store hanging tree candleholder I've had for years, the replacement $3 Target tree (with a tealight under), my beloved bubbly red glass ball from IKEA, $5 light-up mercury glass tree from Target, nativity decorative plate we received as a wedding gift, $5 clear stained glass style tree from Target, red sparkly candle we've had for years, IKEA lantern, $1 Target green glass tree.  Background is sparkly pine garland with red LEDs, hanging lights are gold stars, and the stocking holders are nativity-themed.  Nice blend of old and new!

And of course, the trees...including my theme tree this year, which is sports!

So excited I figured out how to stabilize the big star this year--the top branch did not like its weight!  An old fake flower stem did the trick.  I think the extra tall star makes it feel all of its 7.5+ feet!

The boys and I were happy to get home from Jacob's Sunday scrimmage and have Craig home from his first road trip of the year.  It's definitely going to take some getting used to having him gone again.  Monday was Craig's birthday.  Work day birthdays are always a bit of a bummer, but we did our best. We were excited to give him his gift, an Office Funko Advent Calendar, which contains 24 little Office characters.  We're so curious which ones are in there, since all of the online photos only showed the first handful.  It was fun getting to open six at once!  He decided he wanted Outback for dinner, but for various reasons we got a later start (not the least of which was the grumping around after Jacob's basketball demotion and my need to run to Wegmans after forgetting frosting the previous day and subsequently running out of about 10 other items in the process of dinner and making his cookie cake), and by the time I came back with the food, Craig was in the middle of a work conference call.  So we tried to delay eating as long as possible, until he felt comfortable bringing the computer into the kitchen to finish up the call.  It still wasn't the most stimulating conversation between him being on the call and Jacob still complaining, but the food was good, at least.  Then we had cookie cake, by Craig's request.  It was definitely a bit low key, but hopefully we can improve it by next year for the big 5-0!

And before I forget, here's a pic I never got to post from Thanksgiving.  All my boys!

So, we're down to two weeks left until Christmas, and there's still a lot to do!  It's amazing how fast the weeks go right now, between hybrid work, Jacob's practices, trying to get dinner on the table each night, and getting through the rest of the appointments we have each week.  Jacob only has one more full week of school, and I know these weeks will continue to fly by far too fast--Christmas always comes quickly enough anyway.  We probably have a bunch of traditions we still need to do, still many gifts to be bought, movies to watch and lights to see.  And in a year where things may be a little funky again, the pressure is on to do all the things so it still feels like a real Christmas.  It's not easy, but like every other year, we'll get there one way or another...way too quickly.