An Ilich Christmas

Growing up our family observed Christmas and New Year's according to the old calendar. That meant that Christmas came every January 7th. Christmas in our family didn't involve presents or even a tree, and in spite of, or maybe because of this it was a special day in its own way.

Every January 6th (Christmas Eve) my family would gather in the evening at my grandparents house. There were years that we had more then 25 people, and others just 6. My grandmother would fix a "fasting" meal (meaning no animal products - fish is ok) and we would set a table on the floor. She would have us lay a red table cloth over the floor and then place all of the food on it.





Next came the fun part. We would recreate part of the manger scene. The adults would be hens and their role was to "quaw" and the kids would be chicks and our role was to "pew" (I am still a chick at 28...I think I may always be...). The oldest male would then take a basket full of hay, walnuts, wheat and coins and forming what I will call a tango line for lack of a better name, we would line up from oldest to youngest and assume our respective hen or chick roles, quawing or pewing as we moved from room to room throughout the house as the hay, walnuts, wheat, and coins were thrown all over. We would then sit down on the floor for dinner and the kids would look around trying to spot the largest coins during dinner so once we were released we would run as fast as we could to collect the most money.

Since we live in San Diego, we decided we were close enough and it meant enough to us to have Jack and Zack experience an Ilich Christmas Eve. Jack had a wonderful time and I think he got a kick out of seeing all the adults in the room behave so strangely! It was a touching experience to see my child experience something so special to my family and dear in my own memories. Jack is an amazing child and breaths new fresh life into our family. He re-animates everyone and I see through his eyes the vibrancy of my family.

Jack even had his first "kolo" lesson (traditional Serbian dance) from Baba and Tai.







This year Jack lucked out and got to collect all of the coins without competition. He even managed to walk away with a few extra dollars thanks to Deda and Mark.

I am so grateful for the traditions of my family and for a loving husband who understands the value of teaching our child who he is and the traditions he is a part of.

**as a side note Jack asked to eat dinner on the floor all the rest of the week...

Where did this kid come from?

Yesterday while Zack was in the closet getting dressed for work and I was in the bathroom doing my hair and getting ready for the day, Jack sauntered in and walked right up to Zack in the closet. He looked at him and said,

"Alright people, what's the plan for today? What are we going to do with our lives?"

Seriously, where did this kid come from?

The 2009 Car Show

There are few things in life as awesome to Jack as the car show. We have taken him every year since he was born and I am not exaggerating when I say he has LOVED it since he was a baby. This year did not disappoint. Zack, Jack, my mom and I all drove down to the car show together and Nicky, Dani and Bobby met us there. We were there for nearly 3 hours while "the boys" (read Zack and Jack - Nicky only made it about an hour) sat in and pretended to drive almost every car. As in years past, Jack's taste got more and more discerning as the day progressed and he became more interested in the high end cars then mere Fords and Chevy's. By the end Jack was so tired, but refused to admit defeat and go home. Instead he found a cozy place to lie down for a quick pick me up.

Catch Up Christmas

You know life is crazy hectic when I am finally sitting down to record our Christmas one month later. Maybe I can blame my delinquency on the fact that our tree is still up and our lights are still on the house thanks to Mr. Christmas and his three foot tall elf. (on a side note, when I get back from the gym in the evening Mr. Christmas is typically listening to Christmas carols...). I finally lost it last night and informed Mr. Christmas that I couldn't take it anymore and the tree and lights needed to be gone by Saturday night. I felt like Scrooge, but come on -- our neighbors are going to start sending us nasty notes. Not because the lights are still up, but because they are still on each and every night!

Alright, back to Christmas. We had a great week leading up to Christmas which included trips to the Del Mar Festival of Lights, the Christmas house, visiting Candyland, throwing snowballs, sledding, and seeing Santa (from afar).





Christmas eve we had our neighbors over for dinner. They made crab and we made prime rib. Zack insisted we document the deliciousness which was our dinner by taking a picture...

Dani, Bobby, and Nicky stayed over until about 10 at which point we separated and wished Santa good luck with all that still needed to happen. Zack and I woke up at 8 completely thrilled that our elf had given us the gift of sleeping in a bit. We showered, dressed, made breakfast burritos (once again Zack documented it)


and orange rolls. 11:00 rolled around and we still hadn't heard from Jack. I went upstairs and woke him up. He immediately told me he was hungry and my initial thought was this kid is going to throw up. I tried to keep my negative thoughts to myself and consented to make him his requested hot dog **warning lights should have been going off...



He ate one bite and then threw up all over himself, me and our floor. (That picture was taken literally seconds before and if you look at his face you can almost see what's going to happen next!). The rest of the morning past in a blur of throw up and presents. Jack was so sweet and would open one present and then throw up (a gross side note, this was the first time he could tell me he was going to throw up and then throw up into a bowl instead of all over himself and me which was AWESOME). After a few presents Jack told us he was too sick and tired to open more so we took a break on the couch. Jack said he wanted a nap and after Zack gave him a blessing he took a short one hour nap and woke up hungry. All he wanted was an orange roll and I was too tired to say no.



He ate it and was a changed little man. He had energy and quickly remembered he had a ton of unopened presents and went to work.





It's moments like that that I am so grateful for Zack and the power of blessings. It was our Christmas miracle.

The highlight of Jack's Christmas was undoubtedly getting his ATV.



It was the one and only thing he asked for from Santa and he was thrilled. He spent an hour on ichat with my mom showing her all of his tricks and telling her what they were called.

It was not the day I had imagined, but it was perfect in its own way.

Catch up

One of the best things about living in San Diego, besides the fact that we are spending our weekends at the beach in January, is living closer to family. Jack and I have made several trips "up" (see Rachel and Zack -- I am trying) to Irvine to meet either Baba and Tai or my dad. We meet at the Spectrum which is perfect because it has CPK (which is still Jack's favorite restaurant and seems to hold some unknown power to calm him out of acting like a three year old at a restaurant) a fountain to play in, an ice skating rink, a carousel and a Ferris wheel. The first time we went, we met Baba and Tai and had a blast. Jack rode the carousel with Baba and after they left he convinced me to go on the Ferris wheel with him. Let me start off by saying I have an unreasonable fear of heights. (Maybe semi-reasonable in that I fell off a cliff once which hiking and managed to hang on to a branch about halfway down while one of the cars below mercifully stopped and the driver climbed up to rescue me). But that's another story. My fear of heights extends to Ferris wheels. Why anyone on earth would think sitting in a metal cage teetering high up in the air is fun, is beyond me, but Jack really wanted to go. I decided I was 28 years old and I was mature enough to go on a Ferris wheel with my child. We got in and seriously 30 seconds later I was in full panic mode and could not for the life of me look up. Jack sat next to me happy as a clam pointing out how windy it was, how many tiny cars we could see, hey, we could even see the ocean, and all I could do was wrap one hand around the metal pole in the center of the death trap and the other around Jack so that I could save us both when the thing collapsed. Jack, needless to say, noticed I was acting like a lunatic and asked me what was wrong. I wrestled back in forth as to whether to admit to him that I have fears (like plummeting to our death) or keep it from him so my fears wouldn't affect him. I finally decided it was okay for him to know that I got scared sometimes, so I admitted that I was scared and when we finally made it once around the death trap I asked the conductor to stop it and let us off. He laughed and asked if Jack was too young and scared for it, and I admitted I was in fact the one that was too young and scared for it.





The next time we drove "up" to meet my dad at the Spectrum, my dad lovingly agreed to take Jack up in the Ferris wheel and despite making fun of me, the two of them had a blast together.




Anyone else want to meet us at the Spectrum?