Dec. 30: The Manullangs’ holidays

During our Christmas celebration last year we made plans to spend Christmas 2008 in Sunriver. Because that’s been our plan all this time, we handled a lot of our decorating and gifting with that in mind. We considered not putting up a tree here at home, but eventually decided to put up an artificial one, just to give a somewhat holiday-ish look to the inside of the house. Vic put up some lights and yard décor, as usual. We got a wreath. Otherwise the house looked much less Christmas-y than it usually does.

Most of my shopping was done in late November (I try to order online as much as possible) and I simply had to wait for deliveries. There was just one trip to the post office needed, which I planned to make sometime in the two weeks before Christmas. I also made sure that the gifts we purchased for the people who would be in Sunriver with us were small and easy to transport so we didn’t have to leave any of them at home.

We arranged to kennel the dogs and have one of the neighbor girls check in on the cat and fish. Distributed small gifts to the neighbors early. Planned little to no holiday baking.

Then the storm hit. Portland is crippled with an inch of snow; we got several inches in one day. School was cancelled every day for the last week before vacation was to begin. The errands I could have run while the kids were in school could not be run because 1) they were home, and 2) I could not get out of my driveway.

The city was just beginning to handle it and return to normal when the second phase of the storm hit and we got several more inches of snow. The next day we got freezing rain. For two days after that, more snow. It had been years since we’d had such bad weather for such a long time.

At first my biggest weather-related concern was whether my mom could get here from Medford. She planned to drive up the day before we were leaving for Sunriver. Knowing that we were expecting freezing rain, she was able to shift her schedule to come up early and avoid it.

In the mean time, Daryl and Sally’s flight from Boston was cancelled and rescheduled to arrive in Portland on Tuesday (three days late).

The cold temperatures last longer than we all expected, and the roads were virtually impassable the day we were supposed to leave Portland. We decided to try again the next day in the hopes that the roads would be better. They weren’t. With great regret, we cancelled our trip to Sunriver.

Our relaxed days of celebrations were now going to take place at home. My mother-in-law and I delegated the gatherings and we planned from there. Vic baked chocolate chip cookies. I made a batch of Russian tea cakes. We dug into the popcorn can gifts we’d received rather than make any more last minute goodies. I was wishing we’d decorated a little more, but at least we had a Christmas tree up. And really, with all the snow outside it was hard to forget it was Christmastime.

Everyone came to our place for Christmas Eve (“everyone” being Wellington, Darlene, Mary, Daryl, Sally, Presley, and the four of us). We had our traditional Chinese dinner and used our Chinese dinnerware. The kids opened some gifts, the most fun being Mad Libs (remember those? They’re still just as fun!). Mom gave Presley and Katie matching snowman jammies and Jack got some cool light-up Star Wars jammies.






The kids woke up around 7 on Christmas morning. It nearly killed them to wait for us grown-ups to come downstairs, get coffee, find the cameras, get comfy on the sofas, and finally give the okay to start tearing open their presents. The biggest hits were the Nintendo DS game systems for the kids, a gorgeous ruby ring my sister gave me, and the gift cards Vic received. Mom also kinda liked her ticket to see Wicked with me in March.

Later that morning we (barely) triumphed over the ice and snow on our way to Darlene and Wellington’s, where Daryl had prepared brunch for us. We all had more gifts to open and spent the afternoon relaxing and wondering how we were ever going to be hungry for the dinner we had planned. It was a relatively perfect day, and the first true white Christmas I’d ever seen in Portland. Katie and Presley both got American Girl dolls from Grandpa & Grandma and spent most the day changing their clothes. Jack spent most the day being very happy he did not have an American Girl doll.







Of course, we ate a huge dinner because that’s what Manullangs do. Eventually the four of us and Mom trudged back over the ice and snow for the 1.2 miles home. Thank goodness for tire chains; we saw lots of cars stuck and abandoned.

Temperatures rose on Friday, and by Saturday Mom decided it was safe to drive back to Medford. Later that day Ted, Alec and Abby came down from Seattle. We all met for dinner at the Spaghetti Factory, then went back to Darlene and Wellington’s for more gifts.

Sunday morning Darlene and Wellington hosted breakfast before Ted, Alec and Abby headed home again. Just before we went over to their house, Jack lost one of his two loose front teeth. He was very excited to show off the big gap in his mouth.





Tomorrow evening everyone’s coming over to our place again for New Year’s Eve. Katie and Jack have informed us they’re staying up until midnight this year. We’re pretty sure Jack will crash before 10, but Katie’s a late-nighter so she’ll make it, no problem.

Our holidays weren’t much like we had envisioned all year, but we have few complaints. We were all together and had a joyful celebration. That’s what it’s all about, right?