Our family has the distinction of 5 of our 6 children having birthdays within three months after Christmas.  It isn't very good for our budget, or for my energy levels.  But somehow I psyche myself up and get through it all, and none of the children has ever complained to me about having a crappy birthday (that may be because they have a healthy respect for my ability to get very upset, very quickly, if I perceive ingratitude), so there must be some kind of standard which I am maintaining.
     Samuel turned 10 on 22 January.  We let him have his first sleep over, with four other boys.  It was snowing heavily about the time his party was supposed to start.  Having mostly girls, I hadn't realized how much more energy boys have than girls.  Those boys were up ALL night - that's never happened at our girls' sleepovers.  We got them to quiet down around 4am, but then at at 5am they were at it again.  Samuel didn't seem to mind, so I guess that's good.
     Eleanor turned 6 on 24 January.  Her party was the next weekend, and I think it snowed that day as well.  She had a good group of friends come over and they played party games.
     Verity turned 4 on 6 Febraury.  We had a party for her, but only one person showed up, but it was her best friend, Shayla Shami, as well as Shayla's whole family, so we just had a family party, and I think that was much better anyway.    
      On February 22 Abigail turned 15!  Wow!  I, for one, am happy to see the back of 14 and harbour hopes that in the upcoming year Abigail will enjoy a maturation process, rather like a good cheese.
     Abigail is fortunate in that her birthday almost always falls during half term, and this year was no exception.  She decided to forgo a birthday party completely this year (yea!) and just take one friend with her to London instead.  She spent her actual birthday in London, full of culture and shopping and good food!  But, it was also very, very cold.  We have suffered an exceptional cold snap in 2013 and February half term was almost unbearable!  It was hard to do anything outside because most of the time it was so bitter.
     So, we braved the streets of cold South London (think Oliver Twist) to go see the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.  We didn't really think about it when we booked it, but the Globe Theatre is an open air theatre, so it wasn't the most comfortable thing we could have done that day.  But it was still amazing.  Here is the stage (with our tour guide):

She's standing in the Pit, where the cheap seats were.  Here is where the 'groundlings', or the 'stinkards' would have stood to see the play:

 

 

Here's a view from the upper-class seats:



 

 

Samuel, Aisha, Abigail, Imogen and Georgiana, destined for greatness (either that, or life in the stinky seats):

 

 

 

 

 

The box seats had beautiful murals, with scenes from Greek and Roman myths:

 

 

     After the Globe Theatre, Abigail, Imogen, Aisha (Abigail's friend) and I headed over to Harrods to do some shopping, while Tim, Samuel, Georgiana, Eleanor and Verity went to see the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace.  They saw some mighty fine carriages which have been used for various coronations, royal weddings and etc.

 

Here they are in front of Buckingham Palace, in very cold English weather:

     There are no pictures of the rest of our evening, but Abigail, Imogen, Aisha and I had a lovely time in Harrods looking at horrendously overpriced clothes and gaping at £500 pairs of shoes.  We always end up in my favorite place, which is the food hall, probably because the items there are more within my price range, and I don't have to lose any weight to enjoy them.  Then we dined at Pizza Express in Covent Garden, which was delicious.  And then we made our way over the the theatre to see one of the final performances of 'Shrek' the musical.  Abigail said she enjoyed it, so that's the main thing.
     The rest of the weekend was really too cold to do anything else, but I did manage to pull the three little ones out of Grandma's house on Saturday afternoon and take them to Scotney Castle, a National Trust property near Pembury.

     The minute Thanksgiving ended, we entered a tunnel which had Christmas at it's end.  Every move, every thought, every event - it all lead toward Christmas, and if it didn't, then it was an abominable inefficiency and must be eliminated.  Imogen had to stay home from school one day in December because she was sick, and when she finally emerged from her bed she said to me 'I have tunnel vision.'  My first thought was an overwhelming sense of pride in my daughter and I was about to congratulate her when I realized that she was referring to some physical ailment, and I muttered some words of sympathy instead.
     I love Christmas, and, I think, for all the right reasons, so the hub-bub and rush is all very exciting but the older I get the more I feel it needs to be managed so that it doesn't get out of control.  Well, it always does get out of control and this year was no exception.  But I try to take comfort in the fact that although when my children get older they will most likely remember me as stressed out and very busy, perhaps age will bestow upon them wisdom and omniscience so that in all their remembering they will also be able to make the link between my busy-ness and my attempts to give them meaningful experiences
     On the Saturday after Thanksgiving Tim and I took the three older children to see Handel's Messiah performed in the Lincoln Cathedral.

     I find the Messiah to be one of the most beautiful, inspired, and inspiring pieces of music in existence.  For the past three years I have taken Abigail, Imogen and Samuel to see it at Christmastime, and they have had enough exposure to it to the point where we can compare and contrast the different performances - who was the best soprano, alto, bass, tenor; what was the orchestra like; how was the choir, etc.  Two years ago we heard the best soprano ever when we saw a performance in Cambridge, but that performance had a disappointing alto; last year we heard a fantastic alto and tenor, and a impressive cellist, but the first violinist was so underprepared that even we, the non-professional aficionados (and I include my children in that category, not because they want to be aficionados of the Messiah, but because they simply are by virtue of extensive exposure), could identify the vast majority of his mistakes.  This year, the orchestra was magnificent, and the soloists were very good, although the soprano sang with too much vibrato, and it became annoying after a while.  The children won't forget the soloists this year because for the first time they saw a man singing the alto part in falsetto.  They considered this to be so out of the ordinary that the teenager forgot her manners (??!) and had to use all her energy to suppress the giggles, which was noticed by people other than ourselves. 
     Cathedrals are cold, and Lincoln cathedral was no exception.  It was pouring with rain outside, so we arrived very wet, and unfortunately had to sit through the performance feeling damp, which made the cathedral seem even colder.  But the music was beautiful, and the pieces which I particularly noticed this year were 'He shall feed his flock like a shepherd', 'With his stripes we are healed', and 'He trusted in God that He would deliver Him.'  My favorite piece in the Messiah is 'I know that my Redeemer liveth,' and I have insisted that Abigail sing it at my funeral.  Tim joined us for the first time in all our pilgrimages, and it was wonderful to have him with us.
     After the weekend of the Messiah all my energies became focussed on preparing for the Relief Society Christmas workshop on the upcoming Wednesday.  I had already put in loads of hours in preparation but somehow I still ended up with too much to do.  Ummm, yea.  I made 40 advent calenders in 40 decorated bags, each containing 25 scriptures and carols leading up to Christmas, and 40 Christmas Family Home Evenings, complete with visual aids.  The evening was successful and very well attended, so in the end it was worth it. 

 

     The next weekend was the all-important Christmas cake making weekend.  Normally the Christmas cake is done around Stir-Up Sunday, which is always the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  Because Thanksgiving was early this year, I wasn't in a rush to make the cake, so I waited until the weekend after Stir-Up Sunday.  The making of the Christmas cake has to be a family event; I insist, so there is no backing out, not even for the husband.  Everyone is assigned a job, which, considering the cake has about twenty ingredients, isn't too hard to do.  Georgie sliced the glace cherries,

and Samuel chopped the almonds,

Imogen grated the zest from the oranges and lemons,

and Abigail and Nelly were put in charge of beating together the butter, brown sugar, eggs, treacle and marmalade.

Tim had the all-important job of wrapping the cake tin in brown paper and tying it with string to hold it in place (wrapping the cake helps it to cook slower and more evenly so it doesn't burn - that is SO cool!):

 

The final product was beautiful - too bad Tim and I are the only ones who eat Christmas cake!

Things were OK this year because we had 16 people in our house for 4 days over Christmas, so there were plenty of polite eaters who helped us ensure the cake wasn't wasted.
     We decorated our tree the next weekend.  For the past couple of years we have made gingerbread ornaments to go on the tree, and the activity has become quite the tradition.

 

The next Friday I took Georgie, Nelly and Verity - who are our three little ballerinas - to London to see the English National Ballet perform The Nutcracker at the London Coliseum.  It was fantastic!  What made it so wonderful was the fact that we went to one of two special 'under-5's' performances which they put on during the season.  One was on New Year's Day, and the other was on 14 December, which is when we went.  All I have to say, is what an enlightened concept!  It seemed that everyone in the greater London area took their little girl to see the Nutcracker that day.  The place was packed with little children.  As a parent you didn't have to worry about your children being noisy, or fussy, or needing the toilet in the middle of the performance, because everyone around you was noisy, fussy and needing the toilet.  It was a perfect combination of high culture and complete relaxation. 

 

Here are the girls on the tube, going to the performance:

 



Here they are in their seats, ready for the performance to start!

OK, so I splurged and got them ice cream at the interval:

View of the theatre after the performance.



After the performance, for some reason I took them to Harrods to see all the Christmas lights and decorations:

Harrod's food halls are the BEST part of ANY trip to London, especially close to Christmas:

Then it was off to a special trip to McDonalds in Picadilly Circus (the wonders of low expectations!), and then we walked up to Hamley's on Regent Street, the 'finest toy store in the world' which was all decked out for Christmas.

 

 

After a very long day, we got back on the tube, and Verity insisted on reading the tube map and knowing exactly where we were (it was very funny!):