Sylvia's Journal

In our family we try to give each other Christmas experiences rather than gifts. For the last few years this has meant gift certificates for a workshop of choice at Snow Farm, an arts and crafts center that is close to Sita and Jim’s home in western Massachusetts.

Sita and Jim are enjoying their gift this long weekend in a workshop on Botanical Drawing. Their accomplishments after just one day are already spectacular. We are looking forward to seeing more great works today.

While they are enjoying their time of total immersion in art, we have the kids to entertain. We made it through day 1, leaving me exhausted, even though we didn’t do anything strenuous entertaining a 7- and 10-year-old. Our activities included apple picking in the morning. But this was not the apple picking we did with our kids. Instead of working to get apples (walking, bending, stretching), our picking was limited to filling a bag from a bank of baskets filled with apples, and then having cider donuts and apple cider (hot for us and slushies for the kids) – a caloric uptake instead of a caloric expense.

Next stop was a lovely playground behind a local school where we sat in the sun and occasionally participating in taking a seat on a double seesaw (“trust me, if you and your brother are on one side and your grandparents on the other, you will stay up!”).

Next stop was an expedition to Target to buy some unmentionables, which landed us in a giant traffic jam. As a result, our promised lunch at a place called The Brewery in Northampton was delayed to long after lunch time. Although the name of the restaurant suggests otherwise, there is a menu for kids. Faro, at 10, considers himself above that and choose the adult (massive) hamburger, accompanied by a large coca cola (not usually allowed by his parents). Axel is still getting used to being a heart patient for whom alcohol and coffee are no longer recommended. That was a little difficult in a place called The Brewery. He had to accept occasional sips from my (small) glass of beer. The roles are reversed, I used to be the one sipping from his (large) glasses of beer.

All through the day there were attacks of the ‘gimme’s’ and statements I needed to verify with the parents. At first Faro indicated that his younger sister would gladly buy him a toy out of her pocket money. Then there was an attempt to buy an expensive toy (from the ‘nerf’ family of toys, which seemed to me like weapons). The parents had explicitly forbidden him to get these toys until he was 18. That didn’t keep him from trying over and over to get us to relax the parents’ rules. I think Faro has all the potential to become a great negotiator because of his skill in wearing people out.

After lunch he had pressed us into going to nearby Newbury Comics because he had 15 dollars burning in his pockets, not real dollar bills but the agreement from his mom that they each could spend 15 dollars from their pocket money during their outing with opa and oma. Despite that limit, he kept bringing me boxes of something he wanted that cost 50 dollars or more. His sister on the other hand picked up endless small items but never expressed a need to buy them. I was amazed at the cost of everything. I was also struck about the wealth we have that allow such shops to succeed in their business and how our grandkids take that abundance for granted. 

Back home we parked them in front of the TV and navigated dinner time when no one was hungry after out late lunch except mom (dad was playing music someplace in Amherst). I tumbled into bed at 8:30 and fell asleep within seconds.