The week before Christmas

Emigration Diary: The Week Before Christmas

Posted December 19, 2012 by Jenny Foxe in Ramp Specials

There’s not much time left till Christmas. This will be our first living in the United States of America. I bought a special ornament for our tree to commemorate it, a cute little penguin sitting on a ball of wool with 2012 emblazoned across his own woolly jumper. We chose a tree, brought it home and my kids excitedly helped me decorate it. I had brought a small box of the more special Christmas ornaments with us from Ireland and we hung these among the new ones, cute and sparkly reminders of all our Christmases past.
It has been a tough and confusing weekend for a lot of people in America. I was in work on Friday when I first started to see reports of the horrific incident in Newtown. Living on the North Shore of Long Island, Connecticut is directly across the water. We have clientele who often sail across on their boats for day trips, others who work on Long Island but live in Connecticut. It’s commuting distance away. It could just as easily have been my children’s school. I had an overwhelming urge to collect them immediately and when I finally could get to them I held them tight and cried.

What happened in Sandy Hook Elementary school is unfathomably horrific and tragic and it has affected people deeply. Many people, me included, are finding that even thinking about those children and their poor parents brings tears to the eyes, every time. People are trying not to think about it or talk about it but it seems it can’t be helped. As parcels arrive that I’ve ordered from Amazon, I wonder have those parents to suffer having toys arrive all this week, toys they ordered to make bright young eyes sparkle with excitement, eyes that will senselessly shine no more.
As President Obama addressed the people of Newport on Sunday, I saw Christmas parties in the restaurant go silent as all watched eagerly, waiting for some words of comfort, looking to their leader to make some sense of it, explain it to them somehow, give it some reason or justification, anything to make them stop feeling as they are. Even those who were vocal in voting against him looked to the President to fix it. Of course, he can’t. He spoke well, from the heart and emotionally and he implied he’d do everything in his power to stop it ever happening again but he can’t undo the tragedy. Nobody can. When he had finished reciting the names of the victims, the diners wiped their tears and continued with their festivities. It seems callous but what else can we do right now? As sad as this makes us, we have to go on. We have to make Christmas happy for those who are left. My children’s school has decided not to have a minute’s silence for the victims of Sandy Hook. They don’t want our small children to spend a whole minute reflecting that this could easily have been them. We can’t have our children fearful for their safety in their schools, at the cinema, or in shopping malls. They have got to go on believing that a bad man will not just turn up one day and shoot everyone; it is up to us adults to figure out how to make that the truth.
Personally, I’ve been forced to look at the question whether I have put my children at a bigger risk of something like this happening to them by moving them to the United States. There have been four mass shootings of innocent people just going about their business since we moved here. I’m not aware of any ever in Ireland.

It’s a shame that we’ll have to teach our children that if someone suddenly appears in their life bearing weapons it may not be someone dressed up for a joke and that they should hide or run or play dead.

I struggled with this for a while but ultimately came to the conclusion that the opportunities outweigh the risks. Ireland isn’t without its own risks. Guns may be illegal but living in West Dublin, gang-related shootings were disturbingly common. My own good friend witnessed a violent murder in the estate next to mine, shortly after we moved away while walking her dog. It’s a shame that we’ll have to teach our children that if someone suddenly appears in their life bearing weapons it may not be someone dressed up for a joke and that they should hide or run or play dead. It’s a shame our children need to be prepared for bad people in the world but I think that’s a worldwide problem and it isn’t really new. I spent many years as a child living with the constant threat of the ‘stranger in a car’. I guess part of being a child is learning to be as prepared as possible for the bad guys in the world and as parents we just have to hope that ours never meet one.
But, there’s not much time left till Christmas and without forgetting those we’ve lost this year, I’m going to do my best to make it a happy one. I’ll take the children to see Santa in Macy’s and we’ll watch the ice skaters in the Rockefeller Center. We’ll eat turkey and too much chocolate and play some silly games. I’m going to do those crafts I’ve been putting off and bake those sugar cookies they’ve been after. I’ll make another attempt at frosting a gingerbread house even after last year’s sticky, messy disaster. Laws and security policies may well change after recent events and I really hope they do but what has changed most for me is that I’ve realized again how lucky I am to have two healthy, lively children and it’s up to me to do the best I can to make their memories of their childhoods as pleasant as possible.
Merry Christmas – or as I’ve learned to say now that I speak American – Happy Holidays.

Advent Adventures

Emigration Diary: Advent Adventures

Posted December 5, 2012 by Jenny Foxe in Ramp Specials

No sooner had we thrown out the leftover turkey from Thanksgiving than we started decorating for Christmas. It’s a good two weeks earlier than I would’ve done in Ireland but we kept it simple. We merely festooned the roof in perfectly tasteful icicle lights and put a couple of glowing reindeer in the garden. Oh…and a Santa and some tin soldiers, perhaps a few candycanes. Nothing ostentatious, I swear. We vetoed the giant blow up Spongebob in a Santa hat requested by the kids. We’ve opened the first few days of our chocolate advent calendars and lit the first of four Sunday candles in our wreath. We’ll leave the tree for a couple of weeks because I don’t want to be in possession of a dried out, pineless twig by Christmas.
I was talked into starting a new Christmas tradition by a co-worker: Elf On The Shelf. Pickle is the name my children gave to the elf that came to live with us. He watches and listens to them all day long and when night comes he flies off to Santa to report what he sees and hears, whether they’ve been naughty or nice, and to convey any Christmas wishes. Every morning they have to search the house to see where he flew back to. He could be on a shelf or a table, propped behind a curtain rail or sitting on a globe, but he’s in a different place every day. Obviously, romanced by the cuteness and being such a sucker for any kind of Christmas magic, I didn’t think this through properly before I introduced it. I have woken a few times already at 3am thinking ‘Agh –the elf’ and if I can’t talk George into it, have to stumble around in the dark looking for a new thrilling place for him to land and spend the next day. The little one in particular loves it though. He’s even given him beautifully coloured pictures and love letters to take with him to Santa in an effort to get in the big man’s good books.

I finally managed to sort us all out with health insurance. Here, it is required by the school that children have a ‘well-being’ check-up at least once a year. They checked everything; blood, urine, spine, eyes, ears, height, weight – the works. I am pleased to report that my children are perfectly healthy and have been ‘cleared for contact sports’. The doctor was more than a little surprised when I answered ‘Er… at 9 months’ to when they had their last check-ups. Preventative medicine is compulsory here. The idea of only going to the doctor when you are sick is unheard of. The insurance companies want to know what they are covering. I’ve been for one too. I got a bit of a scare when she suddenly hooked me up to an EKG machine right then and there. I’d been watching American Horror Story: Asylum the night before and all the stickers and clips all over me terrified me almost as much as the nurse’s tut and frown did. It turns out my heart beats just fine though and I don’t think she actually went near my frontal lobe.
Good job, because I’ll need it. Coming up over the next week I have my New York State driving test, two parent/teacher meetings and finally an interview for a proper job in the city. Exciting times! Perhaps the goal I had of being sorted out by Christmas is a possibility after all. I think I’ll do some whispering to Pickle the Elf myself.

Advent Adventures

Emigration Diary: Advent Adventures

Posted December 5, 2012 by Jenny Foxe in Ramp Specials

No sooner had we thrown out the leftover turkey from Thanksgiving than we started decorating for Christmas. It’s a good two weeks earlier than I would’ve done in Ireland but we kept it simple. We merely festooned the roof in perfectly tasteful icicle lights and put a couple of glowing reindeer in the garden. Oh…and a Santa and some tin soldiers, perhaps a few candycanes. Nothing ostentatious, I swear. We vetoed the giant blow up Spongebob in a Santa hat requested by the kids. We’ve opened the first few days of our chocolate advent calendars and lit the first of four Sunday candles in our wreath. We’ll leave the tree for a couple of weeks because I don’t want to be in possession of a dried out, pineless twig by Christmas.
I was talked into starting a new Christmas tradition by a co-worker: Elf On The Shelf. Pickle is the name my children gave to the elf that came to live with us. He watches and listens to them all day long and when night comes he flies off to Santa to report what he sees and hears, whether they’ve been naughty or nice, and to convey any Christmas wishes. Every morning they have to search the house to see where he flew back to. He could be on a shelf or a table, propped behind a curtain rail or sitting on a globe, but he’s in a different place every day. Obviously, romanced by the cuteness and being such a sucker for any kind of Christmas magic, I didn’t think this through properly before I introduced it. I have woken a few times already at 3am thinking ‘Agh –the elf’ and if I can’t talk George into it, have to stumble around in the dark looking for a new thrilling place for him to land and spend the next day. The little one in particular loves it though. He’s even given him beautifully coloured pictures and love letters to take with him to Santa in an effort to get in the big man’s good books.

I finally managed to sort us all out with health insurance. Here, it is required by the school that children have a ‘well-being’ check-up at least once a year. They checked everything; blood, urine, spine, eyes, ears, height, weight – the works. I am pleased to report that my children are perfectly healthy and have been ‘cleared for contact sports’. The doctor was more than a little surprised when I answered ‘Er… at 9 months’ to when they had their last check-ups. Preventative medicine is compulsory here. The idea of only going to the doctor when you are sick is unheard of. The insurance companies want to know what they are covering. I’ve been for one too. I got a bit of a scare when she suddenly hooked me up to an EKG machine right then and there. I’d been watching American Horror Story: Asylum the night before and all the stickers and clips all over me terrified me almost as much as the nurse’s tut and frown did. It turns out my heart beats just fine though and I don’t think she actually went near my frontal lobe.
Good job, because I’ll need it. Coming up over the next week I have my New York State driving test, two parent/teacher meetings and finally an interview for a proper job in the city. Exciting times! Perhaps the goal I had of being sorted out by Christmas is a possibility after all. I think I’ll do some whispering to Pickle the Elf myself.