Henry really got into the Christmas spirit last year. He loved everything about it: the decorations, Santa, presents, the nativity scene, special books, the lights. You name a Christmas theme, he loved it. It was a sad sad day for him when he requested his favorite Christmas song and we had to break the news....Christmas was over. We promised our little Hen Hen that Christmas comes back every year and we would celebrate it in a big way next year. And, finally, after an entire year of talking about Ho Ho and requesting the stack of Christmas books out of my closet, the Christmas season is finally here.
If Christmas is Henry's favorite thing, personal ownership comes in at a close second. This little red tree is his tree. It's proper place is on top of our piano but he really needed to touch it so he spent Liza's naptime bonding with his tree. It was a big deal.
This time last year I was in a dither over Santa. (I can't find last year's post and it is killing me!) I refuse to lie to my kids and it just didn't sit well with me to claim a fat man would slide down our non-existant chimney to deliver presents on Christmas eve. I stressed and and stressed and finally settled on going along with Santa until someone asked if Santa was real and we would, of course, answer truthfully. Well, like most things concerning parenting, the anticipation was much worse than the reality. As soon as we cracked open the Christmas boxes, I asked Henry if Santa was real or pretend. Pretend. If Henry knew the term "duh", he would have voiced it loud and clear. Now we talk about how Santa is fun and we love him even though he is pretend. We will still bake cookies and leave him a glass of milk and I am a bit too excited about leaving the reindeer an oatmeal snack and then sprinkling glitter for Henry to find their reindeer poop the next morning. It seems like we have struck a very nice balance of keeping the magic and mystery of Christmas alive without the consumerism and non-truths of Santa dominating the discussion. At least for this year.
See the pajama pants? He refused to wear his blue jeans because he needed Christmas pants to match his Christmas shirt. Thank goodness for awesome hand-me-downs.
My tree. It has built-in white lights but like everything we own, they are broken. I am a huge fan of big colored lightbulbs and apparently, I bought two strands at Dirt Cheap last year for a dollar a piece. I do not recall this event yet they were in a Christmas box with a price tag just ghetto enough to hearken Dirt Cheap's post-Christmas sale. We need at least 3 more strands to be officially merry, though. I didn't unpack the generic ornaments so the tree seems a bit bare but I figured the less glass ornaments, the better. It seems like only a matter of time before the tree comes crashing down on top of two busy body little toddlers... Presents are on top of the piano with Henry's tree. Little hands and inquiring minds are not to be trusted when my back is turned. Henry is convinced his one present has one, maybe two, dinosaurs in the box. He is precious like that.
There it is. The beginnings of a messy messy Christmas season!
2 comments:
Laura, have you considered presenting them with the St. Nicholas version of Santa instead? That's the route we're taking, much to my mother's dismay, who is treating me like Maureen O'Hara of Miracle on 34th Street. We are teaching them that Santa is most definitely real, but he's not quite what we see in the store. We picked it up from the seminary, which had enough fancy Bishop garb lying around to have someone dress up as St. nicholas every year, and this is who my kids visit. That way, I feel like I'm not taking the thrill away, but I'm not making consumer Santa the focus. Here's a great link, if you interested. http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/books-picture/ -Katie
And your kids are really, really , really cute :)
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