





hype this year for Miss Elsie. On Christmas morning, she awoke at
a civilized hour and was excited to learn it had finally come. Daddy checked to make sure Santa
had come, and we ventured forth to see if he had eaten his cookies, given the reindeer the carrots, and had read her letter. And he had! Only crumbs and stems were left! Elsie was delighted with the fancy firetruck from Grandpa Dave, Grandma Sharon, and Granny T. She was wowed by the guitar and Dora dollhouse from Santa. And she loved the Noah's Ark from Grammy and Poppa. It was clear, though, that the flashlight and the candy canes in her stocking were actually plenty of gifts... but she so
on got the hang of the steady stream of presents demanding more to open and pouting when Mommy and Daddy stopped to open a few of their own. Since travel was out of the question with baby sister almost here, we managed a peaceful holiday at home with family on the phone and found here in spirit in wonderful gifts shipped from afar and wrapped under the tree.




When David and I met, he had dreams of being a rock star, aspirations of being in a band, and toyed with names for the band or albums or song titles for years. That was as close as it got really, until now... He and Elsie kicked off their tour Saturday night complete with headgear and brooms. Their first hit is Elsie's tune "Naked Babies." Now if only Santa would bring them real guitars...








Elsie talks a big game when it comes to Ho Ho. She wants to see him. She tells us she's gonna ask him for cookies for Christmas. She says she's gonna hug him. She even chased an off-duty Santa through the mall one evening. But then she gets face to face with the big guy and her wide eyes search for her parents in terror and she murmurs "mommy... daddy... mommy... daddy..." behind our knees. She has no problem with Frosty the Snowman, but the guy in red is better in the abstract at this point. We may actually check him out one more time next weekend, but we mostly enjoy him "up on the housetop" in verse, as the potential giver of cookies and a guitar (our xmas wish list items), or in our mind's eye--we talk a big game.