'Tis the Season

While it is Christmas with a three year old and has all of the three year old angst ever present, Christmas with a three year old is pretty marvelous. I mean she just loves it, embraces it, is inquisitive about it all--every aspect of Christmas and the holidays from the Baby Jesus to Ho Ho, from the Little Drummer Boy to Rudolph, from the Abominable (pronounced either Abobidoll or Abomenamenaball) Snowman to the Elf on the Shelf. Every morning she races to dig into Santa bag on the Advent Calendar and pick out the perfect felt shape for the day--and it has to be the right one--Ho Ho has to wake to be velcroed on on Christmas Eve and some days a horn isn't right but Frosty is and today was a nutcracker day and he was placed on, just so.

Then, we look for the Elf on the Shelf--a gift from Addie--and we find out where he is hanging: sometimes he is having a tea party, sometimes he is in the tree trying to hang the lights, sometimes he is snacking in the kitchen, this morning he was riding Kit's rocking horse with a Christmas posse of stuffed friends, everyday he is somewhere different.... On the best days, he leaves a tiny little surprise for Elsie. And then the Elf is used as bribery to get Elsie to eat, tinkle, and stop doing whatever it is she is doing/touching/putting in her mouth that she shouldn't. Remember, the Elf is watching and will report back to Ho Ho who is naughty and who is nice!

After that, we venture forth our merry way in our MDX full of Christmas cheer listening to the Ray Charles "Little Drummer Boy" and the Reverend Horton Heat's "Santa on the Roof" over and over and over again--if we don't, we listen to requests/demands to listen to them over and over and over again. We like to sing "pa rum pa pum pum..." We like to ask questions ad nauseum about why Santa is on the roof and why he is quiet as a mouse and why the reindeer go pitter patter and why Santa goes down the chimney and why why why why.... One of us is going to make a really good lawyer one day and one of us is going to be a great fiction writer.

Then we play with our Christmas little people and Santa visits the Baby Jesus in the manger and the three wise men have a tea party with Mrs. Claus and an elf.

After we have gotten through our day, we usually watch a bit of either Rudolph, Little Drummer Boy, Santa Claus Comes to Town, or Frosty. More questions ensue. We like to sing some songs--only the right ones and only as Conductor Elsie directs us. And then we go to bed with visions of sugar plums and Judy dolls dancing in our heads....

Elsie has seen Ho Ho once and has requested a motorcycle, two Judy dolls, bunk beds, make up, a singing dollhouse, and whatever else she has just recently seen on TV, in a magazine, or at someone's house. We'll probably revisit Ho Ho and anticipate his arrival with a few suggestions of what she might wish for/expect. Here are a few shots of us picking up our tree a few weeks back. We are lucky to leave the house with both kids and a diaper bag so it was a little much to expect us to have the camera, too. Even more fortunate, we happened to met the Heidels at the lot who had their camera and snapped some shots of the big girls.