“Christmas is for children. But it is for grownups too. Even if it is a headache, a chore, and nightmare, it is a period of necessary defrosting of chill and hide-bound hearts.”
-Lenora Mattingly Weber
It’s the week leading up to Christmas, which means we finish the last of the shopping and start wrapping presents. Unfortunately Mom made the mistake of putting a couple of presents under the tree early. The kids will often go into the front room to play during the day, but we began to get nervous when it was unusually quiet. Right before we were going to check on them, Ashlyn ran into the living room with an unwrapped present, laughed, dropped the present, and ran back into the room. Luckily it was for me, so no harm was done, but we learned our lesson on putting things out before Christmas Eve.
As you can see, no unwrapped presents survived. And somehow Ashlyn’s pants were removed during the process. After putting on the pants and cleaning up the paper, we went to question the kids further about their behavior and we found James hiding in the dog crate with Rusty, happy as he could be. Ashlyn was decorating the coffee table with hair conditioner. We learned another valuable lesson about leaving the kids to their own entertainment.
Since Ashlyn already helped James unwrap a gift, it was only fair that Ashlyn should wrap her gift to James. She had fun with it, and did a good job. The present is now sitting up on the mantle, well away from prying hands.
James also got a quick haircut to get him ready for Christmas dinner. Ashlyn had fun. He did not.
With presents and hair out of the way, it was time for ginger bread houses. We went the easy route this year and bought a kit, which you would think would be less work than making one from scratch. It isn’t. Or maybe I should say that it isn’t simple with an 18 month old who wants to break it rather than build it and a four year old who doesn’t understand that you have to wait to decorate or the house will fall apart. Eventually we got some semblance of a house or two built, which we can decorate tomorrow.
Only 3 days until Christmas! This is the first year that Ashlyn really “gets” Christmas, so we’re looking forward to some excitement on Christmas morning. James of course has absolutely no clue what’s going on, but I’m sure he will rise to the occasion when he learns he can destroy wrapping paper.