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So it seems I took a bit of a break from writing to enjoy the holidays, which turned out to be a lot busier this year for some reason than last year — oh yeah, I was working!  Which, don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for, but I almost think it should be mandatory for companies to give their employees time off to enjoy the holidays, instead of trying to cram everything in on weekends.  All in all, though, our holidays were great — even though our living room looked like a toy store exploded inside of it by the time the kids finished opening all their presents. 

We had a nice size Christmas tree, though a little smaller than last year’s.  Growing up, we always had an artificial tree, but I had always wanted a real tree.  Del grew up with real trees, so I was more than happy to continue his tradition there.  There’s just something about the fresh, pine scent of a real tree that adds to the feeling of Christmas.  Do real trees make a mess when the needles dry up and fall off?  Absolutely, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  Nick got extra enjoyment out of the tree this year as he helped himself to all the ornaments on the bottom of the tree.  I have never had so many broken ball ornaments — did I mention how grateful I am that they are making more and more unbreakable ornaments these days?  He was also fascinated by the Santa’s Workshop decoration I put out.  It has a moving conveyor belt where you can see the toys and little houses go by.  Thanks to Nick, a few M&Ms also made their way onto the conveyor belt.

The kids had a great time, too.  As Chase put it, “This is the best Christmas EVER!”  Santa paid pretty close attention to their Christmas lists, and they were delighted each time they opened a present they’d written on their lists.  For Felicity, her biggest present was Molly, the American Girl doll she asked for (although if you want to be technical, she asked for all of them ).  Chase is really into the Junie B. Jones book series and cars, and he got both of those.  Nick likes cars and has been having fun with the Lightning McQueen remote controlled car Santa brought him.

As for the spiritual side of Christmas, I usually try to remind the kids about the significant side of the holiday.  Felicity gets it, but that does’t always mean she remembers it.  Chase is just learning and Nick doesn’t understand yet.  He’s just starting to grasp the concept of Santa Claus.  I’ve been reading them a book at bedtime about the meaning of Christmas, but Nick doesn’t have as much interest in it as he does the other books about Santa Claus.  One of the books we’ve been reading is Who Will Help Santa This Year?  It talks about all the helpers Santa tried using to help him make his toys before deciding to use elves.  One of the helpers he tried were aliens, but all they did was make spaceships and they didn’t know about Christmas.  Then I added the audio effect of “meep, meep” with the physical effect of tickling Chase and Nick as I said it.  That was a BIG hit with the boys.  They would anxiously anticipate that part of the story, and break out in laughter when we got to it.  Twenty meep, meeps later, and they were ready to fall asleep.