Christmas Morning

The build up is almost unbearable. I remember willing myself, desperately, to try to sleep so I would wake up and Christmas morning would be here. All of the specials... all of the songs... all of the waiting. I still love Christmas morning, and it has taken on a new kind of anticipation. I want my kids to feel that magic. I want them to wake up, and come down stairs and see the tree and be blown over by the spirit of it all. It takes some orchestrating. I don't want to buy everything in the world for them. I mean I can't anyway (hope they hate apple products because I don't see an ipad or, god forbid, an iphone, in their near future). But I want them to feel heard, to feel known. I think that is the magic of all of the presents at Christmas. It is knowing that somebody, be it Santa or otherwise, knows you well enough to understand who you are and what you like, and is generous enough to send you things to further your interests. It is kind of the opposite of that gift that you received from your distant great Aunt or Uncle that was nice enough to give you something, but had no real idea of who you were, and you knew that because they got you a book about baseball... because boys like baseball. Henry, above anything, wanted a squid hat this year. He had seen one at the big E and has remained wanting one since then. They don't sell squid hats very many places. Jenny actually found one on Free Cycle and we were able to do the impossible. We let Santa take the credit for that one. :) Generally though, Santa gets the second tier gifts and we take credit for the ones that really count.

I want them to feel heard and understood and cared for. I think Jenny and I do a pretty great job of that every year. Buying them things is like planning for their future. What ways  do we see them going in. What things do we know that they want to explore further. We don't really buy them much throughout the year... so Christmas is a pretty important time.

They freaked out today. Not in a good way either. The morning was incredible. I woke up... of course... two hours before anybody else (5:00) and waited for everyone to wake up. I turned on the Christmas lights... and read. 7:00 saw both Nora and Henry trooping downstairs, smiles beaming on their faces. I was aware enough to have had a video camera waiting and got them right when they saw the tree. YES! We go slow on Christmas mornings. If they want to explore a gift... they can. Although, Nora was all about blazing through gifts and Henry wanted nothing more than to explore the drawings on each of the pages of the books that we gave him. It was a bit hard to orchestrate. After the morning, I think that Nora was so hyped up that she couldn't calm down. She opened all of her games and mixed all of the pieces into a massive mound of chaos... it took forever to straighten out. They fought...there was chaos. When bed time finally came around, I went upstairs and sat with them and planned out tomorrow. Tomorrow we will clean each of their rooms. We will sort each of these toys and we will only have one out at a time. Order in the chaos.... hopefully the day will be a bit more .....sane.