There is just nothing better than Christmas with an almost-4-year-old and sweet little boy who has no idea what's going on but follows big sister's lead and gets excited about everything. Claire believes in everything Santa-related, and has been talking for weeks about sitting on his lap and telling him what she would like for Christmas. Until this year, Claire's never been much for Santa. The only picture we have of her with Santa was from 2007 when she was 11 months old. She's screaming and Santa is holding her as far away from his body as his arms can reach, while the elves snapped the picture. Looking back, I probably shouldn't have pushed the issue and we just should have walked away. Lesson learned. The following year, I tried to show Claire Santa at the daycare family night but she trembled and was terrified. We walked out of the room, sans cutesy photo. Come Christmas morning, Claire would not come downstairs because she was sure the old guy was still in our house. I can't quit figure out her intense fear regarding the sweet old man who brings presents to kids but perhaps she thought he was waiting to whisk her up the chimney and off to the North Pole, where he was going to force her to wear pointy shoes and make wood toys. In any case, she refused to come downstairs until Jeff carried her down and showed her all around the house to prove that it was just us. Santa had just dropped the presents and gotten the heck out, like any good stranger should. Last year we talked about going to see Santa. She waited in line patiently and was all ready to go up, but as we approached she screamed and flailed and freaked out entirely. I carried her away while little 8-month old Jack sat happily on Santa's lap for a picture, completely unaware of the fact that the scary old man might be planning to abduct him and enslave him as head of the reindeer pooper scooper patrol. Still no picture of both kids, smiling, with Santa, but I'm okay with it.
Fast forward to this year, and Claire has been psyching herself up for weeks. We've talked the whole Santa visit to death and she seemed genuinely excited to go see him. We got to the mall and had dinner first, so that hypoglycemia didn't interfere with anyone's moods. I took Claire to the bathroom quick and we had one last talk about how Santa is a really nice man and even though we don't know him personally, he'd never hurt kids and he just loves to bring presents and make kids happy. We walked to the North Pole display. Score! No line! Just us and Santa. We approached...(Now would be a really cute time to insert an adorable picture of the kids with Santa, right?)...Santa waved...and Claire freaked. This freak-out didn't involve screaming and flailing, but it was more of a subdued clutch of the Mommy's hand, small trembles and a quiet, "Mommy, I do not want to go see Santa. No. No. NO!" while pulling me away. And so it is...2010 and no picture with Santa. Really, I can't blame her. Who wants to go sit on the lap of some guy you don't know, who has probably come into contact with 462 other kids that day? Not Claire Dunham, that's for sure.
Interestingly enough, when we came home from the mall that night, one of Santa's elves had shown up at our house! She brought with her a book called, "The Elf on the Shelf" and we were shocked to find her! She is under strict orders from Santa not to talk to the children, so her book explained her story. She sits in the house and watches the kids for Santa. Each night, she flies to the North Pole, gives Santa the report, and then returns back to our house before the kids wake up. She likes to find a different spot every morning from which to watch our house. So far, we have found her on the mantle, in the dining room light fixture, in the Christmas tree, on the bathroom shelf, on the tops of various doors and windows, and in Claire's room on the shelf. It's a good thing that she likes to sit up high because if you touch her, she loses all of her magic. One of our directions was to give her a name. Claire decided to call her Margot. Both kids love waking up in the morning and trying to find her! Even Jack gets excited and points to her, all happy and proud that he found her.
We were going to get a real tree for the first time as a family this year. The night before we were going to get it, I told Claire all about it. We were going to go out to breakfast, and then to a tree farm, cut down our own tree, and drag it in on a sled. Then, we'd bring it home and get it all set up and decorated for Christmas. It was going to be this perfect little family experience and I didn't even care about the thought of dead pine needles all over our floor. It would smell good and would be the start of a new tradition. "We were going" is the operative phrase here, though. When I explained all of this to Claire, I was practically bursting with excitement. But then she dropped a little Claire-sized bomb and declared that she is scared of real trees and does not want one in our house. And so, we put up our old artificial tree.
So far, so good...I'm hoping to put the brakes on December and slow it down a little bit. The anticipation for Christmas has been so fun that I might actually be sad to wake up Christmas morning, knowing that it is all coming to an end for another year! Now, back to my stress-free evening that does not involve wrapping presents (though it probably should) so that I can continue my stress-free Christmas season!
